Dennis Hinrichsen

dial tone mob scene

cure it or can it, that modulating drone
                                       night wind on the lawn with its
beautiful freakouts

sky-rupturing swallows    those comrades of risk
re-configuring the last Mystique

                                                          ~

                                                                        I sensate now, deeply embodied
          crowned like an oil rig
                                                         river
                                                        noise
                                                       flexing
                                                        again

                                            its bullet-proof swagger

                                                           ~

                                            the tactic is wild grasses
                                   skies measured in tediums of flannel
                         before the nightmare, the rehearsal of the nightmare

the hoof impact

                                                            ~

                                t h e  w a y   z e r o   g n a w s   a t
                                t h e   f o r m   o f    a n y t h i n g ,
                                t i m e      h a n g s       l i k e       a
                                d r a p e r y   i g n o r i n g  i t  a l l

                                                            ~

                               caricatures of cue balls smacking the chaos
                                       reintegration of stale platitudes
                                                messy amusements
                                                  judicial asbestos
                                                the twitch the twitch
                                      house music for the legally insane

the tradeoff, one guitar for a bucket of eels

                                                            ~

I am choosing sugar now over being haunted

                                                                                     floating on brackish water
                                                                                           is the mosquito there 
                                                                                         a prophecy of wonder

                                                             ~

                                               the marvel of the nail
                                             my allegiance to howling
                                                  vulgar park swans
                                   even a half-drowned cat has obligations

                                                             ~

I will smoke cigarettes in the rain
I will kiss the inflammation

                                                             ~

                                                   Dear aficionados
                                     Dear dubstep slurs, electronic glitches
                                             Dear guitar echo and buzz

this, my Korean facelift before the fabulous plundering of it all

failures all the way

daybreak all over my forehead with tongue shine and mythos
right socket roughed up      as if packed with rust
from the ninth century
but I'm good
                  I can replicate self out of the splash
of neurons
               I can maketh that scarf
I can carry it                      into all the next places
and if I’m just a horse tail slathered with mud
and if jukebox sha-la-las             are more and more
the proper dose
                        I will be that ghost pulse
in palsied darkness
another faith-damaged storm       perched on bruising nightfall

as for sleep the bump motion is the same

huge wall against which we set the interruptions      the gunshots
tattletale sounds of rhyming
icicles stroking out        film stock stroking out
you have to believe what the eyes say
every bridge now                             a construction in smoke
unschooled crystallizing helplessness
                                                    as if it were fashioning
another black diamond world
warm it up or whim it up, deep laughter says
the  gloomy  origins  of  it  all    those facets   those cuts
as for the poem           this sip of fresh water
how long can it sustain
now deserts                                     stretch all the way to Mars?

hooligans

loneliness now                  loneliness to come, but better
it has a wall in it that can hear
how fingernails sing      Lorazepam body surfing the scatter
sleep, that weathervane
                                 botched and bitter
no sign of hopscotch in it
dreamscape apnea        as bold as a cafeteria floor
but you’re alive, so sleep            this is your house, sleep
I wish I could just get paid      for having human hands
non-stop and semi-automatic    but I'm busy taking notes
predicting future assassins
                                             tic toc    tic toc
your breathing...
shallow breathing         broken sonar       seeking shore


                                                                     for M.

Dennis Hinrichsen is the author of eleven full-length collections of poetry, including Dominion + Selected Poems, Flesh-plastique, and schema geometrica, winner of the Wishing Jewel Prize for poetic innovation. Among his other awards are the Grid Poetry Prize, the Field Poetry Prize, the Michael Waters Poetry Prize, the Tampa Poetry Prize, the Akron Poetry Prize, and the Rachel Wetzsteon Chapbook Award. Their most recent book, dementia lyrics, was recently published by Green Linden Press. Their poems have appeared or are forthcoming in ballast, Barrow Street, Bombay Gin Literary Journal, diode, The Glacier, The Indianapolis Review, Midway Journal, Petrichor, Sontag Mag and elsewhere.

Banner Art:
David Dodd Lee, Disguised, Collage, 2020

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