Quincy R. Lehr


Photograph by Roxanne Hoffman

Quincy R. Lehr was born in Oklahoma City in 1975. He was educated in the Oklahoma public schools, as well as at the University of Texas at Austin and Columbia University. A life-long reader of poetry, he began seriously writing it (aside from the inevitable dreadful verse one produces in adolescence) in 2003. Influences include W. H. Auden, Louis MacNeice, Thomas Hardy, E. A. Robinson, Ezra Pound, Gerard Manley Hopkins, T. S. Eliot, Philip Larkin, and W. B. Yeats. At present, he teaches history in New York City. His poetry has been published in Iambs and Trochees, and he has poems forthcoming in Pivot.



As If By Chance

When I looked at her, and when her lips
Pulled back to show her teeth, and when her voice
Broke into laughter, I could only think
Of moments that I’d pissed away, each choice
I’d left to others, and the careless slips
That landed me beside an empty drink.
That afternoon, I could have sworn I saw
A thinner, hopeful version of my face
Staring from behind her retinas—
Familiar, yes, the eyes, the skin, the jaw,
But in that instant somehow out of place.
It cast a knowing frown. The gravitas
Was overbearing. Nonetheless, we filled
The void with gossip, anecdotes, and smut,
Comparing chatty journals—note by note.
Like poets we dissembled on the rut
That each of us was in, and chances killed
By loss of nerve or failure to emote.
But still, a sneer could not have hurt me more
Than her clear laugh that sang of expectations
So long forgotten from a distant day
When youth still spread before me, and the poor
And pitiful attempts at explanations
Still lay in ambush, only years away.



William Montgomery

All things are a flowing,
Sage Heracleitus says:
But a tawdry cheapness
Shall outlast our days.
—Ezra Pound
 
At thirty years of age, he might have sworn
That he’d been born too early or too late
To make the journey. Rotting sails were torn.
The fish were few and wouldn’t take the bait.

The destinations sought, in any case,
Were plastered up with pictures of themselves,
Just simulacra, posters of a place
Gone out of fashion. Maps remain on shelves.

And what was poetry? A private game
Or whimpered cri de couer, a dying art,
A mildewed shirt, a stove’s electric flame,
A toddler’s studied turd, a perfumed fart,
A half-forgotten, drooping line to mark
A shibboleth or vague epiphany,
A rancid tear or groping in the dark,
Or onanism’s furtive ecstasy.

And where were Heloise and Abelard
When smut was sent by satellite from home?
What monsters peered from bushes in the yard
At screwed Venetian blinds?
                                                    Who clawed the loam
Not with the plow, but yellowed, violent fingers?
The fallow dirt was rough that year, and parched.

At thirty years of age, he just malingers,
A book unread, ironic eyebrows arched.

II

The cities teemed with would-be suicides
Who left their offerings on the tenure track.
As sure as foam in tangled, surging tides,
Aphrodite rose, but turned her back
On grubby offices and magazines,
On water-cooler power plays and “verse”
That clung like kelp around the sunken “scenes.”

But rest assured, the fund will reimburse
One’s losses. The Medicis need a write-off,
But Borgia girls lift skirts on evening shows,
And Lesbia, the dear young thing, must fight off
The reptile paparazzi when she goes
To screw some penthouse lout, and though her stare
Is lurid as it ever was, Catullus
Can only see her in her underwear
In grocery mags, just like the rest of us.

III

Back when war was just and he was young,
He dreamed of vague crusades, before he reached
The age of pimples and a squeaky voice.
But enemies imagined flex an arm
In he-man domination. When the smarm
Of those who seek to thwart us hasn’t breached
Our thoughts of victory, the eager tongue
Cannot yet express the hopeless choice

Of living down, at last, the fatuous dream
Of some connubial bliss or blushing praise
For headline-grabbing deeds. Our heroes die,
In general, from minor cuts and gashes,
From gazes launched through dark, seductive lashes,
And in a thousand, unremembered ways
Before they make their final stand. The cream
Turns quickly rancid with the pious lie,

The blather we accept in offices,
The homes we buy but never really like,
The news reports, the market’s auspices,
The journeys not begun, the sails we strike.

