Casey Bush


IMAGINING A NEW NUMBER

peace of mind is still possible
just keep hands in your pockets
where they can stay warm 
and out of trouble

I’m in need of a prime
divisible by one and itself
but that’s endless like pi
a pizza covered with chin hairs 

circle around my wagon train
draw blinds on those rusty rumors
huddle in the kitchen listening
to the music of a dripping faucet 



TIME AGAIN TO POISON THE WELL

crowned by a bird’s nest instead of a fedora
there’s a white worm in the potato eye
totem poles beg to be decimated by termites

let’s spend the day picking a bouquet of wilted flowers
along a stagnant stream stocked with bream that pout
soon there will be red and yellow leaves to rake

I hereby swallow an abscessed and blistering toad
to vainly celebrate  the most cherished transgressions
my brain burns at both ends, cinders drift into an ashtray

animals become plants as feet turn into roots
vainly we dash beyond shadows and hide from the wind
I rattle my prison door to better appreciate this solitude

Casey Bush is a Portland based writer whose 8th book of poetry, Student of the Hippocampus, was published by Last Word Press (Olympia, WA, 2018). His work has appeared most recently in Pacific Poetry, Unlikely Stories, Inflectionist Review, Poeming Pigeon, The Decadent Review, and The Bear Deluxe Magazine.

 
 

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