John Estes
skin and all
these small improprieties
we catalog them
with misdirection too
often garish and over-simplistic
we lack the legerdemain
of pleasure even
as it gnaws at joy
gnaws at the chest’s wall
like the anvil blow of fragment
texts found in jars sealed
up in lost caves
as if growing wild
like that fanciful story
of the boy stumbling into coffee
wandering after his goats
as if gods adhered
to their own canon laws
as if accident doesn’t yield
its obvious antecedent
or have I said that already
perfectly erased is the destiny
of all world, a ghost
trace upon the master screen
your life is
some guy’s daily snapshot
he will one day edit
into a stop motion viral video
out in the garage robins
swill and careen
as they rebuild a nest atop
the garage door motor
I will once again remove it
thinking of the babies
anything to save those babies
splat on the concrete
in one version of a gnosis
in one version of an opening door
manmade is mode this year
I plant a tree
I celebrate earth day
still these birds say fuck trees
if you live with any idea long
enough it comes to feel
inevitable if not ordained
this brain zone rages
with fantasies cranking out
fake erector sets
they assemble history
then break it and make theology
each explanation
more autarkic than the last
it must be this
very same jail of cells
that tells me money
will follow a trail of spending
I like hearing the word ejaculation
spoken in casual conversation
I like any idea of a thing
that resolves utterly manifest
by words summoned
how saying can make a thing
happen as it often does
can make a thing available for
closer inspection
how when atoms convene into things
say a symposium of toast
or the diet of aircraft carrier
or the congress of jizz on my belly
they have only this in mind
that you the archon’s thinking
part desire a closer
look at the spectacle they devised
between obvious and unrevealed
between taste and see
everything is permitted
to praise the collapse of it all
I have ordered the t-shirt
with the diagram of my thoracic
cavity in exploded view
these small improprieties
we catalog them
with misdirection too
often garish and over-simplistic
we lack the legerdemain
of pleasure even
as it gnaws at joy
gnaws at the chest’s wall
like the anvil blow of fragment
texts found in jars sealed
up in lost caves
as if growing wild
like that fanciful story
of the boy stumbling into coffee
wandering after his goats
as if gods adhered
to their own canon laws
as if accident doesn’t yield
its obvious antecedent
or have I said that already
perfectly erased is the destiny
of all world, a ghost
trace upon the master screen
your life is
some guy’s daily snapshot
he will one day edit
into a stop motion viral video
out in the garage robins
swill and careen
as they rebuild a nest atop
the garage door motor
I will once again remove it
thinking of the babies
anything to save those babies
splat on the concrete
in one version of a gnosis
in one version of an opening door
manmade is mode this year
I plant a tree
I celebrate earth day
still these birds say fuck trees
if you live with any idea long
enough it comes to feel
inevitable if not ordained
this brain zone rages
with fantasies cranking out
fake erector sets
they assemble history
then break it and make theology
each explanation
more autarkic than the last
it must be this
very same jail of cells
that tells me money
will follow a trail of spending
I like hearing the word ejaculation
spoken in casual conversation
I like any idea of a thing
that resolves utterly manifest
by words summoned
how saying can make a thing
happen as it often does
can make a thing available for
closer inspection
how when atoms convene into things
say a symposium of toast
or the diet of aircraft carrier
or the congress of jizz on my belly
they have only this in mind
that you the archon’s thinking
part desire a closer
look at the spectacle they devised
between obvious and unrevealed
between taste and see
everything is permitted
to praise the collapse of it all
I have ordered the t-shirt
with the diagram of my thoracic
cavity in exploded view
John Estes directs the creative writing program at Malone University in Canton, Ohio. He is author of Kingdom Come (C&R Press, 2011) and two chapbooks: Breakfast with Blake at the Laocoön (Finishing Line Press, 2007) and Swerve, which won a 2008 National Chapbook Fellowship from the Poetry Society of America. To find out more about John Estes, please visit www.johnestes.org
