Three Poems

Sketch

Just row houses roped in with seatbelts,
No hope but an answer of a riddle. You trace her figure
upon a thin gray sheet of paper. I tell myself

not to forge his structure: a stick figure
of a grocery shopper at check out: item following
item, a sociology lost. I picture her alignment:

a lamp left on to guide us into certainty. No
light but the coasting of light. No dogs
but the noise of dogs aiding us up a ladder.

The Hint

If a broken record encircles
a needle… Oh, headphone world.
It’s only natural repeated, again &
Again, solely mesmerizing. No light
to breech from our pockets. No inside.

B-Side

so I write my
own proceeds
so I didn’t like
yours. Hours
blend inside of
you, me, watching
tv, torn apart
as an apple slice.
I said you want
to go on vacation
but there’s that song:
THAT song. You know?
Hours blow as baby
powder will in wind,
but the fan is on &
I smell of bamboo
& opiate. Shoot.
Whichever is the
past tense of smoke.
There’s that whole
recording that fails
to light even a match.
I danced while attached
to somebody else’s side,
which reminds me of
That song. Along:
enter chorus.

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J. Michael Wahlgren is author of CREDO, a chapbook on Greying Ghost, and Valency, a full-length collection on BlazeVox [Books]. These poems are from a new collection, McKenna & the New Wonderment, which is still being revised. He lives in Massachusetts.