Six Favorite Poems of Ken Peters
N’Awlins
brazen hussy of a cityonliest diamond
on that stringy Route 10 necklace
black drum tattoo adornin’
soft lily-white
underbelly Dixie
cloacal end of Middle America
drunk with music
revealed in masque
wise in the science of magic
and callin’ my name
sometimes the swim upstreamis the only way home
while the rockers chime
jocular scapula rays swim by
I feel free
I feel my hands slip on the ring
while savings are made
and spendings are wasted
kismet kissed my ass and my balls
but left me for a younger man
so now I walk below the umbering trees
and penumbering hills
the path is hard to see
in the grass
but I don't believe in fate
unless it feels good
come too far
on this wind
cruel and cold
to step back from the edge
open up
when the sun comes
close down like a small town
when the dark creeps
the bullet's deep
against the bone
like Buddha said
like Jesus said
and I can't tell up from down
the trickster, the scavengeromen of death
I'm headed his way
and he waits with
raised ears and ragged breath
I'm a verbsometimes intransitive
but no noun
Then why this gravity?
things appear and multiply
I glance away
but can't dance away
why this gravity?
a gene for acquisition
a definition by possession
a penchant for adhesion
why this gravity?
useless, binding, boundless
conjunctive, congesting, conditional
why this gravity?
liquid acrobats live in atmosphere
defy and laugh
sing of bubbles and refractions
while I remain on the high wire tight rope
balancing a chair, a dresser and a chain saw
you have to smile
to transform the march
into a parade
you have to laugh
to let the parade
become a dance
here at the approximate
top of the food chain
beset by insects
insulted by fungus
laid low by microbes and pollens
easy does it
easy does it
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