3 poems || John Pursch

Another Fake Potato


Sun, brisk, laughing down the last giblets of the rope they gave you, your rope: the one you skipped, the noose, the hemp. Efficient, simulated rain; hail on demand, a greatcoat for criminologists to finger and prod. Skoal and crossbows, cowboys hit the feudal system, lasso who and lariat moo, the crazed tin sheriff's coconut caper, cowling complete, a coolant quite soothing, even in times of barred marbles, a legion of martyrs... Fragrant flagrancies on voyages to the rocks, to be landlocked again, in vertiginous prolapse, clutch cable buckling, only enough hope for one last eight ball, banked off the spinner, over the sundial, into the elevator, up a leaning cliff, spiraling ultra-slow to grab two pieces of liquid machinery from stations near the game. A long shadow, plenty of definition, reminded him of spring, melted preconceptions of a bathing party gone wild, or a quaint picnic with bows and lace and ants. "Too melodramatic," warbled the pie man, nailed by another fake potato, just a rock. Effigy used to be such a good job, my uncle was a great one, famous in the state, burned at the stake, hanged, tarred and feathered, tortured. Very resilient, never showed a limp, so much as a scar, never missed a game. Didn't make the Hall, though; horse-sex scandal in '32 ruined his chances.





Pure Pepto


On ponds like these, with paddleboats and ping pong players riding floats to nowhere, just the mention of a fragment engenders proclivities unintended. The rolling human vampire jams the town, covers the continent, and changes to food groups from hammerlock to back brace, implying helmets. The wheel unspun, questions went unsolved, small notions of unreality persisted, ribs were poked, shins kicked, nosed picked, a new leaf found but rendered lackadaisical by the feral lesion. Nimbly, with grace, over the table, toward the quibble over reptile filming, somnambulant soda machines pour beer onto pigeons; a deluge of herbal tea, vitamins, early breakfasts, nonsensical meanderings and launch reports; a program from flip-flop dynamics, bitwise plenitudes of arctic flanges, turned to bromo in the sun. Lean, but sinusoidal, liftoff, area under the slider greater than the strike zone, a feat of pure Pepto, local roots, and a classified list of bird parts. You can just throw in the whole bird, it works, but it tastes bad and is very messy to prepare.




Ensing Honth ej Emulon


Pheriotin colendon ster mubilence
om enterople, tierenable adculary,
hopt im ecker's frenculental spim
ed moulan toar.

Floupan traile oup carn entralir,
pref stamer, coud geramer pliet zen,
endu spugia chamt ondenture,
hipple argen stulio.

Org enchule, ampter poneaner,
honchel, ouf den imterlan;
ar tchan eckanstle estimanage
bliest a jamble's retriman.

Ompty sloon un cronsar pendule's
immo fantine, hember rhuse;
quibbing arnit thoriander,
ensing honth ej emulon.