Rex Ybañez

Five Poems

 

 

 “Draw Closer,”

 

so the artist mounts upon the edge of

the seat, vigilant, hunching over his étude

concerning anatomy. Gravitas

lures with allure—he is fixated, responsive to

delicate grooves that contour

 

throughout the clockwork of the sketch

& cautious—not careful, not

careless, but demonstrating

dexterity meshed with sinestra due to

la izquierda, all forces worked

 

in one hand—with a rigged

finesse defenestrating the fourth wall

betwixt prophet & etched figure:

the squire turns the page, skipping

a grade, becoming galant (of the Old French

 

galer). Dead language is said to be

obsolete & that chivalry is frail—

how so? Is it because using

ancient words takes a step back, not

forward? But legend says

 

the pen is mightier than the sword, for

one cannot spell sword without

words. Sweeping away debris from

erasures, the ink cap pops

off, readying a tongue’s hilt among

 

its sheath, holding his breath. His work

animates in suspension—each foot

fall closing in—to livingness from chiaroscuro:

a girl approaches him from paper,

saying, “Draw closer—” & he falls in.

 

 

 

Itch

 

Orbitoclastic fingernails

scuffing between adipose & epithelial

tissue, no wonder we consider

matching hands like brothers or lovers

separated by glass—command

éclaboussure to play masseuse: obtuse

the way landscape sinks into

phantasmagoria via dream résumé;

 

pondered a thunder (asunder through

frottage & fumage)—the smoke

thick like a hookah coughing clouds—

uvulas tickled by phlegm, framed

phlegmatic/ soufflé sinking like a Led Zeppelin/

automating the blink for

"yes" & "more yes" + "no, no, no" =

mice with matches rat their way under

 

floorboards. The cautious ear

zephyrs like the draft from a poorly shut

window. Of opportunity, this spontaneity with

its jungle mesh & Gordian riddle

skits & scats bebop, Spanish key on

the Monte Carlo/ chitin chewing on chalkboards/

involuntary voices crunching into one

song: whispers of a feather flock

 

apart/ adrift/ aghast—indefinitely,

cumbersome calculates blood cultures—

vultures & condors salute suns

quietly above they prey, the prey praying

swift death/ Bass clefs/ 15-Step

trip hop: what did you just hear? Not this—this

what? What what? No yes &

more yes. All at once the quarrel mounds

 

quarries for sepulchers/ neck ties fit for

the instant of gallows/ Moribund for

friends bearing tattered veils no more (but

yes); pareidolia [the aphrodesiac] wakes

up the brain—something’s there, though it isn’t,

though it is. Hush. Hear it? Like

kindling helium to react, only fusing

for fission. There’s war & struggle swimming

 

light years by celeritas—velociraptors

raving claws (tearing?) No one’s there, but

there is. The world fits in one

calcium asylum. Manes of spikes exaggerate

spontaneous methods of irrational knowledge [post

hoc] until Babylon objects—phenomena

of glaciers reduced to poetics of entropic

declension/ look away—what’s there?

 

 

 

How News Was Brought Through the Avernus

 

Seismologic gallop—frolic ad

addendum & wallop. Haunches

launch their strut, spurring

invisible ribs to ad lib memoirs;

blazing trail on no sadle, bones rattle

& wreck the ring of chimes, dead-

eyed. This rod will nail into the navel stream

gleaming ornamental effigies. Let it

be, let it be so—littered a flesh, bittered

to freshen up, glisten; Rubicon vs. saving points

favored in a video game (sometimes

pausing does the trick) lest we die another

time. Where’s my line? Slaves to music

always the thought of peace. Finding

salvation in the love of love cubed by flame &

ice, rolling dice for chance—finger paint

a melody for me a poco a poco/ lentando

Lent/ abhor detractors wearing the guise of wisdom—

cloaks of that sort blend like oaks in a dark

woods. Miles to go show will o’ wisps

griping crisps between television & thickness/

vulgar such a Vulgate/ battlions of

Krakens crack out their whips: heeyah heeyah! click

clacking into the deep. My Eurydice is

waiting. My Eurydice is waiting. Even bringing

her back, looking behind, I hold tight, descending

with her/ calmly waiting for the right hero to

beckon the dead through Apocalypto

(no calypso) per trumpet, per trombone, per

saxophone blurting “Extra, extra—hear

all about it: a song slithers its slivers of

silver & gold & platinum.” We laud thee—this symphony

down under is quelled; we’re being summoned =

clawing out the guilt trip, clambering

up fatal cavity, every casualty roundabouts

with the flight of the bees. Listen

for the Royal Jelly—the catacombs

emptied for the upstairs. The attic dank

no more & 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3: go—be happy anything

