a red arrow shows where you should be but aren’t
you see two sparrows the brown of wet rope
then they disappear w/in a background
that looks like wrapping paper for an uncertain day
the black sky sags beneath all you have asked of it
some of the clouds seem gaseous & some not
one given to thunder & another to silence
a wall of grass is nearly eye-tall & yellowy
but you only report on the cut on your thumb
the blood partnering w/your other sorrows
you now see the white under-wing of one sparrow
in a way it seems apt & in a way it seems passé
this pet-analogy or worse trope you don’t want any part
american health scare
from the desk of the med-rep: are we more
tamed by form or the inability to be content?
high strung as a tiger I thought about toughing it out
instead succumbing to a time out & an emotional comb-over
if the umbilical cord reattachment doesn’t pan out
find more great deals on brain surgery here
I volunteer to be neutered for the case study’s sake
later talking up the scar as they’re dusting around me
creation-wise there is much less to solve
vowels air-born & consonants mercifully re-filled
my boss recorded my sobbing in the break room
no more decorating or bringing in brownies for the 4th
epistle to Goethe
I keep changing
the way I do this
thing w/my hands
like I’m old Werther
astonished by his age
spots & top-heavy head
his teen-loneliness
filling him in so aptly
on the rest of his life--
o how living’s the rage now
if only you had known
this so long ago
so-
(i.) so
is art
the inescapable
separation from
that thing we’re most rapt
not given to parting w/
or some past
that is strapped
for those memories
we were either a part of
or have set our self a trap
(ii.) what?!?
seeing is light forced to take
flight from what is way
too obvious at our core
& poetry its opposite
Mark DeCarteret’s 7th book lesser case was just published by Nixes Mate.