2 new poems by geraldine mckenzie: Behind the lines and babble.


Behind the lines


. What changes.

. Shut in her room.

. Every weather in a day, drops down.

. Fires through summer, some see.

. Wanting to be useful.

. Green’s grace. Misgivings.

. Too much counting. On. Upon.

. The bad bargain. The risky purchase. The sly customer.

. Grunt gravel and grope, more master more.

. What’ll the sky look like?

. Imagining, a big mistake.

. Barely beauty.

. Private drought repays election.

. All around the world.

. Come home, the stones return.

. Others’ sons.

. Rot, boss. Feed flame a vicious life.

. Dull rooms, child wane, paying.

. Empty, will empire.

. It’s never enough.

. The future chunders down the street. A decision.

. Your arm brushes mine in passing, hairs bright the new.

. In this shelter, none.

. News knots, nausea, nervous historic. More of the same.

. Fair word, be word and held to.

. Writing small, we should be saving up.

. What shape, war forming.

. Blue tile replace, blue tile.

. Songs that have settle into sorrow, old pool, seems like shared.

. My hand.

. Children. Concentrate.

. Coming too soon.

. Mixed messages. A prohibition against a view. Their bodies.

. Fire works. The loop. Howl down moon for mad upon us.

. Eyes moving, one side, other. Says Texas. What could be the right answer.

. All of a sudden everything seems so important. Who’s good at this.

. The garden, the revelation. Come again.

. Nothing new.

. They ran out of anaesthetics and had to use a local, injected every 5 minutes.

. Wanton gone. With the wind. Some cowboy courtesy.

. Over and over again.

. He said, brandishing his weapon.

. Not so newsy now.

. Appreciation for services rendered. Parades parameters of theatre. Encore, encore.

. One up.


~~~~~~~~~

babble


the motor hums

bleat tunes awry

herd at windows in the city
streets shuddering under
the weight of melancholy white folk
earnestly metaphorical
living in tyrantslation

the summer clips and strokes
broaching the surface
too far out to sea to save

destination’s moot

they return to their desks
brown heart adrift between us
statement stultifies
but stakes out, fakes outrage at the appropriate moment

belief’s a long stretch
life sentence and they’re turned away at the gates

fuckinawful fabuloso
nothing seems
quite right

our portion title place
history and repeating

unregenerate
clip and stagger
good for a shout
shoulders a world well off

mired in the clog the necessary
punishment squared and in detail

for singing
for talking back
for failing in the exercise of a realistic appraisal of one’s position

crumbling sandstone
under the overseer’s whip
a dog licks the smeary stand, ants
carrying off shreds of flesh

looking up
you can’t see past the dazzle