NATHAN PARKER
HELICOPTERS
The empty
popcorn cup in the empty theater
in the empty city scrapes down the
aisle
while the naked man in the film
grunts to the beat of
a ceiling fan.
The little patron
who would be rubbing her clit
through her coat is climbing a
silo in
the sun, has grass in her teeth, and
can hear,
over the Sunday ponds, the chug
of helicopters.
WE SEE NOW BAD
If only the first word would come and
untwist my tongue!
—Robert
Penn
a. number,
Friend. Why not have to be good
b. you want to.
On atomic, on
big talk, on electromagnetic, on continuu
c. a volition has tinctured like an
ethos of cherry seeds
Porchspat on snow. You do
d. sleep on them.
You do
e. have to.
Why not
f. lunge your letter
Opener into the
thing you
g.
Your cuts of
couch,
h. your best of show
Gourd. Your
i. fleasfly to memorial
Orchards,
orchards
j. of tax
Punched
k. and black.
#,
l. in my room
There is a
tunnel of
m. light that leads to
Light that
n. blows out your eye-
Lights and
writes
o. a name on your head,
You cannot
conceive of it, but
p. you see
Via
q. your name.
And cannot conceive of it. You know
r. the otterblood
whiskeys,
The heaps of fungiied glass
s. are a river, a must to must.
Right now,
t. high and dry,
Let's litter its
banks
u. with flipflops;
Pretend
v. we live and breathe in a warm-cold-warm-cold
Concentrated
chamber of of,
w. and that number by number yous and Is
Are being
trained away
x. to terrific little rooms
Of clear earth,
from whose ducts run
y. agapic
milks, lambs, hyssops, new-natureds
It is inhumane,
z. it is senseless
Acts.
i. it's great.
You do not have to pretend,
ii. we all see now
Bad, as through a
cocked shovel,
iii. but then.
We will say
nothing at all.