Ross Knapp is a recent college
graduate with degrees in philosophy and literature. He has an
experimental literary novel forthcoming and various poetry publications
in Blue Lake Review, Poetry Pacific Magazine, Burningword Literary
Journal, Belle Reve Literary Journal,
Carcinogenic Poetry, Blood and Thunder Literary Magazine, Tipsy Lit
Literary Magazine, and Clockwise Cat Literary Magazine.
He lives and works in Minneapolis.
3 Poems: We Venetian Heathen Lovers, A Room Of One's Own, Waiting
We Venetian Heathen Lovers
A tear drops down my darling’s face
I hate to waste her precious time,
But I’ve told her, I’m a waste of time--
I told her I’m a sadistic satyr and narcissistic nympho
A mix of drunk LiPo and poor brilliant Akhmatova,
A crazy nobody Bohemian Bipolar poet and writer
A poet who usually kills what he loves in brutal fashion
A scourge and a traitor to the human race.
And yet, yet there’s so much said by that look in her olive eyes,
We make fiery fantastic ineluctable love one last time--
After we sit in bed and smoke cigarettes, drink negronis, embracing on the balcony,
Watching the bourgeois tourists on gondolas slowly drift by maddeningly, romantically.
And when I force myself to leave Venice and Italy cyanide is all can only think of.
What have I done? When I was finally capable of agape again I left her behind--
A Room of One’s Own
A classic Italian dance, a raving underground club, stacks of books, out of bed wrecks, artificial fashion looks, a Pink Lady Apple, a chilled milk cup, pills that fill an entire cabinet, tempting screens everywhere promising paradise, never fulfilling, need for coffee conquering all else, a laptop with a soul inside, useless large yard, gaudy garden, fat squishy couch seats, too many unsaid secrets to keep in the closets, a mammoth packed fridge with plenty of spoil while across town the poor gather and sleep under a bridge.
Waiting
Nothing to be done
Just waiting
Waiting for hope
Waiting for change
Waiting for progress
Waiting for Godot
We sit by our tree
Stupid silly absurd
Singing happy songs
Forgetting the lyrics
In moments of clarity
Dumbfounded by dashes of truth we see
Unfounded warped assumptions
Unfulfilled distorted desires
Cyclical existence, déjà vu predictions
Back, back to the garden and the tree
Epileptic visions of fire and sea
Amnesiac repressed memories recalled
Testing strengths of belts
Clearing out and--
Waiting
~Ross Knapp