John Wells

The Attempt

Lists of harpoons,
geese, sparrows, concubines,
a parade of semaphores
and a semi-circle of hasty patients,
the negligible dowry spun out of silk
and strewn like spiderwebs, limb to limb,
left out to dry.
The scrawny intent of vernacular.
The noose of forget-me-knots.
The lunacy of dirges.

Don't Nobody Know

How to
endure these
compulsion years?

A ground shrinking in spadefuls,
filled up by them later: a
wist of drudgery.

And
that choke of old vices--
an axe perched on my throat,

and its customs:
a thorn’s twisted insistence
amidst the thrust sinkward--

and you know what I mean.
No contrivance for miles:
a barb

set into me so deep
I’d have to tear everything away
to release it.

John Wells is an Ohioan living with his lovely family in North Carolina, where he teaches rowdy collegians, writes, and plays music. His poems and short stories appear in After the Pause, Best New Writing, Driftwood, and other journals.