Two poems by Joshua Kulseth
"The Beginning of Pain" & "Dying"
THE BEGINNING OF PAIN Gorse pours down the boundary field breaking yellow on the bank. I daydream falling in the trap of thorns. Think nails not thumbtacks. My skin prickles at the thought, drawing out the perfection of a fantasy improbably achieved, like longing for the unfamiliar; casting into deep waters. Why is it always pain? Why the catastrophe? I imagine jumping from the coastal rocks, not as a way of ending, but rather the first of who knows how many writhings in the unbelievability of it all, drowned now in gorse, or framed in sand below pillared, moss-pocketed rocks, pierced or broken, become something else entirely: born again only in the beginning of pain. ***** DYING He’s started sifting through boxes of photos so I’m sure he’ll die soon, maybe handling some picture in blur or marred with a finger on the lens so you can barely make out the newborn calf or fields of dulled snow—some barely remembered photograph we’ll wonder if he had any last thoughts on, or was only leafing through to find the ice-cream covered grandkid or caught trout. He’s always tired, half deaf, and nearly blind, straining to decode these old pictures, his crooked fingers shaking before he slips away, maybe in a blood clot, holding like a last thought the picture that stands now for whatever he might have said. Here he is in the recliner, finally like an old man, sorting thoughts in the bland bedside lamplight, who even when he was old and got himself kicked by a bull, only barely flinched— who hammered fence posts and split wood for fire, hauling all day, clambering through rivers reeling wildly at the tugging of a line, whom age caught up to all at once and sat down, out of breath from twenty years of chasing, saying, this is the place I’ve kept for you, sit a while, here, look at these—
About the Poet:
Joshua Kulseth earned his B.A. in English from Clemson University, his M.F.A. in poetry from Hunter College, and his Ph.D. in poetry from Texas Tech University. His poems have appeared and are forthcoming in Tar River Poetry, The Emerson Review, The Worcester Review, Rappahannock Review, The Windhover, and others. His poetry manuscript, Leaving Troy, was shortlisted for the Cider Press Review Publication Competition, and is currently under contract with Finishing Line Press. He is an Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Franciscan University of Steubenville.