Friday, November 27, 2015

3 poems || Philip Byron Oakes

Cleaning Up

Discount catharsis saving on water running off behind
the ears for tragic overtones making their peace. Vestige
of parity sharing a narrow focus pandering to a breadth
on life support. Salivary rivulets touring the chinny chin
getting out front of the mouth of the river. A modicum
of spectacle glossing sensitivities. Antagonizing
equivalents to subordinate positions. Down wind’s way
of wandering where stillness once roamed the
contemplative, without a thought to be caught in the
snare of the quietude. Over easy. Under the watchful I.
Forsooth or consequence. Supplementing a color’s
scheme. Floating a love boat down the alimentary canal
as the angels make waves rise and fall into patterns of
ephemerae and loss. Stirring doubt as prelude to
narrowed corridors straightening paths back to the itch.
Painting amorphous exteriors to reflect a smidgeon at
the core calling anomalies the norm to be. When the
words fail the litmus testing the waters for clarity in
perceiving the echo’s plea for mercy. Tying knots in the
tapestry of identity dusting off the guttural for the
groan, recruiting adherents to the belief in
coming clean as a means of unburdening
the woeful of memory.


Square in the I

Supplemental agonies bringing the point
home in a limousine, double parked in the
space between the pangs. A stutter in the
law of averages hiccuping miracles, evening
out of need to balance the losses with the
salience of an underground holding the
world in place. Tongues tickled at the taste
of adverbs describing the stillness at the
core of the commotion. The mitigated to
a standard as if part of a pattern, bleeding
anomalies as the sun sets in its way of
burning bridges. Eking out an element
of confusion from the rote recited as
curative to a fault. The center of a gravity
seemingly well placed, as the darlings of
the unconscious convene at the breaking
point. Taking a mind off its plateau of
prominence, overseeing the etiquette of
pain to edgy vigils for the stricken by the
thought. Subsumed by the surrealization
of the all too common aches. Stacking the
deck with euphemisms even as the blood
flows into the straits narrowing to a lilt,
to shield the quietude enveloping where
it is it hurts to navigate the consequent
limbo passing muster off as remedy. The
broken’s way of mending the template
to allow for what hurts even as it heals,
wounds holding court for judgment
day.


Aside From

Earning acquittals on minimum wages of sin
stuffed into poses, predicated upon making
a face stand still for something. Adjunct
confessors spilling beans laterally in approach
to forging ahead. Mouthing words at sharp
angles to the meaning all in one breath.
Carrying the load for the next to balance on a
wheeze. Blending into the horde humanity
tends toward of an evening out over time,
dilated with remembrance measured by
what’s forgotten in getting there. Beyond
a smother’s reach into pockets of the audibly
evident, listening for indications of the height
from which the other foot falls into play the
fool. Stuffing the nooks with aversions
articulated in tropes the eyes second, in
reflection upon chances lost to see the end
imbedded as it was in the beginning. A nod
bobbing for apples of the eye before all is
laid unbearably bare, for the audit of
immovables one irresistable urge
at a time.                

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