Joshua Stuyvesant

Joshua Stuyvesant was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico and currently resides there. Besides being a poet, he is also a screenwriter, playwright, filmmaker, and painter. This is the first time his poetry has seen publication.

Another Vain Poet

 

Einstein sat in a swivel chair and said

books would be forgotten. Kubrick rarely 

spoke a joke without peering over the rim

of his glasses. And then Renoir--the women 

he painted adored every one of his commands.

I’ve walked and walked through the desert 

and only gained a mouthful of sand. If a thin

man told me Chaucer dawdled with a captured

feather in his studio, I’d remember his name.

I whisper: be less loud. Be Thoreau. My words

have said, “Wasn’t there a man who figured

he’d never be quoted?” They are happy

to stay sand in a mouth--reluctant to be 

feathers in a wind. Go. Find ears to pray.

Your Love of Old

 

We’ve happened in front of a vintage sink

that you simply adore with its hourglass

stand and bronze, shelled accents. We already

have a sink. This antique store boasts a saddle 

that sat under Wyatt Earp’s ass. You use 

the word rococo a lot. You sit on every

victorian-schmictorian chair. You kiss 

me with your forehead so I flip through playboys

from the sixties. You look young in old mirrors.

I say I’m going outside for a smoke but instead

stand behind glass and watch you sniff old

bottles and rub leather against you cheek.

 

Outside, the dust hasn’t even settled while

we’re being buried under the musk of it all.