tractor of my sore throat
///
sing
///
tractor of my
weird ass light head
because pissin diesel exhaust
since half the hotshot world war 2
pilots’ blown vegetable caulked hearts rang the
bell in the bloody bucket can only swim and
foam some sideways silence and foam with a
crimped little fizz loop the loop boys fly to
sweden fall in love for the days
///
eye of my eye sing scale
of my scale
///
there she sits a
broadcast manifest sits the center but with no
real list to ‘er
///
reader beaver bailey care to itch yr
bloomin
hive rash on the wall til
she falls
///
eye of my eye
scale of my scale sing
///
one war stone tree diet giaxnt’s crap solid as
that
///
400 gas start 1956 diesel farm-all tractor
humped up too near nowhere to be shut right
///
where’s yr outbuilding for things like that
///
where’s virgil to u rah rah all the reed rash out
///
where’s theocritus to knead the knots from yr flesh
the little pine pine spiders from yr flesh the sabertooth starlet’s dimples the tornado
pressin down on old calico lake the
little slipknots musked by paddles into the longest face of the river
///
whatever it is you do when doing
go and tassel a little time to the top a
little breakdown time
///
grape that pea if ya know what i mean
///
friable affirms the firm
castigatory artery
aerial vim
zip that
///
unseasonal sudden and still it’s a
professor of weathers she’s one
stalwart wart
all in apocalypse gesture
she’s a dinosaur she’s a dynamo
carbuncular turncoat
graced with cyst names
///
trust it this
i ask you sing it cuz
maybe i know the beauty
foghorn better than
black ink this is my breath
everything really
///
inside the dark song
cardboard bugspray fires them
secret seeds
one shaky answer arrogant
yarrow
of tomorrow you are it
the future fulsome head
trust it the world to
miss the point that
digs to sign
they will say he must have something
something to sell i do it is a rotten balloon
above where children are and playing the tree
///
of balloons of breath their given puissance
///
to reckon circumference you must first trust against mechanical means
///
uncommon movements and no gloves
generous blisters then
offer unseeing eyes of legitimate water
///
and who will slake tell whom to sew the mouth shut
///
not like the country much like the man
///
the puritan bodice spent sing
///
mama mouse
one blade at a time
a tar hide tire to cling to
one blade then one stalk up up a chaff at
the tank
was blown in a
wire chewed
a winter’s nest
the teeth of time
can’ t be much different how it
all bends
talkin stalkin
the common prayer save
yrself
///
what’s that?
brevity stretch please cant
shittin starter’s shorted so bypass it
///
sing river of flesh in a man’s back remembers the
turbid bled and floe the jostle
of the mechanical bull it is the land
once turned once tipped gets recast as sea it’s one
big bay coy oat cove sculpture
its furrows about to crest to crest
just some old out of breath
ox acre at rest in
the rheumy eyes of octopi
///
the shittin pigeon the shittin gull no the obviator albatross
///
have you seen a father carry a newborn into the sea? first time
for every sacrifice dreamed
but you have seen a farmer walk a newly tipped field staggers
yr swaggers
in times it takes to break the free toy
///
sing the hawk the fish the crow the fish the bobolink the fish
///
can afford to fly like
yr dead
when what yr after is dead
buzzard
but hawk spends
to fly deeds the wind a life
perhaps an aero boat
pace just this side of oblivion
perhaps a beauty in the year 19 & 60
starboard elbow propped
trails a toe
///
and you ride a deeper dear and smoky whale a
never quitter there her rare old beak
time laughs at no laughs at time smokestack laughs crude boil
fallen in forest jellied by time
and blown to smithereens up the
chuffing stack
///
some guys post exhaust pipe rust out
when they’ ve suffered enough facesmoke when
the dry cave at the back of the back gets licked
gets kicked by facesmoke
some guys they’ ll just put a length of pipe so long
as it clears the limbs and sheds
they’ ll just put a pipe guys will and
///
let ‘er smoke ring a crow
wobbles final there beyond the
so called reach of man
///
and what’s a manmouth
but an animated and sputtering fossil but a
diesel glitch all those days
///
and you are the one
when the masthead breaks
for chance at twice the brandy
agreed to be tied there
and what you have seen none
have seen
dark spots dark s
pots
fires for brain
fires for urgency
for hungry for urgency and
blacked by depth’s iron nests in what
sometimes seemed
a ceaseless acrobatics
of storm clouds plunged under
and circling and hurled and bent and beat and chasing
///
those rocking and whirling hours
those yawing gape east years
__________________________________
From Destruction of Man. Used with permission of Third Man Books. Copyright © 2018 by Abraham Smith.
