"Policed Navidad," "Other Than," and "Three Sounds to Noise"
Policed Navidad
a phylum enchilada
portable as a decibel numeric
recurrent phobia ladder
clawed envy registers the first time
no bone left
to gnaw or resist
the hefty clatter its volume
chews padding into noise pits
the bitten avocado
against the pierced
audiophile’s rhetoric
displaced orchestral
*
taxonomic envy breeds
more amniotic competitors
an early start
on the count
dermal charge coming
a minced blessing
include entourage
burrito register
lowers its octave hatch
a cadaver bargain
for the pinata breaking
the crack
an audilbe upward count
the pitch
a tuning fork
would mutter
crushed meat
off the scale
no presence left attuned to play
Other Than
casually armed
moochers crossed mariposa ghosts
an assassin family
intrepid If aching
scuttle across a dry desert
where a stunt bus
scripted its emotional detractor
glad to be foreskin
easing pulleys
( )
just shakes wherever
jackal workings edify
its filter runs handed
lightweight workdays
resuscitator will vary
empty coping amply
while dockyard envoys recede
( )
cadge a drinking mirage
delivering return catalogue
to a lightweight debutante
learned
the low valance of snatching
resuscitator purr
more other than
disqualified
( )
a fresher turban
quizzical
learns other
although air droop turns
radicals handed to the patriarch
a sorry ramp glaze
inquisitor choirmasters
worked the undercarriage
Three Sounds to Noise
hospital fingers
a latent horizon in gloves
mask the scan
cast the sound, no ear
the music
a sound machine
in tune
no motor lesson
thumbs can listen to
( )
as embedded or matching
the leveled consequences
verbatim
to the naked touch
a lingering hostility
felt their screening
fingering to leather
a scratching tone
( )
the bite uncertain
as the poking finger tipped
over
the certain
tea host
a spike in the cup accrued
glass pitch crashing
through soft ballads
the night foregone for
gotten
off-key
Vernon Frazer’s latest poetry collection is Voyage in Port. He recommends the Poetry Project at St. Mark's.