Author: David Wright

CIVIC arena, fight night, a fidgety crowd fizzing perhaps for
KO A LA Joe Louis, or twelve bruising rounds. What they want
STINTs mildness, stints meekness. They want Mars,
RARER deity of the tamer now, to restore warriors vying for glory.

CONIC hat, dunce’s cap, worn in corner. As student, always last, the
OMEGA,
CADET who seems destined for puniness.
CANNY strategist begins early: force them into deadly underestimation.

RIVETed, the listeners sit around the fire.
CREAKing tree limbs, teller’s voice the only sounds. Tale:
CACHE of gold, three weeks’ journey. Dreams flare in their hearts.
CHILLs as teller states: none have returned from trying. Each thinks: Am I the exception?”

DRAFT of letter written.
JERKY breaths now. Get a grip for the edits.
DOZEN stray thoughts, weight of time increasing as days tick closer to zero.
BLINK, breathe: try to do the last things well.

EXIST, professed, in cauldron’s roiling brew, atoms colliding, yet
FLAIR for story, most days, has you weave sense, narrative, purpose.
TAROT’s a glitch, a wobble in your views, a hope some kind of providence is there to read.
TRUST your nihilistic cosmos, dismiss your intuition of sense. Or: invert that order and seek order?

CLEAT lassoed, I tie up the skiff,
BLESS the water, bless the land, bless
TODAY. Here’s to the slowness, to the
CONCH on the beach, to the sun, to a taste of Eden unbarred.

PROSE, epiphenomenal to writing and records of writing,
LEACHing some of words’ power: words need no longer sing in memory.
FLUTE’s melodic line, soaring, embellished, singular to the mind, vs.
FOLIO, numbered pages, going on, long form, the certainty of an archive replacing song.