Rob Stanton
Three Poems


Wells


i.


Dawn is not
what she was

     *

Wars and illness
make the most

     *

Each of her
books is one

     *

A ghost tormented
by further ghosts

     *

Bowls and dishes
such as us

     *

All that is
hard and fast




Fall


A little something. (A thinking thing.) A something
Necessary. Odd: the obligatory pigeon with deformed
Claw. Author berating actor. Other pigeons

Nabbing crumbs, heads down-and-up, down-and-up like jack-
Hammers. All things music. Everyone smoking roll-ups, roll-
Ups. Aesthetics ‘eats’ ethics. Something to spend the next

Ten minutes on. If you can’t grow fingers grow
Careful. Grow plainer. The Aztecs as equivalent
To snow. We’re carbon: make pencils of us all: write out

Our lives. The Alfred Wallis kite, placed in orbit, an eternal
Fact. Leaf-shadow swim-jumps the street, a leaping
Lizard. New game. Passengers are a nuisance. End

Of line. We, the former monkey-kids, three-legged
Dogs, object.
Root/routes. Inner/prop/reiterate. Moon: bright
Lemon slice (especially). A dying vitalist. (Actors

Berating authors.) That is all. Pratfall. Wind-up.




Wells


ii.


With little (or
no) attention span

     *

Another poor motive
seeps into view

     *

From one car
to the next

     *

From ruin to
ruin to ruin

     *

Coming to fatigue
by every route

     *

Pet to prophet
in one gear-change

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