IV

Ambition strands you, feverish and tired,
In unexpected bedrooms, far too soon.
The rations crawl with worms; the troops are mired
Beneath bright, foreign stars.

                                                   A crescent moon
Still rises through the ziggurats, its pale,
Unconquered surface past the reach of towers,
Impervious to sappers. Hard and stale,
The fruit of conquest dries and slowly sours.

From Hellespont to Himalayas, feet
Form blisters in the ruin of a land
Both coveted and scorned, and through the heat,
The hoplites trudge their way to Samarkand.

V

The book described the bombs in Bosnia
And gave a wider angle to his grief.
With legs akimbo, knees drawn in a vice
By outstretched arms, his fingers turned the page.
Oh, who'd have guessed it! Some "postmodern" age!
Some irony that grants you no belief!
It only leaves you with insomnia
With no way out, no moral or advice.

Well, screw the television, fuck the store
With movies that you're told you have to see!
Despair gnaws inward when there's little hope
For comfort from outside a screenplay's plot
Where every day is clear, if slightly hot,
Where no one farts or shrugs with apathy.
He dropped the book and left it on the floor,
Picked up a mug, and spattered it with soap.

And in the morning, sunlight hits his eyes.
He feels a little better, takes a drink
Of water from a mug found in the sink.
He tells himself he's doing fine, but lies.

VI

And Katie looked across the room and dropped
Her strained blue eyes, but smiled, as she had caught
His restless gaze. The pulsing music stopped,
And yet another round of drinks was bought.

Her marriage, quote-unquote, is on the rocks
Like drinks she had some time ago, with ice
That rests inside her cup like soggy socks.
She smiles and rattles off her smashed advice.

The harlot lets them in. The town will fall
As time holds still beneath the scanning motes
Of light that shimmer from a disco ball
As music bellows from electric throats.

The walls are down! The conquest is assured,
Ordained, and chosen, but in victory
The senses dull themselves and are inured
To pity, to the fact of injury.

The neatly folded sheets are surgical.
The moaning, screeching patient arches back,
Her fevered frenzy biological,
Her nails like talons for the next attack.

Back at the bar, the mendicants still beg
For some small favor, waving loneliness
Like glasses of the drippings from a keg,
And pity grabs its alms in beggar’s dress.

VII

On some forgotten, outer stretch of beach,
The stranded sailors washed ashore by chance.
The sorceress will keep them in her reach,
Succored and fêted, in a dreaming trance.

He won’t return unscathed, and he may never
Leave that place at all. The storms increase.
The sea-lanes home are choked with snarling weather,
But in the haze of sunset, startling peace

Descends across the tips of even waves,
As sure and sad as life itself, as rare
As tender turns of phrase. The water saves
The ochre glow. The light beams in the air

Turn royal purple, then they disappear
In ink-blue depths. The respite he desires,
The movement of the starlight, sphere on sphere,
Combine in even humming. Day expires.

Sleep, my friend, and dream of further shores
Beyond the charted waters where you’ve been,
And when the morning comes, take up the oars
To seek the band of barely sighted green.



The Bride of Christ

It is here, beneath this wondrous Sistine profusion of color
that the Cardinals assemble —
the community responsible for the legacy of the
keys of the Kingdom.
They come here, to this very place.
 
—Pope John Paul II, "Meditations on the Book of Genesis: At the Threshold of the Sistine Chapel" tr. Jerzy Peterkiewicz

The throngs in Rome had gathered for
    A wide shot in the temple square
With shaking beads and shaking heads
    And camera crews that float mid-air.
 
The flaccid Pontifex went stiff,
    Choked up with shit, face crumpled, sick.
Mary’s eyes were flecked with tears,
    New Jersey Polish Catholic.
 
A voyeur faith, decked out in gold,
    Suffused her inward, tourist gaze.
The marble of the mother church
    Was shining in transparent rays
 
Of sunlight, and the palace looked
    So reassuring and baroque.
She muttered out a prayer by rote
    And tried to light another smoke.
 
