Keith Higginbotham


The Governor of Florida

it was almost like on 9/11
when someone pulled me into
the room with the TV
saying, you’ve got to see this
right before the second plane hit

the governor of Florida
attacked by an alligator
while standing in knee deep
water in the flooded street
after the third thousand-year storm 
of the decade

I couldn’t see what happened
just a couple of splashes
and they said it was a replay 
and then the news 
showed it in slow motion

and the people in the room said 
there it is: did you see it this time
did you see it did you see it

see what, I said



Suicide Living

light force-field
a sprained interrogation
the first stovepipe

a doodle then
of inflation’s
scalded whining

doorjamb ballads
a trunk lobe 
a barked choreography 

the flesh language iron
falling dead
on dope

cracked underground violence
a generation sprained 
on supermarket speed

taped flesh for piano noir 
a sleeping corrosive hill 
a jamboree builds 

the weapons clean
the tourniquet turns
an edible lesson



Adam and Adam

a flamethrower
the Son of 
Man
in a jr. high 
fanzine
a new wave 
king his twin in 
the mirror a
monster 
sex film
in the forest 
physique 
from a bootleg 
recording
a book of boys 
at the ex-dance
of ants
on the American 
frontier



Furious Rainbows Penultimate Grainy

hero vignette cards 
slashed trips 
saloons 
	the scurry of brink
	the creek’s obscene  
		faces from the rain 
		I wrote
marked flickering pyrotechnics 
you spooled away



Park Slope

sand smites the arming arms
in them a new emptiness

stretched in storms the
knot to heliotrope

the things downsized 
the thrust too straight
the stairs extend and 
extend

winter from the anonymous  
circling against the against

Keith Higginbotham has published the poetry collections Calibration (Argotist eBooks), Theme From Next Date (Ten Pages Press), Prosaic Suburban Commercial (Eratio Editions), and Carrying the Air on a Stick (The Runaway Spoon Press). You can find his artwork on Instagram (@jkeith2f) and all sorts of other stuff on his Twitter account (@ohaikeith). He lives in South Carolina, USA.

 
 

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