Western Voices: Gary Lundy

Bio:

gary lundy's poems have appeared most recently in Alexandria Quarterly, Incidia, Spider Mirror, Show Your Skin, Oxidant | Engine, and Antinarrative. His new book, each room echoes absence, was released by FootHills Publishing (March 2018). gary is a retired English Professor and queer living in Missoula, Montana.

return to a modicum of safety

where what's familiar grinds but invites. never mind how out of sorts everything still seems. clarify by boxing out what isn't at home. headache and tight stiff neck. mortality accompanies a walk downtown. hesitant snowflakes. shuffled piles of static quiet. the kiss puzzles until faced at an angle. too many events appear random. disconnected paint flakes and organic honey. itemized by no particular order. in that way keep boredom surprising. envelop the occasional touching. next to the trash bag spillage. think about calling a friend. lose interest mid number.

rare and careless classifications

to reduce confusion by inventing adjectives. conclusions awash in dirty water. and the insertable sentence meaningless. belt out a song in an uncharacteristic key. or spit blood and teeth. fragments meant to build up safety. clandestine movement in the smug midmorning light. two or more still reducible to singular. when the grouping inherent in power. glaze of eyes contracted anonymous. end with a fever and vomiting. voices overwhelming the melodic isolation. what might be accomplished were a grief permeating. ignore so much as possible possessions. permit ebb of tidal irregularities.

when what color there is is subdued

the eye takes on character through the positioning of the surrounding tattoo. brief interruption of a slowly evolving after. a wind fits and starts outside the door. one of two final exits. on a day like this excitement is at a premium. but the music is chosen out of indifference. few words thrown around. a time of ebony fingerboards. quiet signs of violent upheavals. in a pleasant suburb another piercing implosion. object to the easily reducible. mark those barriers to avoid. never end a phrase with prepositioning. allow presence its unifying justification. reconstitute tired argument to keep silent. to observe but not pass judgement.

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Western Voices :: Setu, February 2019