Rooftop Poetry Club - Tim Bryant

Tim Bryant

Bio:
Originally from Chicago, Tim has spent most of his life in the midwest. While earning a B.A. in English at Washington University in St. Louis, he worked in the student computer labs. This work inspired him and his colleagues to write weekly haikus about Bill Gates and floppy disks. Moving to Iowa City, Tim earned Master's degrees in English Literature and Library and Information Science from the University of Iowa. His writing took a dramatic turn in Iowa as he became very good at writing cover letters, resumes, and annual reviews. After working several years as an academic librarian, Tim moved to Buffalo in 2005. He is currently a PhD candidate in the English Department of the University at Buffalo, where he intends to prove that reading literature is like playing a game.

Poems:

The Dinner of the Hungry Prophets

after David Wagoner's "The Excursion of the Speech and Hearing Class"

They came to His hall all walking and grumbling
Up the steep hill, but the feast was called off.
Amid rebukes and parting curses, there stirs
On the long table one lone appetizer, unnoticed.
A chicken wing, it begins to fly.

It flies free as it only now can, free
Of the body that held it in place
All its life denied the power it held
Within, all its life only seeing this flight
In a waking dream, to break free, without bounds.

Torch lights waver. The desolate hall quivers
At the wing's resurrection. Silent air whispers
Scarlet indecencies as the rebel swoops down
From the rafters, past the candles, casting
The shadow of dismembered heresy on His walls;

The sight hushes the wind. But the prophets rush back
Shoving with greedy fingers, opening and closing
Their mouths on the wing, again making it food.

Today I type with splinted hands

Today I type with splinted hands. The carpal tunnel taps a syndrome on my arm. I feel it, which is the bite inside. The elbow has a tooth that bites when arms open too long. The mouth of my hands gapes wide and bites when I type. I fear losing my sight. Glasses thicken every year. It sickens me how I become my dad. He was his and I am mine. Why do we become a type? Why not something else, since it comes not free? My body needs wrapping. The skin was a start, but that wears down. Here, as in other places. I would know other faces, friends. My friends, you would have known me had I learned not to type.