makes nervous talk, breathes
clouds full of monsters, rattles
the keys of song dead captains, makes
green music on a nude boat lusting in the sun,
some weird ornette coleman beep-boop jazz, compass
kissed into stupor—
night will pull out its stars, stars
crying into a dumb world’s mouth,
earth animals lisping for ground, lips
peeling, toxic trill of life evaporating beneath them.
Michael Dwayne Smith proudly owns and operates one of the English-speaking world’s most unusual names. His apparitions can be seen at Word Riot, >kill author, The Cortland Review, Monkeybicycle, Blue Fifth Review, BLIP, The Northville Review, Pirene’s Fountain, Orion headless, Quantum Poetry Magazine, Short, Fast, and Deadly, Phantom Kangaroo, Red River Review, Right Hand Pointing, and other haunts. A recipient of both the Hinderaker Prize for poetry and the Polonsky Prize for fiction, he currently lives in a desert town along with his wife, son, and rescued animals—all of whom talk in their sleep. Conjure him on Twitter with the spell @michaelthebear or on the interwebs at http://michaeldwaynesmith.tumblr.com
head is spinning a little…images are like a bright light and I need to blink – if that makes sense at all