I need a good poem
lifespan-short, one
I can shoe-horn between instants
which in that pinch says so much
I’ll understand long and short
by the depth of calluses
left on my brain—
but it’s not happening
I’m already up to nine lines
so it’s too late for brevity—
what I want is
one that says something
without rolling forever,
Amazon-like swaying
to topographical switches
of rivers and streams
or cul de sacs of human error,
but now I see
this won’t end here
in brute summation
like a dead fish
wrapped in newsprint
warning of impending
but once-avoidable
consequence,
no, it’ll go on
until all nouns,
verbs, conjugations,
& absolute clauses
have been spent,
until this mine of
memory and metaphor
is no more complete
than the store of meanings
dragged inside-out
by the flow of pregnant clauses
in blood & bone
which led to others and others and others
like cups spilled into the flow
of sea-bound floods of
multitudes of sisters
and brothers and fathers
and mothers
Jim Culleny
7/1/18
Blink 