Pale Nouns

 

by Joel Chace

 

 

 

 

 

nouns              pale disposable irreverent true almost

 

besides those distant barely visible points              could

 

trip on leap over              forest-full luxurious ants

 

en attendant the likeness              goodness’s cusp pulsing

 

lights              fantastically green streets loose undulant laces

every self-help book remaindered              thief in a neon glow

 

 

 

 

 

 

romance without finance name of this tune              you got to

 

regulate your intake sugar              and the baby

 

on the monkey’s back              ash settles its accounts one sash

 

after another flung shut              daughters sons dragged into dying

 

parlors            oh bay-water glint fields of wild carrot silk
      
oh deepest azure lost changes              dizzying crows

 

 

 

 

 

 

all there can be no consolations              camera  borne

 

beneath the surface              numbers could be 11’s

 

5’s or 17’s              before nestling the mouthpiece on lips

 

staring right into a wall              melodic lines that never

 

give up              previous sentence the one that matters most

taken off-page dissolving like music              in air

  

 

 

 

 

 

kiosks benches              shush of surf beyond a stretch of mist

dying with a fan on               and thinking he could walk up walls

Banquo’s banquet how things are              in Glockomorrah

Gomorrah glockenspiel              timing of traffic lights along

avenues deli windows obelisks              slanting rain

who sets it and remembers reds ambers              greens

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joel Chace has published poetry and prose poetry in print and electronic magazines such as 6ix, Tomorrow, Lost and Found Times, Coracle, xStream, and Jacket.  He has published more than a dozen print and electronic collections.  BlazeVox Books published his CLEANING THE MIRROR: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS, and from Paper Kite Press is MATTER NO MATTER, another full-length collection.  Recently out from Country Valley Press is SCAFFOLD, the first part of an ongoing poetic sequence, “(b)its,” from Meritage Press, and A SCRIPT, from Otoliths Books.  For many years he has been poetry editor for the experimental electronic magazine, 5_Trope.