2-Part Serial Poem Dictated to Me by Jack Spicer’s Phantom Ape
1
The Boulevard is a wet mirror where I see
This prayer. I am a plague, this effort
To be, herding my bleating history,
Thinking about friends and ancestors.
It’s hard having fingers, thinking
In digits and haircuts. I know I’m really
As blank as the street is soiled with
Memory I disown and avow what’s left.
Oranges folded in their pulses go in their
Orange-ness but I’m a clump
Of false starts, living on contradiction.
Practice forgetting.
2
“Boulevard” is a word made of numbers.
Numbers are black and round, a plague
Extinguishing themselves. I touch their bleating
Roundness. They are
Not your friends. The word “Boulevard” is hard. It kicks
You out. Haircuts are not for you.
They are for your hair. You are soiled
By the hardness of words that disown
You and their numbers round as oranges
But black like a rubber inner-tube. A clump
Of numbers infests you and your living.
Your memories on this boulevard cannot
Help you. The specific is a plague.
Forget this bleating thingy-ness.
There are no thoughts or friends
To thank.
For ARD
Since you are a hermit
with time on her hands
it is incumbent upon you
to be producing letter bombs.
Let this crazy occasion overtake you:
a sleepwalking wave with its candle and many mansions.
I am sending you a shack in Montana,
let it become you and be
your candle, your cave, and your sexy
something to do.
Rich Cronshey is the author of several collections of poetry. He lives in Utah with his two kids, Rosie and Samadhi, and works for hospice. He is a member of the Otis Nebulla Literary Syndicate. Contact Rich on Facebook for more information about Otis Nebulla.
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