nthposition online magazine

From 'The liberties'

by Chris Pusateri

[ poetry - february 11 ]

2

Your online catalog called    'spydus,'
could mean 'spider,'
might mean 'caught'

It's 2:30 already,
lightless sky of lunar blue,

                    'spydus,'
     could mean lulled
          by the antidote to life, lunged
          into nighttime, my little ballerina, turn tail
musicbox, buggered
by schemes of the real shadow ministers
     international fixer and paparazzo supreme

this is axed statute, made so by circumstance
          and the pliant whims of the cameraman)

by royal command: let's press ahead,

          give us confidence, extend us credit,
          poets like to get their heads enjambed,
                not even a citizen, eh?
                     nobody even knows you're here, I'll bet

your last rationale
               will be the ambulance siren that vanished
down the lane

stalked by the object of your research
   you enter a single word and search
      all day for it
a tiny you, passing through - field spectrum, flitting
      amidst others passing - aperture
         pictures in real-time, a narrative
            calcifies, forms accord it

you enter a word and search all day
                       watch those who would have you act

& observe: suspicion
                    according to
                    what
rules of evidence?

when lol is Latin for lookit,
fat lot of good it does
when you're stupider
than the tools you use
by a factor of ten.

dumb orifice: opening and closing:
daylight failings, sobbing squab
like speech, there is no way to retrieve
what's been given: there is only the recorder
who dictates in time.

 

58

You can tell a lot
   about a village by
its prevalent forms of rebellion

          funded largely
by mother's labor

how like life   
          the many aspects of      Plato's cave   
are everywhere
apparent   one is surprised   to find there again
          so fast, so little time,
where could truth lie    but exactly   where we're looking in

cuttings, edited footage   the very leavings