Caleb Puckett



Bit Rot

An owl
models an oasis of vocabularies.
An awl
mottles an oasis of constabularies.
A towel
gospels an oasis of seminaries.
A fowl
swaddles an oasis of veterinaries.
Afoul
puddles a stasis of apothecaries.

A bird in the and is worth two in the books.



Maxim of Charity

When at least
one reading of a sentence is true,
the sentence is deemed true,
so say the sentences,
Two men did not use three pens.

Moral: Language
is a handout for phantom limbs.



Product to Market

To render fuller, he says
flushing instead of fleshing it out.

A mistaken idiom
revealing nature’s
impingement on nurture,
revealing base instinct’s mastery
over linguistic sophistication,
revealing his insatiable hunger.

The hunt for an idea.
The idea subjected to expulsion,
subjected to rending,
subjected to skeletonization,
left to his nothingness.

Ever the quarry over creation.
Ever this campaign to run.

You would laugh
when you should weep
at his malapropism.
Those teeth gleam
with bestial intention.
Your brain is full of protein.




Caleb Puckett lives in Kansas. His books include Tales from the Hinterland, Market Street Exit and Fate Lines/ Desire Lines. A recent group of his poems appears in the 20th anniversary issue of mgversion2>datura. Along with writing, Puckett edits the literary journal Futures Trading.
 
 
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