Raymond Farr


The Back Room Was Evening

Caught dead on the fringe of a lie I can’t name
I shot a needlefish today

As it edged ever closer
The thing appeared plastic is what I inquired

My tongue is as strange as
An image that strikes like a melted chrysanthemum

*

A nefarious piano waits for its teeth in the wings of adventure I settle for pennies

*

The back room was evening
The surfaces of things glittered like monsters

Was I addled at heart?
Indifferent to song?

The meaning of flesh is a mechanical banana

I lie like Chicago when soft ashes rain



Stresses

I am acting
You are acting, someone says

A xe, a xhe
Enter
The conversation

Twice until

You are thinking
But not saying

Stevedores

We all got down
To look around
On our knees

Beowulf sucks
Someone sd
Have you tried reading Beowulf?

The door opens
Onto an alternate set
Of facts

One is a mallard duck

One a saucer painted yellow

Backwards
Sd someone
I read Beowulf

In
This way of
Thinking

Consequences
Are stressing/the pond light
Is dimming

A poem hasn’t
A grip

On reality


Raymond Farr is author of numerous books in print, including Ecstatic/.of facts (Otoliths 2011) as well as Starched, Rien Ici, & Writing What For? across the Mourning Sky (Blue & Yellow Dog Press). His latest book, Poetry in the Age of Zero Grav, is due out in 2014. He is editor of the experimental poetry zine Blue & Yellow Dog.
 
 
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