Joshua St. Claire
DOUBLE TAKE
FAST PACE humming Life During Wartime
a Little Boy again tracing the broken window sash
duct tape Perimeter precrime
a Dead Hand drawing a black outline in white ash
a Little Boy again always almost forgotten in splatterdash
jangle pop FADE OUT dreamcore
a Dead Hand drawing venom from CASH CASH CASH
it’s not everything Fat Man but it’s more
jingle jangle FADE OUT foldcore
mold spore apple core rotting in the GARDEN PLOT
Fat Man Who Sold the World Baltimore
a COCKED PISTOL polyglot
speaking of speaking of apples in a GARDEN PLOT what’s not
to love about the BIG NOISE of real steel
a COCKED PISTOL verbs a cocotte
her Second Strike lights lightning commonweal
loving to love the BIG NOISE of a real steal
First Strike then ask questions later
the Second Strike is no big deal
ROUND HOUSE cities realms rivers continents craters
First Strike then later skater
laces laces then unlaces laces to HOT BOX
ROUND HOUSE kicks an uppercut double KO disaster
through the LOOKING GLASS chardonnay and a fox
lapt in a HOT BOX all the world’s a sandbox
stay in the Perimeter boys and girls make a single file line
and follow the Pied Piper through the LOOKING GLASS aftershocks
All Together Now at FAST PACE don’t fret kids everything is going be just fine just fine just fine
It’s Pronounced Forsythia!
see them subtle sprayslinking under spruces :: forsythia
smell their scythed shapes shadowing suburban sidewalks :: forsythia
selfstipple their scrimmed stems circling city streets :: forsythia
stunt the stunned suns in the stunned sun :: forsythia
analysis paralysis :: forsythia
aberration reverberation :: forsythia
apterous raptorous :: forsythia
antipatheticeticetic :: forsythia
enough :: let us surge in :: merge in :: burgeon :: forsythia
let us yellow :: mellow :: bellow :: fellow :: forsythia
bend them :: mend them :: send them :: rend them :: forsythia
stalk the stalks :: stock the stakes :: sulk the space :: forsythia
see one :: be one :: twee one :: glee one :: forsythia
everything I mean :: ending in green :: forsythia
Joshua St. Claire is an accountant from a small town in Pennsylvania. His poetry has been published or are forthcoming in Notre Dame Review, Lana Turner, Sugar House Review, Two Thirds North, and ballast, among others. His haiku have appeared in several annual anthologies. He is the winner of Rattle: Poets Respond, the Gerald Brady Memorial Senryu Award and the Trailblazer Award. He firmly believes that the interrobang should be added to the standard keyboard.