Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Kate Lilley
 

Miltonic

Press hash and state your business somewhat loudly
while organic intermediates clear a path

what turns up’s somewhat lucid ceaseless
an expurgated text unfit for work

mourning’s hard to metabolise
the party’s themeless don’t even come

sweep the strings and hold for pastures new
woeful shepherdess

(metaphor) (condensation)
acid mantle blue
 

My Bad

In the doghouse my date barks back
bite-size annihilation

Behind the door the facts
the jokes of one awaiting trial

Am I under-administration
or beginning to free associate?

Enter the poltergeist girls
with the hands of stenographers

Burning glances at smoko
moaning after lights out
 

Sequel

Author v title in the sunken lounge
‘abortion’ in the index
whose life am I living?
the blister platform is empty and so am I
rippled veneer
feast and famine
a bracelet of lost charms
the blonde gleam of moonlight like a slide projector

When it comes to period pieces keep it simple
genres get distressed
and then everybody’s anxious

-all previously published at Jacket Magazine

 
Rhapsody

The past is awake and stirring
in a black shirred bikini

blinding in a pyschedelic shift
like the picture of a mansion

I’ll give you the benefit and take it back
like the yellow scarf I knitted and unknitted

the fleshy cactus roses
I grew the year I adored you
 

Sprechtimme

Beauty was never my friend.
Our birthdays were a year apart.
My roots were one foot in the amusement park
and another in a world of disappointment.
Chance meeting—cigarette lighter—blousy attrition.
See what I mean?
Sift and twist: twist and sift.
In a nutshell success has been non-stop
since the door to the nursery closed.

-both previously published at Snorkel  

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