shows up at your threshold, even if you never

open the door when the bell rings.

 

 

 

Decoration of Age

 

--after Henri Matisse’s Interior with Egyptian Curtain, 1948

 

A periodic table’s color spectrum sheens. Look

how old this room is— one can tell from how

objects like the fruit and curtains are arranged

 

to clash against window pane shade around

this time of day. Electric. Eclectic—you’ve friezed

life in here frenetic, magnetizing orchestral midnights

 

through organ fights. Why pick up the bare pear

and take a bite when it lies there poised in a

handstand? Flipping worldviews like a coin toss,

 

one should get lost in the decorum: the young

palm tree outside tries to crawl inside, desperate

to remove the wall between his garden and

 

yours. The drapes—stained from the Porlock

person’s lips—dips over the stand to veil over

its own world of whatever lies beneath. Without

 

fingers, my eyes unsheathe from sides as

spectators of dancing dust adrift natural lights—

a ballet between the tiniest of worlds among

 

separate planetary systems: a cosmos hiding

within every speck of chaos. Everything smells of

conversation. Golden blades still tap upon

 

the glass instead of the crying rain today. Forgive

me, but may I lounge in here awhile? Haven’t

seen Egypt creep before—the biblical plagues

 

haunt a harking: I listen closely, yet so far from

a kaleidoscoping view. What else, I ask, what

else do you plan on collecting? What more do

 

you plan on remembering to decorate your heart’s

chamber? Strange to know a familiarity in what’s

unknown—lovely feeling as if this is my home.

 

 

 

Ring Composition

Emphatic, darkness chokes

the fire, coiling blackened rings

& girdling him. Circular reasoning

 

seasons a logic with the same

tastes. The cul-de-sac swings

endless roundaboutness against

 

weak winds—*swoosh swoosh*

retards a ridiculum, metronoming

measure via Foucault’s Pendulum—

 

Knights Templar dramatized Holy

Grail treasure by deeming God’s Will

for an answer. Do you swear to tell

 

the truth, the whole truth, & nothing

but the truth so help you? If we spade

more graves to be enslaved by

 

dust, dismissed to rest under soft

crust, then surely the weight will crater

deeply, probably a larger Hades than

 

Lucifer’s crash. Icarus tried escaping

his prison, too, but he thought he was

an albatross. Maybe an angel. No one

 

understands the way vultures ride

heat from sun beams bouncing back

off Earth, as they swing a point of stillness

 

in the sky. Infrared and UV rays gravitate

toward the bird, like the single leg of a

compass pirouetting & measuring

 

diameters of distance. Why do clocks wave

one way with both hands? Cyclical churns

cynicism I suppose. On the edge of toes

 

we poise ourselves to look at a swirling

world below, a scenic cesspool culturing

centrifuges of redundancy. The ridiculum

 

is critical, crackling, centripetal—pastels of

pastorals load branches of history

sparsely, tasting of parsley. Partially

 

the problem reminds how much mass

is conserved in enclosed systems, though

the case is open: it spirals out of control.

 

 

 

Rex Ybañez: “Currently, I'm the children's librarian, grant writer, and program coordinator at Polk County Library in Bolivar, MO. I hold degrees in English and Spanish at Southwest Baptist University. My work has been featured and appeared in Young Adult Review Network (YARN), Uut Poetry (uutpoetry.tumblr.com), White Ash Literary Magazine, The Bleeding Typewriter, SCOP, and the online revival of Nine Literary Magazine. Shortly, I will have publications in both Cyber Hex and Ardor Literary Magazine.” And, now, DM.