By CJ Sommerfeld, Staff Writer
We fight classy like the queen
fights her pneumonia:
whisper roughhoused by a quip,
taut face softened with a fist. —Robin Richardson
Have you ever brought a calathea
into your home just to watch it wither
like sweating when it’s 10 below, your jacket
too stout to put in the wash:
the onion aroma lingers, it only surfaces
after leaving home, unable to glean
expecting the night to bring diminished sevenths
but lusting for one major and jazzy
corrosive and dark: bromine
We fight class like the queen
Have you ever been pried
from your sleep by a kraken?
Reminders organized on top of chaos: Philip Glass
evidence of cracks in the meditative minimalism seeps
through, ascending like lava
in its rifts grow a begonia
or ten, robust and viscid
(you’ll see when you see) when we hasten
to the Templo Romano in Vic, Catalonia
fights her pneumonia:
Have you bought a lamp from the ether just to talk?
Or bartered to augment the interaction, could they tell?
The echoes reverberating the SRO’s dirty lath and plaster
walls are cable television, are the wealthy
this entertaining? In the alley I hear
her say “The cigarette is stuck to my lip!”
I reminisce the raindrops
putting-out mine, and wonder how they met. Attributed authorship
whisper roughhoused by a quip,
Have you ever wanted to Smithsonian Folkways?
Have you Smithsonian Folkways?
As hopeful as a half-diminished seventh
is it sanguine or death on the tracks?
The ethos of anthology
off the beaten path A-list
untouched soil, kissed
it could curve it could be curve if elsewhere
would alter V-vi deceptive, not yet dismissed
taut face softened with a fist.