three poems

Randy Prunty

Black Boat

We're in the ascendent

wave smack

as in the first line of a voyage

resinous with objects

of convention, need-scented.

Our goodwill ideals quicken

past humility, past limitation

to see green parks, now "population gray"

at the mouth of every cove.

The smudge of a rained-out hotel says

(but not with language)

"my friend died."

What is the rigor of a condolence.

What is secular concern

once you strip away the plastic swag.

To identify this species

figure a universe

and take the poem back

to the programmatic: what

is a pilot boat and why is it black.

How does it "go out" beyond

where vowels are desires

unreachable middle isles like

philosophy or circumstance

churning into manifesto.

A fact of perspective

is different from

predicting decay

from a sulfuric breeze.

The body's alternative

The way the world accommodates misadventure

does not signify you sleeping on the floor

with a memento tucked illicit into a pocket.

By that analogy dust corresponds to chaos

after all destinations have been razed

leaving only a frenzy of gestures.

Let's make fear correct itself, raking up

debris from the storm. Let's make a new

version of the weather and let the crow fly.

Yes, there is more to the crow than its obnoxiousness.

Nature is for it, like the nature of treasure.

Look and wait and love until you see it.

See a son carve an apple tree into spoons,

a essay pinned to his shirt:

hunger and its relation to resource.

Everybody knows how desire fails as empathy.

Without geography and its ethics, with only the gravity of itself,

it can only climb to see what's falling from overhead.

We race along the pier to see who can smell it first -

a boat right under our noses

waiting to turn water into departure.

Salt water has a smell and then you taste it

turning tide into color and kindness.

Throw these findings into a saucepan.

Sound Replacement

Pretend I'm me, a false positive result of "everything happens for a reason."

Pretend I'm me, a false positive result of "everything happens for a CLAP."

Pretend I'm me, a false positive result of "everything happens for WHAA CLAP."

Pretend I'm me, a false positive result of "everything happens kiss WHAA CLAP."

Pretend I'm me, a false positive result of "everything GASP kiss WHAA CLAP."

Pretend I'm me, a false positive result of "HUM GASP kiss WHAA CLAP."

Pretend I'm me, a false positive result UGH "HUM GASP kiss WHAA CLAP."

Pretend I'm me, a false positive SNAP! UGH "HUM GASP kiss WHAA CLAP."

Pretend I'm me, a false PTPTPT SNAP! UGH "HUM GASP kiss WHAA CLAP."

Pretend I'm me, a OOO PTPTPT SNAP! UGH "HUM GASP kiss WHAA CLAP."

Pretend I'm me, ZZT OOO PTPTPT SNAP! UGH "HUM GASP kiss WHAA CLAP."

Pretend I'm MMM, ZZT OOO PTPTPT SNAP! UGH "HUM GASP kiss WHAA CLAP."

Pretend ICK MMM, ZZT OOO PTPTPT SNAP! UGH "HUM GASP kiss WHAA CLAP."

gurgle ICK MMM, ZZT OOO PTPTPT SNAP! UGH "HUM GASP kiss WHAA CLAP."

gurgle ICK MMM, ZZT OOO PTPTPT SNAP! UGH "HUM GASP kiss WHAA reason."

gurgle ICK MMM, ZZT OOO PTPTPT SNAP! UGH "HUM GASP kiss a reason."

gurgle ICK MMM, ZZT OOO PTPTPT SNAP! UGH "HUM GASP for a reason."

gurgle ICK MMM, ZZT OOO PTPTPT SNAP! UGH "HUM happens for a reason."

gurgle ICK MMM, ZZT OOO PTPTPT SNAP! UGH "everything happens for a reason."

gurgle ICK MMM, ZZT OOO PTPTPT SNAP! of "everything happens for a reason."

gurgle ICK MMM, ZZT OOO PTPTPT result of "everything happens for a reason."

gurgle ICK MMM, ZZT OOO positive result of "everything happens for a reason."

gurgle ICK MMM, ZZT false positive result of "everything happens for a reason."

gurgle ICK MMM, a false positive result of "everything happens for a reason."

gurgle ICK me, a false positive result of "everything happens for a reason."

gurgle I'm me, a false positive result of "everything happens for a reason."

Pretend I'm me, a false positive result of "everything happens for a reason."