Joe Milford

morphnacular xi.: Empedocles and the apis
 
prolegomenon shattered    the threshold
            icon genomes        mandalas that will cut you
quark soup                amphibian emergence
            to escape Disney swastikas            to evol
call a linguist, a botanist, an ornithologist, and
            an ichthyologist to survive this craven
dystopia discordium           suture slumerica
            aerate it like worms in paradisic soil
figs rotting in the fridge      snakeskin boots
            under the elm                       poor swagmen
so selenography leads to documentation of ocelli
            divine geometer       fertile crescent banks
hover in the modicum        genome mandalas
            bantam drums and oil spills
we are all girls in the gutters when the comets
            come down with their ides for our
      Kentucky-fried towns   we all got billy-clubbed
nihil-post-avantists, maybe there’s a bonus round                   
mitochondria clutching to the wheels
of a Mars rover         amera-seraphim microbial
            write on the soon to be bombed
walls of the never sacred wombs with paranoid
            hieroglyphs   mystic analog is now
digital cyber-fraud              quantum physics, though
            can’t discern a woman’s laugh
 


morphnacular xiii.:  Axis of Andriambahomanana
 
i fed you myths and nothing astonishing came out.
you wiped honey off your lips telling me to play better lyre.
no, we can’t copulate with the maker’s pussy. vile loper.
eater of apples of the nubiles’ nipples. souls hanging on our windchimes.
bent needle and burnt bottlecap by the poppy field. you are falling man.
you are falling, man.  carried by the crow across scarecrow vegas.
omenic revelatories.            harvesting a wicker world by active volcanoes.
lonely ark myth disintegrating. pundits scramble virtuoso. wordwarps
keep the populace copacetic in innuendo. if only the world was a free
barbecue. all are autumn-glad. all are instant grams of irony-clad.
red hair of ancient dispellings from crystal palaces the blue blood
spilled into the water supplies. agape is no pulsating octopus, it’s
not even a unicorn-pegasus. cloudshape history on its nape of whim.
clouds are dirt and water. just like us, i told you. what’s the use—
you saw that horizon and needed to lay your spear flat across it.
 
 

morphnacular xiv.: Albuquerque waffle house hodoiporeo

the inevitable themes          idioms in the void
            it takes a lot of equipment to know what equip-
meant needs to be fitted with        eureka!
            the arctic place of first emulsion               equip.
marsh and masthead           cave and catacomb
            coal and crystal        ash and hecatomb    tome
of undead seas         it’s not our medicine frequencies
            a note. a key. askew.            something’s beneath
the brake can’t push it down kind of feeling is
            always the weather             rag and bone man philo-
mass-amnesia           honey is the only food that never rots
            and the drones are searching the ‘hoods for it
rafferty rules galore            universities of satyromania!
            cops lining the road like alligator alley
the entire landscape tastes like fried chicken skin
            a century sweating out the bends and dementia tremens
used a phoenix for a zippo             cowboyrica
            roadtrip of descending       Schrödinger's dashboard
compartment of contraband vs. walls of borderguard moustaches
            removed the clock tumors made cheeseburgers
everyone posted bail           outside the Georgia O’Keefe museum
            whores wiping thieves’ gold off our lips
freedom or passage for naught     just melting the modicum
            with this transmission                     trailblazin’ off the pier
 
 
morphnacular xv.: choroplethic hypsometric isopleth
 
atlas of whims          atlas of sweet nothings       
            atlas of burned dinners       atlas of birdshit fractals
atlas of unfinished manifestoes     atlas of broken woodwinds
            atlas of shattered glass objects       atlas of shrugs
atlas of discarded doors     atlas of discarded tat ideas
            atlas of times you almost met Donald Sutherland
no poverty is greater than the loss of an event horizon
            atlas of ginger supermodels           atlas of bathrobes
atlas of shini sou      atlas of broken hammers    atlas of unfs
            atlas of nautili           atlas of spiracles       atlas of nerf
atlas of steampunk aircraft             atlas of splinters
            atlas of asshole art curators            atlas of animal spines
atlas of minefields    atlas of pine needles                 atlas of boll weevils
no poverty is greater than the loss of an event horizon
            we are taller than crestfallen         bolder than aldermen
unleashing implosions for the cosmic Ponzi
            investing in wonderment so sticky your fingers become it
atlas of thoughts you were yet to have    pages torn out of it
            atlas of torn out pages         atlas of famous forewords
atlas of awesome indexes          atlas of famous last words
            no poverty is greater than the loss of an event horizon

Joseph Victor Milford is a Professor of English and a Georgia writer. His first collection of poems, Cracked Altimeter, was published by BlazeVox Press in 2010. He is the host of The Joe Milford Poetry Show, a co-founder of BACKLASH PRESS, and the editor of RASPUTIN: A Poetry Thread (a literary journal of poetry).
 
 
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