GLEN ARMSTRONG

Shapes in Fire

I live in the middle of a great fire
that was once a great factory.

My neighbors are all great
though none of them are happy.

They make e-shapes
in dedicated e-spaces.

They haven’t raced each other to the end
of the street in years.

People say that I’m nostalgic
and that I hate the president

as if those are bad things.
People say that I’m intrepid,

but I’m afraid
of my own lower back.

Chronic Town #8

Valentines and airspace.
I waste another night.

Trying to construct.
A geodesic dome from scrap.

Aluminum that used to be.
A swimming pool.

There are rules here.
Against painting the driveway.

Green or red.
Apparently a committee.

Exists that knows.
Which colors are natural.

Impossible Passages #76

Silence makes a guessing game out of . . .

I bake bread and contemplate whether or not the inside of the rubber nose can be described as “concave.” The glasses have no lenses. The scrub brush moustache and eyebrows are more there than less there. I contemplate other novelties, stupidities, immaturities of sort that drove you away. The timer on the stove is broken. I burn the bread.

The birds are too hungry to chirp, the alarms too worried by the pending storm to sound. Somewhere, a coronation takes place without trumpets or crowns. No footsteps. No banquet. No blown glass. The king is no phony. He tries to defend himself against his detractors. (There are no detractors.) The clock in the tower stops. The kingdom burns.

Glen Armstrong holds an MFA in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and teaches writing at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. He edits a poetry journal called Cruel Garters and has a current book of prose poems: Invisible Histories. His work has appeared in Poetry Northwest, Conduit, and Cream City Review.