"Policed Navidad," "Other Than," and "Three Sounds to Noise"

Policed Navidad

a phylum enchilada
portable as a decibel numeric
 
     recurrent phobia ladder
     clawed envy registers the first time
 
         no bone left
         to gnaw or resist
 
the hefty clatter its volume
chews padding into noise pits
 
     the bitten avocado
     against the pierced
     audiophile’s rhetoric
 
               displaced orchestral
 
                      *
 
taxonomic envy breeds
more amniotic competitors
 
     an early start  
     on the count
 
            dermal charge coming
 
a minced blessing
include entourage
 
         burrito register
         lowers its octave hatch
         a cadaver bargain
 
                   for the pinata breaking
 
 
                        the crack
                        an audilbe upward count
 
                                        the pitch
                                        a tuning fork
 
               would mutter
                     crushed meat
                                   off the scale
 
                          no presence left attuned to play

 


 

Other Than

casually armed
moochers crossed mariposa ghosts
an assassin family
 
          intrepid If aching
          scuttle across a dry desert
 
     where a stunt bus
     scripted its emotional detractor
               glad to be foreskin
 
                                easing pulleys
 
 
                            (   )
 
 
     just shakes wherever
     jackal workings edify
     its filter runs handed
 
                lightweight workdays
                resuscitator will vary
                empty coping amply
 
                          while dockyard envoys recede
 
 
                            (   )
 
 
                                cadge a drinking mirage
 
                     delivering return catalogue
 
        to a lightweight debutante
 
                          learned
                          the low valance of snatching
                                      resuscitator purr
 
                                               more other than
 
                                                                 disqualified
 
 
                            (   )
 
 
a fresher turban
                           quizzical
      learns other
 
          although air droop turns
          radicals handed to the patriarch
          a sorry ramp glaze
 
                          inquisitor choirmasters
                          worked the undercarriage

 


 

Three Sounds to Noise

 

hospital fingers
a latent horizon in gloves
mask the scan
 
cast the sound, no ear
 
     the music
     a sound machine
 
 
                   in tune
 
               no motor lesson
               thumbs can listen to
 
 
                            (   )
 
 
     as embedded or matching
     the leveled consequences
 
verbatim
to the naked touch
 
               a lingering hostility
               felt their screening
               fingering to leather
 
                               a scratching tone
 
 
                            (   )
 
 
the bite uncertain
as the poking finger tipped
 
          over
          the certain
                      tea host
a spike in the cup accrued
 
     glass pitch crashing
     through soft ballads
 
                   the night foregone for
 
                             gotten
 
                                          off-key

 

 

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 Saturday, July 18, 2020 - 09:36