By: Liam Knox
sometimes, words write themselves
when the mind zeros in at odd tired hours,
temporal, transient moments of clarity
before it’s back to basics, back to baseness,
back to the tea-kettle tang of life.
but
when the reverie fades
to scattered pieces of a bigger picture,
scour them!
pin them to oblivion like a cork board
strings and all, squinting, head tilting
to find the best angle, get it untangled
till only the realest things fit in frame
like throngs of workers with upraised fists
like feather-splinters in downy pillows
like steam rising from your coffee in frosty fall sunlight
like latticed light streaming through to the wall
as dusk forms mercurial colloids of cloud and sky
casting Coca Cola daydreams over tufted rooftops
and tobacco-dusted pages of scribbled poetry
while the humming of the world, a sad summer song
shimmering lightly,
calls out your name.
sometimes words come charlie parker
unevenly weighted like a mad, swinging compass,
pulled top-heavy and subconscious to
the poem’s home, where it’s meant to be—
that spot on the back you can’t quite reach,
that light in the distance you can’t quite see.
Future Histories 