Two poems by David Bankson

Construct of Wood & Glass

As I die, I find myself manufactured
Of reclaimed wood & disbelief, fractured
Fingerbones & electricity.
The horizon is my plasticity,
Trees grown in cities making long shadows
Of my existence: I am fallow,
Grown in backwoods bars & utter batshit,
& buried nowhere, as luck would have it;
Stained glass cuts me to the quick, I mean,
At a young age it imprinted & stained me,
Clouding my vision with its stonewalling.
They said I’m flying, but I must be falling.
Before I die, I lie in grass & look
At what’s above me: open like a book.

Poem
(a cento-pantoum)

A writer is essentially a spy;
Many whisper lies to the dead.
Believe me, they’ll bury you in it.
It gets lost in the chatter of typewriters.

Many whisper lies to the dead.
One does not write well in one’s sleep.
It gets lost in the chatter of typewriters.
One is to words always an outsider.

One does not write well in one’s sleep.
Most poets don’t have the cash anyway.
One is to words always an outsider.
The code consists in noticing the particular.

Most poets don’t have the cash anyway.
Believe me, they’ll bury you in it.
The code consists in noticing the particular.
A writer is essentially a spy.
——–
A – Anne Sexton, “The Black Art”
B – Rae Armantrout, “Djinn”
C – Sylvia Plath, “The Applicant”
D – John Ashbery, “Paradoxes and Oxymorons”
E – Kenneth Koch, “The Art of Poetry”
F – Ron Silliman, “From Non”
G – Bernadette Mayer, “After Catullus and Horace”
H – Barbara Guest, “The Blue Stairs”

David Bankson lives in Texas. He was finalist in the 2017 Concīs Pith of Prose and Poem, and his poetry and microfiction can be found in concis, (b)oink, Thank You for Swallowing, Artifact Nouveau, Riggwelter Press, Five 2 One Magazine, etc.