Michael S. Hennessey

Three poems

Entertainments / The Indigo Hours / 1994

Entertainments

she mesmerizes
an itchy patch
on the torn edge
of the unpublishable —
a gemini erasure;
white rabbits.

“it’s better than
before,” she swears
— higher and higher,
we mushroom through
the forests, (pick up,

pick up) awaiting any-
thing. our secret labor:
a carefully chosen note,
edge to edge, seam to

seem — we stitch ends
together. “the west
is different than it once

was,” she confirms — “the
west is nothing more than

an empty idea,” I say, smiling


The Indigo Hours

while sleepwalking, the weak left foot
lists towards the top of the staircase,
prefiguring the eventual fall —

this knowledge is written within
the splintering woodgrain, which
raises small thorns to stop the inevitable.

one might go searching for meteorites,
but only find airplanes, their flight paths
changed to grace the neighborhood,

a straight line of distant cargo,
inching against the windblown tide
of bone-lit clouds streaking the treetops,

as we search for water on the moon.
wake to the shriek of oil-slicked tires —
a victim who’ll never survive the ambulance.


1994

vol. 1:
the blurry boxer
with eyes affixed
all sidewalk stars

a grid of similars
rises against you,
chanced without
rarities to validate

swarm submission
in sixteenth summer
might still be a collection
sooner rather than later

uncertain prospect
yet never yet caught
and uncertain self
in search of a map

the genealogy fades:
you take your time
and take your pick
and wind up like this

Michael S. Hennessey is the Editor of PennSound (http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound) and the forthcoming Jacket2 (http://jacket2.com/), as well as a Visiting Assistant Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Cincinnati. His poetry has appeared in EOAGH, Cross Cultural Poetics and Elective Affinities, as well as the chapbooks Last Days in the Bomb Shelter (17 Narrower Poems) and [ static ].