Two by Michael Ives

Here are two poems by Michael Ives, from his Jawbone reading last week. He calls them “floaters.”

The third signal tower fell.
I dropped the implant.

When we came to
we were staring at ears of corn.

All chrome, thirty of them in a row:
grille of the bastard’s Town Coupe.

Crazy. I wasn’t made for this.
Joanne would be waiting dinner for me.

Flank support had stayed behind
to realign the optics.

Anonymous black two-doors
were crossing the tarmac, as always.

Many are the words for rudder
when the helmsman is no more.

What were we going to do anyway,
issue writs?

Even Senzei was gone
opening a sundries shop in his mind.

Chop water, carry wood,
kill your parents.

*

Never saw the moon
leave the horizon.
For it was altogether

too long assumed
by men of that day.
That to them who farmed

remote quarters.
The customs imposts thereof.
I must bring The Victoria’s

Secret Poems
to conclusion.
And pledge these

replacement organs
for the upcoming
fund drive.

Her highness secretes
a pheromone blend.
From the gland of intention.

Through a series
of permeable membranes.
Bordering that other Egypt.

Hidden among dream waste
and morphine ampoules.
The electronics in the system

cool under ferns.
They promise nothing.
And ebony. Thing.

for RW

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