Tuesday poem #488 : Micah Ballard : LUCIFERIAN LONDON

 

 

 

The 17th century
Sun King shows up with evening
pumps available for extra footy
For the benefit of mouths
the opening kill is lost
such a promising tutelary magus
Crowd pleaser, provocateur, camped out and salacious
perp walking the melee
to dress down beauty. In the throne room
I track numbers and raids
& provide adequate hooks without analytical fuss
All the hulking purveyors
suggest exasperation
but they’re farmed out to mostly
Disposed to multiple personalities
all I have to do is blink
or swallow and at the right time
& can be any of them

 

 

 

Micah Ballard [photo credit: Lorca Ballard] is the author of over a dozen books of poetry including Waifs and Strays (City Lights Books), Afterlives (Bootstrap Press), The Michaux Notebook (FMSBW), Parish Krewes (Bootstrap Press), Selected Prose, 2008-19 (Blue Press), Evangeline Downs (Ugly Duckling Presse), Daily Vigs (Bird & Beckett Books), Vesper Chimes (Gas Meter), and Negative Capability in the Verse of John Wieners (Bootstrap Press). He also recently co-edited G U E S T #21 : Castle Guestskull (above/ground press, 2022) with Garrett Caples. He lives in San Francisco with poet Sunnylyn Thibodeaux and their daughter Lorca. 

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan