Jack Collom & Mark DuCharme


Three Poems


& the flowers, bent into position standing
for something to do with Chicago, began to
explode, vibrantly, though in relief against
the flowers of Lincoln that Bell had
landed, in the brittle trees, & felled
almost as an afterthought. Apparently
never having lived so wickedly, they
cut hundreds of miles into southern
France for their luxuriance, &
sampled the local mustard. King Ferrous
revealed a liking for tarts, & quivered
unequivocally, until Miss Betty explained
the difference between port & portentous. Meanwhile, the moon
—oh, nothing. Uncle Happy would have growled, except
he had passed on—poor Hap. All the harbingers foretold
less than one repetition; however, green servings (as
in enchiladas as lit by Von Trier) taste like
Motown before the Balkan War, if you don't count
Sundays. The nice thing about veiled eroticism is
how the veil feels. Then she bought a ticket to
ride, on a spree, & slipped gingerly
into the ginger, which was just what Hadley
inferred. If you jump out of the gloom, what you have left is
black jellybeans. "Oh stop it, Gerard!" insisted
Helga, who got her name while escaping
from the far end of Agleh. Meanwhile,
all the birds were coughing. If this were a fairytale, you'd think
they'd be coughing cute little songs, but in fact what emerged
was a kind of dulcet bitterness. The doors were open, but
who cared? General Grammaw simply smiled and
limped into the traffic. If undecided at any point,
badminton turns into fleece. And then
it hit me: all the general strikes & marginalia could be outsourced any instant, leaving
South Carolina without a dessert, unless
y'all wanna make it. Meanwhile, the insurgents
kind of—well, you know, sang the following song:
"Cry me a liter, but don't go." The bungalows are still in need of repair.

---

"shims"

If I follow down the center I immediately fall back bilious outpouring often splashes almost beautifully at feet of one curbs go by each one composed of millions of dots your hand is made of three words which are missing Mikan threw a goose-egg into Pete's wishbone, thinking it golden philosophically, the mariachi explodes with every sweep of its tail quondam not quantum the goddamn thing the cities were misplaced fingernails bit me so I filled up with bitter fruit bars bars bars chords, ear muffs but too few colors bratwurst is worse than weisswurst, but love colors our belongings in out, around but not otherwise like a perfect tomato slowly, but shabbily she built a built a lost city Sayonara means calcium in denmother memos and it's supposed to Harvard means lanyard means blue slyboots zygotes ate your testimony

to the point of straying in dialogue back to startling nextdoor to Office Max is office mini run by there my name is James no it's not! what rot Shsssh! when I consider "balance" I throw myself off the beam every one of you philanderers is so clever—but nebulous stop that right now stop that right that right one let her come in so she can see me preening these shoes are so solid, they could almost stand sideways like sketches of Sundays her imagination ran wildly down Topeka "is this the right classroom, Mister?" "I am Professor Chester!" to wake up in Fayetteville, we must proceed slowly, Drake his plans always seemed too intricate to come together wittily Captain Spaulding was the victim's brother; he burst out laughing a round of stanzas playing John Wayne in a sinkhole

---

What is this about?
Is it the nature of speech?
Who's your mother talking to right now?
Why do I have to answer, and to whom?
Do you think you know where China is?
In relation to what dislocation?
Do you love rhyme more than life itself?
Or rhythm more than the life of the mind?
When did Pound say, "Rhythm stays."?
Who would pound a haunting dancefloor in order to happen on a love of the demotic?
What did Babe Ruth bat in 1931?
Why go quietly batty when you can do so with a splash & great aplomb?
Who lives in the basement, Father Bill?
& Who is that knocking, knocking, knocking?
What do you put in pancakes?
Wherefore art thou, Gomez, my stalwart valet?
But what does Canada know?
Does she dance the fandango with an upright skill set?
How many grits in a wolverine's colonoscopy?
Would you ever want to know the answer?
Did Diderot have any children? What kind?
What kind of pilgrim would wander into this banquet reeking of licorice?
What?
Who? And why not?
How did President Polk talk when he was just drinking orange juice?
Or was it "just the orange juice talking," when he ventured out into the moonlight?
Will I remember the garbage bags Friday?
Will I remember the sestina & the dump & the filibuster?
Does Holly really love Gordon or is she a dang gold-digger?
It is better to sing, is it not?
Have you seen Sydney in the last couple years?
Wasn't he last heard from in Singapore, hunting the wild goose?
What's your favorite binomial integer?
Will the rafters grow weary of our bliss?
Is it the yellow?
Is your favorite guilty pleasure merely macaroons?
What are you gonna do about it?
What would Brando do?
Do cornblossoms turn out right?
Ah, the wine & the macaroni—what is it you call that?
What's your dog like?
Can you find heaven in a state of emergency?
Can you find hell in a chance remark?
Can you stake a fellow earthling to a wild ride?
What's that gleam, Pancho?
Is it supposed to mean that Spain will soon be over?
How many letters in "orange-colored"?




Jack Collom is the author of 25 books and chapbooks of poetry and three CDs; he’s also responsible for three collections of writings by children, all published by Teachers & Writers Collaborative, New York. In 2001, Tuumba Press (California), issued a 500-page volume, Red Car Goes By, as his Selected Poems. In 2012, Instance Press released his book, Second Nature. He has twice been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship. In 2012 he was granted a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Poetry Award. A “Day” was celebrated for him (2001) in his longtime home, Boulder, Colorado. Collom is interested in finding, exploring and helping spread new ways to talk from/of/about nature. Thinks it’s all serious, all funny. He’s married to writer Jennifer Heath and is the father of four grown children.

Mark DuCharme’s print books of poetry include Answer (BlazeVox, 2011), The Sensory Cabinet (BlazeVox, 2007), Infinity Subsections (Meeting Eyes Bindery, 2004) and Cosmopolitan Tremble (Pavement Saw Press, 2002). The Found Titles Project was published electronically in 2009 by Ahadada. The Unfinished: Books I-VI will be published in 2013, again by BlazeVox. Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Big Bridge, Letterbox, New American Writing, OR, Reconfigurations, The Volta and elsewhere. His Web site is http://mark-ducharme.com.
 
 
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