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Twenty


   


1.


Or as evidentiary of such

A rare occurrence of events

When each day I meet more people

In this contraction

Where I saw Frank walking

Past just smoking quietly

But I’m contrived and ignoring

All other outcomes

Which present hotly daily

Dripping like sensory

Contagious and raining

I’m hot on the case

Wasting days

On inflows and

Outflows converging

While I shake pipe to menace

A glorious new day

Splitting away from

An old one

So I’m saying

It’s the big one

Apart from distance

Let’s wing it

Just so the chance

Increases between two

Other opportunities

That I’ve wagered

On one day in March

Two years since

The day I came across

This just-unfolding conundrum

It’s in the evidence

And so decided

Which my portion is

Me hence granted

This new conditioning

Reworded so

As to strike unilateral

Though this is beyond me

In tune

Or in time

The heat somehow bothering

Or to hear you speaking

In a tongue told to me

One week since

That which I’ve waged on

Marco

What animal stands

There forked between two devouring

Figures

In event of frost I’m

Puffed completely

As in vapors

But me looking so causal

Or contested hardly

In essence budding

And assured as object

That’s crowned as merciful

Or crispy

Me working continual

Like some sort

Of game to me

I think it’s conducive

Or that I’ll spare you

All from more involvement

In services

Of my life

Or proverbs cool-handed

And slinking

Growing lovely

With each day passing

But I think you know exactly

What’s become here

Of access

Who knows

At 6:00

PM unfolding

When each day’s

Looking so causal

Or in summary

Complete or so

To say scarce







2.


As briefly

I wanted it immediate

But if your Siegfried

Struggles as all do

Then ask

What the quickest

Way to die as a pedestrian

Is outside of

Living in a full flush

Of rooms astonished

At the merchandise truly

Growing independent

Of any real

Force impinged on

Diluting any real

Motion stacking upwards

On the elements of growth

Or charting resolution

Between the facts agreeing

That it’s meant to be invisible

This home in the desert

Motioning towards

My compatriot where

Six days

Grow out so easily

Oh so calmly

Or balmy trying

Me like a game

Played so eagerly

By brothers when it’s sizzled

Up and gory

Oh glory have me

Or extend out the roads from me

The paths split like radial

And grand lived like games to me

Around my own set of institutions

Like telling off the radar

While just quickly walking

Around all other points sustaining

The elements of my life

That launch quick 

And mark me as a convert

Thus object of suspicion

When even the elements

Merge asking

What’s in it

And then make

Each parcel’s contents

Known

While retreating for anyone’s sake

Present company

Apportioned

Dear reader

Describe your instinct

Or relegate my life

To choice irrespective

Of proverb

So pinioned so

Bothered

Or crispy

Which is mercy to me

Before even my life emerges

Or remains covered

Which is to

Say beneath all

Other suppositions.

What do you like about France?

What’s not to love

But the same could

Be said of almost anything

Irrespective

Of time or

Circumstance burning

In the east light

Hence blocking out

The north

The clarity the formless my

Recourse divided

Or my ordeal

My intention

So what now

A viewing

A day so clear

A bird in the hall

Lightning and origins

Three points linked

By their interiors

Or rather an arrangement

Of markers placed

On their surfaces

Thus this constellation

Becomes an object

Or rather a circumstance

And in so doing



Elijah Jackson is a poet based between Berlin and New York, where he is an incoming MFA candidate at NYU. Recently his poetry has been published by or is forthcoming in fieldnotes, 1080press, KeithLLC and others.