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Kyle Kulseth Sep 2014
Wake up laughing
cackle into the kitchen
9:15 a.m. on Sunday
cop-outs couched in cups of coffee
          Sofa King Redundant
Lock the door but no one's coming
          I'm the LORD OF ALL I SURVEY!

Survey says the pilot's out
sink is full and
blinds are drawn.
It smells like sweat and silence
and a mostly empty fridge.

"Everything the light touches is yours!"
Outstanding power bill
          bank statements
               unreconciled
unwashed clothes
and unsent thank-you notes.
Shrink-wrapped books on how to cope.

Maybe I'll ask for a raise...
Kyle Kulseth Sep 2014
I know the contours of your face
just like the streets of my hometown
          you'd squint your eyes
                 when laughing
     at the corner of Main and Dow.

Blacktooth Brewery
               on frigid Friday nights
frosted glasses, fogging breaths
and laughs caught up
               in tightening chests.
Kendrick Park can keep its towering trees
                                   and midnight charms
if I can keep your laughter with me
                       when I sail for newer shores

Something in familiar signs,
          buzzing blackened Bighorn skies,
keeps us just above the water line--
          afloat for one more night.

Sheridan Iron Works
Red, rigid lettering a raised, distant hand
Watch it wave from on the hill
above the Kendrick boardwalk,
soak December in our smiles
choking back our April cries.

Snake's head yawning
          from the I-90 exit
slithers down Coffeen and tails
          our icy footsteps
     Rattle. Rattle. Rattle.
Shake this town to its bones
with our Thurmond Street jokes
and our glowing Gould Street hearts.
I hope
          this is enough
          to buoy our ***** up
          against the weighty ballast
          of this tiny, yawning town.

Settlers of Catan
played on a windy Wednesday night
over another drowning round
of clinking Wagon Box pints.

The contours of your face,
icy streets of our hometown,
our squinting, gasping laughter
on the corner of Main and Dow.

Blacktooth Brewery.
               Frigid Friday nights.
Fogged up glasses. Frosting breaths
and laughing, clutching tightening chests.
               This freezing town
               will test your mettle.
               Settle up and bring your friends.
Kyle Kulseth Sep 2014
Late night. Footsteps.
Crane necks and girders.
Fog lifts. The wind cries.
Steel bones in moonlight

                        I'm out
                      so late now
and it's Sunday night and Summer's ending
                         soon.
I'm aging
                                          with questions
fermenting in my mouth
ignored for years

Fenced off. Unfinished
project shelved and waiting
                     for next Spring.

Cool night eclipsing
years spent indexing,
answers mislaid and
blueprints unrolling

Components rusting,
crane necks and girders.
Steel bones in moonlight.
Tight lipped and staring.

                             Fall comes
                             construction
halts now and the walls stand half
                            complete
And outside
                                     the chain link
shrugging off the cold and
still wondering when

Step through unfinished
building. Get home. Shelved
                      until next Spring.
Kyle Kulseth Aug 2014
She's all Spring and Summer
                Strength
         and words of shelter
He's all maps and formlines
                    waits
        in wings for Springtime

Take these tattered ghosts
                    from their trenches
ink-smeared, tethered tight
                      to the depth curve
Autumn only waits for the silent
                       ones sometimes.

"If their voices chase
                   out the brisk months,
quiet those windy wights
                     with a new song.
Autumn only waits for the silent
                      ones," she said.

In 3/4 time
the distances unwind
so swiftly
Afterburn of quiet nights
                      glows, fading.

He's all sovereign anger,
               righteous, stiff
                      but twisting
She's all cavalier, now--
               cat-quick through
                   projections

Past the legends,
               rose our directions
Keyed to Winter's
                 dumb introversions
Years just spilling over the levee's
                         prescribed edge.

With their weathered ghosts
                           in the trenches,
tired-eyed, tethered tight
                          to the map's edge
Autumn only cares for the silent
                             ones some days.
Kyle Kulseth Aug 2014
With passing days queued up
          for the forecast foreseeable
Tuck into the routines' reserves
          deplete when permissible

Shot through the feet
          with what we can't forget
run on through the limp
          past the end of the sentence
                                             and sit
                         In the glow
                  remain undeveloped
                  stay unreconstructed
                  drop the curtain
                 on scenes interrupted

Dot your i's
          with up-slanted slash marks
sparks fill my eyes when
                            I read through your retorts
Blank page.
                                                        Blank page.
A waltz through a minefield
reeling jigs over headstones
          when digging through
           plain white lines
Kyle Kulseth Aug 2014
Three days ago
            it was Canada Day
Wait for the winter under Maple Leaf shade.
I'm alight with night time's
            anaesthetized truths
soothe sweaty, shaking aches
            until this
        Independence Day
frees up my lungs.

Three days ago,
         turned 29 years old.
Etched our initials in a park bench, rolled
my smudging thoughts into
         photographed truth.
Our silver, halide smiles
         on paper
        live in drawers,
   tie me to 25.

Our hearts aglow,
we rose
through dreams and aching,
        chafing hopes.

True. Free. Young.

But the bombs burst that bubble
and red eyes glared
           through anger and an aching, sorry chest.
Kyle Kulseth Jul 2014
Grey-Green-Red-Brown Dawn
stains right through a.m. sky
                     so the atmosphere
                     looks weird today.
The forecast calls for heat again;
that silent, seething drum that beats
        the blood-drenched dollar sky--
beats out a March of Ages--

beats us copper lumps to shape.

The shelf we Occupy on this drifting
westward continent, constructed from
the flesh that fell from our fathers' hands,
from the bones of distant lands
becomes a dusty storage closet
        for the corpses of our days

Our days--aha.
That's supply and demand, kid.
What's a life but flesh-time?
And what's time if not money?
Nothing!
Nothing is anything
                   but money.
You. Are money.
Like time.
Sleep well tonight. And set your clock.
You gotta work to buy their robots
that **** Mid-Eastern skies
(and Midwestern ones alike)

Sink real slow beneath the surface
of that rising ocean of noise--
growing louder--hot air melting ice caps.
Watch that boiling, acid ocean
roll in on the tide and sink
beneath the waves of noise--
               of monotone voices--
sawdust seasoning on cardboard--
crying, "These colors don't run!"
and, "Stand your ground!"
and for fun, when bored, answer the
                 Call of Duty.
It's that silent, seething drum

beating 'gainst THE TERRORISTS
while we deny the summer heat
as we sweat in SUPERBOWL SUNDAY dreams,
Like it beat against the COMMUNISTS
through all our TOP GUN weekends,
Like it drums up portraits of
              vampire fanged IMMIGRANTS
                                           and ILLEGALS
while we guzzle our BEER
and sweat beneath those acne-scarred skies
on the FOURTH OF JULY.

Sleep well tonight

And set your clock.

Don't wanna be late for work,
to buy their robots that **** Mid-Eastern skies
          (and Midwestern ones alike).

What's that hum outside your window tonight,
whirring, buzzing
                 droning
beneath the blood-drenched dollar sky?
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