John Schertzer – Out of Another

a heart torn decorative

shirt copy bigger

finger
housed
what
waxed in lack

I grew to seven feet that year
but was cut down
in order to make a better student
Things at the factory
hadn’t gone as well as expected
At eight o’clock we reached
the terrain and buried
the boxes in the snow.   Very loud.
I thought my mother would
appreciate the petunias more
than the narcissus.  We all stood
for the pledge of allegiance, but
when she took them from me
I began to sink and noticed
I was wounded.  No one
paid us any mind, replacing
parts of our bodies with
inanimate objects became an
acceptable mode of sexuality.

Activation Warning: where that shirt.

He was only being mystical

air strikes and cruise missile attacks
end of his offensive critics in Kosovo

but the sixteen Haitian lions sued
meaning chiefs
and other equipment
when their allies would move
would contribute
but officials
you say the classics are the things to breed with
when dulled and disconnected
can once again remember
that cleared away feeling
trick as well as laughter
violent and habitual distortions
which are they?
in the (voices loop) throughout my
water ever happened
to mine conscience-
ness

Lament (sonnet):

SO: (once upon a time there used to be
an advent garter—throat id wuz the one
and only one that we could) END OF LINE THREE
a head cold tried to make an END OF fun

FATAL ERROR(“that cleared-away feeling”)

They dragged me in from the school yard
just behind the girls’ gym door
after a curtain of yellow TV snow
fell through me wrapped a cocoon
around the school yard dragged me
in just after the curtain fellow wrapped
the girls gym door around my snow
forcing me behind my knees the girls
fell through me my friends the schoolyard

Lament (folk ballad):

Time in prison
Free to do as I please
With expert derision
Five of us streak chalk across our foreheads
(something sneezes)
Bang them—

Do it or I’ll tell mother on you.
(I grew to seven feet that year)

An Acceptable Mode of Sexuality;

He wore his diaper to the opera
but no one knew what he was designating
or whether he was only hesitating
to admit that he was nothing—only a
design, a shadow on the wall between
the window and the charcoal grill.  He took
the chalk and streaked it on his fresh-wiped book,
implored the node to open, felt obscene
and happy.  Then when he remembered he
was one in five, he led them onto war
to prove that he could marry, bonded
to a molecule or trusting family—
Well…?  is that you out there?  The other four?
The ward was pitched, and he was reprimanded.

So they made another one out of all the other ones

He was only being mystical: boxes in the snow

So they made: Between the window and the charcoal grill

I am free to do as I please

Where that shirt

That cleared-away feeling

Do it now or I’ll tell mother on you

So they made another one out of all the other ones