Joshua A Ware
XLIII: Nude Descending a Staircase, Version 2.2 (2006)
—in memory of Marcel Duchamp
Violin hips swagger yellow-brown clods
swoosh swoosh right angle overlaps robotic descent
how time displaces a static past there is no such thing as an experiment
some experiments become failures
angles displace brown clods
and if your naked flesh overlaps robotic angles
once mechanical trains and rushing shingles took to the streets with sci-fi rapidity
yellow badge of armory violent hips swagger
rushing melodies: the armory tribute to calcium clumps of soil
overlap time
no such thing swoosh swoosh joints grind on oil-ready steps
robotic speed the bend of light lays time into sand
mechanical violins and static flesh
naked angles some failures become shingles some experiments no.
XLIV: Filming a reality television program
These European-style door handles are wonderful.
A soffit raised to the gods of late-night television is a confession.
A splintered acknowledgment that sometimes manual labor is a ghost house.
I love these European-style door handles.
Another “swing low sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home.”
Soffit so close to sodomy.
The talent: base bronzer and blush
The European-style door handles. They are my favorite.
And wait wait wait.
A scorching sun bathes foreheads.
Wait a particular truth.
Know time travel.
I think, after all is said and done, that…wait…
These European-style door handles are wonderful.
XLVI
And if I dreamed I was another you
lying beside a New Jersey turnpike.
To be a phantom of you
is to burn like TV-light into darkness
and leave an imprint upon my face.
News anchors and headlines sleep upon the bed.
I have imagined myself to be you:
I will defer the use of referents.
I will defer the use of antecedents.
It made my fragments
difficult.
How long can one remain in character?
A washed whelp covered in soap scum cries a toothless hymn.
I will try you on and feel your skin.
XLVII
As if it is a continuation of what came before:
Haphazard movements of dream dogs
on davenports. Paw spasms.
But a mirror only reflects one angle of reality.
A desperate kind of recognition. Some experiments become failures.
I have imagined myself to be you:
I will defer the use of referents.
I will defer the use of antecedents.
It made my fragments
difficult.
These are the stories we tell each other when no else is looking:
Remember the one about a swimming pool, rhinoceros and oven mitt?
As if it is a continuation of a dream.
A better way to tell the truth by forgetting or leaving out.
Joshua A Ware lives in Lincoln, NE where he teaches writing & is pursuing his PhD. His work has appeared of is forthcoming in the Alice Blue Review, Cimarron Review, diode, Harpur Palate, horseless review, Little Red Leaves, Mobius, Packingtown Review, past simple, Sawbuck, Sonora Review, & Word For/Word.
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XLIII: Nude Descending a Staircase, Version 2.2 (2006)
—in memory of Marcel Duchamp
Violin hips swagger yellow-brown clods
swoosh swoosh right angle overlaps robotic descent
how time displaces a static past there is no such thing as an experiment
some experiments become failures
angles displace brown clods
and if your naked flesh overlaps robotic angles
once mechanical trains and rushing shingles took to the streets with sci-fi rapidity
yellow badge of armory violent hips swagger
rushing melodies: the armory tribute to calcium clumps of soil
overlap time
no such thing swoosh swoosh joints grind on oil-ready steps
robotic speed the bend of light lays time into sand
mechanical violins and static flesh
naked angles some failures become shingles some experiments no.
XLIV: Filming a reality television program
These European-style door handles are wonderful.
A soffit raised to the gods of late-night television is a confession.
A splintered acknowledgment that sometimes manual labor is a ghost house.
I love these European-style door handles.
Another “swing low sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home.”
Soffit so close to sodomy.
The talent: base bronzer and blush
The European-style door handles. They are my favorite.
And wait wait wait.
A scorching sun bathes foreheads.
Wait a particular truth.
Know time travel.
I think, after all is said and done, that…wait…
These European-style door handles are wonderful.
XLVI
And if I dreamed I was another you
lying beside a New Jersey turnpike.
To be a phantom of you
is to burn like TV-light into darkness
and leave an imprint upon my face.
News anchors and headlines sleep upon the bed.
I have imagined myself to be you:
I will defer the use of referents.
I will defer the use of antecedents.
It made my fragments
difficult.
How long can one remain in character?
A washed whelp covered in soap scum cries a toothless hymn.
I will try you on and feel your skin.
XLVII
As if it is a continuation of what came before:
Haphazard movements of dream dogs
on davenports. Paw spasms.
But a mirror only reflects one angle of reality.
A desperate kind of recognition. Some experiments become failures.
I have imagined myself to be you:
I will defer the use of referents.
I will defer the use of antecedents.
It made my fragments
difficult.
These are the stories we tell each other when no else is looking:
Remember the one about a swimming pool, rhinoceros and oven mitt?
As if it is a continuation of a dream.
A better way to tell the truth by forgetting or leaving out.
Joshua A Ware lives in Lincoln, NE where he teaches writing & is pursuing his PhD. His work has appeared of is forthcoming in the Alice Blue Review, Cimarron Review, diode, Harpur Palate, horseless review, Little Red Leaves, Mobius, Packingtown Review, past simple, Sawbuck, Sonora Review, & Word For/Word.
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