Article 12

Vernon Frazer

Live at the Cemetery Club


skull trance
the bone dance shakes low 
behind it

           the stage door 
      creaks 
                 open

ossified recoil trajectory
follows the band’s live lament
castanets 

                click the life 
            rattle 
                 snake tails shake warning
            of toxins 
                          to come


another dancer follows, dancers

     entrance 
     allows the slow collision tones
     seed against gourd

           or a rain stick once living

     entrance them

          as castanet dentures 
     click the sounds of living 
          teeth 


                    haunt 
               ghost’s
                    missing words

Horizontal Prism


mirrored cove
cleaving a tense declension

its cautious inversion
turned intended lament
to deflect sensation

sweeps
nearer than comfort can allow

its tides to follow
grove lines looking outward
past preamble thickets

the glove of shore nearer
to gripping a slippery noun
projects a vase as water

a shoreline confinement
conjugates its reflection
an edge directing verbs

outward while holding itself at bay



Vernon Frazer
 
 
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