Jan Clausen
Summer 2025 | Poetry
Five Poems
4, 7, 8 (I)
I don’t rule here
No angel shows
Moon ghosted me
Bread barely rose
I wish I could protect you
Digging clay in Italy
Cruising between pandemics
Geoengineering home
Row, row, row your sorrow boat
“Things just happen by themselves”
All trees bare, round fire up there
Everything is a mixture
A person like any other
Skating in the loud dirty rink
As if you can’t get anywhere
Slowly growing very afraid
Sweet truth syrup on that waffle
Hair of the dog, blood of the lamb
I don’t rule here, in any case
4, 7, 8 (II)
If this sky falls
Do some love shots
Cracks, wrecks, leaks, nukes
Try to not die
Green-patterned coat, purple boots
Late style of the concubines
See the arch showman dig in
Rock the Mar-a-Lago face
Because we couldn’t muster
Unitarian magic
Slough of despond, hill of beans
Arcane fun grips the polycule
“This war should have never started”
Cough up the copay at the desk
Bounce back from everything bad
A trail of grease on the carpet
A minuscule stab to the heart
Observe the enormous regime
Attempting to not tumble down
4, 7, 8 (III)
Hypnic headache
Wind embittered
Haptic holdout
Launch aborted
Idiopathic nightmares
Cataleptic criticism
Other niche impediments
Enough coughing to give pause
Even with the ghoul overload
One yellow crocus, just one
Opens a lid on the day
Come April, we’ll start to have leaves
Cheer the fallen flesh arrangement
Borne up sublimely on bright waves
Not altogether transparent
Is it supposed to be holy
Is it supposed to be hardball
Science should be taking a look
It’s a flaw I don’t understand
4, 7, 8 (IV)
Blow this trope up
Sullen elder
Shrieking publics
Trending later
Occupy space with your noise
Pronouns slithering sideways
Grappling hook, battering ram
Cease your serial antics
Any garment will suffice
Step outside your suffering
Into that of another
Do a mitzvah, rehoming pets
Hug the phantasmatic cohort
Munching away on cold silence
They just don’t ever quite ripen
Can you believe how God dresses
Super risqué on video
Her moist swagger runs me ragged
Yes sir, I’m steeped in naught but bliss
4, 7, 8 (V)
Such massive snacks
Tumult in spades
Winsome elites
Desperate days
When you’re out of time, slow down
A scar is appropriate
Because we couldn’t stop it
Waving a sword-like object
Villainous resilience
Coercive lamentations
So alone in the Balkans
Why don’t you brick up the portal
Your grief-self delivers nada
Seduce irrational numbers
Scarf some litigation cupcakes
Perfidy of the liberals
Alert nativity of trees
The tedium is fantastic
We’ll clarify at the debrief
First and foremost a poet, Jan Clausen has published books in a range of genres and is a veteran of the feminist small press publishing movement. Her poetry titles include Duration (Hanging Loose), If You Like Difficulty (Harbor Mountain), and Veiled Spill: A Sequence (GenPop). Seven Stories Press recently reissued her 1999 memoir Apples and Oranges. Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, she has lived in Brooklyn, NY since the 1970s. An active member of Park Slope Food Coop Members for Palestine, she is completing a hybrid memoir, My Great Acceleration.