Posted April 27, 2024 Poetry, Sandy River Review
“Body Tap”, “Pneuma”, “Transcendence” and “Holy One”
By James Shelley
Body Tap
As part of my morning constitutional
I would like to drain my toxins
the dirty crude oil staining my sheets
But where to drill the hole?
There is a precedent–
the old-time surgical art of trepanning: drilling
into the skull to relieve pressure
But what if something else is syphoned, like
old memories?
Can leeches be bred to suction black fluids?
When they die and drop off, I will know
they succeeded
How about a short aluminum tube
inserted at the back of my neck, like
those jutting from sugar trees in March?
The sound of expungement:
blackness, pinging into a covered metal bucket
Pneuma
Thank you
For flinging me into the abyss
To find my way new again
Falling,
Travelling
downward past cold strata
Smooth sides glass shimmering,
wanting to touch
But this is not a tactile experience!
Plummeting has a nostalgic sound
Wind cuts in and out depending on
how you angle your head
like the wind-buffeted microphones
at Kennedy’s grey November funeral
How strange to hear divine breath
while falling
Transcendence
My arms sweep back and flatten
into titanium wings
Ice shatters into high velocity
shards, blinding the other managers seated
around the conference table.
No one sees me slingshot myself
through the ceiling
Broad green valleys
Infinite plains
Skies I have never seen before
Air sonically booms in my wake
Holy One
A young sparrow born without eyes
hops across my back yard
Having never seen flight
it cannot grasp it as a concept
Or maybe it can, but
has chosen another way
Hearing my voice
it hops towards me
Like anything holy
it has already surrendered
Mystical Encounter
Macrame Literary Journal, Winter 2025
By James Shelley
On the metro park trail a woman with beautiful long grey hair approaches from the opposite direction and walks up to me, blocking my way. In the low-angled evening sunlight her green eyes appear to be gazing into my green eyes. I feel her breath. Why has this somewhat attractive woman veered into me? Only a spirit would behave like this and I wonder if I have attracted a Crone who can use her supernatural powers to help me. There is something very familiar about her. Maybe she is not a Crone but actually me, a psychic projection of my anima. But why would my inner female accost me on a metro park trail? Her eyes work back and forth as if reading a teleprompter. The setting sun gloams her face, skin perhaps too smooth for a Crone. This is getting uncomfortable.
Sunlight brightens and I realize she is actually reading my chest. I remember there is a cryptic math equation across the front of my t-shirt. “I ate some pie!”, she exclaims, phonetically equating the trigonometric symbols. She shifts to the written part underneath the equation: “And it was delicious.” She nods with satisfaction. “Very clever”.
The mystery of me solved, she moves along.
James Shelley is a published author of non-fiction (many articles on the arts, and some social issues, in both scholarly journals and newspapers/magazines), short fiction (Great River Review, The Gamut), and poetry with Lakelander, Iconoclast, Peacock Review, Sandy River Review, Toasted Cheese, and Thema (Summer 2025). Also winner of an Ohio Arts $5000 grant for my short story, The Lion’s Den. His novel, The Deep Translucent Pond, was published by Adelaide Books (Brooklyn, NY) in February 2022. He teaches Humanities at Lakeland Community College in Kirtland, Ohio.
Recent Published Poetry
Still Be There
Posted on September 1, 2024, Toasted Cheese
Poetry
By James Shelley
Photo Credit: Ky0n Cheng/Flickr (Public Domain)
Say something risky
to still be there when the meeting ends
These people who steal your best hours
with whom you discuss the company’s goals
won’t remember you when you join
a different tribe
And why should they?
There are seven billion other people
Stop spending so much time resetting stakes
never driving deep
Live more fiercely on one spot
so when you are gone
we will step around your bones
in awe
James Shelley’s poetry has been published in the Lakelander, Iconoclast, Great Review Review, and Sandy River Review, with upcoming publication in Thema. He was awarded an Ohio Arts grant for short fiction and his novel, The Deep Translucent Pond, was published by Adelaide Books (Brooklyn, NY) in February 2022.