Debellatio

[DiggerTractor]

He disappeared. Without his own knowledge. Now she sees
him, now he doesn't see her. Being disappeared is actually
an easy trick. Combine-a closet of shoes: a basket of clothes:
a toolbox: a rope: a mower: a scent of tea tree oil:
an electric toothbrush: Space unoccupied. No one saw
the fast switch of hands behind the curtains, the trick-
the magic. The man just vanished. One day he was there
and the next he was an empty chair, an empty plate
at the dinner table. No one asked where he disappeared
to. Some cheerfully pointed out, "oh look, a wicker-chair
is that new?" But the neighbors knew, by god, he was some
sort of magic man, because he definitely had poof: disappeared.

[DiggerTractor]

I don't hear the wind
palm trees sway
I'm safe behind glass

[DiggerTractor]

Breath of life
she slips in the dark
the paint dries

[DiggerTractor]

History can be so Fun(ny) for some: A found poem
turned to a bad terse verse. The knife struck him,
his head fell at fifteen minutes after ten. Executioners
seized it by the hair, and showed it to the multitude

whose cries of “Long live the Republic!” Thus died,
at the age of thirty-eight years, Louis, sixteenth,
whose ancestors had reigned in France for more
than eight hundred years: Dead Head.

[Speug]

I really like the central conceit of 'Time ghosts you'. The line break after "Kids screaming" is very clever too.

[Jee Leong]

Nifty phrase making: "space unoccupied" and "dead head."

[DiggerTractor]

Blythe and bop, my apologies! I do not know how I missed your comments and didn't thank you for your time and nice thoughts. But thanks!

[DiggerTractor]

Speug and Jee, thanks for stopping and taking the time

[DiggerTractor]

Magic Man returns, walking past the middle school: grown
looking kids. Stronger and faster than kids should be. He finds
a quarter on the sidewalk: George, head's up. Proudly on one-side
and on the other, tiny words "In Love We Trust".

A trick coin, he muses. My lucky day: Heads I win,
Tails you lose. A very simplistic turn of phrase to most
but to him, it means he is back. He is seen again.

[DiggerTractor]

The Korean Vet's hands tremble. He wanted to tell me the story
again. But I knew it faster than he could begin. The patch is yellow
he says, "you know why?" Yes, I do. But he starts first with the dead
piles of dead. Winter is not a good time to bury the dead he says. I wipe
his mouth like a baby's spincter. Springtime is the best time to bury
the dead. Winter is disappointing because the ground is too hard: frozen.

The hard bodies don't go into the hard ground too easy. Spring has soft earth
cooler springier bodies too. Summer? Decay and bugs comes too quickly, the rot
smell won't leave your nose. Can never get 'em in the ground fast enough in summer.

Spring is beautiful, and it gets too where you don't want to depress no one, so you
hide the whole affair behind trees or around the other side of the hill. But you go fast
and it's nice to finally get the dead out of your sight. You can only see your friends so many
times before you tire of looking at them dead or not---you know what I'm saying? Fuck
winter though, you can't bury nothing in the winter: but your dead friends are still good
for helping out in your defense. Their frozen bodies make good bullet stoppers. The faces
aren't fun to look at so you rotate them, face away--it's easier to shoot from the rear,
we'd say. The patch: the horse we never rode, the line we never crossed and the color-piss
yellow-the reason why. But we never buried our bodies in the winter. I knew the story
even if he was still sputtering trying to start it. I wipe his rounded mouth again.

[DiggerTractor]

Apologies can't ever be given in reverse and shit goes down in circles
when you flush it. I hear down under it goes in reverse circles-how
does that work? Apologies for doing something that hurts someone
accidentally are simple-I bump you-it's an accident-sorry. I knock-over
a paint jar onto your project, or kick your shin while playing soccer-sorry
seems appropriate. But I break. You break me. You leave me in the cold
outside our home looking in at your new life-sorry. Next time, just text
it: Divorce?!? and add an emoji: colon, closed parenthesis. I can't live
with you and you won't live with me. Sorry, I hurt you. That I stopped
loving you has nothing to do with you, let's still be friends. Sorry. That means
nothing when one day I awake and can't remember your name. It will
eventually come to me: sorry, I didn't recognize you and I forgot
your name. Usually I never forget a face or a name.

[DiggerTractor]

He'd go solo to get back on the podium: 1000 miles alone
on a motorcycle through the deserts of Mexico:he is off
Mouse McCoy: 6:37a.m. and the rhythm of the race
begins. Mouse with new found maturity has gone
from sixteenth to fourth in less than an hour. A motorcyclist
to compete at the front of the pack, must commit fully, he must
hurl himself into the void. Mouse was on fire. That’s him
that’s him. I see him off and I say a prayer. At Pit-11 he didn’t talk
about the usual things. He was focused on the finish-just hours ahead
and he sped-off with one specific question-how far ahead was the bike
in front of him? That was 3rd place, that was the podium. In the early night
hours, alone, in the mountains
he crashes-60 miles from the end or 940 miles from the beginning : broken
ribs, broken fingers dislocated shoulder. In danger of being run over,
Mouse crawls to the edge.
We went to find him. When we found him he manned up
and beat the bike til it was rideable and went back out. He broke through
the wall. After 18 grueling-hours, numb and broken, he didn’t make it
to the podium. But damn, what an effort to make it through that kind of solitude.

[HowardM2]

"Adam's Lament" captures the constantly changing nature of people, the world, and love; nicely done. "These memories have their own sound" makes a fine use of imagery, particularly visual imagery transformed into aural, as a means of evoking loss. "After You" does a good job of presenting loss with no hope of recovery. "You came into my yard" is a fine presentation of the desire to retain even for a moment longer what has already been irrevocably lost. All told, a sound group of poems that clearly belong as parts of a larger whole.

[Arlene]

Hey, Digger... Magic Man is creepy, was it meant to be? The Korean vet, wow of a last line, very effective. The lunes, too, beautufully evanescent. -- Best, A.

[Donner]

Hi, Digger,

These last three all have an engrossing narrative. Different subjects, different styles, but all very good, solid and memorable. The Korean War vet - good study on the lasting effects of war. I'm guessing that the vet has told this story often to his caretaker, forgetting that he has, leading me to think he's stuck in a moment of time. (I had an uncle who would call me and talk for hours about his childhood, the same events over and over. He developed Alzheimer's a few years later.) It's like a cycle for both N and the vet - the vet tells the story, N wipes his mouth for him.

"Apologies" is quite acidic and biting. Some things you can't just sorry away.

Donner