Two Poems by Billy Cancel
This week in the PEN Poetry Series, PEN America features two poems by Billy Cancel. Visit PEN America’s Soundcloud page to listen to audio recordings of “from paint hungry dogleg to day of judgment” and “from in the weeds my buzzer shot.”
from paint hungry dogleg to day of judgment
you’ll be in the midst of your predecessor’s
debris have to take your cue from Beast
Master happy as a high tide clam &
can still go sewer mouth when required
to talk up the Big Gate we debuted the apple
blossom 2-step around bug house square didn’t
know if it was brazil or christmas spoke a language of
deconstruction went bass awkward 1
minute tranquillo next reverse lunch tried to
sweeten the pot with some total blow choice
all fruits ripe & t’other sider raising hob then
the main stem broke that was the thing right &
as i say it happened would rather be a
sharply rendered figure technicolor
skeleton yellow green nerve
strands bright flashing
limb active available upon
various platforms than some blow
through dumb fragment
from in the weeds my buzzer shot
is a fragment not the full twisted scene
which threatened to befuddle & elicit
a state of unmanageable chaos some
days burrowing through
underbrush other days shark
repellent much time spent waving
a dead chicken at nerd gate it was the
big push the big show for albionised
public space grey contours flurries of
abstraction were offered as payment in sucker
garden there’s no days like those
am totally off the hors d’oeuvre circuit aided
by a daring girl reporter ‘til we find
our special place on the east coast where
the ugly looks good no falling stars to be
seen on a bright sunny eve fine
by me as long as you can drop us at
rabbit dream pipe hole where i intend to crank
up the phase in cockatrice phase out pacman defense
_______________________________________________
Once a week, the PEN Poetry Series publishes work by emerging and established writers from coast to coast. Subscribe to the PEN Poetry Series mailing list and have poems delivered to your e-mail as soon as they are published (no spam, no news, just poems).