wash
your face before dawn
with
water poured
in
your palm from a plastic bottle
let
the sun drink from your face
as
it climbs the sky
grant
it this small release from thirst
so
when its heat turns cruel at noon
and
flays every crawling thing,
it
will remember you
and
grant you the kindness
of
shade
the
Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan
when converted to film, my wasps darted
a portcullis on unwatched
tongues and like leeches, leaned into a
palm of miniature locks that purged
photons
reminiscent of the data structure of
hovering
arroyos, though it was an aspect of a
dog licking the tender hairs;
nonetheless
those dim sweltering lightbulbs, like
deer, sitting in a one-
dimensional locus alongside a dog with
trench
mouth, could not muff
the most basic of paradoxes and thus
were the ligamental of
that mother of the morning who had
awoken a clairvoyant and, gleaning
the hearse, had quit her job in the vizard of foaming
stumps.
His first chapbook, A Strange Hospital, was published as a Proper Tales Press. His chapbook, Gravitynipplemilkplanet Anthroposcenesters, was published by above/ground press. This along with the two Serif of Nottingham chapbooks (Birds are the birthmarks of flight and Throat Fixtures: The Almanack of Dazzle) are collaborations with Gary Barwin. He has a forthcoming mini chapbook on Blasted Tree Press.
His collaborative collection of poems written with Gary Barwin, A Cemetery for Holes, is available from Gordon Hill Press.
the Tuesday poem is curated by robmclennan
Glancing toward the sources of wisdom
I could just glimpse the back of my mind
drifting off into the distance
maybe catch it on its way back around
it was only then
your past lost its predictability
darkness opened onto a wet body
I’m taking in later for repairs
the skin of a human being like that of a ripe fruit
when pierced
leaks saturated sweetness
whose presence cohabits with D—th
and feeds you enough words to talk with
to update our situation with reckless accuracy
