3 Poems

By Sebastian Hunter

ESCAPE VELOCITY

They will fax you something about the damages
in a week or two
so until then be wary of any movement
Hello, high water
I promised I’d be wearing green
come the ascension, and to Chicagoland
whence I originate
Yes, we tried the prawns and
in the absence of a cohort
stumbled into the repeopled deltas of the Columbia
through which I did not immediately find a clear way
She gotta couple’a eyeballs
(or what have you)
guaranteed to add twenty miles per hour to one’s current speed
Ignoble attempt to outrace aging
Yeah, pal, I bet your miracle came in a can
and your authorship duly disputed
The attorneys properly chastised
The first of the month and it is raining

FRUCTATION IN VIVO

There’s no point in crossing an uncovered bridge
Less in staying sober, no
Drinking from the wine of good feeling
To spew empty words at the expectant acolytes?
You should see the face.
You should see the movie about the face
You should ignore the reviews

A PERPETUAL EMBARRASSMENT TO HIM

The buxom progress of the West
collides with the stilted lyric tradition of indoors
“America” was the silly little joke I thought up
in a classroom of sawdust and combovers
Peer very closely and notice
a man tandem bicycling into the sea
A whole damn coterie
Inelegant march of the doomers down Commerce
in autumn
You cut such a lackadaisical figure and what for?
Timelessness???
Let us no longer speak of the Occident.
Let us drink in the air quality
and spew out a buoyant, greenish light

Sebastian Hunter was born a baby and lived as such for several months. Recent poems in JAKE, Little Engines, and Reap Thrill.