Word For/Word [ Issue 17: Summer, 2010 ] [ Previous ] [ Next ] [ Notes ]

Mary Ocher


"Proper adjustments"
Big blue veins
I wish they’d be any other color
but blue
But they don’t care, see -
Opposing your wishes
they grow and spread and take hostage
of the body
as it opens,
and the blue veins conquer:
We have always been"
the emperors,
We have always ruled
this waste-place,
and nobody else but us”.
 

 

 

"Firsts"
Will you then admit?
And babies are not different from
And blushes are not different from
And turning plates on dining floors
Are not too different
not at all
And hands, they burst through thick earth-twigs
And roots, and vanity,
And many firsts.

Lots and lots and lots.
 

 

 

"The 3rd"
Goodbye, tremendous sull
It’s been an honor just to be near you
to smell your feet as you run, to breath your dust
as you’re descending.
 

 

 

"Electrocution "
To the chair,
To the gas, to the gas,
to the fire,
To the gulling grip of the mass.
be it shameful, be it rare.
The all-consuming hell,
And the flames, small, they turn
Laughing jauntily, at our paralyzing roar,
powerless, slimy, morose,
The fire laughs, then so it goes
A flair streams up the spine,
To the head, to the mind,
To the chair,
To the gas, to the ground.