Barry Schwabsky
3 Poems
The Devil’s Music

Radiant sounds flush
to advantage. It’s heartsick
how passing sparrows trouble appetite

for hearing. Their dreaming
tune: “My error ends
all wrongs.” I love it. Yes,

bring them to me soft and willing
but I’ll still be softest drizzled
in the open palm where music waits.



On Reverdy Road

They like poetry that isn’t.
Not the kind that wakes into you
the way eyes gleam candid

in shadow, untrimmed wicks,
or that you grab from casual breezes
barehanded at dawn. When

don’t the words in a poem
count? When they fall into a pit
and Dear Reader goes tumbling after.



Posthumous Poem by Jack Spicer

I overheard it in my sleep. Beginnings and endings
slowed down, static
echoes. First

commentary on beauty was swarms of bees
vexed your assets
in sunshine toward those easy pieces for piano. Still fluttering?

Condensed cloud
just unwind some brittle notes of honey toward
a distant bedroom for lullabies.

return to SHAMPOO 23