Vernon Frazer

Singing by the Book


glider quantity lieutenants
blowlamp legion radiation
before the bellboy clawed 

     the vocalist
     to debate caribou

                       under palette alert

before the renunciation mileage

peals 
          long
                 sharp
              and
                                nominal

                    driven to finite repentance

                           slowly finished 
                           its low roast of
                           eyeball elision

                                                 dryly snatching
                                                 noose garlands

                                 *

legion blowlamp radiation
a repentance vocalist peals 
in frontons 
                  before impatience

                        barricades 

                               a sonically grim witticism 
                               where umber-tone lacing

sold a dead paperback
to confused replication

           no sycophantic agent 
           defers to a bearskin dreamer

lipping portable 

                           volume transit

                                                    a revenue boomerang



History as the Unmaking


pendulum tremors
            trigger an irritant eye

     radial when turning
               to gamboling habits

     sequester the mirror
     its narrowing sight a
     reflecting mirage not

          a breath that tastes
          the distant call of runway magic

a pivot flash
                    watching 
                                    its vanished

                         *

     retinal stories
     formed visions rendered inept

   as catacomb fossils
                                     slipped into disrepute

            a stoning silence
                                       left unhenged

       to puzzle 
                       a future swinging
                                                    unforeseen



Horsing Around


bloodrush cadenza
tantamount escarpment
no filler left
                  emptied 

          an adagio simplex 
willed the hefty 
           crush of concrete

      on Valentine's Day

true cliches turn 
hearty as the shaped ensemble carts
                         paramounting horses

      first blush
                      worst thirst

         in chorale

with any full wish
                            filled

                      during the solo



To Hell and Backing


the mean examiner
his notary a residual to close

     confused migraine persuasion

broadcasting

                     the next one
                     encouraging
                     post-thermal

                                          endeavor mausoleum

          spectrum money 
          to upset a thoughtful commode 
         
                               *

emerging stock
a velcro camel’s thrash

     low payback 
                         visitation

               postponing a form of standard

         umber thrust mattress
         bartered its northward 
         clatter a bursary ramp

                        into moonbeam schism

                               *

samaritans dial habitats 
always a where to boomerang


     their eyed descent 
     stopped the docket 
     din of dispensation

               prefacing each brimstone

Vernon Frazer’s most recent poetry collections are Secret’s Exhibition and Gravity Darkening.

 
 

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