Godhell
By Joseph Harms
It wouldn’t be a lie to say he knew now would be then
when moons derealed their stages, kyotes sang along entrained
by youthful fatalism bound to epicure down tracks
from town to town between suns, freights he’d ride atop toward home
when tired beyond return, procumbent dewed befrored, the dawn
when kyoteeyes extinguished yards within the forestbourne.
Not quite a lie he knew now then, that nothing further would
transpire upon the first loveyou (feyall feyall to come!):
the second mocks the first (no matter…no matter!) and all
things follow secondly. Ynotaphobia (from nos.
to sehn. to matte behind the silver). Vitaphobia
(the hand goes through the pear so hunger is unlearned). By rill
a bench (Pinilla) lost its tree, is less and less a bench
as goes (MI) calls of sandhillcranes when circling ends, nadir
of their lookingglass magnetized at last; hypnotized by
their deed they leave rightly. So too when leaving any place
backlook redacted, near unseen the overcast behind
all things, the Thing behind the thing, behind us too: Godhell.
Jamais, Please
By Joseph Harms
The spiles set require suits in spring; the grapnels left
return at times in dreams andironed, ingles anglerboned
and gelid, ingles nonetheless, each flute of flame birdseyed
a spyhole from which pipes the fluing Voice that can be heard
at will by those agued with poulticed clothes for constant leaks,
an inkling awling through each thing for congents otherwise
ungodded in their varied anchorages closed and staid,
equipoised alltimes to be rechoired…
A strawberry, a spoon of honey an inveterate
might kill; so too the soul a drink too much, just one, each thing
a gnomon signifying coming sleep, the noumena
the rune inscribed departed, paramnesia rote and bland,
allthings allways alltimes (the gnomonshadows cast by guns
equipoised on soldiered bullets)…It’s rumored mountains wraith
outside this window, sieves through which the gallicae of stars
disperses unclichéd for almost all.
Joseph Harms is the author of the novels Baal and Cant (reprints forthcoming from Expat Press) and was a finalist for the 2015 National Poetry Series Award for his sonnet sequence Bel (Expat Press, forthcoming), His work has appeared in numerous literary journals.
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