Thomas Fink

OBLIQUE NURTURANCE         


                                                        How many 

                                                            homes 
                                                           do they 

                                                       own this 
                                      week? Do those leftovers 
still smell fresh? Sleek & plump. Nomenclature struts. 

                                         Resplendent commodity 
                                             existence shrieks 
                                                     unity. 
                                                  One may 

                                           be quickened by 
                an intelligence flashing intermittently. 
                       A generous 
             creed? Mutant roses? 
                Precipice of joy. 
                   Hard copy 

                         is 
                 no longer 
      accepted. Too visceral. They 
           opt for 

   a placid lack reaching far 
            into the buttery 
     sunset. “I appreciate your 

           appreciation. By 
              extension: you.” The fullest this 

                      radical narcissism can muster.




TREND SPIN


                  Welkin 

             waxes raging chemical blue. Last 
                                                  month on 

                                    Cable, where common 
                       graphic narrative armature gets dosed 
with hyperbole, central eccentricities were naturalized.

                                               This strikes at 
                                   some unprotected 
       core: eccentric demographics’ nod 
   to a banal familiar.      (No elitist 

          laugh track infiltration 
                     could 
                  dam[n] it.)

             Normality,    bemused, 
                lobbies for its next 

                             spin.

Thomas Fink has published 12 books of poetry— most recently Zeugma (Marsh Hawk Press, 2022) and A Pageant for Every Addiction (Marsh Hawk, 2020), written collaboratively with Maya D. Mason. His Selected Poems & Poetic Series appeared in 2016. He is the author of Reading Poetry with College and University Students: Overcoming Barriers and Deepening Engagement (Bloomsbury Academic, 2022), as well as two books of criticism, and three edited anthologies. His work appeared in Best American Poetry 2007. Fink’s paintings hang in various collections. He is Professor of English at CUNY-LaGuardia.

 
 

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