Keith Higginbotham


Another Forehead


skins whited the skins of
angels relax into a sideways sky

torches done asphalt done
white winds same white

reruns by the tunnel
mountain space time a flying sound

drop can splitting pastiche the
sidewalk reverses the machine explodes

half-cursive caroming through
the metal street boy late for chapel



Oatmeal Shoes

                for J. D. Nelson

earth thru the baby
in the elf chair

the growling charcoal
horse

the silk hammer
eating the page machine

in a marble island
a glass chain

lamp feathers in
the hand and the hole



Flesh Spiral

morning’s ultimate labyrinth
                               winged
                               an emptiness

all the dead nowhere happy
                               went etched
                               in strokes
                               up
                               the asphalt
                               mist

I of the lonely pale
my skin honeyed in black

contradictions of the narrative’s
backup box of plots
                               a month of surfaces
                               bloods the
                               blur

blindsided and maybe the skin’s
                               stretched clock
                               tight cringes
                               askew



The Snows of Kilimanjaro


a plane you made a canvas
outside the barns
of poverty

damn the road ached
kerosene hung in the bush
damned christ drunk in paris
machine-gunning
eye pots
the men wanted
blood
and handcuffs

drinking night down another drink
the barker wife
her love of snow
in the orient
horses
in an evening off the slopes
the she man
a sudden
drink of the tree
horses that darkened
everything




Keith Higginbotham's publications include Grace Notes (illustrator, with Meg Tuite and David Tomaloff) (Unknown Press), Calibration (Argotist eBooks), Theme From Next Date (Ten Pages Press), Prosaic Suburban Commercial (E∙ratio Editions), and Carrying the Air on a Stick (The Runaway Spoon Press). He lives in South Carolina and posts his (mostly collage) art at keithhigginbotham.tumblr.com.
 
 
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