K e n T a y l o r —

soil is a machine

slender blades push against pull.

the pledge of up blown skirts confused

by sense exchange. prelude to tasting sky.

i’m trying to decide which vitruvian degrees

oppose my last dissection. perfect square

and circle feelings. navel the center of both.

your dreams walk a replica plank.

submerged. not on top of water.

feature burlap. resin. van dyke brown.

built by tiny dances across pupils given time

to dilate with surprise. like random letters

of a ransom note seeking bounty

from a clearing. raising scores to settle.

pitched as

misdirection.

soon my regard turns from gloom inside

a mustard hoodie to grinning at the snug

outlook of entangling. 

if i catch momentary air, notionally

i’ve lapped the earth in the distance covered

from where i left to where i land.

but you’ve been hurled too.

pressed into your chair by a sudden bouquet.

the prestige we’ve been waiting for.

both trapped in the spotlight of applause.

bliss

she wants to turn the penny

she doesn’t want the plant to have to eat around the chair

she wants prophetic dreams before dawn

she doesn’t want a falling down road house

she wants simulated conditions to apply

she doesn’t want to wish on a star that’s a number

she wants fragments

she doesn’t want bruised fruit

she wants that element between chance and choice of tones

she doesn’t want remnants

she wants justice where it’s least expected

she doesn’t want little blue trees with a new car scent

she wants the rose instead of a kiss

she doesn’t want a revictualed matinee tray

she wants unsolved conjecture

she doesn’t want some redneck temporality of wonder

she wants to be surprized by affection

she doesn’t want to be underarmed out of the bar

she wants to converse with the dead in some imaginary arcade—

a reminiscence portico for saying sorry or i no longer care

she doesn’t want award-winning nachos

she wants the courage to be strange

she doesn’t want shouting and blood

she wants a clay pipe soap bubble

she doesn’t want a fourth wall mirror

she wants a sapling as a post for a sign announcing danger

she doesn’t want a song and dance goddamnit

she wants the seat left down

she doesn’t want unsettled self-fashioning

she wants seabass shawarma

she doesn’t want bioacoustics to measure birdsong

she wants customer service in body wash

she doesn’t want a snap shot of seven french cows

she wants staffless music at large above the underworld

she doesn’t want to restamp footprints when mercury dips again

she wants to be moved by the exercise of her acts

she doesn’t want small sugar-plum candies traditionally thrown

she wants a clown born within the sound of cheapside bells

she doesn’t want hypothetical subjunctives

she wants the shadow of drumline rudiments

she doesn’t want the close up of a colossus wearing sail cloth

she wants to face in the direction of travel

ruined athlete

when precision played out jaundice struck the hillsides. an unexpected middle C change. stagger taking over fine-tuned technique. the hours of corrections turned guesswork. the sweet shot lapsed like a fast take on the long song not traversing lifted clay. no passing. no return. his dated profile and mash bill is swept left under less facts. distractions hinder finer kicked up chalk. strings and shoes quit being exhausted too soon. this just in—ad out.

all that’s missing is the hopeful frill of giving over to the ever parallel thing. pretext shards instead of rows of trophies. tennis ladders—whatever tends to thicken sap causing flowers, gone. when the world discovered fuzz of the open can smell and trending was precisely him. now scoring underlines underwhelming. no soap. no spread. no rake. service shoulder not holding. elbows spent. knees. name. place. his jolly past eclipsed. scan to redeem.

to count on bruising. the sorrow of low tide by access to equipment presently so striking. by translating injury to a smooth regard and better substrate. like prayer sounds in corn flowers. candle songs. fragrant mercy mapping a taller spirit brought by the mixed realm of the whimsy bracket. morning of the swell. here’s a great hack—match brown-chicken-brown-cow with ex nihilo light to scale charisma. wager latent seeds and naissance. declare new balls.

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