poems || Philip Byron Oakes

Bull’s Eye

Palatable presumptions putting a weltanschaung
in the window with a little dirt to roll around in.
Friend to the festoonery pointing past pain at what
the pedestrians can see. The slow crawl of traffic
reflected back upon at walking speed, down aisles
of produce making do as food for thinking so. That
parameters hold water to their promise, of a
wading pool of candidates to be anointed by tides
of foreseeable change. A trajectory checked in the
glass for alien incursions into the homecoming of
causes dressed in the effects they’ve earned.
Abiding by what’s possible measured in response
to expectations of the miracle growth of rare
gems on the windowdressed moon. Question
marks left on the way it is as put together
by a belief there is a center the swirl
of the earth holds dear.





Taking the Q

A roundtrip summons quartering horses for barbeque
in the fatted slant of summer light. The joke’s angle of
incline to be lenient with the numbing, when the hurt
comes all at once. Virtual mayhem breaking chimera
bones. Chock full circle life leaves wafting from the
center to the whole. As if humpty’s world were symmetrical.
The score kept in formaldehyde. A slow turning pages in the
book that doesn’t come by way of explanation. Colors
holstered. A Braille of aroma. Fortnights without a stick to
hide behind. Polka dotting a myth with an ellipsis. Was it
murder? Or something serious. Rounding up the smell of
bread. One branch past the tree’s ability to extend its
welcome to those unable to take wing in the thought.