Flint by poet Carrie Garns

Carrie Garns will be a featured poet at our FPL Poetry Series reading on Wednesday, October 3 at 7pm. This reading will be hosted by poet John Milkereit and will include poets Vanessa Zimmer-Powell and Kelly Ellis.

 

Carrie L. Kornacki (Garns) has a B.S. in Journalism from Ohio University and a Certificate of Education from Bowling Green State University.  She taught English Language Arts and Reading for nine years in Ohio; English As a Second Language in Suzhou, China; British Literature in Galveston and currently teaches at Westfield High School in Spring, Texas. In addition to her experience as a teacher in public and private schools, Ms. Kornacki worked for over 12 years as a copywriter and executive in print and broadcast advertising where she won regional CLIO awards for freelance radio campaigns. She has also worked in public relations and has performed her original poetry in Ohio as part of a community therapy team to assist the mentally ill. In addition, Ms. Kornacki has taught Sunday school and has worked with kids in summer creative writing programs. She lives in Spring, Texas with her husband and three dogs. She is currently working on a children’s fantasy Middle Reader, and performs her original work throughout the Houston area.  

 

 

FLINT                                                                                    

 

Red Lobster’s a great place to find the truth.  But I admit

I’m not here for that.  I’m here for a better reason… lobster pizza.

And it’s taking way too long, so I feel like a piece of flint

stuck in hard.  Feel like the ground just foamed up like peroxide

and sea, bubbled 1000 invisible rings around me then… fossilized.

So here I’m trapped, still as a rock.  Here I’m a sundial,

a cold shadow, a fire starter, a totem that should not be.

But really I’m just a squatter waiting to see the world’s show.

 

A square globe with the sound turned down floats in space.

It’s a pulsating mishap of sea and sky and land that has stolen

the rights to broadcast the beat, to tell it like it is.

And then it happens; the world spits itself out live from the globe.

It crazy wires in hot strands of gold plated licorice, shooting in angles,

dividing the air like money, pounding like humpback dancers,

unfettered with everything to prove…Ta-ta’…Ta-ta’…Ta-ta’…Ta-ta’…

 

I watch and I listen to the beat.  I feel its filigree of spittle surround me

and in the center of it, I hear an unfamiliar sound.  My own heart beats

from everywhere, beats a metallic pebble, beats air whooshing in and out,

beats straight from the front, the way it should.  I don’t want to stay here.

If I turn around once, I’ll be lost.  But my every molecule is push pinned to a spot.

And everything here is authorized like a backward smile.  I have no choice.

I’ll stay.  But I refuse to be part of this.

 

And now I’m holding my stool.  It’s moving and the pictures start hitting the air.

There are spidery gadgets and electrical hums… technology gone wild.

They hit the registers, zap out the lights and cell phones.  But no one notices.

The air eats itself, and people start to choke.  There are buzzing jump ropes that make

everyone fight.  And someone gets out a gun.  But no one notices.

There’s high-throttle phlegm all over the place, hits and slides and fast moving lips.

There are flowers floating; the air is their bowl; the guy with the gun shoots them

and they shut tight and hold.  Their passion’s gone.  And people start to hide in their clothes.

But no one notices.

 

I search the room for hills and sky; look under my seat, in my glass.

I look at my fingers pressing for a new root language where I can dot and cross

my own way, where I can get away from the beat.  And then logic tremors

everywhere in the room, in every mind, on every tongue.  And I can see

more and more of it crack as the shaking gets stronger.  Then most of the room is dust.

But the beat still pounds…Ta-ta’…Ta-ta’…Ta-ta’…Ta-ta…Ta-ta’…

 

“Look,” I say to the bartender, “you can have your pizza!”

And I turn around to leave.  Then stop.  I’m terrified.  Inside me is something…

something… a tiny rift in the center of my rock, a gash, an unwelcomed nomad,

a sort of ringworm in action, my cupid of doom… the beat calling me to dance…

Ta-ta’…Ta-ta’…Ta-ta’…Ta-ta’…Ta-ta’…

 

So I freeze for a minute, a rock god ready to take the plunge…

 

 

Carrie Kornacki (Garns)