Gregg Biglieri
I Heart My Zeppelin
$8

 

He won’t spoil our hereditary defense of looking stupid.
Cordwainer Smith

Plot us, Platus,
To cross up the fates
Like little needles prick us
To nip listening.

None too swiftly
The subs set out
To veer off course—
Yahoos in tow.

Veterans, damn your
Torpedoes.
Untruth will never stop
Till there are no more
Suds in your tubs.

So let us plot me
No plots—an aster
Astir in all risk:
Even if it sees
What we mean too late
Language is swifter than that.

 

 

 

Life imitates
Art imitating life.
One is not a pawn
Once is not enough
To pawn time.

You’re going through
The wormhole like Alice.
All that’s said undone
A harvest pranked
By invisible convictions.
In this conjuring act
We see through you
And you’re it.

Stop looking for
What’s not there
In what is.
There’s no smoke
But there was a gun.
We have only language
To misfire
Its slow fragments
Report your own
Inversion experience:
As you drop bombs
We partialize you.
What comes after is
No less than
Knowing what sticks
In our throats are stones—
What we don’t know
Can’t hear you.