Alli Warren
2 Poems
LBJ was a Texan

As if a grateful beginning
we open the day
before it’s begun

In some cases there are
sensory perceptions
& no question of intent

smell of corn tortilla
liquid on liquid sounds
business of a checkerboard
not wanting to distinguish
when we ache a lot

might it matter
all the time we go there
& lose something important

old fashioned absurdities
general state concerns
even enduring
kinds of useless things

between CBS and the red
door of your chest
announcements are made

night comes rapidly warm,
I pick up your determined river
just before the oil is gone

the distance of an explanation
transports me here among us
out in the open, lie down—
we’ll make a thing of it.



To Be Some Explaining

There is again too much—
we are unsteady
full of grain & loose vowels
motor going in the night
yellow & dark underneath

O, lonely aviator
spaces are long & necessary
the sky there remaining
points of light, not-light
everything it is happening
city is made of holes I mean.

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