"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 Voyage in Port. He recommends the Poetry Project at St. Mark's.