PELTIGERA BRITANNICA

 

November rations meat

December sees itself out

Cows prance across the field

And die in January under trees

I still have the good idea

In May, days fall like petals

The pasture surges up in a claw

The cows bark

The sky shingles
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

DICRANUM SCOPARIUM

 

I left a message that said, ignore this

Figure out what your children want

Buy insurance

Leave me alone if you can, but if you can’t

I’ll take a red one

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

CLADONIA CIRSTATELLA

 

The party leaves in a red car

Squamule, sorediate, podetial

Attack of the bare, an unfurling

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

THUIDIUM RECOGNITUM

 

Is a delicate looking

Four-wheeled thing so dull

Boreal and musky

Rich, shaded, open men

Gather for the unleashing

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

DENNIS JAMES SWEENEY’s poems and prose have appeared in The Collagist, Crazyhorse, Five Points, Indiana Review, and Passages North, among others. He is the Small Press Editor of Entropy, the recipient of an MFA from Oregon State University, and a recent Fulbright fellow in Malta. Originally from Cincinnati, he lives in Colorado, where he is a PhD student in creative writing at the University of Denver.