Poems

from REGRESS

A way of making one’s way in the world
a little harder. You can get a sandwich there
at the price of your peripheral vision.
Goofing at the sharks, pops! —it gives
the drought some genealogy. Ideally this wouldn’t
function. Whoever mentioned that the slurp
of inheritance was drafted had another property than property.
Yodel at the risen dead. The family figs seemed a parable at their expense.
Not one net, but many, link and catch too. Turf made some snap: You’re
X. After the children go to landlord school, it’s iffy or not ‘til this is settled.

A question of with what to engage, and therefore how, given the areas of impotence, next to nothing but the facts pool in perspective, knocking about on set (sex) which the camera can’t touch. An argument: an attitude… clearly urged to overreport absolute position, bright pollutant identifies landscape with father… a problem I never had. Your words are also those you’ll never say, the ones you can’t hear without, i.e., keynote human disease, close ties, without fury, closed gas assets in case, common bond of gas kickoff, but fears launch economical loopholes. Loans bloom, sphinx the hidden news that doesn’t ask but only eats you who (not “I”) are the subject.

“Doubt’s
better than disbelief”
said the pretty face
in the Chevy window. As nuclear as they come.
An entire universe of feed lots
could not induce you to answer at the surface. Not
without the representative of the heart
or something. Whose little code
excludes your name. Blood rushes
into language, a spout of misplaced connections
called “arousal” in felt muscle. Arches
produce the illusion of depth
before the mirror.

Shadows imply a remove
from the endless ground. The music
is a recording, working in pairs
to prevent or ensure reflection. Old economy: all love
demands a plot... cinematic perspectives
on street signs easy to achieve
if you grouse a distance into existence.
All cases of “I didn’t know
(about the camp)” make a history (of) their own.
We accept your resignation, dashing
in the space. Unless:
what (gives)? graves? Talky shit.

Incomparable and intolerable go great with structures that unfold and refold in accordance with their elemental permutations, but chemistry is in error insofar as these things don’t just happen or just cause, whereas thoughtful build in an explanation gap and here’s a piece of information to spice the condescension or reverence detracts from, to my ear, florid buzz. And if the time in if-then passes away, why don’t you success me some? Led up to, the future made all this possible.

AN ALMOST

rattles against the morning a thick cup
a succession of nonpartisan enemies
pinch an earlobe each as code
for “I dream that I’m trying on dresses
in front of my mom and aunt,
and have forgotten to water the rhododendrons

larry has the lists
and maybe shoes without holes
or had them once,” a thick success
squashed desire to get it in
before the ceasefire or—here—rain
step away from the plate glass

and kiss me, exist in spite
of this, it confuses people to say no
meaning can resolve anxiety, while
I write this in a strange café
ends the poem, for you, for whom
I’ve decided not to audition

A STUPID POEM

Massing polyphonies
Co-encumbered
Light upon the laughing avenues:

Seven water-powered turbans
Advertise an ideal
Fuck
And in the coalescing orbit
Where the ideal father caught a chill
The jaws and johns tell again about
The intelligent and handsome colleague
Who can clam up at will
As follows:

Like real stars your hands always cease to amaze me
Those nine-pound hammers in a velvet frame
And these swift clouds and voices are knowable
Though perfect, unfortunately, like the click
That pierced the ear, arced to catch
The gist
Just as it sang behind the financial horizon
Along the rivers there are charges

The rest of this tells us
Something about the velvet frame
As the night diminishes how clear
The sound of your own voice:

Lead me to some pointless dance
He grow the golden crucifer

Andy Gricevich lives in Madison, Wisconsin, where he edits Cannot Exist magazine, and from which he often departs to perform with the chamber music / theater ensemble The Nonsense Company and the satirical cabaret duo The Prince Myshkins. His poems have appeared in a number of lovely online and print journals, most recently Moria, Pinstripe Fedora and EAOGH. Andy is uncomfortably writing this in the third person.