Heavy, Heavy Metal by David P. Kozinski

Heavy, Heavy Metal

You finally find your row
and your seat, looking forward
to a night that lifts and bounces,
that stickily edges you when it can
to its or anyone’s full-body tease
unmasked, at ease. What remains is fog
hanging like crepe, unsupported;
willows billowing.

And just like that, the re-humpty-dumptification
of the egg industry and other slight miracles
are accomplished, and release comes
at the end of a chain of trumpets and trombones
which is to say it’s brassy – sounds it, feels it
even tastes it. The saliva drips thinly
from the clarinet’s bell
and the chimes and lyre
stir a roux of black Sabbath.

*

David P. Kozinski was a finalist for the Inlandia (California) Institute’s 2020 Hillary Gravendyke Prize for a book-length poetry manuscript. Publications include a chapbook, Loopholes, that won the Dogfish Head Poetry Prize, and his full-length book of poems, Tripping Over Memorial Day (Kelsay Books). Kozinski was named 2018 Mentor of the Year by Expressive Path, a non-profit that facilitates youth participation in the arts. He serves on the boards of the Manayunk-Roxborough Art Center in Philadelphia and the Eastern Shore Writers Association, and on the editorial board of Philadelphia Stories magazine. He is Art Editor of Schuylkill Valley Journal and Rockwood Park & Museum’s resident poet.