Untitled (21)

Fidgety children make dreadful poems.
I could grab them by their tongues and yank.
Slimy noses, plain senses:
Any spance is mischeif to squeen.

It was Jimmy Limmek, long before James or just Jim, who was
All feet and tongue.
"She's a rabies baby!"
He said to a pink carriage, but somehow addressed me.
some frothy squinted infant
quite peaceful

But his shoes- his shoes interrupted:
The color of playgrounds.
My fists grew hair just looking at them, so
I asked him if they were new
(just to keep his mouth shut)
He must not have heard me.

ACH! MEIN KOPF!
So many tongues!

Matt Jones

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A pitch of sky that
Shines with deep shadow
Grows to comfort, to
Allow renewal,
Shifting in color
And cold. She- and this
I can call her, for
(like most things) she is
All I have learned of
Endearment- winks with

A slow smile, incredulous
And carnal.

By twilight she congeals,
Dark and wet in lunar
Cool- groping tree tops,
Suffused in street lamps lit
Mostly for moths, seething
Crowds, boil of fire flight-
And I become nothing
More that a reaction

To speckled sky
And weathered resin
To disson(exist)ance.

Matt Jones

April, 2000 edition