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Poetry by
Nicole Cartwright Denison

the tricks and magics by Denise Scicluna
the tricks and magics by Denise Scicluna


Lessons in Lift & Drag

[a]
I’ll mention the rhythm of an engine, its time mechanical,
a metronome of lonely highways, passing dashes,
my wonder at the feat of engineering it took to catapult us
into a one-way,
a detour lane of the future,
a new creature capturing horsepower,
our dependence upon beasts diminishing.

[b]
You’ll caution me about velocity, about thermodynamics,
the one-upmanship involved in crafting planned obsolescence.
How it began with a man and a machine, everything based upon
the movements of animals,
cowpath ballet,
the skeletons of thrust scattered in notebooks,
all those body parts yielding to assemblyline, pistons and cylinders.

[c {as to a as to b as to other, more insular principles}]
(Imagine my suspicion of the so-called manifold,
something carburetored,
planetary gears following heretic rotations,
each satellite subservient in lubricant revolution,
an invented injection of fuel to just the right area.)

[d]
We’ll compromise on the initial pacing speed, furiously scratch time
trials with each ovalled lap, marvel when wheels leave pavement,
watch the vehicle strike overdrive in the final turn,
bow tacitly and acknowledge
the value of lessons in
lift and drag.



Wanderlust: or, an appropriate stage
for a man of a certain age


At first: Consider it a mantra of cartography: explore. The word which implores the backlog of wanderlust in the blood, which ignores the undeniable pleasure in creating an heir, which could not begin to support for any length of time a foundation of principles or fathers, which navigates an upshot of neurons which precipitate this desire to leave behind.

When it is on the edge of heretofore: Consider it a privilege to know
the layout of a town like the veins of your hand wrapping around throats
of promise, by its particular apparition, its position in the rearview mirror.
A motorcar steadies the journey, allows for a companion, a valet who
will likely remain in your service into an understood bachelorhood,
provide a discreet manner for procuring other, more material pursuits.

At last, the final plea: Consider it a tenet of the cultured, the renowned to have an exit strategy complemented by the oldest demands of breeding,
the perfunctory obligation of a man, once young, please remember,
his mind westward, his pack atop an animal he domesticated.




These poems developed from a recent round of live-haul deliveries to Mississippi coupled with a month-long workshop of a poem-a-day at ITWS. As my husband and I drive to wherever those trout are needed, phrases and landscapes begin shaping, building the poems and I follow their lead to the end of the proverbial road. This work also sprang from a deep-seated fascination with Harley Earl and automobile marketing and engineering and my own particular brand of wistful at not having been one of the earliest explorers, a land speed barrier breaker, or another someone Gone Westward in modern America’s formative years. Plus, I can never turn down the offer of a getting into a vehicle, of going: anywhere, anyplace, anytime.