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BlazeVOX [books]
presents
Cleaning the Mirror
by Joel Chace
Chace
(BlazeVOX , 2008)

 


partial birth aubade

tired after tearing you
from the lamppost
packed full and swelling
to turn dark and limp by the time
I put my rake away

trying to get away without recycling

I didn’t bury you

left you overnight on the rough brick path
hidden from the incubators on wheels
rushing through the twilit streets
of earth’s sweet pomander

next day at dawn
from that bruised green
one perfect white blossom

I watched
until the sun
terminated what I had begun

they’ve invented flowers without blossoms
for the partial-birth necropolis
but I haven’t been there yet

they say it’s a scarey place for gardeners


 

liturgy of the grey horse  

they said
when I was  flayed
a coat of dog’s tongues would be a comfort
thus my next rendez-vous
would be with sound castrated

cast off haggard palomino pallid rider

they said
whenever I took a journey
I should find a place
where I could die then only prowl
so knowing there are those
who visit the dead

and those whom the dead greet

they said
when you pay to see my gimcrack bones
to look for the prize in the cracker jack
but don’t regret
instructions that forbid
taking the heart’s pearl

or I would wander lost

and the pregnant flaps might never meet again



 


 

 

two poems

 

tree riesener