"Unlawful Meanings," "This Poem Is a Record of Its Shadow," and "Transactional Enlightenment"

by Mark DuCharme

Unlawful Meanings

When, by tectonic force of nerve
I plummet to the sky
Setting fountains on fire with my lungs
In the infirm vitality of a jutting day
 
When, in the pulse of auricular orgasms
I jolt like a rank night tuner
Reaching for a cup of degraded parcels
After the boats all got lost in cities of finite copper louvres
 
When, in the perdition of evening
I strike earth as if a chickenwire mandolin
Infused with tongues’ oblique gaiety
In a tonal clusterfuck of moving gardens
 
When, in the absolute menace of living
I sob on the pillows of aborted godmothers
Who cry for the right to die by attrition
Using any & all unlawful meanings necessary
 
Only then, will I awaken by sleeping
In the heroic grandeur of trying to breathe
Only then, will I tweak in solemn bankruptcy
All the thin, bloody lines of forgotten effigies

 

 

This Poem Is a Record of Its Shadow

Silence is violence.
Who are you lying to?
Moody conquistadors?
Moot doom coughers?
 
Who are you lying to?
The angels have all thrown their tongues away
While moot doom coughers
Are contented with bricks.
 
When the angels have all thrown their tongues away
Happy liars
Are contented with bricks.
What about you?
 
Happy liars
Rejoice in the shadows.
What about you?
Are you going to the mountains next year?
 
Rejoice in the shadows.
Name them Ethelred.
Are you going to the mountains next year?
Bring one back for me,
 
Code name: Ethelred,
A long-ago harbinger of sky.
Bring one back for me.
Is bleeding normal?
 
A long-ago harbinger of sky
Or moody conquistadors.
Is bleeding normal
When silence equals violence?

 

 

Transactional Enlightenment

                                       “The tea color horizon
                                    is dying to colonize it
                                    for its great ANY part.”
                                            —César Vallejo, trans. Eshleman & Rubia Barcia

Any part of what is beautiful & strange
Is impacted singing
Gross like the sky parts of hymnals
On the Richter scale of mass destruction
 
Those who think they know
Frighten me most
On the lunatic scale of pending reversal
Fear dressed as somebody else
 
Unique, prescribed voodoo
After the skies are all broken
Propulsive roadmaps
Redacted predators
 
Monotone whirlwinds
Invasive climatology pregnancy myths
After the sundown explodes
In vacant lots, clefts of now
 
Common fetish merchandise cargo
Insta maniac gogo
Arenas inundated with tracery ballots
Or yesterday’s retracted business lunch

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Mark DuCharme

Mark DuCharme’s poem “Thirst” won the Synchronized Chaos poetry contest in 2026.  His recent books include Complicated Grief and Thousands Blink Outside, both from C22 Open Editions; Here, Which Is Also a Place from Unlikely Books; Scorpion Letters from Ethel; and his work of poet’s theater, We, the Monstrous: Script for an Unrealizable Film, from The Operating System.  Since You Asked will be published by C22 in January 2027.  His poetry has appeared widely in such venues as bethh, BlazeVOX, Caliban Online, Chant de la Sirène, Colorado Review, Eratio, eYeland, First Intensity, Gas, Indefinite Space, Moss Trill, New American Writing, Noon, Otoliths, Shiny, Talisman, Trilobite, Typo, Unlikely Stories, Utriculi, Vanitas, Word/ for Word, The Writing Disorder, and Poetics for the More-Than-Human World: An Anthology of Poetry and Commentary.  He lives in Boulder, Colorado, USA.