And Pietro sought the Virgin, too,
    Bent prone upon one hairy knee,
Eyes flicking through the supplicants
    To consummate a Mystery
 
Of how from Word comes Flesh. He saw
    Her praying, and he swore to God
That he would have her. Smoothed his hair
    And granted her the faintest nod.
 
She came like Moses to the bush,
    All full of dumb desire to serve.
He mouthed a muted prayer in thanks.
    “What have I done, Lord, to deserve…?”
 
He took her to an alleyway
    And buggered her against the wall,
Then took the money from her purse
    And, laughing, ran. She did not call
 
For help, but only cried in thanks.
    Her precious hymen was not torn
From some dull husband in the States
    And hordes of children yet unborn.
 
Who held aside the cup? Who clothed
    The crucifix in golden leaf?
Who set the fearful penance? Who
    Was growing fat on false belief?
 
But Katie watched the evening news
    And swirled the gin around her jaw
Across the sea, while musing on
    The Fall of Man and canon law.



Growing Pains

And who the hell am I, and who are you
That we should judge each other, when we make
The same wrong moves, the obvious mistake
And settle for the girl because we can
And get degrees since that's the thing to do?
Just how is either one a better man?

Another shrink-wrapped sandwich on the run,
Another year preparing for the next
That leaves you nauseous, tired as hell, and vexed
From never quite arriving at the gate.
A dream about utopia's no fun
When it gets pushed back to a later date.

So getting home, we dig an album out
And air-guitar a moment, glancing back
To see the door slide open just a crack.
The years return. The stereo's turned off.
The inner adolescent's rock-star shout
Is cut and quickly shifted to a cough.

We swore that we would not end up like this,
So smug and always sorry for ourselves,
With self-help books displayed along the shelves,
With wives who grow resentful, and who feel
That let-down sag themselves—and it's remiss
To treat it all as something else than real.

Published in Iambs and Trochees



Interstices

I couldn't get to sleep despite the drink
And clutched the pillow. Still, the image came.
As in a dream, I saw her flutter past.
I scrapped the image with a stubborn blink
And scattered dirty words around her name.
But still, the mirror perched above the sink
Showed tension in the eyes, lids held half-mast.

It isn't death that worries me—it's life,
It's all the stupid problems faced alone
With fly unzipped, with no one to remark
(In carping tones that one hears from a wife)
That all the tasks are needful, that the bone
Is worth the fetching, that the minor strife
Of waking hours meets comfort in the dark.

But in the night, tonight, a bitter truth—
That much of what we lose is burned away
Or slowly, thoughtlessly stubbed out—occurs
While smoking up the butt-ends of my youth.
While soon I'll get to bed, each new-sprung day
Shows promises of ending frayed, uncouth—
And each thing that one guesses or infers

Comes like the promised light beyond the switch,
Predictable and pointless, and the hope
Of morning feels like promises in church,
A flicker of a scratch against the itch
That wears out like a bar of bathroom soap.
Day follows night without the slightest glitch
But always seems to leave us in the lurch.

Published in Iambs and Trochees



In an Eyelid's Flicker

In a tired eye's blinking,
In an eon's clutter,
In a full moon's sinking,
In a cautious stutter—

We work our way through hallways,
Through knickknacks and mementos
That tell us we were loved.
The galaxy spins outwards, never knows
That dust disintegrates within a turn.
Everything a telescope can learn
Comes down to knowing this,
This faint pastiche of time,
This bloated, cold abyss
With stars that huddle close.

A creek descends to glacial lakes;
Frost spreads along the shore;
A fever leads to shakes;
A splash of blood protects the door.

Nothing new, and nothing is the matter.
Distance, like the center,
Is everywhere, spat out at once.
The dogma-bound dissenter
Can rail against the well-known fact,
But still the model stays intact.
I can't deny the math,
The outward thrust of all there is
Or move all matter from its path
To newfound, colder reaches.

And in an eyelid's flicker,
And in a windpipe's rattle,
Dad was getting sicker
Despite the fibs we’d tattle.

II

I have stood in the valley of the Lethe
And heard pale waters lap
On dimly noticed shores,
And wondered when the thirst would end—
The dry-throat longing
Of each declining day.

