AGAINST THE DAY
air-filled
spaced apart like angels
stuck in a room
trapped in a season
we
take flight from our minds
on soft blue currents
traveling through windows
above the buildings
riding waves
of sighs
and lost love
not yet recognizing
this arc is lust
denied
then slowly built inside
until we can not stand the weight
o! carpetbaggers! teach me your ways!
bring me back to canvas
so that I may recapture the colors
I’ve languished
that have gone away
faded
in the low winter sun
let me warm myself
once again
so instead of this aery nothing
we resume falling
INVENTORY
The rosy future
featured in a furniture catalog
you brought inside
from the rain. What whoopee,
these discounts:
flower pots and cabinets,
vacuums
and vampire repellent,
with a little smiley face
by the price
so you don’t feel so bad
emptying your checking account.
In the garden of now
I can’t see the gables
we planted
when this began. I don’t feel
like honesty, not at this moment.
Who wants to acquiesce
to the gun’s request?
I smashed him,
that person I once was.
Buried him in the field
behind the house.
The sound of church bells ringing.
A cuckoo formula, this.
Don’t you find everybody –
at least, recently – quite nuts?
Like the dead squirrels
that litter the street,
we learn to pay for our ripeness,
never once wondering
why the trees we see overhead
block our view of Heaven.
M.A.D.
Tone-deaf flailing
down the dairy aisle,
picture-perfect postcard
gone to seed, pinching
soothing yogurts
to settle the stomach,
go to sleep.
O!
showboat. Swift memory gone stale,
questioning tics, mentioning nothing,
sabotaging the masquerade
by not coming. Bill? He’s gone away,
back to Buffalo
where the nameplates are frozen,
and the sun shines the same
as it does in Crimea, showing
that we all
suffer and prosper together,
lame as horses,
our dreams like broken legs,
bodies heaving on the tile,
just asking to be shot.
Jack is a queer writer and visual artist living in Brooklyn, NY. His prose and poetry can be found / is forthcoming in BODEGA, JAKE, GHOST CITY REVIEW, and WHISKEY TIT.