THE ARM WITH A MIND OF ITS OWN
THE ARM WITH A MIND OF ITS OWN
by Randall Nicholas
The left one, the sinister one
shoved against the door in the driver’s seat,
complaining it’s confined,
its elbow banging the handle,
its hand fitfully commandeering the steering wheel,
screaming, “Let me out of here!,”
lunging against the love-maker in bed,
batting chest and balls,
railing, “Don’t you get close to me!,”
pursing pink where it’s been unwittingly pinched,
not letting the peak flatten and grow faint,
howling to its witless body,
“See what you’ve done to me, you ignoramus!,”
rotating from its sensory socket
while numbly squeezing a rubber ball
overhead, underthigh,
flinging ball and itself on the carpet,
crying “Damn you! Damn you!”
at a kitchen cabinet door ajar,
a neurosurgeon on the fourteenth floor.
i feel like as your commentary is always there for us and consistently objective, it goes understated how you develop artistically, unfolding in different directions each poem. there’s a plot going on, in a dream, so each turn is onto a different avenue, radically different from the former, but with maybe one connecting thread (the foot bone is connected to the leg bone, and so forth). the flow is right on, particularly last two lines. i enjoy watching you not taking your poem seriously.