"Team Worked," "The Man in Charge," and "Temptation Deadbeats"

Team Worked

slim custodian panthers
hector the tentacle partnership
 
     from slow
                    to linear
 
         when a thanks rotisserie
         embeds straight shaking
         of the mariposa wrangle
 
the grim uranium threesome’s grit 
 
     substituted
 
               quark snitches
 
                         in the soundtrack
 
          parading 
 
                          a chained raincoat
 
                                                          in his make
 
                                   *
 
sunbeam cartographers 
slog through
                    buff legislation broadcasters
                                   above
                                the direct 
                               abstention
     normally                                     substituted
     hoisting                                      environments
 
                           to their poisoner
 
 
          the pork guard 
          ever the rupture mischief
          filtered the disease
 
markings fingered
sequential flay lathered
 
          to greenback painter
 
                  bottled finances nonstop
                   left their dreadful interjection
 
                             the lacquer handbill
 
                                        pinched a boundary 
 
                                   *
 
a recourse                                                               running
to pod contribution                   tonnage                  dustcart
uses binary                             maximum                renewed
                                                invective
        motorway                                                fiery                                 
             roars                                          in                  faded
                   sulfur            toward                tenements      
 
          the shipped drift
          voyagers in vent structure
 
                  disposals upend
                  the meandering catalyst maps
 
                            vacant travels
                            to the forward tentacle 
                             snicker 
 
                                          gray
 
                                    at the hector 
 
                                               protruding 
 
                                                       partnership

 


 

The Man in Charge

the demeanor
of a swollen dignity grater
swaggers 
                its velcro epithet
 
     bowed            strut
       legs              past
 
lines casting them a meaner present
 
     swollen with sir names
     stolen from the cheese 
     block scraping menace
 
          dead tomato parmesan 
 
                    its funeral for dessert
 
                      *
 
springs to life
as winter’s goldwave
 
                  rakes off the prophets
 
    cash first
           and                  only
 
                borrowed wisdom pertains
 
       to the heart-shredding rite
 
               on the night of the holy sun
 
                       death by unclocked solstice
 
                      *
 
seasons of darkness
borrowed forever on 
credit taken not paid
 
         the Aztec altar stained
         with a glut of the given
 
to prevent further disaster
from ever faster naming of victims 
 
           all taken
 
                          in stride
 
        and strut

 


 

Temptation Deadbeats

at the last cultural hollow
the divorce of collision motive
from a left-wing counter vaunt 
handed the ambiguity gone
to rupture fairway cactus
 
as glazed flamenco demons
toned their occlusion constables 
a brickading clockwork grenade
lost its wherever massage
while its password vitamin
delayed monument yearnings
 
the faded eyeballs encased
their phone-in simulacrum
 
fedora plumage toned to low
under their nominal radish
elision missing two handbags 
three dots and one pastel snapper
 
a dingo tempest plated to track 
their ebony figments required 
stoking before thorough bromide;
subterranean maladjustment
meant a lowered curve runner
speedboat pillage distension
 
certified thumbtack renunciations
react to the posh cowl peepshow

 

 

Vernon Frazer’s latest poetry collection is Memo from Alamut. He recommends the Poetry Project at St. Mark's.

 

Edited for Unlikely by Jonathan Penton, Editor-in-Chief
Last revised on Thursday, May 12, 2022 - 22:25