Two Roads, and Other Poems: Paul Ilechko

Two Roads 
Electioneering
The Neighborhood
Sixty-Five Gulls
A Different Light

by Paul Ilechko

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Two Roads

There is a high road     and a low road 
     that parallel the creek between them

meandering apart until they close as one      
     the high road made of dirt     

climbing rapid     then dropping down 
     and from such height has visibility 

at certain seasons     of the low road 
     through the yellow autumn     

or the sparsity of winter     to where the low 
     is pinned against the cliff beyond it     

rising such that steepness melts from it 
     and dribbling back to pool and filter 

on the asphalt     a road of Pennsylvania rotten     
     a crumbling coverage of constant liquid 

curved and black against the earth as     cutting 
     its tracery through the hills it finds 

its termination point     a village center 
     pinned in place and anchored by terrain.

 

​Electioneering

Strong campaign …
     (we laughed ourselves dry 
          to the undecided West) 

like me     she said 
     like me for my negotiation 
          like me twice over 

for my clever unreliability 
     for my uncaring plausibility 
          do not     she said 
     
compare me once around 
     don’t ask     she said      
          don’t trust me twice 

and so we allowed her
     we gave her rod     and key
          and a hypodermic needle

and the animals shit 
     themselves in the corners  
          and the stench of her majority 

was spent on death     and taxes 
     and failed     yet again 
          to reach its destination. 
​
 
The Neighborhood

Entered with language into location or time     an intangible place    
built up from its own slab of whiteness     membraned and simple 

shambling through the ruins in the shadows of new money

midnight peeling the veil from off the street     a carbonated world
that washes down its avenues     soaking beneath a permanent
rain

an ironic world of unclean laundry     lit by a thousand tiny screens 

dogs slicing angles through barely moving traffic

remembering the warmth of spirit of a tropical night     but in this
city the scent of ocean is imaginary 

soon you will depart to taste the bland unseasoned soup of safety
​ and conviction     of self-abasement and a place to become 

once you leave this city you will never return. 
 

Sixty-Five Gulls

Brass-faced mortality 
windswept with age

a battering strength 
of impregnable suffering 
as time decays     
                             revealing
behind its corrupt facade 
a single jewel     glowing 

nuzzled or drugged
inside the broken clay
of salt-fish morning

beneath the obscurity 
of a flattening light
his face is taunting 

the rough-cut grayness 
of his hair     his dignity
intact     he steps aboard

surrounded by a shrieking
cloud of gulls that dart
and swoop in time-lapse

each shutter-click another 
blur of empty motion.
 

A Different Light

It becomes apparent that there actually is
a different kind of light     the kind of light

that allows a space to bleed into itself
an underwater light of marine intensity

a transforming light that paints the surfaces
that surround it     but     I need 

to take a step back here     to the blue
glow     from a dangling box     seen when 

you first realize     that redecorating 
is a virtual hanging     there being so many

lamps     and only one has the appearance
the shape     and the right angle

the way in which it sways lightly as if
there were a breeze     but there is 

no breeze     just a box     dumb within its oblong
heaviness     with side panels of glass

so blue-green     in their traffic light sensibility 
(although the light that’s cast is faint

and overpowered by the smell of burning 
flesh that spreads its contrails across

the meager space     that has been opened 
up in some hard-to-describe way

with cheap tables that rock above the plastic 
faux-wood flooring)     and still the ancient

bathroom    cramped and unhygienic
and stinking of bleach     generating a yellow 

glow that creeps beneath its door     and blooms 
into the watercolor space beyond.

Bio:
​Paul Ilechko is the author of the chapbooks “Bartok in Winter” (Flutter Press) and “Graph of Life” (Finishing Line Press). His work has appeared in a variety of journals, including Juxtaprose, As It Ought To Be, Cathexis Northwest Press, Thin Air Magazine and Pithead Chapel. He lives with his partner in Lambertville, NJ.

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