Douglas Barbour & Sheila E. Murphy


Continuations CXXI:

a chancy moment    airy
               	confabulation   a balloon
     or flag half up or down
               	a signifier far too ambivalent
too far gone in contentious
               	coup de grates

loons drift forward     	present
                  	contentment 
                              		breezes half across
         to mean             	the act of observation
               	shifts 	        the seen               	as if
                              		turned into	the known

known     if only    as
               	the invented rational
     e    booked for a flight
               	of fancy     never
               	     imagination     that
                              		lost leader lost again

tapping sounds revive 
               	our recollection               	random 
                              		messages mime rations
               	of caught feeling
                              		vertical fluency    mere flecks
    seeming precisely formed

if precision mattered    words
               	might count   a math
     made simple enough for more
               	than the few   wielders
     or welders    of a small
               	mind to a smaller ambition

louder than numbers
               	song wields ambidextrous
    navigation through 
                              		fields just found
     to hinge 	                to one 	an
               	other               		bit by bit

muddle by muddle    through
               	fair   exchange    for
     a lost leader     that
s  le(a)d     a head full of
    clouds    clods    a
               	way of covering sight

mere a cappella meanderings
               	crowd the cave
                              		layer by layer of closure
as of cloture   	            melody’s unbrought
               	mention                     	an unspeaking
                              		head shot                	frame on frame

up    right as a straight
               	away    a sway
     of opinion s now job
               	less    than meets
the aye    a vote of
               	confidence men   (writ in

within 	the wherewithal 
               	to             	lure de
                              		fault position               		way
                                                 			to the right replete
          with residue of found    	fa                	la 
                              		lollygagging   

a twitter    a song sung far
     too high    in a somewhat
               	faulty tower of
     crown(ing)   a career
               	cracked    (or is that
               	     cranked   (on ressentiment

rungs of the high
               	plane lower than               	true reach
                              		the racking up of                	points
     seasons               		decibels
                   	intoning loyalty 
                              		as if a shared urge

as if a sheared edge would cut
               	an it sans IT
                              		(unsound espionage
               	or is that unseen
     no oath unheard    but loss
               	of intelligence guaranteed

herd thought
               	free 	of outliers
    out    lying 	in fie   lds
                        		leaders 
         at a loss 
telling of oaths offshore

a tossed off    walk
     the plank   not meant
               	for the vast unwashed
no ticked talk   for ‘you’
     you unmentionable    that big
               	family tent actually quite small

malls filled with
               	lanky dudes 	without
                              		the tickets 	big laugh
               	no prattle 	just brash 
   walk                		away not toward
               	what used to seem an ace

in the (w)hole    a tiny
     slip of  (into)  darkness
               	sashaying    really
those tight jeans a disguise
     an altared  egotism rei(g)ns
               	supine    (a)lasses

primped residuals of mega
               	marketed taught 
                              		shallows
around fictive supreme 	
                selves 	self-circuiting
                   mere flecks of inventory

kept    woe meant
               	frozen asse(r)ts
     a yes(terday) man   made
               	then remanded
               	     branded    no pain
                              		gainsaid

precision as in correctness
               	of the flower                		its
     true folds               		tone of rose
                              		a précis of whole 
summerful       	of
                tones apart from rows

throws    a sign
               	if it cant
                              		be a call
or a cull    a kill
               	ing floor   flooded
                              		by the bought

calligraphy 	unto itself
               	allows a rise
                              		the antonym of ludic
     maybe               	past the lull
               	wrought positioning 
                              		of sub atomic                	     this

black mark(et)   written on
               	the whim    profound
                              		the age of
entitlement    no (en)light
               	meant   (to meet
                              		the gilded eye

known cinders inasmuch
               	as moves ahead
                              		triangulate the set piece 
with ingredients that finesse 
               	pro forma hymns to her
                              		written in complicit code


Continuations CXXII: 

 
 

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