Ten seconds in, you get lucky;
lilacs weren't in bushes though leaves were.
And they beat you always;
I was weak, you were one of the boys.
Early June and the trail;
in brief electric flurries, before
"It's eleven-thirty, Mr. Joe. I thought you might like a bowl of soup."
Reader, you can smell it;
it looks more like heaven.
Raspy "That was a bitch," thought she;
—fading out—mostly out.
Dachau? Breakfast in Beirut?
Damn!
To tell lies of the revolution
for its fitful burning.
Perfect pens questioning how police—
The waffles were sour
in the carpet of my brain.
You dry between;
as thunder.
Better Genesis than Poe. Better
cigarette burning in the ashtray.
Your pipe in the cool shade;
and now the dogs feel it.
The morning drifts by like the canvas of a sail;
the day you carried Nellman and Lisa into town,
scratching the wind with a stick.
Now that we've slipped back into our own skin, you sigh;
the ghost of my hand burning red against your wrist.
They whoop life loafers in a pay line,
like a blanket of musical moans.
The seed of an autumn sky;
watching my neighbor work on his car
I fall asleep in my lawn chair.
Darken if you must—
As they eat the reflections of their tongues;
the sound of metal and meat, a drum beat.
But in the geography of the skin's experience,
Morgenauisen biettles ut pa forstad toyet 7:35
(The morning paper unfolds on the 7:35 commuter).
Cumulus og nimbus som er vandret ned til Jorden,
(Cumulus and Nimbus that have wandered down to earth)
the street a black stream of ashes.
if ever there was a place to be, it is not here.
1955: James Dean does a TV Public Service Announcement about speeding.
looking at the grey veins of clay.
We use the same words as always
Vomit out Rome
The dead hump their backs
The jackals dancing round his coffin's flame.
Call it musing, dreaming, or call it sloth.
Listen to the author read it:
I am killing
myself
for a song
Never before
heard by me,
I lend it my soul
for an apologetic week.
I
give these
bones to the
ground on which
I walk.
To do these
things.
And you cannot
touch me.
Those fingerprints,
paragraphs
exchanged with
mine
are gone.
Memories no more,
no imprint
now left.
My lips form these
words—
uttered by you
incomparable.
Incestuous
beliefs. Your lover's
thoughts were
once mine.
Satisfying
nobody—
despite themselves.
"Compromise" and
"compatible" are false
ploys.
Ill reasons
they seek.
Many of them feel.
1 half
this much
better is not
that much
more.
A triangle
cannot
measure these thoughts.
Listen to the author read it:
Omar Azam constantly thinks about language. Sometimes he thinks without language. Sometimes he writes poetry that is a revolt against the conventions and constraints of language. Omar writes out of Chicago, Illinois.
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