Illusive elev plotted
in lieu of
illicit missives
eleve and glossy
ellipses loosely eluted
diffusive sluices
immersing Ulua
a lucite looping in
effusive illusions and
recluses.
Alas! Ill
and useless,
all is longer
mill listing lo
lacy lessening for lost-
loved occlusives.

Sometimes I think my love is resting
on the couch from the sidewalk
picking 'part polyester nesting

an undulating thrum manifesting
I'll tell you at the kitchen table
that I've been nowhere lately

In the park across the street
is where we skip your track meet
my legs damp from where we sat

Now in the cool centre of December
with no personal effects to speak of
you tell me a story I'll misremember

Is there power still, an ember
your boss holds your check again
and I call him up and quit for you

Close my eyes for a second
your nails like little almonds
where they touch my cheek

you lift away and I fall asleep.

I watched my very own
Charles Bukowski
eat a tangerine outside of  
the arthouse  
where we were reading.

His name is not really Bukowski,
but he has told tales in the same  
vein as the Laureate of Drunkards
for longer than I have been alive.

I have listened to that same back alley
patois,
and barroom wisdom for long
enough that I feel a certain level  
of comfort in calling the old gizzard  
this municipality's own  
Charles Bukowski.

The grizzled old poet  
is telling wanton tales  
of love and honeydew.

He goes on and on,
recounting the times  
that he's drunk  
strong potato liquor
with Bengal tigers  
in the backseats  
of roaring taxis
on his way to parties  
hosted by zebras and  
gazelles.

We each light a cigarette,
pausing to smoke for a while.

Seeking to continue  
the conversation with  
my salty comrade,  
yet knowing my own  
stories cannot compete,
I surge onward nonetheless.

His interruptions jam my  
traffic before I can even make  
it onto the onramp of his  
particular, peculiar highway.

His mouth is already working,
though his tangerine consumed.

He's chewing his next story into
digestible, deliverable bits.

And, now he's chewing the rind.

His mouth,
his words,
his life,
and my own for all of it,
is full of  
zest.

*

-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2017

I am tired of missing you,
the exercise of the distance.
Like a cat,
returning to it's bowl
no more than five minutes after emptying it,
you are a temporary figure now,
that cannot claim object permanence.

That someday,
poured into a ramekin
like honey and soap,
is numbed by the relentless and
staggered steps
of the hour.

Lift your eyes up, to the horizon
where the plane flattens
into a thin line
and the future lays blue
and final.

friends or frenemies (feminist safety instruction card)

a coastal flight, boredom has me riffle through the various
offerings in the seat pocket, and on the safety instruction card
come across this...
<•>

she’s blunt, direct, proffers me an either/or choice,
game on either way, pick door A or B, up to me,
she’s no lady, but a hipster shooter using semi-automatics,
three lines of verse, rat-a-tat-tat, your guts spilling,
hoho you’re dead or kicked in the *****, at the minimum

if only she knew what she was up against

I got words for which there ain't no antidote,
can whip her into a lovers frenzy with cooing metaphors,
slap her with stingers so that she’ll retreat hasty to another site

friends or frenemies, how juvenile, how sweet, how absolutely
childish girl, no interest, play in my arena, I have studied with
the masters and lionesses and offer you no terms but this:

be my lover

extend your reach, speak slow and soft, open and willing,
my sonnets demand close attention, slowing and holding,
building links into chains that make boundaries into a single
tie that binds, not for now and not for later but for the only measure that poets alone command: forever

concede and give up that conceit that tough is a defense,
lose everything for rewards you have yet to witness, conceive,
in my circle is in my circle where the intuitive rules and gasps of shocking come so frequent, they are normal breathing

be my lover

knowing that we will never meet never see the inside of
the furnace that can be dreamed-created with tonguing verbs,
adjectives that dance intertwining pas de deux,
oh my femme fatale, my agent provocateur,
let us learn together how,  to teach each other
come,
will be the only action word ever required

come
come write me
come together
come close my eyes
come open them wider
come free me to be a one two

anger is false brevity - loving is the languid forever languishing flames of golden burning orange caramel, word chips of
liquidity that verses, penned passioned calculations,
see how takes many stalks needy to  birth bound into a
single sheaf, count the wips of smoky wispy slivers,
combine and separate, the calculus of recombinant,
offering a unique poem with a momentary invitation,
an equation of equality and there is no diverse different


<•>

the first class steward sh/wakes the dozing body
with an apology;
“landing soon, would you like some breakfast before we land?”

the sleepy soul replies,
come to me with water,
just water...for my dream

Eldest,
You are cruel by nature
and not knowing better,
but you will come to learn that is no excuse.
An unfilled form,
you're a hand
half in a glove,
and it makes you careless.
You will later apologize for coming first,
Eldest.

Eldest,
you are a stand in.
See what responsibility looks like stretched over adult bones.
Stretch out yourself.
Pull on it.
You idealize a lighthouse.
You chart a course,
some careless and rambling march,
that well,
isn't really supposed to look like that.
Slowly,
you grow to resent your stretch marks,
Eldest.

Eldest,
always guilty,
you wish you’d known that you’d been responsible all along.
Eldest,
dwell on this, as to make sure it won’t happen again.
Teach your eldest child this lesson and hope
they do better than you.
Blindly feel the yoke’s pull,
Eldest.

i hate math
not because it's boring
or it requires work
but because it is the thing
that causes my mom and i
to fight
you won't realize this
thinking it's only a shallow opinion
but to me
math is a wall
separating me
from love