11

Words expire,
turn flat, crispless.

Compost remaining

letters, use them
to fertilize

new words, grow

a healthy concept
whose flowering

mouths thirst

for rain to impregnate
them with fruit.

- Michael Constantine McConnell

(featured in the poetry forum 09.28.09)

Jack

A small prayer
forgot how to fly,

clings to a giant
beanstalk, afraid

to be eaten
if it ever finds

the nerve to climb
the rest of the way.

- Michael Constantine McConnell

(added 09.29.09)

Untitled 5

Your face dances. Your
mouth shapes syllables,

your neck drapes,
and the dull glow of lamp

against collar cleaves
diamonds into rain.

I dreamed about you
when I was a baby,

but you were light –
fleshless, voiceless sound.

When I hold you,
daydream supercedes

electricity. We exist
between stars and shadow.

Snakes care less.
They slither to death.

- Michael Constantine McConnell

(added 09.29.09)