FIVE POEMS
Politic
Nordic Cudgelhead
Pygal Shield
Sunned
Warped Speed
not a trace
of passage the head
from goes away
the air running over the stone
or dote, as was. its place
a leanient
soft
like parallel impart—
the braked seed, a pasted sum in your on—
what?
the sealed
tranquil half tranquil
tranquil. a blue bloat
in the jettisoned re-write.
blind. separate. dead. animal. place.
cud-monk in the given
row-row-row like a morphine-sized
rigamarole— the vest fits the missing
deathwatch, has all the trimmings, & slow boss-incised
bitter yet limber
beat-me-ups barricade the bot in the scissor—
that’s the feel good movie
that’s the barely stained low-fat brain
afterfeathering obverse
insectivorous pusher—
We’re crepidona—
wholemeal halfwits in the bunker silo’s
frontal sinus palate polojama
or else
jumpsuit, yet
the sighting mirror
centerspan
clogs the thongs & pumps welding
the refueling probe’s washing
counterweight to the cliff’s
pushbutton balaclava
fall up, orange in the grapeleaf, upper in the
upper lateral lobe
It’s a red solid arrow, run.
It’s a nice kitty kitty, meow.
It’s
the most air a fire’s thought twice, kind actual way
in us our
night.
But that’s not all.
Speech two also
is Sunned: Speech two goes like this:
The favorite worlds compose other favorite worlds
& disappear. Twice. A singing and humorous salt wound salve
which, boasting, sleeps in the blast
has spears on its boatlike head, runes for runes which misfire
like interests exposed
by a wound. Irregular skull-less new criteria, re-
burnt in an access to their quote efforts unquote. Yet the small lovely
sons are so obnoxious— unmotivated little snot-nosed snits all
bitchy with stupid initials & studs on their
commonplace proverbs, just really fuckin poetic as hell,
bombed-out Gumby boys what’ll we do what’ll we do
I think we shouldn’t do a damn thing, just
assay the drunktanks, deep in our wandlike, um, wands, waded
& cudgled & close to the neurosurgical resultants. A glue afire
is about right. Go-go ghosts ourselves why not them too? The
Sun she is not a ship, or cargo-hold —Stop sayin’ that!
It is a wonderful chance you’ve given me here to speak to you
in an artistic manner.
dissonant little dis-in-on-it
is a real lub-ya-upper, weaker than
the latter,
the former, gets a grope on a Polynesian Santa
feels good, like Being &
a certain hot arid, seemy
happenstance dance—
the most famous feel-good helicopters
tend to chew & chew & chew
's latest collection, Deed, was published by the University of Iowa Press in 2007. He is the author of Music or Honesty, Poèmes de l'araignée (France), In Memory of My Theories, The Boy Poems, Protective Immediacy, and New Mannerist Tricycle with Lisa Jarnot and Bill Luoma. A CD, Fear the Sky, came out from Narrow House Recordings in 2005. Smith's work has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies including Anthology of New (American) Poets, The Baffler, The Gertrude Stein Awards, Java, New American Writing, Open City, Poésie, Poetics Journal, Shenandoah, and The Washington Review. He edits Aerial magazine, publishes Edge Books, and manages Bridge Street Books in Washington, DC. Smith is also editing, with Peter Baker and Kaplan Harris, The Selected Letters of Robert Creeley for the University of California Press.