Issue 2: Lisa Jarnot

End Day State

And all plant life,

consuming force that waits

to be consumed

carnivores, voters, car drivers,

roadside assistance,

handfree handsets,

chewing gum,

the light upon

the chest upon

the uppriced coffee

of the Christ,

o

olive skinned cat

of the house

of the hall,

o trance state and

the right to write

the things that

bring no harm,

o rare bright exhaustion

of every poufy song

the hillbilly mountain goose

arranger of the lines,

responsibly, the couch,

the couch,

responsibly

to leopard there

toward sleep

toward the lack of

interest in the general public,

the post office and each

little cube of cheese,

o thou, barreling nowhere,

stretching the genetic information

of your roach-like soul,

the do-gooder and the

do nothing and the

homo as they say

out on the street,

the bicycle lock despair

of the frizzy glops of oil

what mib is this,

what conspiracy of

dark Darley Arabians

spreaming down

the track

what terrific postulate

of lazy pen and ink,

what itchy stomach,

when to wake and

when to sleep and when

to be in heat,

for the very few

and the very many,

for the four legged things

and the oranges in bowls,

broken of the spell of the

me that be, partial to

nothing but ice cream,

strike out against the

pen nib and the

happenstance of

hair upon bright air,

be the hawk that you never see,

fanciful ground dweller,

uneaten squib,

caterer of cheese,

electrical conductor of

the complication of the

household and the

landmines and the

waterlocks of geef

go chickens of the

school yard, come

doorstop of the

delivery man,

run harbinger of

take out food,

linger

and then hunker down,

give it to me, your soul,

what do you think you are?

And I am that one too.

Lisa Jarnot is the author of four books of poems including Night Scenes (Flood Editions, 2008). She lives in New York City where she is employed as a horticulturalist.

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