Two Poems

L.A. Pantoum

Repent Baby Lou Warn all the blondes Of ear-held words Skirts not suits Warn all the blondes The meter is on Skirts not suits Next stop derision The meter is on Because of suicide Next stop derision Falling-down trunk Because of suicide I lean against this Falling-down trunk She said drive I lean against this Catch-eye heart She said drive Swing that hammer down Catch-eye heart In a cloudless sky Swing that hammer down On my slender hand In a cloudless sky Her reason closes On my slender hand Cut the green fronds Her reason closes Every pidgin ear Cut the green fronds From the starving tree Every pidgin ear Draws brittle words From the starving tree A daughter’s color Draws brittle words To their smooth-worn close A daughter’s color Willing variations To their smooth-worn close My arm describes Willing variations On your breathless skin My arm describes Corrupted names On your breathless skin Salt the devil down Corrupted names Bareheaded women Salt the devil down To my keeping hand Bareheaded women Mount the narrowing stair To my keeping hand Be known my tongue Mount the narrowing stair Repent Baby Lou Be known my tongue Of ear-held words Gamer Cowboy arriviste Assonant pleasure Beneath fallow legs Peruse carnation To mortal form bereft Of opposing sighs Cuneiform A striver set On Plato’s hedge Parasite arms Embrace effluent Tyrannical bend In dumbfounded drams Winsome Melancholy crave Turbine traitor Visitant entrained Palpation magnified Forsake this derision Rather bludgeon From sheer belief Guttural kipper There is outset of As dolor protest Time called teething Boiler of the bank Arise and ache One-to-nothing seam