how you are.
the magnificent argument incision drawn across the belly,
but then you realized you were dreaming of what it's like to be awake how you are.
you who good spirits are.
friends and books, how it's always
they require to wheel you out finally.
set the eyes on some circle closer to your locale of hell-loosed mind,
it is the last you will see of it,
dispatch the dilated loops with some other thing.
is a doctor still considered
a finish a push a loose wheel.
an area an era it was built in an aria,
a stone a road a cobbled river at dawn,
but here,
through the panes.
Heart, your own,
after what has wandered.
Bliss to recall it detour
or something pure.
Mistake
to note too quick
a peeling from,
source material
having no end in you.
The endless cartoon
yanking sweetheart image.
*
Heart, your own,
after what's whimpered.
Beeping late night sound,
first light cracked.
Is it air?
Your own after itself,
organ after organ after
finger-found forearm
hair.
Olive grove fog
after this of your nights
breaks into how sweat could
be mirror to anything,
loved poet or anchor,
dying of fortune
or great big thanks.
*
Loved poet, are we
expected to mention
blood, your own
ebullient will,
the lyric politic
of bad timing, thrush,
can-can rhythm
in the dim caught
catch of morning
light?
So help me
god do not
say a word.
This test we ache.
David Bartone's recent work can be found in Mountain Gazette, Denver Quarterly, Oh No, and others.