James Grinwis

4 poems

**

Bicycle


The death of bicycles because
death is a throat.

When I went to see something other
than thorns lodged in throats, brains,
and groin bags I found a small,
drowned stone.

The bicycle is strong and waves awhile
though it really misses us.

It’s broke and icicles strew from its limbs.

Red grease stirs the road.

**


Rondoletto


A jog

In a clump of aloneness
he went for a jog

turning up a stone in the road
he recalled the name of a tune

a small bird gives it at dawn
on the morning of death

Gravel is often walked upon and ground

the way a griot is social

Shew:
He shewed her and then she shewed him.

Woken, that is rube’s text,

alleys of flesh

Strange, Aeneas rising from the audio

Taut

Aeneas emerging from alleys to engage in the engagements of Aeneas.

Chine: the backbone of a fish

It was lade, as in
“removed with a ladle.”

Lip like a hasp.

Caged rear.

Milkataraium, a place for storing milk.

Auk.

**

Wisconsonian


Looking for Sibelius’ bicycle.

The squares of a Moroccan rug came undone
surrounded by estrogen

Replicas, frameworks, strings

Movement like billboards,
scissors pulled from sacs.

A young woman came
pulling herself as an extraction of hair
from mole ears.

People, hunting the tempests inside them
with barbed shots of beer.

I was left to convey pieces.

He had, Sibelius, it is believed,

a number of bicycles.


*
A geography of low hair.

Explosions like peanuts.

An inverted “I”.

Oats like corks.

Hidden boxcar cities.

I decided to call before sensing it.

Ego as gel, solidifying, oat-like

Jim Morrisons

Good magic for bad, tap the wand
one times forward two times.


*
The hills are past the shapes of

not being what I since become, to nestle deeper.

Clouds like sacs of charcoal.

Slightly Mephistophelian, the clouds.

Most everyone bitching

you spit a pit into your palm
and place it back into your mouth

the world for this

seems to come together of sorts.

**

Sonatina


A woman approaches the door,
smears balm to her lips, kisses the knob.

The painting: full of voids, of the sort envisioned by men
who have worked in empty warehouses a day too long.

A tan applies itself to daylight.
How many times to use “radiant,” “diffuse,” and “sad.”

Boy in frayed sweater imitates an earthling.
He was howling, and his voice pushed out an indescribable pain.

No, you could say “constricted,” “pounding,” “throbbed,”
“like a drill bearing down.” “Completely crushed.”

**

return to sawbuck 2.4

**
James Grinwis lives in Florence, MA, and edits bateau, a new magazine and chapbook press. His work has appeared recently in Sou'wester, Bitter Oleander, 580 Split, Sentence, and The Modern Review.

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