Wednesday, February 16, 2022

MOUNDS OF BOOKS OUTSIDE OF NASHVILLE

by Zebulon Huset




My freshmen students start Fahrenheit 451 next week—
today a Tennessee pastor lights back into the old chestnut
 
of Harry Potter infecting children with witchcraft or Twilight 
spreading the cheesy demons of vampiric thoughts. Roiling 
 
on the self-righteous fury of the Neo-Nazi echo chamber
that rebounds cacophonous  insecurities and fear like
 
the crystals that create a great fortress of solitude. Riled 
up by the downfall of monuments raised by Daughters
 
of the Confederacy, by schools teaching history
that covers even half of the truth about their great
 
grandparents, by the ricocheting of rage. Opposite
of a sensory deprivation tank that saps sounds
 
and light and leaves one with just the mortal drumbeat,
overwhelming sound of blood pulsing through ear-arteries.
 
The realization that self is both loud and fragile,
that our brittle hold on life can crumble at any moment
 
and it’s not witchcraft or the past that are frothing
at the doorway of extremism, but the hand grasping
 
the bulk-purchased bottle of lighter fluid, the voice
booming from their own mouths, the fire lapping
 
their stubby little fingertips.
 

Zebulon Huset is a teacher, writer and photographer. He won the Gulf Stream 2020 Summer Poetry Contest and his writing has appeared in Best New Poets, Rattle, Texas Review, North American Review, Meridian, The Southern Review, Fence, and many others. He publishes the prompt blog Notebooking Daily, and edits the journals Coastal Shelf and Sparked.