Evening Will Come: A Monthly Journal of Poetics (The Art of Losing—Issue 58, October 2015)

Samuel Ace
Four Poems

We have heavy heads

January 19, 2015 at 7:50:27 AM

We have

heavy heads

in the mud

our beards

our heavy anchors

we have sand

we have brows

we have grain

we have

heavy breath 

tart corn

we have bread  

heavy bargains 

haloed feet 

bare pencils

we have run out

of red

we have broken tiles

we have made a house 

in the car 

heavy brackets 

his wind-worn eyes

we have bands

we have bowls

I give you a duck

October 28, 2013 at 7:37:37 AM

I give you a duck a trampoline I give

you a duck I give you a parameter I give

you a way to fly I give you a prince a

temper a weight of water I give you a

duck I give you a circle I give you a lake

I give you tires I give you home I give

you a duck a tenor a dozen hens I give

you a light a morning I give you the

unbound box a glass you are not lost to

the strange and stirring ghost you are

not lost to practice I give you a duck

you are not lost the current leaves I give

you a duck the stairs I give you a duck I

give you a beach

I take a tour

here is where

we rebuild

I take you

a walk

I give you

a duck

a shore

I take you

a wrench

the blurbing

needs water

I give you

a tool

the beach

has come up

the trip

I take you

a waltz

the certain

I give you

a sound

I give you

a beach

(first published in The Atlas Review)

Disobedience a chunky angle

June 7, 2015 at 7:00:44 AM

Disobedience a chunky angle to the

staircase where I thought survival meant

the basement the flies of fortune the

early morning birds speaking in a secret

language of ghosts and gratitudes the

earth breaking in a vision a grand

keyboard a breakfast and a dog

Obedience

so untenable

so entirely disliked

in families

and fortunes

there’s only

one way through

we break the window

unsweep the rug

unpolish the handrail

fall down the stairs

and run

A courtyard at my feet

August 11, 2013 at 7:51:03 AM

A courtyard at my feet a couch the wind

the waves like cordial fists

I live outside on the deck of a boat  a streamer of baking hitched across a private coast  the big current world in a big turquoise pool with sherpas and giant turtles  I want to forget how to put words together  if I fail at failing I want to laugh myself to sleep