The Poetry of Nathaniel S. Rounds

It with great esteem that we welcome back one of our regular contributors to
 Mel BrakE Press, Nataniel S. Rounds. He work is breathless..

NATHANIEL S. ROUNDS BIO:

Nathaniel S. Rounds writes from the tallest eyesore east of Montreal, where even the bed bugs take the elevator.

He has been published in Down in the Dirt, Melusine, Centrifugal Eye, and many other fine publications. His chapbooks

are available from Fowlpox Press.

Gabriella in The shade of The Wood is Fed To The Applause of The Evening

1.

I found you looking at the tatty canvas

You brought it to the counter

I surmised without giving you the stare-down

That you were in your fifties

Better preserved than Lenin

Simple black dress

Blond hair not frizzed out from decades of dyeing

You must have been born with the gold

And not in any hurry to relinquish it in favour of silver

The canvas was a mess

An abstract oil called Babi Yar/Schrödinger's Cat

Painted on Russian linen stretched over a bone frame

I showed you the odd little treasure tucked between frame slat and linen

A folded sheet of foolscap with typewritten story

With a 75 dpi halftone taken from a Pears Shilling Cyclopaedia

Of various types of vermin

It tells a story of a brave woman

Named Gabriella Eventide

She was left a small pension by her husband

A farmer who had the misfortune of being trapped beneath his tractor

Mr. Orton Eventide was brave enough

To write a cursory will on the underside of the tractor’s fender

Thereupon Gabriella used her small income to assist women in distress

In this particular story

Gabriella comes to the aid of the five daughters of Zelophehad

Who were desperately trying to escape gigantic bed bugs

Dressed in regency pumps and powdered wigs

As they descended a wooden ladder

Connecting tenement buildings to sky

And as I paraphrased the words you read it and nodded

And murmur words like Ingrid Berman

And send me into dream world with that air of Arpège

And then you ask for the price of the picture

Which is cheap since it needs repair

And you reach for the coins in your leather purse

And tell me your name: Gabriella

2.

Gabriella Eventide

I’m no longer feeling it

Fleet footed ascent up Promise Hill

Tenement houses crumbling like Old Testament names

We broke a chaw of clemency and fed it to the crows

Who turned a leafless tree into a forest of derisive laughter

Gabriella

I hear your presence on the radio

Gabriella

I feel your dress of coarse white linen

Against the back of my hand

On the lifeless stage at the grange hall

Where shadows on the torn, green blinds

Substitute for members in an audience

And where coughing in the radiator

Serves as applause

3.

Your Honour

It’s not all my fault

I mean

Gabriella knocked me out with a feather

After plucking it from a duck’s behind

Worrying the words out of

“Engine, engine, number nine

Sliding down Chicago line
When she's polished she will shine
Engine, engine, number nine”

Until it reached a fevered pitch

Like pine sol over an open fire

Made by climbing the tallest tree

And don’t you know

For a lumberjack’s daughter

She could brew more

Than a cup of joe