So far it’s been a month of spring. I’m realizing that of the things that wake florally up, most don’t get to stay up for that long, frost pruning those bold ones that break ground too soon. It’s sad, especially with the weather being so increasingly unpredictable, to see the little green tips that wager on a warm day in late February. I guess it’s like the frog or mosquito strategy at laying eggs: send as many shoots into the realm of the living, and nurture only those emissaries that report back. But what about those that don’t? Where are they commemorated?
I’ll Pick Which
by Rob Rice
Passing him, him not interested in looking at me is
in me forever
off packaging life turnaround
People gave up known people
known open gnashing maw
now they’re feeder cells
Sea beads populate a Ferris wheel
a chill induced in-folding fern bud
pockets dew
…
When you suspect through supplied theatre
the street
as it is
the people
as they are
without with what
you made them more than
Space and
Movement
and Mark
…
I would never be happy if I didn’t think of myself
in ways I
haven’t
earned
so manipulation
means making
them think
you think
of them
the way
they hope that they’re thought of
…
Is the size of the town’s graveyard
a credential
a breast of military metals
a flashed badge
a fake one
The smaller the town the longer the obit
the more dedicated Death of one man’s hero
seems like permission
to save the world
if not to slush it
…
My own synesthesia meets the man
brings me face to face me
It bends around the right few things
and acquaints us
Blood-based
nested intentions
tune humiliate rather
than procreate
…
Blame my scattered interest tines
that like Braille
are tactile agents of change
responsible
substrates that mill
Dripping seamy invasions
of private space
sensitive thin skin
her inner forearm
salamanderous
affectation involves it in a gesture so
intentionally his affection’s a freezer full
of steak fat clippings
…
Devil matter spans material like film
and becomes projection
while no less faithful a record
…
Rigid phase walkers pass through brambles
Brushed aside they’re
leaving stories of their own on that forearm
its etchings are three-dimensionally
deep maps
Clue engineers in there
allowing them to back-solve the structures:
a simple nature
…
I’m let down when you’re like me
when I realize the smoke is
of what’s just like the mirror
I train myself
blindfolded to sit in my room smelling
bombs Tell me what to fear
faces made bizarre by makeup
startle mine as they turn
to register it
…
Chest used like the beauty of consent
from tree to future canoe
Hollowed out with tools the anthropologists are grabbing
out of our hands to stick in museums
My heart and lung gore still riddling one
solid and trusted handle
brings new hope for purchase and center placement
Where fat older brothers point it out
Though they haven’t been much for the other pieces
this one has something to it
something it took
