A Flawless Intuition of Grammar

I burn candles without you, become air,
cellophane our first caress, preserve
that powder intimacy, your smile:

a smudge of petals as intentionless
as drizzle. Fire forged form, so your ears
and smallest fingers are a mouthful

of crayons. We crumble, gears of separate
machines grinding vectors of whirring spheres.
As a girl, did you anticipate me

in déjà vu, dining on woman throat,
your ankles and wrists so awkwardly long
for such a small thing? And when I wake

up naked each morning with your name
in my mouth, I want to conquer the world.

- Michael Constantine McConnell

(featured in the poetry forum 08.24.10)

The Way

Somewhere between here and ancient Rome,
travelers gawk at human flesh chewed
in half by steel, frying on the hot road,
its rich smell climbing toward nostrils
of a primitive, smoke-breathing god.

Elsewhere, a hundred little demon eyes
hung from string converse in venn diagram,
hail Ceasar. The vertigo from déjà vu
stitches nightmare over morning and jails
time in the dry sockets of loveless skulls.

Nothing has changed. Blackness between stars
lights into long, broad yawns of spiral,
subdivides until particle and wave
stare each other down for the right to be
silent. Graffiti on the highways hint

that analysis and composition paint
the same signature, a geography
of connected points. Few listen.
The yin and yang argue; we’re not prepared
for such enlightenment. It drives us crazy.

- Michael Constantine McConnell

(added 08.24.10)

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)