TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

6 POEMS

Nick Montfort

 

AIR AND INK

You who dig ash for vim, and mud,
Now see but air—can you not ken?
The old die off, the new are dim.
Age, end the bod—ill hub for men.
Now set the eye, for all can run
all the way out—and wet ink win.

 

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TOO FAR OUT

The day met its end, for sun had set—
the sky red, all the sea mad. "Hey!"
But not now. "Hey!" She was too far out.

 

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ANY MAN CAN DIE

Any man can die,
can ebb, ice
fit him all,
his toe, his top.

Any man can lie,
let out air,
not get off
the cot. Any, all.

 

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SUN NET

   net net net
net net net net
net net net net
   net net net

 

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RAP GOD

The man can rap, and can rap off the top:
Rap for the hip and for the hop.
The rap god you see has the lap top now,
Has his Tai Chi and the way and the Dao.
Got the pen and the pad, yea has the cry
Can put out bar and bar, bye and bye.
Bar for the ear, jam out for the eye
Run out and rap, all fly, not shy.
Spy the rap guy now, you see him
You see how the man put out one gem,
The gem was cut and the gem was big
The rap had zap zap zag and zig.
The mix fit the min and the max
The rap was any rap but lax
Not any rap bot but all hot
Ill was the way the rap god got.

 

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ONE ART

Art was for all! Pop art was one art.
For one, art was lit and red: "RAW WAR."
Ono had her bag. One had his art box.
TVs? Art. COR-TEN, too, one big arc.
For one, her bed was art. And one day,
one man did cry and tug his pud: Art.
One sat and sat and sat. She was art.

 

 

 

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All the Way for the Win is a 48-page book of poems consisting of only three-letter words, a January 2025 Penteract Press publication. Its contents range from the beginning of the universe to the obliteration of the last human poetic text. Regarding these particular poems: "Air and Ink"—see Fulke Greville's "Caelica 83." "Too Far Out"—see Stevie Smith's "Not Waving, But Drowning." "Any Man Can Die"—see Robert Pinsky's "Any Body Can Die." "Sun Net" is not only a visual poem, but also an equilexical sonnet, in the tradition of, for example, Ron Padgett's "Nothing in That Drawer" and Terrance Hayes's "Sonnet." "Rap God" and "One Art" take their titles from works by Eminem and Elizabeth Bishop.