Emmett Lewis


The Superconductor’s Song

I didn’t intend, 
the floss cannot be withdrawn.
Rub ocean on it.
An obsidian bloodbath 
in the corrugated 
harbor. I will not work, he said.
Rays of strawberry / dawn-colored 
playground, rectify 
these soliloquies for future. 
The farmer
had a yellow—jumping 
jacks, brittle mist. I picked tropical, 
one must eat what one 
must. Stratosphere of mint 
and juniper: dressing gown 
oblivion, I wanted it. 

Sock me one two 
tarantula, the vermin 
longstanding. Sour 
kilograms. The western 
bench drives hot 
in an expansive tangerine 
landscape: beetles. Expensive, too. 
Your hair blows 
dryer than salamander skin, 
looks gooey like taffy. 

Smart clock 
and the doomed architect 
in a metaphysical joke. An antelope 
contemplates a peach. A cantaloupe 
reminisces over arctic fowl. 
Snow goose, man. 
The river ate my algebra. 
The river ate my wife. 
Bamboo curls 
en route to airport. Great limbo. 
The frame does not: I’m Italian. 
Traveling bard on the lid 
of an eye. Tennis oracle 
with a tendency 
to shatter. Bifocal geranium chatter, 
park here for exposition.



Ambiguity of Sound

broken glass mistaken		for cries
neighbor’s dog 	mistaken for Anubis

the winds		are rising / sweeping
up the drive slashing 		pines 

birds faint and 	fall from trees 
make craters in the hot 	wet asphalt

packing peanuts 		mistaken for
blossoms / tens 	of thousands from 

the back of a bus 		crackling in the	   
street / bitcoins and cracked		our teeth

Signature Moonglow

Silver pupil cigarette golden satellite doctor. A major player in veterinary real estate and consolidation. First the vets then the dentists then the ophthalmologists. Diamond whalebone. Portable turbine. Radio trout behind his eyes. Tarpaulin earwig.    Lysergic catgut.    Arial voices  echo through the lumber yard.

To Quote Brian Williams from an Aerial Perspective


Northern flicker 
Light passes between two trees


Two flickers of the descendent sun 
Red-naped and digital and militant redefined


Obsidian eyes and star bursting in air 
Moab, Utah or the mother of all bombs or days earlier 

		
To quote Brian Williams from an aerial perspective


I am tempted to quote the great Leonard Cohen I am guided by the beauty of our weapons
…beautiful… fearsome armaments making what is for them a brief flight over this airfield

So much depends upon perspective		spangled or strangled


Beauty mobilized				an aesthetics of terror


This is the view from a navy ship 		or


Of the opposition party
One nation 					under bombs personified

Emmett Lewis is an MFA candidate in poetry at Columbia University. His work has appeared in Foothill Poetry Journal, petrichor, E·ratio, The Hamilton Stone Review and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.

 
 

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