Peter Schwartz

nimrod

they say I’m dumb
but I’ve heard kiloton prone
in the trumpet notes of sorry
tortured out like Cinderella
on a winter soap box

I’ve seen satellite efforts that
shrunk their reward to tears
drowned in the ooze of embattled
gobbledygook by some decidedly
inaccurate moonlight

I’ve smelled the subterranean woes
on the soles of fat jitterbug professors
the heat, the patent yoga rot of
bottled roosters in an open market

I’ve touched the tin eureka
in the polar ascribed to
choppy midwives underfoot
still mascot happy from the last
fragile engine opposite

I’ve tasted lightning cooked tender
random off grapevines with a twist
of mandala, cheroots and pomegranate
ether and silk and pin and rib

*and for you idiots
I’ve heard the vulnerable sing
then get hurt for their song
I’ve seen the ambitious cry
for they still don’t belong
I’ve smelled the lowly die
right out in the street
felt glory firsthand
as I tasted defeat

the process of nothing

1. flower box

a yearling,
that one-sun rose
dressed finalized
in greeting

2. the magic box

spaceship, tulip
fool the foot remains
the miracle would be
to bleed silver

3. accordion

one learns love like an old accordion
between the gasps and wheezes of flattened gratitude
the oom-pah, the industrial
an eon
this mistranslation
I love so

4. the carpet box

two feet in
on the worst side of remaining
this olympics of the often
repeats

5. the puppet box

there is no handle
on this puppet box
the crank on the side
releases a small voice

the faces painted
on each panel
hardly distract me

I am turning
learning the names for everything
in an old puppetmaster’s world

6. candle box

“pretend lights,” you called them
as if each held such passion
from a black box,
a simple black box

(7) coffin
____

Peter Schwartz is “half of the band ‘ear’ (www.listentoear.com).” He has also published in Freefall, The Aurora Review, Porcupine, and Zillah. 
His poetry journal eye can be found at www.watchtheeye.com.