Poems by John Burgess

***

Palpitations

make my heart

beat irregular

take off

at crazy speed

murmur and stutter

slam against

my breath

beat me

wild drummer

skip and skip and skip

***

Re-entry

Like Apollo's capsule

the angle has to be right

A slant of light thru fogged goggles

exaggerates visionary tendencies

Sun spinning in syringe rituals

& everyone a Security guard 

Not all places signed

are signed correctly

In a circle beneath a streetlight

on the lawn beside the chapel

Epicene

2013.10.27

Our fathers and their fathers

what passes in the veins

brutality a blood bondage

always did look good in heels

to get at something common

dig around the root

indifference is symptomatic

Mr. Reed is dead

velvet can cause arousal

epic only comes in metal

***

 TEXT. THERMAL/CLARITY.

Always stand waiting vigilant at the edge. Patrol the border where light of conflagration and reason no longer reaches. Set camp at darkness. Look homeward for the durable unmet pattern of night. Say nothing. Cradle him. Circle his halo. Remember that meaning is in things you carry in your back pocket. Anticipate the full force of his open hand against your body. Be there when stumbling and mud-stomped the angelic makes his way toward light.

***

TEXT. B.

What once signaled the end of buffoonery has become a ritual of black wearing. Can emotions be provoked by a noun? Tripping dazed down confused hallways and expanding sidewalks. You remind me of her. The good moon that wanes fatigued. Her white-linen face blushed with deciduous imagination. You slouch. Once the recorder of lost incidents you can't name which morning sun you're remembering. You're a faker. And this is fiction.

TEXT. MEETING THE LIGHT.

You will come to love this land as much as I do. How hard it can be! Tolerance can't be taught. It's not about me, it never was. Subterranean isn't a state of mind here. It’s as big as myth or as real as any street name. It hardens thru repeated administrations like stacking stones or laying bricks. It's the reason for 12-packs and carryout. I see it in your face. There will be stories written someday.

***

TEXT. CLAMSHIELD.

The way she exhales as if growling or beating a cymbal. Using the leverage capabilities associated with screwdrivers to get at things. There is an opening and closing to each scene. Level 20 is required and its weight of 20 comes with 32 defense points. You are thinking about something practical not decorative. It's not sentimentality that makes me keep the cut-glass decanter on display. I will flatten my memories to the thickness of paper. Pleasure comes from seeing context for determining scale, you say. A dog sniffing for explosives at the Post. A biscuit.