ONE OF FIVE, ONE BEFORE, GENERALITY, TANGENT

dancing on broken branches
(but I don't dance)
it didn't adapt-
or, adopt-
onus unknown, I
usually lose myself
(or at least, occasionally)
what I'm saying is
I wasn't very me
we weren't very we
people say passion
probably don't know

(don't lone alone
or together-
see that fruit?
completely confident)

comely pineapple
slow train below
segmented stop sign
sporting caffeine
with some shopping
(groceries, mostly)
wet, without rain
still without sun
green enough
still mostly gray

she seemed so plain
face heavily powdered
purchased- 
no, puckered - lips
perhaps she secretly sniffs cocaine
eyes heavily powdered
too thick to see into
freely forgotten, possibly a shame

people say apostrophe
people say slash
people sit on couches
and chairs and
watch television in pairs
and fall in love or
maybe just lust and
lay on couches and 
toss and tumble then
fight and fuss and
sit on couches watching
television with hate,
indifference, and maybe
not even lust and confused
feelings of necessity

making dinner
for a friend

SELF EXPRESSION OF A DANDELION

baby-
why haven't you forgotten?
my fate supposes
pre-supposes
all while dandelion crosses
dandelion.
smelt purloined,
grinningly;
came to me,
isomorphic education
included. teaching the
children antitheses
aposiopesis mis-
connected and op-
portunity. behind
with feeling and 
life and box matches
lit, all wind repented
by dusk today

COURTNEY BARNETT - DEPRESTON

You said we should look out further, I guess it wouldn't hurt us. We don't have to be around all these coffee shops. Now we've got that percolator, never made a latte greater. I'm saving twenty three dollars a week.

We drove to a house in Preston, we see police arresting a man with his hand in a bag. How's that for first impressions? This place seems depressing. It's a "California bungalow in a cul-de-sac."

It's got a lovely garden, a garage for two cars to park in ("or a lot of room for storage if you've just got one"). And it's going pretty cheap you say? "Well it's a deceased estate...aren't the pressed metal ceilings great?"

Then I see the handrails in the shower, a collection of those canisters for coffee, tea and flour, and a photo of a young man in a van in Vietnam.

And I can't think of floorboards anymore, whether the front room faces south or north, and I wonder what she bought it for.

(If you've got a spare half a million, you should knock it down and start rebuilding.)

LUNCH BREAK

preface

I'm working in this restaurant

if you can believe that.

half of my human interaction involves

(both) literal and metaphorical

lunch breaks.

1

on a lunch break, all are equal:

little totters, venerable veins a-walking,

suits with heels and hair grease,

overalls with those flat orange pencils

(are they sharpened the same way?)

and car grease, I presume. a minority

have humanity, their eyes like flint

being flinted reflecting something like

sanctity, and they see how things work.

2

now, how can this be made poetic?

3

I've got this friend

who has this boyfriend

who has this gun.

now I think being shot

could be something,

but not a good way to die.

also, I've got this date!

Auroras

by Joanna Klink
[it's magic]

It began in a foyer of evenings
The evenings left traces of glass in the trees
A book and a footpath we followed
Under throat-pipes of birds

We moved through a room of leaves
Thin streams of silver buried under our eyes
A field of white clover buried under our eyes
Or a river we stopped at to watch
The wind cross it, recross it

Room into room you paused
Where once on a stoop we leaned back
Talking late into daylight
The morning trees shook off twilight
Opening and closing our eyes auroras

Beyond groves and flora we followed a road
Dotted with polished brown bottles,
Scoured furrows, a wood emptied of trees

It was enough to hollow us out
The evenings left grasses half-wild at our feet
Branches with spaces for winds

The earth changes
The way we speak to each other has changed
As for a long while we stood in a hall full of exits
Listening for a landscape beyond us