Meeting the Not-Self



Laughter came out of
mishandling wrath.

Inside my relationships
an occasional disdain, freely of
the fork.

Hairdos of the Working Man,
loud and clear, a vulgar
elevator always in the way.

We killed the messy ones,
often too loudly. Killed the poor, killed
the quiet, killed the kitchen sink.

I turned to divorced
railroads for kicks, wrote postcards
to the czars, found the existential
televised weekend.




Slapstick



I pronounce obscure
maneuvers

Opera singers apologetic

sometimes

to the very brink of
claustrophobic
rocking chairs

Something to hold the walls up
hovering
projected text

synchronized to live
Dixieland
animation




Hello Flatiron


A half-guess loomed
in the doorway, a
photograph from whatever
rings a bell full
of buttons

and a thick
sandwiched
voice as if to breathe
plastic anxiety.




Keith Higginbotham lives in Columbia, SC. Publication credits include Hanging Loose, Lost and Found Times, Lilliput Review, and others. His chapbook, Carrying the Air on a Stick, is available from The Runaway Spoon Press. He has poems forthcoming in Eratio and trnsfr.