If Not, Then Perhaps
Note the chalk people
sprawling out in the black sun.
Count them. Think
how childish they are
to have such large, green heads.
Perhaps I drew them for you.
Was that childish? Perhaps
their eyes are yellow, or red,
or overdrawn. Perhaps
their eyes are the mirror.
Perhaps you're both the tenor
and the vehicle. Perhaps
not, though the lighthouse
on this Stygian shore is always
turning. Perhaps
I am the clenched fist
in the wishing hole. Perhaps
we've been misled.
I Know
Even those who know don’t
grasp the hink, the orn,
the in of the Ala’hairne.
The inchbird winks the hearth
as she proceeds to measure
the distance between knowing
and being unknown. A verb,
they say, cannot identify itself.
Throw must be Alice. Jab, Phil.
A breath out is a misdirection
of effort; a breath in is
a conservation of mystique;
the stable lung is full of horses
stamping, stamping unknowable,
stamping unimpeached and ort.
Even those who know still don’t.
Stamp must be Clementine or Sue.
John Stintzi is a Canadian-American poet, novelist, pisces, and ex-beef farmer living in Kansas City, MO. Their poetry chapbook—The Machete Tourist—will be released in the spring of 2018 by k | f | b.