2 POEMS

Dan Gutstein

(C)HARM CITY

An arm thrown around defunct machinery. The prevalence of sorrow, sorrow as common ambience. What stoppages a grid offers, what off-ramps. The pale, sifted orange of afternoon windows. The pale, sifted orange of careful thinking. The same clouds for two weeks. It needs to rain, and it rains, dotty fabric, the rain. Not enough to discredit the integrity of structures, okay. Okay, a vehicle cannot pass-through another vehicle. A towering support isn't two, but one. The skin of obedience as opposed to the metastasis of anger. How many ways to beg, "No." An insinuation of relief despite the full moon of a lamppost aglittering the sidewalk purified by a victim, just leaking blood. And the footsteps, the babble of footsteps in too many directions, to be understood....

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JANUARY, BALTIMORE

Nobody loiters (who could loiter) nobody lurks.
Not even the soliloquy of an unbrightening figure

can avoid the poor correspondence of kindness.
Both hands in front pockets (Posture A)

or both hands in back pockets (Posture B)
or Posture C: available-weak

the air built from a percentage of dead language.
The circle (Circle A) of anxiety

the circle (Circle B) of mania
the arterial chill of the river.

There is the possibility of a phenomenon—
wind climbs about the furniture of a tree

the stars and moon affixed throughout its crown
as messages ornamental and weakening.

Nobody loiters (who could loiter) nobody lurks.
The physiology of dress codes trip toward

a blinkered street, the balmy commerce of storefront
the coordinates of a pistol, an angel statue in snow.

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Edgy music informs my efforts as a writer and I enjoy discovering older songs that few people know. I encourage readers to check out the little-known saxophone player Willene Barton, and her 1963-64 honking R&B piece, "Rice Pudding", by visiting [this short blog post]