Emily Stueven lives in Helena, Montana. She teaches arts and crafts to kids at an after-school program. If she ever graduates from college, she wants to be a teacher—or maybe a librarian. Her writing has appeared in Zygote in My Coffee and in several issues of the self-published Stueven Family Christmas Newsletter.

HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET

CHARLOTTE - Tony Earley

RECUERDO - Edna St. Vincent Millay

60s SOUL — NOT funk!

70s PUNK, esp. British

80s POST-PUNK, esp. British

THE BIG TAKEOVER MAGAZINE

CATS

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SELECTED POETRY

by
Emily Stueven

SLOVENLY = HEAVENLY

I am absolutely okay with laying my face
On your hairy chest and listening to you wheeze

And sharing the car with your cigarette smoke
And licking your ashtray lips

And being pinned by your beergut
When we fuck.

I dig you so much, you big slob—
And your record collection is tops.

I love to listen to Pere Ubu with you
Or watch you try to play “Pale Blue Eyes” on guitar

With your fat, clumsy fingers,
While you mutter, “Jesus, fuck.”

Your chicken legs sticking out of those tight, faded boxers
Are so goddamned adorable,

Especially when you do a little dance to make me laugh,
And then turn Mr. Serious Face and say, “It’s noogy-time.”

© Emily Stueven

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A FINE FUNERAL

What a fine funeral it was—
When the angels came to get you
And that old lady fainted, oh my,
Really, what a fine funeral it was.

Sitting with your mother, holding hands with your mother.
Talking to your brother about the war.
The bald-headed preacher, your third-grade teacher—
Really, what a fine funeral it was.

I sang my heart out
To hymns I thought I’d forgotten.
And that story about the river, too.

Someone told a joke, we all laughed.
I don’t remember what it was.
And that tune you used to hum, too.

But really, what a fine funeral it was—
When something hit the window,
And it was a bird and it didn’t die.
What a fine funeral it was.

© Emily Stueven

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IT'S OKAY

Every new place I go I first seek out
A bench and sit down and say, “I’m eighty-three years old.
My kids don’t care about me anymore, my dog
Is dead.  And my wife.  I have rheumatism.  It hurts to move.”
I imagine this new place is an old place,
A city I’ve lived in for fifty-six years, and I’m old
And I’ve got prostate cancer and I want to die.
I don’t recognise these people, the skateboarders
Scare me.  But it’s okay—it’s only ‘cause I’m old.
Tomorrow I am going to die.  At three a.m. of old age, and
In my bed.  Then I get up from the bench and
I don’t feel so scared in the new place
Because I’ve already died there.

© Emily Stueven

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EVERYONE ELSE IS EVOLVING

Dogs walked on two feet today,
Trying to make a point, and
I sat alone in the shade all day,
Tired and intermittently amazed.

In the evening I watched a movie
And rewound the passionate kiss
Over and over again.  And eventually
Everyone falls in love with everybody

Except me.  It used to make me sad,
It used to make me cry, but now
It makes me numb and I don’t care.
I rewound the kiss and I closed my eyes.

In the morning I woke with
My hand between my thighs
And two cats at my feet.  I can really
Wake up like this the rest of my life.

© Emily Stueven

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WE SEEK YOUR HEART THESE DAYS

We seek your heart these days
And no other body part will do.
Not your enzyme-lacking liver
Or your quivery hands or
American-Pit-Bull-Terrier-stomping feet.

In short, we want blood, and
Just freshly pumped.

We want you to beg on your hands and knees
For a kiss, and if we give you a kiss
We want you to quick beg for another.

We want to stick our fingers inside of you
And squeeze
And then pull them out
And twist.

We seek hearts these days—
Those syncopated demons
With all their pain and whatnot.
And we’ll get you saying
“I love you” in distress.

In short, we want to fall in love
With you again.

© Emily Stueven

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YOU ARE NOT MY UMBRELLA

In the pouring rain,
I got my hair wet
And screamed,
“You are not my umbrella.

“You’re a monolith—
And don’t you dare
Kiss me underneath
The stars.”

Once, if I’d’ve peeked in your windows
And found you in headphones
Bobbing your head to Radiohead,
I’d’ve died, half-close to God.

Now, you still listen to Radiohead,
And I listen to Peter Bjorn and John.
And I like Blur better—
Or even Oasis, sometimes.

Inside the locket
Is a picture of a man—
You say, “he’s your father.”
Leave me alone.

We never kissed against
The walls
Outside—
It never happened.

© Emily Stueven