Jim Leftwich

skeletonized egerminated auctioneer



tractor
factor
hector
vector
traction
faction
fraction
friction
fiction
hectare
torsion
vetted
torque
rations



a varoom habitual chainring he was a bug.
two few human goldflecks he was a bug.
in these days warming chimes he was a bug.
the mice three hours toiling centipede.
bird unmasking stairway ego, ego, he was a bug.
he was a bird, varoom, few these mice, unmasking.
he was a centipede, pedestrian, certificate of fiction.
Goldilocks in the bag, he was a bug.
peanut butter Dad O'Rourke's nothing fever, ticks & fleas.
shirtsleeves alarm clocks bank account he was a bug.



erreginated
eregginated
ereginnated
ereginatted



a nose is a hose is a pose
on your toes is a rose
a rose coin pogo
a chicken is not a horse



a noise
is a house
is a posse
on your toast
is a roost
arise and
join the
logos
a chicken is
not a horse



author outlaws
Shenandoah gust-asp
thread is sparkghost
reading a camel
through the heart
of an eye



like the fairy teamother
is a mutterer in feathers
the spotted chickens
have feathers on their
feet / the xhixkens and
their spottled kittens



then a boot now
two boots then
a dog now a cat
then a lamp now
two lamps then
a fern a cactus a
clock four clocks
an aquarium one
o'clock in the aft
ernoon Jesus an
eagle now two
angels now a
poem à poem
then a book of
poems another
book babies Elvis
2022 The United
States now North
Carolina then the
same who knows
not the same new
normal wintry mix
corona 17 south
how many miles
from Pea Island
to Ragged Point



between the floor and the floor
beside the wall and the wall
before the chair and the chair
beneath the rug and the rug
becomes the dog and the dog



so sod sop soap



so sad sap soap



omega at mudlake
linear in cereal
stanzas potentiate
mica / sausageate
sempervirens



sip snip snap snip



questions pouring soup suit
xjival horseless chivalry
extrapolate equals from
calvary / sabotage the
cascading doze deboned



cat scat scam scar car



car can ban bane cane can car



map mop mope hope cope
cape tape tap tip trip rip
ripe rope hope mope
mop map



crintz na bah
gnaw bear
baw forb
orbiting your
own obituary
bite norm
ba nah banana
cringe glitz



Pay Attention:
tareckly means
directly which
means soon
which means
something other
than soon
depending on
who knows what



nullard slote open
instructured truck
stop road at hats
today a.m. gallons
of alligatored
fernthistle dump
stations laundry
mat tressellated
the violin base



middlefish interweaving
the socks with a turtle
weave the waffles away
mirrorfish ribbonfish
needlenosedpliers
needlefish wishbone those
waves will wash us away



the sun is a fact. materiality
of altered dimensions. the
sun, colossal, caused by
exemption and trust.



neck telephone finality
nor periscope sneezing
oscillated linguistics
nor noon
folded ceremoniously
into a flat ammonia



get in lunch / group halloween
followed by recollections
of intimations refurbished in
infinite intimacies / railroad
tracks through the dark
woods and onto the open
road between the two
deserts / boiling the prism
like any other prize / in touch,
get in touch and get in line



we cabbage and onion townhouse
proportions accrue / buyers
beware the degradations
of the deranged / if
anything, if it is anything like last
year, well / sharply militating to the
right / long and threatening / moon
light on bones, covered in
blood and money



persistent space / peopled
with mammalian anchors
/ chiaroscuro, as pure as
a row of letters / cement
our causal perceptions



half as subtle as access
to a causal spittle / guerilla
corn dance, virtuoso
quietus / the salt on flame
in a circle of hats / amino
acids, such verses
and reversals



why, you ask / it is drizzling
on the deer / we are far
away from what anyone
might think to consider
the here / riversides
capsize, nonnegotiable / i
am asking you again, why



manual achievements demaze
the fungible / snow whirls like
fires they file away for future
thought / as though dawn is
spent to a sea of breached
emergence / worms cut by
night / they want you to
dangle your rooster
before a frothing kangaroo



more like a solitary U-Turn
taken between the back
pages / books kneeling in
the dirt, simplex with
cerebration / we are cooking
a minnow
and a doorknob
one pair of sunglasses
Om Omega Megachurch Crunch
literally a fungus of
quasi-calligraphic
letterstrings



Sea of Matisse / façade
dismantled, diameters
deracinated, dialectical
defenestration / with one
arm flapping in the
face of our parade, with
one balm berm burning
lipid wings no trace of
the aphids, the play is
the hinge / Sea of
Mistakes and Misuse



since silence is causal and
purity is a pie / is a cake / is
a piece of cake, a pie of
cake / since mere beauty
the inverse of jello / of
jello non bondo, the
magnificent / purity is a
causal agent / like
puffery, puff-pie, puffery
stuffed with pie, the pure



geography, graphic aliments
of the proverbs / balled-up,
the wadded news / visible
through the low possible,
the low road to the highly
unlikely / a case of radical
pirates purring ossa for
persona / annual per
piccolo in cheese, we are
one slice
once silenced twice



curious Fibonacci spinach
the inchworm abets the
Sabbath / my is as good
as Ash / life as porous as
a Dog / global beacons
combing as the beach
thinks windy sentences





come comb the air
combine the airs
combat the air
pinecones
bulldog
fire extinguisher
come hone
beware the
frumious diction
blight and airy



well will wall
well well will
well well wall
well well well



hello yellow jello
wallow in the willows
a sound proposal
what a fine fellow
fallow as we bellow



duck and cover
pigeon and cover
pig eon



shovel
grovel
hovel
muffle
coffin
bevel



At the turn of it
At the burn of it
At the cairn of it
At the dawn of it
At the earn of it
At the fern of it
At the kern of it
At the learn of it
At the tern of it
At the urn of it
At the verge of it
At the worm of it
At the yearn of it
At the zawn of it


     January 2022
     
     
Jim Leftwich: Zenobia in Pocosin

Jim Leftwich writes: "I was born in the 1950s, in Virginia. I am a 20th century American poet currently working in the 21st century. The poem is always a poem. The where-and-when is always here-and-now. Attention is how the energy of any present crosses over from the writer through the written to the reader. The poet looks into a mirror and says, if my poem exists at all, it is taking shape behind the eyes of someone else, inside the crowded aisles and empty isles of another head.

"But it is never only or even potentially whatever anyone knows and wants. It is only what is there, and it is every bit of that. We like how Tzara thought, how his mind moved, the stand he took in and with his mind against all earlier literary and artistic traditions, which he recognized as complicit in the unfolding nightmare that came to be known as the war to end all wars. Asemic writing is a continuation of the tradition of the absurd. If the new absurd is an imitation of the old absurd, then it is not a continuation of the tradition of the absurd, it is instead a nostalgia for the tradition of the absurd."
march 2022

 
 

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