Kathleen Reichelt Studio
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Kathleen Reichelt's poems appear in Suitcase of Chrysanthemums (great weather for Media, NYC, 2018), Otoliths (Australia, 2018, 2019), Arteidolia's swifts+slows (Brooklyn, 2018) and have been performed at Le Poisson Rouge (Three Rooms Press Launch, NYC, 2017, 2018, 2019), Versefest (Ottawa, 2019), The Secret Handshake Gallery (Toronto 2018, 2019) and Words & Music (Montreal, 2018)

summer night in brooklyn was first published as high jinks in issue 52 of Otoliths, February 2019

summer night in brooklyn

rattling tin can collects echoes 
on a narrow street of buildings 
three stories high face to face
    she is counting beats
    between each kick
distracting her heavy pause reply
fingers suspended over keyboard 
eyes scanning moonless night
wind too tired to pass through this room
    the small window  
propped open with last night's tomato can
    metal rings of jupiter 
bouncing back the street light spell
    summer buzzing 
metal boxes dripping on the sidewalk below
she counts kicks for ten blocks at least
    makes a wish
    hears a dog bark
    woof
waits for it to break


neighbours was first published in Arteidolia's swifts+slows, Brooklyn, 2018

neighbours

our likeness
ability to reply
say we’re fine
say lots of things in language we understand
from habit demand repetitions
beliefs conditions conditional
signed on invisible lines
    gravity stringed around our necks
    pulling through the porthole of agreement
    attracting what we know
what we grow up in
grow sideways lean into
the likeness next door

covering extremities, our costumes test weather patterns
in case it rains, in case it snows
repeat what someone else said what someone else knows
rearranging words into delicate holders of flowers
asking why they were picked what is fair who are we to care
    for those who disagree
who want to change me rearrange me govern me reject me
connect relate debate rename
explain me hand me over pass me under
adjust pose sit stand
order me demand obey?

obey formula for sadists to advantage their fortunes
fortressing pacifist opposition
applications congregations any position on the spectrum
ordering bodies that don’t belong     to anyone
bodies that are not free

and who is to say what we should be, like?
insert computer chip into upper lip
    speak the future language of repeat?
     forget the past with delete?
is there autonomy? do we challenge what is free?
abandoned books written by dead lull in the conversation
while digitalization squeezes softness from our necks
pulls our eyes into spies censoring quietly
hush hush ushering in new masters we slaved hours to buy

water boils slow we can’t know resistance
unless we insist ourselves out of uniform
reject rulers fascists who have multiplied
    moving under our hidden lines
right here in our hands right next door



bluebird was first performed at sound one two, Modern Fuel Artist Run Centre, Kingston, 2017 

blue bird 

minus 30 is deep diving first kiss territory
what will happen next
is this going to last?
white a flash of teeth smiling 
through slow dancing 
my chest a freezer 
delivering a letter 
twenty 5 years later 
stepping into snow holes 
made bigger by boots before mine
my eyes flood with marriage 
sigh of horses 
highway 2 curving 
rounding repeating confusing 
love songs with a blue bird's wing
what it means to be forty, fifty, seventy 9
i take your hand
swallow your fingers in mine
understand better these bare trees 
this salted road our chosen place 
where sonnets grow 
while sleeping bulbs turn to light
where brooms gather up corners
where longing passes unnoticed under bridges
currents travel below ice you dare to tread
all the while holding steady 
always arriving always returning 
the shape of your face against my lips 
i can retrieve it on the coldest day
in winter, here










all images copyright Kathleen Reichelt

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