Tom Beckett


This Poem

This poem

Proffers

Its ass.


This poem

Penetrates me.


This poem

Is blue.


This poem

Is colored

Outside

Its lines.


This poem

Is parenthetical.


This poem

Is embedded

Within _____.


This poem

Operates among

Focal points.


This poem

Eschews

The copula.


This poem

Is fucked.


This poem

Sucks.


This poem

Thinks it's

A flower.


This poem

Resembles

A statement.


This poem

Is a bad

Actor.


This poem

Requires a

Degree

Of leniency.


This poem

Has read

The dictionary.


This poem

Gets up

And does

Something.


This poem

Wants to

Get to

Know you.


This poem

Is expedient.


This poem

Sleeps with

Its dreams.


This poem

Sleeps with

The fishes.


This poem

Schemes.


This poem

Is a form

Of waste

Management.


This poem

Teeters.


This poem

Oh!

This poem.


This poem

Begins again.


This poem

Considers

Its losses.


This poem

Stares into

A mirror.


This poem

Plays

With itself.


This poem

Is the body

In question.


This poem

Works

The room.


This poem

Is an

Empty

Container.


This poem's

Raptures rupture

A repertoire.


This poem's

Reversals are

Rehearsals for

A dance.


This poem

Exists on

An incline.


This poem

Persists in

An archive.


This poem

Is taking

A chance.


This poem

Multiplies.


This poem

Subdivides.


This poem

Posits

A rhetorical

Stance.


This poem

Pretends not

To know me.

Tom Beckett's Selected Poems, Unprotected Texts (Meritage Press, 2006) is available from Small Press Distribution and Amazon. E-X-C-H-A-N-G-E-V-A-L-U-E-S: The First XI Interviews, the first of 3 anthologies based on and extending out from his interview blog, will be available soon from Otoliths.

He lives in Kent, Ohio.

 
 
 
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