John Courtney

greyhound spine
transported old soul coal
for a triple rhyme score in Scrabble,
up too late again breathing broke down
...

when I was a boy
it took two pieces of wood
and a leftover nail
to fly an airplane
...

traded eyes
last night
for the puzzle's heart
the one that staggers stolen behind the sun
...

For you?
glass bottoms
on my words
so you can see me
...

some were built like ships,
resilient marvels of buoyancy, tough as solitude
with bellies scraped along a converse globe,
an olive fog followed by a pair of eyes,
...

When the wild-beating heart wakes me
and I gasp for air in the middle of the night
having visited a dead friend, I lie there
sometimes for twenty or thirty minutes feeling
...

let the dog sing away
his bark
and the planet
of voice
...

it is morning
and there are stars,
I lay on my back
inventing my future
...

the forest floor
tranquil brat
flexing
...

here
behind a loaded mouth
I'm waiting
in a cave
...

locomotive with
red lips, the
curtain lets
a ghost into
...

were wolves without howls.

Maybe we were stones that doubled
when hatred crashed out of classroom mirrors
...

Dangerous handwritten love
in the absence of eyes
sunlight falling onto the head
of a bedroom spider
...

Nice big wings to follow children
short distances down the hall
until they blend into sorrow
like turn signals in daylight
...

...

easiest to get here
early in a morning
when bombs've exploded
so rain can get down
...

cattle roaming free mustn't witness
roller skates on velcro skeletons
glass sarcophagus of the whale
pigs who clean mirrors
...

I am those boys who vanished
from old hands up above the shadows
leading paralyzed light to starve
on oblivious sidewalk cities
...

the bonesoil fishes slugs and worms early to the surface thanks to a mild winter
it is all they are talking about in kitchens across the internet
so surprised by the way that guns evolved from love
staked claim to a 20th century and adjusted the tie of the banks
...

What of an empty root
sipping on its pride
and army jackets
slept in boxes
...