Redlines
–
does draw as blues a curtain along
greenfleshed ash
stump daybreak suns
come into play and waves
another surface over
the gleaned
horizon as a motion is
always the same multiple
of winnowing dispersed in
evidence of water we are all at best
coherence none has posed
the mystical at noon asks
only one more thing
–
only guilty as stones’ rung
scaled to the square
who mere so drawn mute might
account for a sheet staggering
free from dimension
time is a sheet
it was born in
rainwater in
session
–
might do this place to tag
it a taut tarp seeping
on another night’s
war focus
to make a nice and easy difference
a cable
car’s inherent contradiction constant
pale and bore
when a wind committed the tremor
of forgery the shame chime slackened
golden folds along a river emptying
the gourd of its capacity
for proverb
right about then the sky would pour
into the middle of a dormant fountain
–
community milling the sunken barley sun some
broader consolation displaced
like bathwater into the fields
we press the dimmed neon from
rice the mantis and the frog evolve
to become the exact green of
the land emphasizing each tiny mountain
only paraphrases hillsides’ sliding reams
of sandals on flexed fans for feet each
leaking frictions
–
we live in the middle of nowhere and
I can give you rides whenever you need
to the exasperated surface
or to the more doleful
center where we sleep
without breathing
room true colors showing
some respect around here
the usual screen
of trees replace their pixels
without felling
unconscious air
—
Jed Munson is the author of the book of essays Commentary on the Birds (Rescue Press, 2023), as well as several chapbooks, most recently Portrait with Parkinson’s (Oxeye Press, 2023) and Minesweeper (New Michigan Press/DIAGRAM, 2023). Other work can be found in Conjunctions, Image, and Tagvverk.