JIM TRAINER'S POEM OF THE WEEK
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POEM A DAY
keep a line as you’re brokered by the dust
a divine in the charmed face of scorn
your own precious meter and gauge
a day desk in a house on fire,
the violent law of the sea in a bottle
the electric fence of your marrow in a frame
keep to your stall at time’s firing range
roll your weight as time pulls you apart,
a place by the window
with a cup of coffee steaming
like a sidearm
hangout your wash, lover
and for fuck sake take it in
in the city a song
has two duties
to climb the fire escape
and to come back down
a ticket is a landscape
balloons of poetry
are tied to sandbags of your heart
a flower is death’s only beauty
every lights-out on the block
take to a whole new cage.
I think I’ll write you
confess that I ain’t living
here this small room is living in me!
I’ll write you good
and fine and long, how much I need you
that I was wrong,
then make a mask of the letter
with holes for mouth and eyes
take to the streets and
avow another pantomime
the Kings and Queens are
folding in a deck of playing cards
I’m a clown in the rodeo of my suicide
