James Sherry
(USA)
(from Entangled Bank, “Lyric Poems after Hai An”)
The Beautiful
The beautiful, the tongue
The buried, the the.
The Flows
Earth Day rivers hold over
Modern mourning. Oh thyme
Without hams or whatever,
Wherever they live scattered,
Stretched to go beyond
From and to
The tributaries.
from Entangled Bank, “Spelling Suggestions for Brandon Brown’s Obscurer Words from Baudelaire”)
Vampires in Frisco
une outre aux flancs gluants, toute pleine de pus!
Escaping strife with Smiley Face
But keeping nerve alive
Your aura trips my mystic trick,
Feral outlier in the Mission District.
Correct Politics
[notre] supplice
Aura-t-il jamais une fin?
Who wants the earth
Once they let
The meek inherit
What’s left of it?
Does the pitter pat of protester-
Protectors pester you?
Let me mace your grace about the face.
Or how about tarragon?
Get thee to the museum, go!
Tunis
Si, le corset brutal emprisonnant tes flancs
Patiently, patently, potently,
Picnolepsy helps us see trucks
Picked, bleeped and ripped off,
Entangled with what you’d want
From the mangled burning man.
In a struggle to be subjugated
To fat-lipped abyssal blips on radar.
Who owns your daddy?
Stroller Zed said, “He’s dead, Fred,
And I’d like to discuss your ass
With the fondest florist,
Disforested in the Moorish morass,
Wrenching the henchmen from drenching
The dearth of earth with assurance.”
Pretense Loves Infinitenesse, love.
Plant Erie in lingerie,
A biscuit artist retains rattan.
Kelp oleo with chairs
Slays all ages and salvages
Last week, wreaked in Tintin,
(from “Selfie: Identity and Environment”)
ONES For Example
You, Yous
You out there, hi!
Youse and
Me, yes, me. Me
Are we and us
Or was.
Twos
And I am we, too,
A this and a that.
Those a they
And thus an I,
They that is an I.
Threes
Not what you think
For you are
And so
You are not what
You think you are
You don’t see
Yourself as
You are, plural.
You are they!
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BIO
James Sherry is the author of 10 books of poetry and prose. His most recent book is Four For. For the past decade he has been writing on environmental poetics. He is editor of Roof Books and president of the Segue Foundation, Inc. in New York City.