Sunday, June 5, 2022

Micah Ballard : Five poems

 

 

 

 

 

CHILDREN OF THE NEW DAWN


Very fentanyl

half a face, the other
diffused of light. Very Avedon

or Penati, a little Modigliani
& off balance. Laughing gas under suspicion

cracking a nail on your zipper
Everything I do is underneath. Cocky, shy

competent and amazingly contradicting
So many poetry snipers

toying around to get even. The old breed
chagrinned into temporary sedation

Very solicitous types
pretty dingy right up to

 

 

 

LAST LINES
 

A guest of a guest of a guest
I include myself only in spirit to own the invisible
for us solicitous types

it's the first step towards vanishing
& a wondrous curse of necessity

intercepting conversations, swallowing all the jewels
ignoring misgivings to see what happens

Intrigue is not your forte, unfortunately it's mine
feral Micah of the many myths

a degenerate potente clouded
by irritating dark drapes and a discovery of accidents

with cardboard launch ramps
& fingernails painted gold, ornamental to the quest

 

 

 

RUN THE NAMES 


Stacking clips

for the viper room changes
from who you are to what you’re doing instead

Flush me out into the open and make a scene of it
prior to being bumped

I preferred celebrity over secrecy too
Having an aptitude for descent never a question

keep the pretenses and be the venue
The windows stay open to allow materialization

All the fabricated hype winds up
dressing down the bravado

& gets stingy with trust like we all do
The idea is to have a way out

& remain a discovery of accidents
whose rhythms of being

are a substratum of unused possibility
Not to enshrine the heist

an interesting life can mean
a greater refund

 

 

BETWEEN VAST NEGOTIATIONS

Extravagant
grotesquerie waiflike
clairvoyant prosecuted for dreams

cribbing forms into party games
suffering spells of neglect

owing to intimidation to taunt
the grim reaper and put the fun in funeral

the surrender a famous silence
of macho existentialism

where the true hatchings are accidental
& the sorcery is torpedoed

into a gamy incoherence
time-released for later

 

 

 

YOUR CALL
 

Fan letters mash notes
spidery lashes toying around
trying to get even something I said worked

& the map goes dark
Feeling pretty Weldon Kees

an insurrectionary spirit invokes a holy rage
to save a lost battle my famous couch never asks why

Any qualms only elevate significance
the game is the same cachet

the invitation is for everyone
All you have to do is wait

& sometimes beat yourself up
The lower you go

the regions get higher

 

 

 

 

Micah Ballard [photo credit: Lorca Ballard] is the author of over a dozen books of poetry including Waifs and Strays (City Lights Books), Afterlives (Bootstrap Press), The Michaux Notebook (FMSBW), Parish Krewes (Bootstrap Press), Selected Prose, 2008-19 (Blue Press), Evangeline Downs (Ugly Duckling Presse), Daily Vigs (Bird & Beckett Books), Vesper Chimes (Gas Meter), and Negative Capability in the Verse of John Wieners (Bootstrap Press). He also recently co-edited G U E S T #21 : Castle Guestskull (above/ground press, 2022) with Garrett Caples. He lives in San Francisco with poet Sunnylyn Thibodeaux and their daughter Lorca.

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