poems || Philip Byron Oakes

Logger Heads

Enfranchising enemies as co-dependents,

lip servicing a kiss tending the tug of war.

A misfit in the shoulders clenched to muzzle

treasure. The taste good to go the way of

the worm to the core of the problem.

Stifling the monotones with a splash of gray.

Rough edges to a scent crossing deserts, to

gather a flock in chorus. Muted to meld into

a text of the everyday, to set it right about

the time the lights go out. Battle cries for

equality in a motherland’s eyes, trained on

the dancing bears fishing for peanuts in the

breeze. As it could have been, somewhere,

between the colors worn to shoo the flies

to better worlds. In any one of which the

beancounters come out on top of the sum,

to say the clouds have won the day. To

christen the clarity of crosshairs. Letting

the grist speak for itself. Tamping the glare

in an eye for the vibrant, squinting the

mirages true in fictions of light the

shadows sell to tourists.

Foretelling the arrival

of always the one

and the same.

Pilgrim

A city from the ground up an alley cleaving haves

from knots in threads wound bright. Enveloping

earth tones at a core of mooted paradigms, goading

caricatures to fill the void. Put words in the mouth

of a marquee, nipping a litany in the bud of coming

attractions to the rush of traffic in the air. The push

and shove of light keeping eyes to the grindstone of

imagery, to dazzle the rubes stepping off of curbs into

trouble. The stuff of which way home grown heavy in

the crossing the babylons between the hedges. The

neon summons of the fluid to join the effect of

unknown causes, for the allure of the lostness that

stolen freedoms leave behind. As legacy forming

the fundament of which way to turn invisible

when the nimbi finally make it right.

Rickety Circles

Pulp beaten to fetish in all an act three,

to pander bare of graces concocted from

rhythm. Vortex failing echo lips, spun

worn said weary of what would be if it

weren’t, for a sitting position on death

and taxes. A reward for blue streaks

beneath a violet crown, topping off a

blush at the sight of what’s fixed in the

faces of toy soldiers. The color of

feathers worn in hats changing minds

in so far as they matter, in choosing

what best to wear in order to

complement the grandeur of the

finale at the moment of

conception.