The Ofi Press Magazine

Hooked on Something Else

First they find dorsals in the Rock’em^®

Sock’em^® Robot, then discover gum eraser

wedged beneath a tailfin. Next a scrap

of diaper, pulled around it like a tube-top,

conjures science in its fish-scent-sent

economy (you interested?) as paean

to the tiki bar, first as ear-to-shoulder

distance pressed to jaded witness

                                                       what a mouth-

concealing-slackjaw as tsunami wash

exposure blurts:

                           lipsync’d va-va-voom

amid the din of natural speech

                                            & as such

its lead-fish pops

congestion so that—

that in breech position whelps itself

                                                           (gestated ripple)

carries gauntness to extremity

                                                 not precisely as asserted

as if morbid mating locus

                                          (least reflected)

                                                                     mortal end-stop

tries again to circumnavigate

                                                belief into its task

Active nature to depose it: what pescado

finds irrelevant, pescador is loathe to vacate;

what a bogus ochre predator needs to rectify

intention. These & these & these make theses,

squeezing meanness out of meaning. & if spirit

stamps it drivel, spirit also pockets malice,

turns ahead to yawn it “thinkerly” as epithet

to listener, & expects assent by course 

whose source is hoarse remorse by force.

Poems by Marc Nasdor (USA)

Published in The Ofi Press issue 37.