CONTENT NOTE
Šime Knežević’s ‘Spar ’makes allusion to violence and death.
Sample
We lend (rather than give) ourselves permission
to single out and compare our thing.
We pause inward at a stop from this opaque feeling,
and prompted almost from nothing, we pursue
some relief and joy only moments before it’s gone.
We take it as it comes, cherish what’s left.
My throat revs like the engine of a muscle car.
How can I be sure you are who you say?
Turns out, you’re a music video, a swimming pool,
the whole doughnut tree, the definition of class.
I give myself away too easily in tiny free samples.
You’re right to be suspicious, there’s a catch.
Spit
hock hock
phlegm deep
even deeper
zero in
the nasal
cavity tilt
your head
just so
motor your
oesophagus
and then
muscle memory
your national
service training
as you
roll down
the window
while the
car must
go on
angle chin
take aim
barrel those
lips whip
the tongue
fire away
into the
rapid air
then groom
your moustache
with the
digits of
a reverse
peace sign
Spar
Some moments before passing out, I glimpsed a kata
in one of the elapsed time zones at the far far end
of my mind, and a barely audible repertoire of kicks
and punches, as if my limbs dealt in nursery rhymes.
My body weighed my age, two short of double digits.
Take your ritual bow. An ad hoc paradise this dojo.
‘Maggots, my grandmother can kick higher than you…
and she’s dead!’ Feet cold at the rim of ground opening.
Because you are still yet (the silent dark car lot,
Bloody Mary in the mirror, a cigarette burn, childhood
without love) to obtain the orange belt. Our guest
Johann G., already a ghostly presence, disappears
in his black karategi. In the news, ash rain
on the eastern seaboard, our city is pillowed by smog.
Weirdest thing to have to fare on your own.
Prepare to call upon this life. Prepare your next move.