from ‘The Sevens Sons of Golden’

Michael Marberry

FOURTH & FIFTH SONS (CONCURRENT TWIN-SONG)

 

[one_half padding=”0 75px 0 0″]Both me (a brooded litter born
with me) and me in Golden’s
battled. First: dis-ease. Then:
the jettaturaed peek toward me
as peek as stink. What’s left of
nexts-to-be but wars with me:
pre-force, feisty siphons? Me
me’d me sure a recumbentibus
momentous, paramount. Still,
me bore these stunts perfecto.
Tits-for-tats, this went awhile:
me, flurried, living. Then: bell.
Then: cease. Then: something
kinned to cognizance and awe.
Me (hive-mind and honey me)
and me like Golden Brosefs:
twin narcissus and emergent
boids, irreducible as densest
idioms. Heed, me weeps, these
zygotes all. You’re gonna miss
me when we’re gone.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”0 0 0 75px”]Both me (a brooded litter born
with me) and me in Golden’s
battled. First: dis-ease. Then:
the jettaturaed peek toward me
as peek as stink. What’s left of
nexts-to-be but wars with me:
pre-force, feisty siphons? Me
me’d me sure a recumbentibus
momentous, paramount. Still,
me bore these stunts perfecto.
Tits-for-tats, this went awhile:
me, flurried, living. Then: bell.
Then: cease. Then: something
kinned to cognizance and awe.
Me (hive-mind and honey me)
and me like Golden Brosefs:
twin narcissus and emergent
boids, irreducible as densest
idioms. Heed, me weeps, these
zygotes all. You’re gonna miss
me when we’re gone.[/one_half_last]

 
 
 

THE CONGRESS OF DADDIES (W/ RULES OF ORDER)

 

To start: Each day’s the day of
less potential. It hurts to say
so, though we know to know
and not say’s the sin of dumb
understanding. Point of order:
Query: Did we OK quorum?
If so, a’ight, let’s motion our
motion, meaning: love. Did we
when and how and why them
Golden? Retort! Let’s answer
every vote with yays or nays
and oath to gavel in absentias.
Let’s requisition this bitchest
body politic with bed-grunts,
wettest gestures. Of Golden,
think with manly thoughts
and uber-. Daddies! Surely
Golden did appear to each of
us stupendous. And duddered,
we stiff-dicked.

[one_half_last padding=”0 50px 0 0″][/one_half_last]

 
 
 

THE EARTH (IN WRITTEN CORRESPONDENCE)

 

Golden, have I loved you like
a planet with the paradigm of
whim? Truer physics I forget,
unlike the scent of red innards:
offal & spit-fried. Once, I was
two hands to hold your weight
in trees and piles of dirt-white
truffles we could not wean off.
Once, you were my reckoning.
See Golden: lonely philo-logic.
See Golden: lowly and strange
like those furors for rock-art,
folk-rock, ancient metallurgies.
(Did I hurt you? You ought to
live on Mars.) I gave you more
sons than the highest prime in
the ledger of pure sorrows. O,
Golden latitudes. O, madly. O.

[one_half_last padding=”0 50px 0 0″][/one_half_last]

 
 
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Michael Marberry’s work has appeared in The New RepublicWest BranchIndiana Review, Hayden’s Ferry ReviewThe Cincinnati ReviewBat City Review, and elsewhere. Michael is currently the Poetry Editor of Third Coast and Coordinator of the Poets-in-Print Reading Series. He hails from Tennessee but lives in Michigan.