Along the Hawk: Two Poems by Hailey Higdon (and One Poem by Hailey Higdon & Ryan Eckes)

Hailey Higdon sends her regards from the city of Philadelphia. Or is it from the city of free love and cosmic inspiration, which is the city of poetry?

Many of us are still rattled deep down by the reading she gave in Seth Landman and Lewis Freedman's apartment in October 2008. (Can I get a testimony on that fact?)

Bonus: A poem from a series Hailey and Ryan Eckes are working on together. General pleasure.



THE CAR POEMS

cars think robust like business as usual is full of resistance un-oiled salmon upstream upstream freshwater that’s glad that’s glad don’t struggle to finish off the last leg of the walk forward part or the walk slow part and don’t people seem so distracted by the ain’t that somethin’ of it and when the Russian lady in her car tells me, I say, tell me slow, she says, “in my next life I’m gonna be a toy poodle—spoiled.”

wheels in a row like go go go so much so many unfaithful fans walking on cars dropping televisions going into a grocery store then out of a grocery store waiting in line anywhere ordering waiting receiving ordering waiting receiving I happen to arrive have already eaten and we got tough times here tough times here and fart in your handbag, hold it next to you in your car, this is the economy series, no extra for groceries.

I have two lives, they run beside each other and near me, like to smell like outside, outback, get out wholesome gruesome got ideas for an 18-wheeler oh this street the grease is interpreting your 18 hand gestures but what the hell do you see, say hey man nice haircut, say hey oh sorry I thought you were someone else and when the snow comes the road says, how soon can you go?



THE PEOPLE WHO FUDDLE FUNNY


your husband is an animal

and not in any “good” sort of way

I can’t do you not here

I bait today

just keep losing money

the mind collaborates this time

nod, nod

offers others

what ideals are the most imperative for a woman to have as she lives?

we see this bowl, our bowl, emptier than another’s

these people bed funny

don’t want to talk too much to me too much

what do you know that I don’t know about the relationship?

do they think I’m one of the bad examples of people?

why do I have to TRUST MORE stuff?

dead reckoning! what does that mean?

just give up already! or get in or get out!

easier said than done!

this is an every /other or either/ should situation

it’s for the pussyfoots

I’m not one, don’t trust nearly nothin’

and say a friendly go away to the houseplants who make breathing easy.



MadLIBs 1: The Longwinded City

By Hailey Higdon and Ryan Eckes

Mom crossed the dog’s bird and baked till the end of time. Out of the frying pan sheep flew above the street. They counted our statues. The war with the newspapers was still happening and you screwed your ashtray to indicate it. I was talking to the pumpkin to get a paper. The weather thinks like a sad jacket. Your prayers do not matter, they ruminate the idea to keep on killing. You carved your friends and gave them a chair. We played tennis for the rotten pieces of paper and leapt afterwards.

Later, the flags of the city were folded into lilies. They marched along the hawk. After the smoke detector stopped laughing, we took a pillow and made a mask out of it. “Thanks,” she said. We drank the soft people walking on bottles and drove again. We refer to the beer to explain the longwinded city. We swallow for the bears, who say, “who have you been chasing?”