Philip Byron Oakes

Here

A belated misanthropy tossing taunts at the manhood of Mona Lisa. A license to ignite candles, extended beyond a belief in warmth. Blind men bluffing eagle eyes into setting their sights too low. Buried in altitudes of ivory. Word trickling down to gossip on the commodities market, as little piggy goes. In creasing the hat brim to fit the head of the sandman, poking into the business of the beyond. A scratching noise at the rear of a moratorium. Rudiments of the infinite compounding into something simply small. The unstoppable contagion of laughter, spreading influenza like butter on a biblical drone of little nothings. Brute caresses pounding strokes of luck, into the formula for success in falling into hammocks of understanding. Crunching the numbers game into fractions of the cost of knuckles, clustered into voting blocs throwing weight as ante to the war, for mindful hearts beating as one change of clothes into the comfort of cotton. A shrill holler out the screen door, amplified in taking summer to task for its sponsorship of the withering. Salting down adages for the long bus ride into town. As if unscathed by the drowning points of old imaginations. A history of mysteries queued to form a noose around the neck of a certain someone. Wiling away the miles in homage to the ingenuity of the wheel.


Earth To

A lackluster hegemony forecasting fish on the line between east and west. The slow standing out of the way of the world, for directions seeking help from strangers. The grandeur of motes in the eye taking out billboards for a night on the town, by the river running like a free spirited convict to his epilogue. A supplemental symphony of air raid sirens, steering music back to melody’s kiss of a cousin. The all too possible, factoring into the proof that nothing happened in the arms of truly yours. A subliminal mistletoe in a room of lips sewn shut. The falconer’s oblong decree. The harshly extracted perfume of the misty headed, wafting unabated in assaults on the clarity of the simply said. Played at the peril of green thumbs mired in the dark and weedy fray of life.

Philip Byron Oakes’ work has appeared in numerous journals, and is presently viewable on the internet in Otoliths (6,8, 9 and 10), Glitterpony (4), Sawbuck (1.6 and 2.2), Cricket Online Review (IV.I), zafusy, Horseless Review (5), Hamilton Stone Review (13), and My Name is Mud. He has work forthcoming in Taiga and Switchback.

 
 
 
previous page     contents     next page