Keith Higginbotham


Rhinoceros

folded grasses sun
dust the stress of head
lines filled out 
like a cool 
		snapback 
		molten sour 
the opened 	empire face 
the blue weight 
the fistful lights an
ideology filled full
the wine worn pool
of television a golden
		light engulfed
		in oddity

glass the hungry
fiction the non-
fiction surprise of dead 
architecture global
		spoiling variety 
		of gibberish 
lava oozes bad ground 
sweat not shooting the 
rhinoceros the 
morning storm the 
seasoned hell hangs this 
		missing
night as the sky ends



Gasoline Noise

patient thaw detachment top graphic
dark crescendo bigotry routine

radical day old zero tangled 
coronation plot via evening curbed

from hereditary monochrome of 
theoretical montage express

ceramic shrouded remastered bedrooms
key-lit festive boys from glass

overnight cheek night-owl crash
smeared square sugar from conflation

the faceless otherworldly town
the crowded street weather



Red State

streets like sprouts farm into
	pockets and 
	rains
collapse the thick 
	earthquake 

skinless breathing ships 
	raid the flights
	all up musculature 
	throwing 
paper into swaying
appointments 
of skin the
	fuzzy not-rooms move 
	through a boneless 
childhood catalogue of springs

into a new what



Bad News

we visit my grandmother’s house
to hear the latest bad news
she tells us who’s dead this week
  	       who’s dying this week
	       who’s got cancer this week

I open the fridge, looking for a snack
and my grandmother says
	         I baked a chocolate cake 
	         but I took it to the hospital



Fleshy Volcanic Feathers

Man caves await, Washington under the spirits
		pulls front
			intersects with thought 
			
			thought of the flutters
				  and the burst
the
burst and
wax life grace into refusal’s grace blue

years of the
feathery boondocks beyond the Mexican pyramid
			`	    of grizzly delight 
rich balls of
Russian sand the swan redhanded caught blue

phallus of bells saw
all of Lafayette forever cross through 
			glass ratless houses
of the Venus prince
covered in torn-out obliteration of geometry
booming bodily yellow white warble blood
			painting treasures on tears

Keith Higginbotham’s latest poetry book is Chainsaw Gender Reveal (LJMcD Comms., 2023). He is also the author of 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.

 
 

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