A charming relaxation discovers the
end of endings: there was no epilogue
on the way anyway. Straight to the foot
notes with both feet, ending on every
page with a tiny number and the whole
point of all this text. Parenthetical, but
far from the hypothetical. This is reality,
demanding an exclamation, not quite
supplying the mark. Oh, utility, a frame
work without the tame gnarls that name
wills to powers. Saved power plays battery,
pretending to last. Beyond these false firsts,
one asks who's second. As a sentence, in this
case. Longer and longer lines have fewer and
fewer spines. Each lean backs up to the green
fountain, a chowdery hand whose clams make
no extra bones about sitting down. As always,
the idiom is shyer than this dryer day, un
laundered. We squandered this togetherness
on tenses, future and past. The now can be
cowed, thought it will never move. This
present chews its cud and cannot fit in a
stocking, whether or not feet avail in
inventory. Beef is a euphemism for blood,
bad and otherwise. It's a rare thing to bring
one self into booted, strapped, vehicular
motionlessness. Say cheese if you're churning,
burning the second person with a viewfinder
that pretends to be a camera (a picture of the
razor's edge as unattainable as usual). Some
poems make their bones sans skeleton, be
coming floppy as they stride down-page, ram
paging like a he-sheep, keeping the music
as loud as the ewes will handle. Light this
poem like a candle and it will be Roman,
striking anything that happens to be a
head. Minds made mind up in order to
argue for theories of bind. Is this
language bound to continue? I think
not. One charioteer to another,
this action is anachronistic under so
called heaven, dash-free. Salting fields,
however, never goes out of fashion. Able,
shoddy meadows sprint toward bee season,
being reasons in themselves for not trying
to be used or useful. All uses become venge
full, given sufficient crime and enough near-port
manteau. Let these words fall apart into com
pounds, little grounders, as uncatchable as
a bouncing baby koi. Or, don't catch that,
these fish wish to remain as free as a pond
allows. Scum of the dearth, those are the
keepers, not even enough moisture to
develop mold, not old enough to envelop
a cold mountainside, a bold uncounted
sum, a sagebrush pillow too close to the
rattlesnake teeth, the marmot children,
and the anthropomorphic spikes of an
unfriendly caterpillar plant. Too much
yellow and steel to even be stolen. Too
many simple verbs to enable another
series of words. The absurd girds its
elf for myth, lettering the shelf with
lobes, ear and other wise. Oh, speaking
with sages won't happen, these plants
are silence. Rosemary treatment is brat
worse than mispronunciation. Scents
denounce enunciation until those
previous cows come home. Roam
only as far as the clock's hands are
allowed to go, before they have
to wash up and sit down for dinner.
Roman Ryan 