Dave Brinks, director of the 17 Poets Reading Series at the Gold Mine Saloon in New Orleans                                                                editor of Yawp.  These are from a new book to be titled "The Science
                                                               of Forgetting."  Check out Dave's other wonderful books the Caveat Onus
                                                               1,2, and 3 from Lavender Ink Press. Dave has been published in many                                                                                     magazines, including the esteemed Exquisite Corpse, where you will find the                                                                 remainder of the poems from the new book.



Hushed Jump-Rope Rhyme

when the natives talk
the natives listen
floating backwards
house-sized potholes
soup brown playground
the lake waters
we’re close to drinking
a ghastly alchemy
claps its hands, close
my eyes one to five
this is a vanished person
jump-rope rhyme
don’t go ‘way nobody
smile some sunshine
I gotta old oaken bucket
inside my canoe
A B C & vegetable goop


The Ouroboros

with men as with caterpillars
nothing was chanced
the penniless world was hemmed-in
by mountains on three sides
with gibbons and cranes to seem endless

gradually three or four flowers
tiny divots of earth
by the tens of thousands
and a skein of fine white sewing silk
appeared on my coat and hat

but to allow for the ouroboros
that lives in my living room
perched on the caldera’s rim
and over my shoulder
like the white bird you can’t see

the spyglass drew a cocoon
beating a drum in the doorway
of my own raising
so many misshapen wishes
too tired to rest or return home

                                      Megan Burns, co-curator of 17 poets, editor Solid Quarter literary magazine and                                                                                           author of  Memorial + Sight Lines, also from Lavender Ink. 
                                                                                      She has  also been published in The New Laurel Review,                                                                 Wild Strawberries, Slipstream,  Exquisite Corpse, Turntable
                                                                 and Blue Light, The Poet's  Canvas and Horse Less Review.


Healing Sound

a sequence flowing downward as water
pooling in the broken sidewalk’s crevasse
mud, sweat, tears and urine
dead hand smells—voice barely able to whisper
its own ordering: I’ll make you
any deal about disaster
a coin spinning in mid air
stop video that captures both sides
as if holes can be separate
the density and the lie
for all this shared pain, impossible to believe
other people aren’t more familiar
split in two as cut fruit: blinding bliss and discarded
rind sliced away
walk among the soaking ruins
the one window you have learned to call from
found shut and nailed to the sill
await here in sorrow’s passing
weather proof
proving without a scalpel
wonder can still be divided


Rustle and Form

time + poetry = love
-j.godard

outrun days blossoming venture
of this I sing, trampled deep paths

and set down where water cares to harvest, golden
bowl of most longed desire

to jump face forward, a response of confused gestures
tell me again how it was in the beginning

and how it is now nor ever will be
how usual to lie covered in the brick face

once splitting home behind the stretched screen
entranceway—an illustrious trade

smallest creature taken back into the fold
digress and make time as an amended juncture

an inviting crescendo
how swelling is measured in hand widths

come each morning its dawn
come each night a night

which always leads to cruelty
a desperate wisdom nodding towards
an open door

let the cicadas sing of misadventure
let the cattails swirl as wind lipped folly