Artichokes and Jade Bones

By Kim Shuck

We run along the coast our

Kid feet still wet with

Willingness we

Run alongside the

Staccato rails that

Vanish and appear in

Tufts of indigenous

Shrubs and stands of weed

Eucalyptus we

Strawberry and

Artichoke we

Chase flotillas of

Brown pelican and

Dance to our own childhoods

Of beach and driftwood not

Replanted here but of this

Strange and colonial

Place so

Surface patchwork but the jade

Bones show the tossed

Stone chewed to cheese by olive

Mussels it's a

Generous place if

Sometimes sleepy and this

Fog sings old songs too

Copyright © Kim Shuck. All rights Reserved.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 

Kim Shuck had a busy year in 2014. She had two major publications: the full length Clouds Running In from Taurean Horn Press and the Chapbook Sidewalk Ndn from FootHills Publishing. She had four poems nominated for Pushcart Prizes, both from Taurean Horn and from West Trestle Review. 

Kim also taught the usual joyfulness of second graders and fifth graders, a joyfulness being her suggested collective noun for fantastic students one of whom drew this portrait.

www.kimshuck.com 

A Rattle of Individual Voices and Tires

By Kim Shuck

Incantations over formica at

Carefully chosen hours we define the old

Route 66 the

World serpent shattered now like the spine of the

Carpathians, the vertebrae of the Andes we are

Black top and burned coffee, we are pie 24 hours a day we

Chart sunrises and arrange stones we run

Fingertips over petroglyphs, over countertop scratches, our prayer

Songs call cactus flowers out of the lizard jeweled night the breath of the

Lungless, that other beat of a heart that doesn’t keep the

Blood warm and the faint outline of an old-time eye that

Stares from an unclenched fist.

Copyright © Kim Shuck. All rights reserved.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Kim Shuck is a writer, editor and visual artist of Tsalagi and Polish ancestry. She holds an MFA in Fine Arts from San Francisco State University. Her first solo book of poetry Smuggling Cherokee won the 2005 Diane Decorah award from the Native Writer’s Circle of the Americas and was published by Greenfield Review Press in 2006. Her first book of prose, Rabbit Stories, came out in February of 2013. 

Her second solo book of poetry, Clouds Running In, forthcoming in  2014, includes drawings by the brilliant Cumbrian artist, Marcer Campbell. 

Visit Kim at www.kimshuck.com

Hunted

By Kim Shuck

This morning is an ambush predator
Begins late with
Sirens and alarms that spin over the
Hills there is damp the
City raccoons bumble deceptively and
Dangerously on the
Porch kitten and I both with
Lifted hackles take some comfort in hot oats
Strawberries and sweetgrass
Smoke tufted slippers the rising
Hum of central heating kitten
Captures a brace of packing peanuts and
Gradually we subdue this hour together the dark
Lifts streetlights will blink their firefly impulse
Draining even now even
Now the armament of experienced
Early browsers makes smooth this edged thing this
Day curled against the core of vicious
Financial institution highwaymen and fear led
Pathologies of greed


Copyright © Kim Shuck. All rights reserved.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 
Kim Shuck is a writer, visual artist, curator, frustrated mom and recovering sarcastic. She holds an MFA in Fine Arts from San Francisco State University. Her first solo book of poetry, Smuggling Cherokee, was published by Greenfield Review press in 2005 and won the Diane Decorah Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas. Recent work has been included in the anthologies New Poets of the American West and I Was Indian. In June 2010 Kim had a month long co-residency at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. Visit her on the web at www.kimshuck.com

Rosalia in her 90s

By Kim Shuck

Off in those days of furniture forts

Curled under upended armchairs or

Broom handles stuck in the lawn

Draped with blankets with you it was always this

Architecture

As your fears take over we try to

Talk it out

Tease some sense from a new game

Cereal, mug, toast

Food become building material you

Push it more than eat the

Pills you take or bury in the mashed potato when

No one is looking the arguments

About baths

About dreams that have become for you so

Vivid about your cold cold hands about the dinner you

Cooked it years ago but can smell that soup and

Yearn

Yearn for it, I’m

Learning to overcook to use

Handfuls of black pepper a

Spell to summon that familiar raven’s eye that

Smile that says you knew I was teasing you.


Copyright © Kim Shuck. All rights reserved.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Kim Shuck is a writer, visual artist, curator, frustrated mom and recovering sarcastic. She holds an MFA in Fine Arts from San Francisco State University. Her first solo book of poetry, Smuggling Cherokee, was published by Greenfield Review press in 2005 and won the Diane Decorah Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas. Recent work has been included in the anthologies New Poets of the American West and I Was Indian. In June 2010 Kim had a month long co-residency at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. Visit her on the web at www.kimshuck.com