Noah Soltau
Things You Will Need to Dance on the Edge of a Volcano
Copy of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. Mariabot is a clanker, not to be trusted. The tech bros in the
pleasure garden know this; you should, too.
Pair of sturdy gloves. CS gas canisters are hot. The bricks you will need to throw at cops are
rough and will damage your carefully painted nails.
Bottle of vodka. There will be wounds to clean, vicious voices to silence, and songs to sing. You
should be able to make a good martini.
Well-made pantyhose. You will need to tie up your hair to dance, disguise your face to carry out
assassinations. Silk and good nylon are currency.
Case of type. Propaganda posters can’t write themselves. Without the internet, you will be
responsible for the things we all know.
Watercolor palette. Even water from the gutter will let you paint over the missing persons posters
on the corner. Make something beautiful out of the disappeared.
Pouch of seeds. You will have to leave. Take a little bit of home with you, flowers and fruits. A
germ of sustenance in black and blackened soil.
Pistol. You will need to kill a soldier and take his weapon. You will need to be close. It might be
enough. Keep it hidden until you need it, warm next to your heart under a homemade coat.
Good pair of shoes. The road to a new home will be long. The mud in the fields will be deep, the
piles of rubble tall, but you will have dancing to do, starlit strolls to go on.
Box of condoms.
Green Thumb
When the airstrike felled the old red beech
in the school yard, we hauled it home,
neighbors streaming out of houses like
rivulets where we rigged a chainsaw to make
live edge tables, stools, benches gathered
in the courtyard, posts, planks for awning over
new hole in the wall of the kindergarten,
wove child-sized branch nests for playground,
mulched the rest to cover new root balls
hundreds of seedlings: pine, spruce, ash, beech.
Lotte tells us how much water we need.
Children carry it arms aching from fresh cistern.
We clear the rubble. We planted black-eyed
Susan, camellia, gladiolus on the small graves.
Coffee and Cake
Come into my house leave your coat move a stack of books from the cushion to the floor next to the sleeping dog Leave your cup on the edge of the piano while you tell me about the new four color manual press in the basement of the old church Brush crumbs from your lap onto my copies of Baudelaire and the thumb drive full of bolt carrier group and sear STL files Brew another pot Tell me about the Kahlo painting that was stolen from the Ministry of Culture and the blood orange you ate this morning Let me know if I can taste it on your lips Come into my house and tell
Babylon Holler
road flares 12 gauge shells Solo cups
your mouth cosmic drift
hips backlit in bonfire
Burnt out city on the horizon
over the counter battery acid buzz
racist radio grandpa
complains about your friends
while church ladies nod along
polite pills and casserole
cooling on the back seat
kids keep driving secret police
into woods out of school
out of town cosplay cops
don’t know they need to wear
orange because even the people
who read Marx and Goethe
have guns down here
and something is always in season
the trees are a mask
there are cameras on every corner
but the bootleggers wink when
we walk past the still with shovels
and thick black plastic bags
Noah Soltau teaches about art, literature, and society to the mostly willing. He is managing editor of The Red Branch Review. His debut collection of poetry, Titanfall, is forthcoming from Madville Publishing. His most recent work appears in Cutleaf, Door = Jar, Wildroof Journal, and elsewhere. He lives and works in East Tennessee.
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Banner Art:
Set photograph from Metropolis, Fritz Lang, 1926, Wikimedia Commons
