IN THE OLD DAYS owl ol mr moon face
was constipated on a sockdrawer
stuffed full of dreamers
to read the land with lake of ice eyes
o eyes by ides flare like fire in snow
the feathers by degrees lose the sound of sitting wind
quickest trip to lovely lonely i guess is eating heads guess is eating heads
monogamous diarist of skull that's a mouthful
finger that pellet out playing wordsworth
the sharps there the skull there
the burped whirled wool
tight around the fur
the bone surprising
the gullet spun fur just as
tame as the 'docile' to rules
to the touch as a broke-down smear-color spoken to wind and i quote
tall den to stand in while small birds bird up begin
death is death is white and free for few
chicken heads baby duck heads hare heads where
look
look not at the chopping block look
not at that chicken whack neck hatchet hanging on a nail from the pine for the yellow inward
neck meat goo
no vermillion spouting bird
gone slash wean ye 17 year olds
nursemaids shan't take ya 4 a calcium twirl a spall
a secondhand nasty sex
in a pile of laundry coins spinnin
holy preceptor scarab parrot's leaky port
to run and to spurt some magical downhill magnetism to earth
anyway the feet too light to make a quit with carry
by now you get what i would not
be present for pressing mine face
into the hanging shirts on the rack
until the buttons hurt me
so it goes with the sensitive of eye
eyes two jelly cysts sent north by the heart
when the cluck hatchet is clean as a top 40 hit in 1959
when the whack 'em off stump block see has no fresh pine sap upswelling from a chop mark chit dive
oozy and pooling to mix with and brown out a darker redder
when the people all crazy if anything of a hunger for anything they've raised
to wait around for death by the hand that feeds ya
heedless walk these limp headless to the swamp to throw
something evil some evil in it to it
ooh barely crack the egg of the eye to look right to peeper-whisk the snow's grey lips it's right sense right to marten or weasel posit but well no nothing landy seemed tried a drag says the punctureless butcher paper clean crusts of dandelion fluff esque snow
for the kids this coiffed translation wise owl big head
ho ho yr lonely as a hole no dumptruck to prig in or turn yr head all the way for the stranger has a metal peepee its cutting edge like fire or eyes as crinkle billow bags the proverbial kid in the bubble touch him once and he'll be dyin dyin or dead
ol owl like a buncha ol flapper hats thrown at a church sign at a buffet belly
somewhere lordy uno pliant bookshelf folding in
sing it with me lullaby gauze cent
cannibalism wisdom
every o in hooot a hunted head
a swallowed brainbox
just think floresces
in genii mechanically
that guy you know him what
can throw the ball neat and tight
could clip the yearn fin off
whose hand through his own hair lakes a score
power bale opera got milk
thru the vague governmental vents meant to crawl
to save dame-alicious is the promise of the networked world
bruce and bruce
takers beggars chew lures
he was the camaro vampire
gassed he sat on the bench and drank sugar water
the padding for his hips bumping out of his gleamin
touchdown britches joke foam commandment tabs
yawn fiddle with the radio while they blow him
spoke thick not light stones at mud
man that truck'll frick a froth through that
was borin as the outside of a fridge
on national go-to-town-magnet day
still they threw themselves on him still
baby it was all in his bull calf leg
and those walnut artless eyes borrowed from animals full of teeth for breaking
other animals did really really mighty really get and take and hard
also the dweeb
the kick me paper
tacked to his ass kick
lack pant chancery
did swear on a stack of blur goat pix of gaggin weevils
too hot pants'd with mr whoosh whoosh hey hay
wasn't anything not dead didn't chum with that sneak captain
of the soundless zoom
the demented kid ate snot in his spaghetti at lunch
shared love-you notes ever
bodice lover outta metal hangers in a ouchy lightnin porn
the gal with the fruit gum whose wrists were flammable
the gal and guy who won every spelling bee
looked like they combed their hair with kittens too
for that's one fallow fellow
tell it by his slant hat
and candywrapper eyes
lives down on seeing street
even the bus driver up since 4 for milkin cows leaning on a pine
hear the pine slough click is
working a temperature of
a word toothpick
through his front row
man how that mini timber dances frisks freaks dances
loved to jabber engines
loves to lean in to the waist on a car
on a saturday before noon
when the grass is wet
and the world is filled
with gorgeous excuses
for stillness with owl
for stillness with owl
the daymoon skull
the carburetor cleaned
try and start 'er and see if she's
okay mash on that gas a little
IN THE OLD DAYS the hawk
was a born again bread board flyin
some stone powerpole cauterize
austerity brain hair
two gift-careful fingers
a finger and a thumb
in the gift posture
and placing those against the peaked bow head
of flame
to tear
the fire open
ssccrree
it is a brown blood bread a-flying
it is a board it is a bad dad river believer valve for the sea
because the rain hurt him and the sun hurt him
he went on and moved like every natural sound
was from a mouth out to get him
people he hid from long enough to run enough
liquid through himself
roust all the flood junk out again
dead bloat cow unnatural
you'd go in the barn and all the brothers
would be sittin on their own case of brew
their faces raw meat with the cords working
in their necks with the bodies probably guzzling blood up out of the toes
until to walk was an entertainment of the sea
comin tru lease i hink i
bloat cow comin thru flood wrack
kid'd knife it and touch a match lit
to the gashed hole a stream
of flame a beautiful
a tree ain't a tree until
it hosts a nest
it's only doin half its livin
til it's like okay
pee tong node
not a person a person until a story
broken cradles in there
soul
it is one summer long tine ago now
by long ago try everything was localish
and when you went to lift it heavy
sun high in sky worth whistling
a fried egg a little running a little straight overhead
then everything goes solid in the boy
like egg exposed to heat
for the father is a flame and
the son freezes in his father's heat a little more
and the son is told to do as he has done before
to put his hands to the red barn
so the son puts his hands to the red barn
the careful son carefuls after all the splinters
takes great care his hands to the red barn
and he's a while in his arrival the father
muttering is throwing in there a little
and the father a flame
so it's strange when wood stands him
bit then it's like he was never away or far
back he's whack whacking the son's
back with a 2x4 whack whacking his son's back
with a 2x4 the wood will break
before the son will
the sun will the burn will the barn will
trying silence as it falls
through a fly barn out of doors glitzy juicy nothing
louder than one broke board planer
when it finally hints ground
that that must be the throat of a tree root
loose last from leathered harnesses of sap and water
suncrack
sun a cloud over god's maze? rain the sun
shaving a destiny? a dynasty? every loud a quiet board?
all those filial chemical goading his heels?
so the walking wounded? get off easy?
for pissing in every creek fort you love?
if a wound is something thinkable over?
then to pass 'er on the dipthong mange?
if a certain story is getting pissed on the head? but if you could
do the dog shake long enough to spit clean dry?
i guess i am pretty sure him and his old man cry at random normal movie moments together in a bottle full of grief dust in a ditch by the moaning metal strangers forever
for ever and ever
or til the bobcats
in pouncing stanza
for millennia
tame down
sufficient for milkin
yes least til then
Abraham Smith has published three full-length poetry collections. Smith is the recipient of grants and fellowships from University of Wisconsin, University of Alabama, Alabama State Council on the Arts, and the Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown, MA. His experience as an educator, writer, performer, and community arts organizer has provided him with invaluable insight into the writings of America.