Among the shades,
We dream of others in the cave
That we imagine, craven,
Raving that we're not alone,
That something lies beyond
These rocks, this dust, that ash.
We hope that something lasts
Past living memory.

But no one calls the echo,
And the only shadows seen
Are ours, which waver,
Then diminish in that slow
Descent we can't elude.
Mournful rivers flowing
Through indistinct formations
Make the only sounds this deep.

Tell me why, you gibbering specters
With coins beneath your tongues,
Tell me why, you aboard the ferry,
It always ends too soon.

III

In table conversation,
Certain niceties are kept
With the plates and silverware.
Family and nation,
A bare-wood floor well swept
Preserve the peace. We wouldn't dare
To shatter it with flourishes
Of what we think. What nourishes
The body lulls the soul.
Soul settles on the mind,
Which notes the napkin in its place.
A proper bowel control
Becomes much more refined
And only leaves a trace
Of knowing this is just a truce—
That, to be sure, has had its use.

A countervailing law to hold things in
Is promulgated from the gravy boat
And passed along like peas to next of kin
Whose tastes control the words that pass the throat.

IV

What's the measure of a life?
Chaos or forced symmetry?
Acceleration? Gravity?
The way you look at me?

The hubris and believing,
The compact and the perjured,
The commerce and the temple,
The prophet and the skeptic...
These are the measure of life?

The dust clouds slowly spinning,
The stars that flare in fusion,
The burnout always waiting,
The universal fleeing...
These are the measure of life?

The promise at beginnings.
The canting of the priesthood,
The rank collaboration,
The sun upon Golgotha...
These are the measure of life?

...But the king is taken
And the Christ is risen.
The sunlight refracts
Through the stained-glass window
In many-colored cataracts
Both beautiful and shallow.



The Holiday Season

Though you can drink, you cannot smoke in bars.
As livers rot, the lungs remain pristine,
And like the excommunicates, we lurk
Out in the streets. The cherries' beacons flare
For every unbeliever in a chair.
But health is in, and pleasure hardly counts
When paired with nicotine and gooed with tars.
Though you can drink, you cannot smoke in bars.

Though crime is down, the subways smell like piss,
And beggars swarm like weevils on the trains.
Their faces turn indignant in the night;
Their voices creak, not strong but vehement.
You may be good, but can't stay innocent
When rent is high, the checking balance low,
And others' needs get muted to a hiss.
Though crime is down, the subways smell like piss.

Though yet unnamed, a creature waits to strike.
It lurks within the mutters of the drunk
Whose face is half a shudder, half a sneer,
Behind the eyes that see the suited hack
Who blithely makes the case for cutting back.
Just look around as fingers ball in fists—
And in the end, we all know what it's like.
Though yet unnamed, a creature waits to strike.

Published in Iambs and Trochees



Good Friday

And spring had come behind a sheet of clouds,
The sun a mere assumption as it rained
Like cough or sneeze, as winter coats remained
Upon bent backs. Each figure on the street
Looked lost, though each was following a path
That led to somewhere, out of spits of sleet.
But home, too, was imagined, and the sight
Of windows only gave a hint of light,
Of beams that dissipated in the clouds.

The market murmurs, and its jagged path
Makes fortunes for the few, while each new dip
Means famines far away. A minor slip
Throws tenants from their dank apartment blocks.
But we, my dear, are innocent of this.
Our dreams are not of rising arcs of stocks
And means of squeezing fortunes from the poor.
The suite with windows on the upper floor
Is not the destination of our path.

Beneath the conjugations of our thoughts,
Beyond the participle and the noun,
The tongues that flap, inflection bearing down,
Is that one sentence that we never say
Or never quite articulate, but hope
Will nonetheless suffuse our speech like day
Through open windows. Still, the terms are trapped
In consonants and vowels, each word mapped
In sentence diagrams within our thoughts.

Despite the mute constrictions that we know,
Hemmed in by empty wallets or the news
That's rarely any good, the blinkered views
From thin apartment windows, we recall
The passing of the storm, the way the dark
Is swallowed by the dawn. The rise and fall
Of sleeping lovers' chests against the sheets
Holds back the void, which for a time retreats,
Though saturating all we've come to know. 

Published in slightly different form in Iambs and Trochees