February 24 – March 2, 2014: Nicholas Petrone and Michael Cantin

Well Enough Alone

Unexploited muses,
satisfied arrangements –
the side-of-the-road chair I painted orange
just to see it painted orange
now decorates the patio
not doing a damn thing
but hosting hardened careless drips.

The singular instant before poem –
spontaneous, coffee-hour visualization,
amorphous near-substantiation in dramatic color –
was so much more than these moldy characters in black and white.

As if riderless horses doubt their own alacrity
or hushed secluded fields wouldn’t flower without us,
wouldn’t erupt into undulating rainbows sans some asshole snapping pictures
with his intelligent phone.

But unwritten poems
gnaw at our bones we believe,
strip us of our senses,
to stand naked like naïve lovers,
desperate to fill the silence.

And after we have spoiled the moment with syllables and limits,
corrupted in with labels,
we run around madly,
desperate to show this disfigured thing
to anyone who will pay us in pennies or compliments.

What the Laundry Took (From Me)

When I discovered your absence
madness took me.
Unbalanced, unmatched,
I could only stare at my feet.

Madness took me.
And you mocked my descent!
I could only stare at my feet:
each apart: one lonely, so cold.

And you mocked my descent,
though rage boiled hot in my chest.
Each apart: one lonely, so cold.
Those limbs became strangers.

When I discovered your absence.
Unbalanced, unmatched.