Scott Bentley


Carnations Cross


                                                             The borders, 25,000

after Israel visa Gaza
                               bound for Europe.

Omnibus as stimulus a simulacra
gather piece-by-piece at Annapolis

experts cut short a trickle of mortar fire
to expatriate rockets or flowers along terminal
schedules the blow up.

Agency agenda. Wages war
just in time blockades to crush

                                                             "I give him lilies

for his wife…” pass the airport. Islamic rulers en enclave
record systems. Permits flow and truckloads bar cargo:

go to broker
                broader understanding

bridges token to affection, hardly.

Militant piracy conspires the embargo. On both sides the science
began to separate. Novato in the flora through the portal
of a litho.

                Export shipments, civilian affairs
                               if asphalt aghast, the second tower coming down.


At ratio settings to reboot Google radio
upgrade the product to project levels
                                              oxygen proxy
                                                            
privacy policy.

Egypt, crying by the millions
before Valentine’s Day
                               the last year

wary thaws, portend a marbled warble
as attend Sri Lanka.


Fetching Retrieval


So,

doggerel declines upon a ball
the belle sounds scoundrels, elopes as
hoarse lapses pass no truck
the throat records

unkempt, the track
seems unkind

the kindling, my kindred redress
it fails, falls to the floor
                                              and you

rings wed, wings of weather

(a windlass hill, a stick, the sluggish mud;
                let’s let swing the sticky difficulty)

stand nude, my darling violet triolet
before our day’s ends: pitch bridges
a dance, note, your dense hair
yellow, yells a threat

a dalliance for daffodils
unto mine eyes—goldenrod, slivers
anywhere a flare, dwindling
at the dugout
                               plus apropos

water lily dewlap.

                                              Pipeline rupture the eruption
                                              hounds a lair
                                                                            layer rock.

                …and so
                               luckily, also. Anxious.

                                                                            Avenue
retinue) a continuance, a vineyard trumpet
a shaking kiss, pearl drop
                                              forever a reef after rapture.

Once upon the violence
the oil pumps
                our romance

floss lady fingers: petal stretch the tulip softly
tinsel in this dress      wild speculation,
                                                                            nipple.

                                                             Apple garment.

                                                             …butterfly.
Wanton attack to articulate sweet crude
property in action

deep blue pockets
depth blew buckets   jacket
                                                             juicy
                                                                            junket                                                   y
                                                                                 trinket                                    a
                                                                                                                         j
                                                                                           o’, joy!       a



Scott Bentley (http://scottbentley.org/) is the editor and publisher of Letterbox magazine. He is the author of two chapbooks, EDGE (Birdcage Chapbooks, 1987) and Out of Hand (Parenthesis Writing Series, 1989); two full-length books, Ground Air (O Books, 1994) and The Occasional Tables (sub press, 2000); and the 2011 ebook for children from Cariuna, Our Imaginary Friends. He has co-translated the work of Brazilian writer Regis Bonvicino and others. Some of his translations appear in New American Writing and The Pip Anthology of World Poetry of the 20th Century (vol. 3)—Nothing the Sun Could Not Explain: 20 Contemporary Brazilian Poets (Green Integer,2003). Work has appeared in 580 Split, Bird Dog, Chain, Cor, Dusie, Fact-Simile, Lyric&, Mirage #4/Period(ical), The Poker, The Raddle Moon, The Styles, Syllogism, Tinfish, Vanitas and elsewhere. New work is set to appear in Rampike and New American Writing. He lives with his family in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he teaches writing at California State University East Bay.
 
 
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