Cosmetic Gravity

 

A masterpiece apology for the beauty lost gambling

on the sluggishness of time in the suburbs. A tree

dying to leave. The quantifiable downturn in the

frequency of ineffable experiences, putting a damper

on the dream life of bruisers, more thumbs than

knuckles in the saga of borrowed screams from the

dark. Run of the mill echoes running their cycle to

creaky silence. Parking the privilege at the door of a

drastic assumption. The weight of change for a dollar

brought into the big picture, on a string of light for

every paradigm brought to bear the cost of starving

the beast, of a bite of lemon into sinew haunting

muscles worn to school. Burying the iris in brave

new loam.

 

 

 

 

Original City

 

A tip from the iceberg to bring a jacket for a friend

brought to tears on a gurney playing pinball to the

end. Celibate satyrs in pink Cadillacs doling

affections in a one act play of light. A subsidiary

twinkle in a glass eye on the time it takes to unveil

the magic lost in transit. The mystic nonchalance

churning boat motors in a sea of tears.

Discount relics, filling the void with

a rumor on a horse in a parade of a different

color. At no diminishing return to sanity as

the clock winds down the stairs. As a lark might

beat the bushes for gnostic larvae, in the

summertime of scorched cotton

and long forgotten runes.

 

 

 

 

Collateral Plane

 

serial manslaughter setting the standard

in stepping over bodies to cuddle a doll in

a carrot apocalypse challenging the stick to bend a little

given the gravity of

a turnip in a search of the archives for

footnotes in the sand of real history

gone to seed in the politics of putting the matter

to rest on its laurels as accidents will happen to us all

 

 

 

 

Keeping It Ideal

 

A gelatinous interpretation of hard

facts flexing puny biceps

in the garden. A beholding pattern

to the trenches of genesis clouding

reasons for more. The look aliking it’s

going to rain, pitching in on a tent

to rescue the drowning

in the womb. The mysteries

at the bottom of the sea

of desire keeping a promise to merely

float at bay. Hock a pose from the

reliquary and toast the buoyancy

of denial, bubbling to a surface

where once there was none.

 

 

 

 

Weak Tea

 

A main ingredient in dilution fraught with bubbles,

housing prisoners of the desire to surface in the pink.

Random equities in an outhouse holding a wobble of

bystanders accountable for their shoes.

A limp in a getaway managed full circle, crippling

homage to the one leg on its way.

A bartered say in the silence of assumption.

The other foot dragged in snapshots of reality.

Vapors slumped in abeyance to the greatness of the outdoors,

brought inside to play a role not unlike in letting loose of ties

that bind, one of two feet to the grave.

 

 

 

 

 

Philip Byron Oakes is a poet living in Austin, Texas. His work has appeared in numerous journals, including Cricket Online Review, Otoliths, Moria, E ratio and Blue & Yellow Dog. He is the author of Cactus Land (77 Rogue Letters), a volume of poetry. His second volume of poetry, Sard (Otoliths Books), is scheduled out in the latter part of 2010.  philipbyronoakes.blogspot.com/