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K. SHAWN EDGAR - POEMS

6/1/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Two wheels, one gear, and a fixed cog … the transport, like a deep space FTL drive, has brought K. Shawn Edgar closer to the future. Just as poetry and playwriting have acted as ballast to steady his present.

 Crawling Under Cars

​In the sky
blue is the rule
of wave-particle bounce.
It's the back-and-forth nuance I miss from you...
in our day-to-day movement's kiss—curl—punch—suck.
On the ground
the fallen tumble bucks rule.
Though it looks nothing but clutter crazy
the crumble-crust rushes over moister stuff
like skin, scars, and hair over blood, guts, and brains.
It's the same under here--
hard people full of soft potential
dodging bullets, bugs, bad tidings, and tantrums
by crawling under cars, parked by gods or god-serfs.
Their sad machines are an invariable breed for the future.
From the backseat, you speak words of love
but leave out the consistent actions of love.
The crucial dual mechanism (of love & thought)
between axle-end and wheel-hub—missing--
keeps our car from moving forward--
stall, rust, degrade, tumble bucks fallen.
My hollow-chocolate-easter-bunny-I-love-you--
the crumpled wrapper swimming gutter creeks in winter
and reflecting our sky blue void in summer--
melts as car motors echo all around our rusty edges.
The sunlight is dying quickly under bumpers
as we crawl on knees, toes, hands almost blind.
Here, under cars, your lips' rough ruby reflection is a reminder
of maps, driving times, backseat bundles, and white-trash coolers
on the long road east for our first date—jumping off cliffs
or rolling hospital halls, backside to a trolly bed, too small.
Here, under cars, maybe they won't notice me for all the fallen tumble bucks
passing time as soft potential wastes us all and bugs bomb bullets
for rights to our treasured skins.

​O. Hunt's Bloodless Coup Realized

​Banks,
are no longer robbed by strangers
from outside,
while dressed as nuns,
or in masks of dead presidents.
 
Caper costumes and getaway cars
are now online auction items,
resold at garage sales;
 
round yellow stickers peeling up
price negotiable
in St. Louis.
 
All is
bloodless
during teleportation jumps.
 
Thus,
all
reshaped forms,
re-invested with
compulsory
blood and marrow,
dream of
bloodless coups,
 
a mimetic
teleportation
experience.
 
Paschal Lambs,
my friends,
forget them where they lie.
 
They lie!
 
For,
you don't need a monocle
to see
 
banks are robbed
from on High.
 
And all things
with positive potential
have an equal
base appeal.
 
O. Hunt
runs a small daycare
in Boise, Idaho.
 
This is the
 
| feedback |
 
from the aether.
 
Picture it:
 
Ofelia Hunt
floating in white wispy dress
caring for toddlers.
 
Only true,
one wonders,
in a devilish profile blurb
at Bear Parade.
 
And yet,
why not?
 
A false statement,
if ever one was read in the light,
reveals more than it conceals.
 
Or,
a true statement,
read with a false heart...
 
Oh, I never wonder anymore.
 
In St. Louis,
there's a Safeway store
with perfectly parked
little Hondas
 
Or,
in this case,
Boise, Idaho.
 
And the perfectly parked
Honda
is
Ofelia's.
 
“Because one baby is like any other baby”.
 
Right?
 
And babies
are most
important
before they're
born.
 
For after,
mother's talk about
werewolves and
black bear traps
on
cell-phones
 
while polishing their
peg-legs.
 
And those babies
move from the
Rockies
 
to
Portland, Oregon
 
just to find... 
 
and in find-
 
ing
 
lose-
 
ing
 
them-
selves
 
in backwater
river dells
of aether and
words,
 
until fear
stops
them in
 
Time.
 
Time
to type
in jest 
the magically
 
unrevealing,
smirk-adorned,
phrase:
 
“runs a small
daycare
in Boise, Idaho.”
 
Then the jest
 
jumps
 
find-
 
ing
 
its selfsame
photon
in Boise,
 
and leaving an
empty version of
O. Hunt
 
for me
 
in the bounds of
her tabular image
frame.

​The Cabinet of I. Unknown

​Ishmael, I'm fixated on the guns again;
wondering if anyone's every complimented you
on your very nice rack.
 
One rifle looks like it was carried by Clint Eastwood
in a movie about a general-purpose western town
surrounded by sagebrush and conveniently located
watering holes.
 
Another long barrel, with scope and protruding nipples
methodically centered under the stock, and under the butt,
reminds me of my ex-wife—wooden and stout.
 
Then there's the shotgun; neither the type carried by
riot police, nor the zombie slayer sawed-off pistol grip...
no, it's an all-day hunter. Barrel, long like a giraffe's neck…
if a giraffe could blow a giant hole
through your chest from across the street.
 
From the urban, upper-floor window we've all haunted
at least once in our vacant, silly, vulgar lives, you aim.
And a flash of hunter's orange, as the sunlight hits you,
is the only warning on the street below.
 
Of all the guns in your ornate cabinet, none of these
mere civilian rifles are my favorite item, no; it's behind
a hidden panel on the backside, a magnificent weapon,
the hand-forged harpoon head from your epic sailor days.
 
Before the big wars, the bigger bomb, and the computer
your bareheaded noggin roamed the streets of seaside towns
fighting the frustrations, the isolations, the sparks of genius.
 
It was your growing urge to tip their hats—off, off, off
compelling you to the docks that has carried forward
in all the minds, and all the hands, of all the heroes
who've heard the Other Voice swimming with their own
in the darkest waters, at the clearest depths.
 
Off, off, off… to the sea, to the sea… before you snap;
before you POP the heads of strangers
from an upper-story window.
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