The young ones see the crimes. We see each other fall, climb, men thorn, women thorn, the book is into text now, the way a child (sees) is not (whole), was never once, Larkin’s tragedy, who fucked it up, where is restraint, a baby is burning, whose thorns, were you once a rose, who risen (none), a craft is what to try again with, a call(ed) woman, a kept woman, series of fashions, subjects (tickled).

What resembles shadow, a way, any way, looking for a wall? No way to write on the the, so, a feeling reflects the way a ruse? No. Utter, not going. The house so small, less of a way to say saw, she waits for, pretends, loves, plays, sees flowers everywhere, Jessica yes, last year was Esther, do you trust, pigeons awake, Bach plays conservative songs on the jukebox, makes bébé into crux, okay, chiasmus, not so complicated, what pretends light, we were coasting, saw that, why’d it be that way, love’s resemblance, cute as, yes, what we see, failed, architects can not hear?, no, that was, electricity’s 1929, or was it later, told jive is drunk dialing, last year’s year was pretty good, old baroque, out the style, hand-me-downs, behind the wall, what’s next, new way, last horse whisper, complicated, okay, that was then, older means wow, why do we care about color, they say: “we prefer the colors to the gray,” me too, how about what we think into splash, once thought, by the time we see colors, maybe, color over gray, okay, color over gray, color over gray, color over gray, re-, re-, recycle, next, okay, not again, who are we, like, is it?, the colors change, dreamed a little, maybe so, how can it be, o New York, why California, at night the states, again each turn, far from Savannah, how far was you, again, got it!, okay, elegant turns, decipher not at all, having as a way of playing, music, don’t, no, not dead, exaggeration?, against?, what does you say, okay, placement works a way, my worst poem was afraid

Suddenly Placate; Tattoo

Dear Chiasmus, Dear Bacon-Maker:
I am delighted to welcome you here.

Worn on the inside, the tattoo is a ruse in the silk,
sometimes it can’t be entirely seen, but
it’s not given—constructs
we make are always something other than

us. Dear Lacan, Dear Zizek: I delight at
your admission—to the, to the, to the….
If I have to be (the nail!), I’ll be (the nail!)
Negative.

Always—visible fire

is always visible as a fire: open
DIME on the nickeled front.
What do we see when we cannot see?
Minus phi,
a set of—broken—arrows beside me,

and what does the (frangible) brain (mean?)
(like looking at the one without the beard and the hat)….
Oh my, oh my, and

now
there is something he about her she.
Now a she is running out—

side the window. “Hello, where are you going & why are you going so fast?”
“I’m not knocking.”
Yesterday we were rolling with,

rolling beside, rolling under, and

it’s very hot
(and it was always sublime or getting even more so)

In the sublime, there was always someone pushing something fast
(a set of blue wheels) (a python for a left arm) Someone wanted to take off the roof
but where is the ground?

The chemical elements in the shadows have been left slightly aware of themselves. Subjects know how to make the dance less awkward, as if sewing new skins over their arms.

I-you-we are simply smoothing out striation, waiting (a)lone: wolves, the white & gold, a place to make what happens come.


phpwnn1NLPMLaura Carter  lives in Atlanta, and teaches at schools both in person and online. She also writes reviews for The Fanzine and Atticus Review. You can find her recent poems in Hambone and TYPO, and her most recent chapbook is Midheaven Leo (Dancing Girl, 2011).