3 poems – Mark Prisco

the lonely shepherd

watch me
is Glimmering is Shard is Moon,
Diadem? Tourniquet. Clusterfuck Mind
-bomb. holePunch. Shadow:

crawls drawls on the sidewalk.
chestnut canters
arboreous wood,
upsets the underbrush, my
vines
boughs.

lost for
a sign: you!
here when i never, when i never
your face in the water; what does she see
that she smiles at the tree?

*

go to Kellahah,
he advised. A bulldog. Tenacious.
Anything for a Client.

[K has a forehead

i observe
like a breezeblock; the scrubbed skin
of farmer
at restaurant.

brusk i suppose you could describe him as]

*

watch me disappear. live
& never let but i’m
fine. for it’s not
a thing of bitterness, but love
demolished, set against itself,
not a thing to stir
facebook with, my
fr3nds. get fucked,
swallow hard
remembering

on the deck,
in my left
shuffling: once –
this is for the hole in my head. twice
– you know who, what you
didn’t do what you said
i’m a loser when i kick but
bigger when i play it back
& stronger:

good. watch me drop.
what i mean is Goodbye for ever because
you can’t talk like Zero sum
standoff. What goes
up comes together in 1 spot – is
problem because
i’m not a fan of centralisation

& i never wanted to be in your band
anyway – you cunt you
coxcomb, you
fornicator of goats.

---

the shadow

the
 
 
 
once laden, my
no help for

dreamscrape

the child rolls the train across the polished floor.
she waits at the station. the man pulls in.
steps off.
you think his eyes are empty.
but they’re not. it isn’t him that-
the sky falls thru, the glass & no-one notices.
the difference between ennui &

boredom.

apart from his clothes, he is naked.
you’re scared because the crowd bend together,
are muffed against the cold, the crack in temperature.
unaffected by current events or uninterested.
you’re responsible for what you do in her two-tone dream
in his cream sedan in her art
studio.

i wish it was the winter of discontent

I know what i’m doing but i don’t learn from experience.

What hope! when the moon’s horn penetrates Venus
& Ur anus [typo] presents itself in my House.

It’s a joke. a misfortune; i’ve the fatal flaw
Aeschylus dreams about.

They fall on the pavement,

slip thru my fingers & i’m fixed by the mess of coppers
& silvers. Some old fucker says
You Shouldn’t Throw Your Money Away
like he’s giving me some life fucking lesson;

(he’s fucked now, & his wife, who says nothing)

condescends, runs his nail across the boy’s palm. She smiles, meanwhile,
benevolently.

Cries of Victory! mingle
with our Voluble
lamentations.you mis-read us.
you do not understand.we have lain
discipline; drive

over the Kaimais,
the long haul

from Judea
(Bethlehem?) or

some-fuckin-where –
a memory, i think

not mine.
why i’m mad. dactyl
half the time
pillaging trash bins
drumming on the table
cos i’m waiting. waiting
still & you start yr chainsaw.

is it necessary to do this now?
history won’t count it, the mass
at their business, harvesting
winters & the lord
in his tower showering
shite.
the kingdom is yours

for a price. i want out,
eventually. shares
in the economy.

down with

workers, masters; wall.
burn the churches, God is
real. in you

hammering wood, concrete. metal.

run
toward, away from – the hare &

Hound——————————————

(could murder a pint

rite about————————————————

) never still.

now

do me in.
blood spots.
furious.
justice is stupid.

words aren’t real from
context/blind in
wind. lost in, removed

therefrom my heart
what i feel what i touch.
we are sucked

off
for something we didn’t do.

fuck you & fuck your god