Mark Lamoureux's Blog, page 2

NaPoWriMo Day 20

How to abide the high-school
graphite sky?

To not think of death
in autumn—ogle the puck

of frozen pesto, the withered
cornhusk plait in the crisper,

the kite strings tangled
in the fins of an electric fan;

give up. The names of death
outnumber the names of desire;

yours is among them, a special
disease to be dead of, a hardening

of the mouth followed by fever-dreams
& then the body wrapping around

itself like a knot tying a chopstick
to a dagger.

NaPoWriMo Day 19

HOURS

11.

Altogether
of the day,

modest, hard-working
respectable.

Nothing
up its

sleeves but
more of the same.

No time
for sleeping,

drinking,
eating.

The last push
of the beginning,

character
in full force.

Nondescript,
an employee,

on the clock,
get her

done before
the break,

or get ready
to open up.

On most days
you could do

entirely
without it.

NaPoWriMo Day 18

HOURS

3.

Which
witches,

hour of shattered
plates

& rumbling
pipes; laughing

mouths open
in the membrane,

blistering
celluloid.

Night terrors,
like the snow

that blows
through the door-crack—

little death,
big death, sleep

the middle
child, dreams

buried deep
in the eye.

What walks
here,

waiting, grabbing
the seat

nobody wants.
Arisen

rhizome,
the logic

of the grave,
an apnea.

Rise up
rapid eyes,

slow
breaths;

the original
darkness

the white
of the page;

we who are written
in fear—

the last glimpse
the skin

of an eyelid.

NaPoWriMo Day 17

HOURS

20.

Gloaming lap
of summer &

slumbering masses
settle down

to prime time,
fishbones

of the day,
bleached & naked

in the sands
steadily diminishing

down the hourglass
aperture,

quick in the green
development

& city dinners
out on the ave.;

the rest
are gearing up—

bats in the dusky
canopy, children

heading home,
mosquitos gorging

on their blood.
What will you choose?

Ragweed channels
flower, getting the most

of the advertising
dollar,

nine out of ten
dramedy doctors

prefer singing
cops—elsewhere

the early lovers
collide—

ascendant
& weightless, the blue fires

light
in the heartland,

cinemas rumble
& explode,

the sun
puts its eye out.

NaPoWriMo Day 16

HOURS

10.

Warm glow
the fires of elsewhere,

while look
what a mess

you have made.
The engines

sputter up,
coughing out

clouds of decimals—
fruit is piled,

housewives laid
down, the lineage

of Spanish kings, times
tables, violence

in the john, true
tribe unified

for business, for
keeps. Nobody

out on the streets
but the disdained

& stricken, yobs
& twits, tourists

& starches. Real
time

of desire, elseone:
in another zone

in other shoes,
or barefoot

better still,
in grass

with nothing
to do,

nothing
to see.

Breathing
half lost.

NaPoWriMo Day 15

HOURS

13.

Under the yoke
of lunch

poems’
triskaidekaphobia

because landbords
own the sun,

low one, knee
deep in the unliving

wage,
because the dead

have no money.
Furthest away

from night
freedom, night

soil man sleeping
in the lurch,

deck stacked
with spades

desk stacked
with blood

rags, pens’
slicing up

eyeballs—
lapel ink splurge,

squares’ pocket
squares, mud

in your mouth,
desk lamp

in your eyes.
Punched out early;

ding ding
ding

NaPoWriMo Day 14

SEEKER

Abecedarian eats only letters,
by books embodied, booklet
curl of a text thread, circular stair of
DNA strand, a demon made of
empty pages. Shuffling shibboleth that
fades in & out of view,
going from shadow to shadow,
hiding in the margins,
in the Apocrypha of life,
just another chapter of the tome that
kills the
light with its quickly
moving pages,
nothing but a blur
of flip-book
phantoms
quietly enacting the
repeating
scenes—birth through the
three-legged sphinx punchline,
until it flips back again,
vainly spinning through the circular codex
without beginning or end, a bad inkstain shadow in the
xylophone grin of
your fate's
zoetrope.

NaPoWriMo Day 14

SEEKER

Abecedarian eats only letters,
by books embodied, booklet
curl of a text thread, circular stair of
DNA strand, a demon made of
empty pages. Shuffling shibboleth that
fades in & out of view,
going from shadow to shadow,
hiding in the margins,
in the Apocrypha of life,
just another chapter of the tome that
kills the
light with its quickly
moving pages,
nothing but a blur
of flip-book
phantoms
quietly enacting the
repeating
scenes—birth through the
three-legged sphinx punchline,
until it flips back again,
vainly spinning through the circular
codex
without beginning or end, a bad inkstain
shadow in the
xylophone grin of
your fate's
zoetrope.

NaPoWriMO Day 13

HUMAN CHILD

Ellipsis jungle, a forest
of dappled light. Faces
breeding out of leaf
static, interpolating
interlopers. Following
like flotsam in the
flowing stream. Brook
the flowers in the water.
With the weight of
beings, graced like fire
in the back of clouds,
broken like scarabs
of shivering lost lakes,
never shook in the dark—
a meadow is plain
to see. Wastrel, taken
in the ground, lost
reins. The great twisting
antlers in a prism
of leaves, the worsening
halo of bad
thinking. This is a story
in the hands
of a lie. Going on further
into the unwritten
lap of the knoll. Goodbye.

NaPoWriMo Day 12

LACHRYMARY ME

Went with the jobbers
in mayonnaise, rugged
& welding circuits
for skort cutters. Mercury
Cougar mission
to the H.A.M. radio
meetup. Bellerophon
so what; a bauble
in the maw
of a pewter dragon,
putz is not even a madrigal
smoke bomb assistant.
Missal command of
a hard green fake granny
smith, tiny flakes
of rotten texts suspended
in orange Jell-0 cichlid
heirloom. A medicine bag
for punks. Forgotten
space capsule filled
with mulch, terracotta
lachrymary for
hens & chickens, succulent,
easy on the eyes. Rococo
raccoon shaman
in the Shakespeare
garden. That’s for forgetting.
Last time I will buy
a ticket for that guy, snakes
don’t grow on trees.