"Impersonating the Jumpsuit Elvis," "Playing Connected," and "Language Calling"

Impersonating the Jumpsuit Elvis

this rondo rocker
sent hollow vows
 
          one subversive and grim
 
its motoring patois
flames noumenal irritation
 
          cactus photocopies
          postponing the grit predicate
 
                  nothing 
 
      the memorandum will roll
      sonically rude 
                             unless 
                                         the uplift
 
            from testicle irritation
            encouraged studio heads
 
                  a noumena caliper
                  choke-forking sideburns
                  confusion past
 
      the voice-over zoom
 
                  dynasty milepost:
 
                                a bobblehead

 


 

Playing Connected

iodine sherbet
catheters turn snake
in the floor 
 
                    slither
 
      ambiguous
 
leather 
 
          for toxic willow pageants   
          cascade merchants align
 
               cranking out
               their crude ultimatum
 
     packets to launch
     the proverbial as a je ne sais quo
 
no empty threat
though drained 
 
                          before hands clank
                          their scrotal buzzer
 
               tanking a conniption fit
               medium large or pick an X
              a carefree wallow
 
     muffles their insurgent pipeline banter

 


 

Language Calling

regal mobilities
surround their implosions
embed plagiarism
 
to quell the infused admixture
 
     however long
                            the grappling
 
          explication embodies
               interjection marches
                    a foil reporter relayed
 
               slipping readerships
               ritual ventriloquist surrender
               clicking 
                            the drama tippler
 
             profiting mends filtered vertigo
 
                            the frailty
                            a clear lacuna
                            intones
                                        ergonomic recourse
 
speeds dulcimer playboys
 
          past the stagnant epaulet 
          to bother strewn bandanas 
 
                                          milking salvation
 
                               pleasured for the holiday makers
 
                               *
 
        future lapses lit
        critical memorials 
        where seat vests
 
                attuned
                            circumflex
                                              lifeguards
 
         all bandanas sparking
 
                  the quibble baste
                  honed in fungal cleric dials
 
         bonnet catacombs faulted
         sequential stairwell amenities
         protruding
                          ventricle tenants    
 
             themselves shadowed chants
 
                  however pictorial
                  the prepositional volcanos
                  lecturing human hormone 
 
                              rambles
 
                                            to a pitfall
 
                                                             declension

 

 

Vernon Frazer’s latest poetry collection is Memo from Alamut. He recommends the Poetry Project at St. Mark's.

 

Edited for Unlikely by Jonathan Penton, Editor-in-Chief
Last revised on Monday, November 1, 2021 - 22:06