Tom Snarsky
Pan-American Strawberries
Someone I made up
asked me about
the question of form
& constraint in poetry,
like is it better
to write with one ear
bent to certain rules
/traditions or is it
better just to let it all
in, & I was reminded
that sfdt.com
Stick Figure Death
Theater dot com
where you used
to be able to watch
stick figures kill
each other
in increasingly
creative & sophist
icated ways
is now a porn site,
a particularly run
-of-the-mill one
I guess I replied
it isn’t so much one
or the other, it’s more
when the theme
changes, so
do the variations,
almost as fun
as playing baseball,
but not by much.
Uhra-Beata Simberg
-Ehrström, years
& years after her dad
paints The Wounded
Angel, designs a
rya rug Pathetique
that when you see it
executed, has
a woven signature,
“USE”
Metal, Pennsylvania
The internet company is fucking us over
& recourse is
another internet company
The two geese
who have been staying
if they have babies it will be bad
for the pond
I am worried about teachers
killing themselves
or being killed
Kristi is a teacher I chickened out
A implies B
if A
there is a sickened knot in me
thinking about all this
heinous shit being gotten away with
at our expense
getting screwed by satellite
so I can send my little
emails
cant slow down your eyes enough
cant match your ear
when you read a prayer too fast or
get ahead of the music
if you feel sick at night at the world
thats normal
the worlds sick at night
the checking accounts bracing
for mornings autopay
like birdshot removed in an autopsy
from the ass of the architect
who built this
a six year old
shot his teacher in Newport News
his mother was indicted
& the world
kept on turning
all of this learnable
even on scam internet
Kristi goes to school every day
the man
in the post office jokes about showing up
to his contractors house
with a .22
its a dumb ragged receipt this
scurrilous breath
wasted
like contraceptives on the waterfowl
like a formal complaint
I am worried about former teachers
killing themselves
writing whole poetry
books about it
clandestinely
musing late
at night about how destiny hides
in that word, clandestinely
like lacustrine, it shines
like clam, it has a secret
a nacre
a valve
a foot
two feet
spondee
I am
withdrawn
like funds
or that one student
you might need
to talk to
for an extra few minutes today
see whats going on
Tom Snarsky is the author of the chapbooks Threshold (Another New Calligraphy) and Complete Sentences (Broken Sleep Books), as well as the full-length collections Light-Up Swan and Reclaimed Water (both from Ornithopter Press). He lives with his wife Kristi and their cats in the mountains of northwestern Virginia.