Philip Byron Oakes

2 poems


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Urban Tea


A squalor chummy with an upper echelon of flies
buzzing with the news of lipstick. A trail of telling
kisses mending feelings hurt in the fall. A legacy
of sighing mugshots in the dark to fend for their
light of way. A viewpoint in the flesh crawling to
the finish line, in furtherance of easing doubts
as to the shifting weight of a sermon on the
mount. Hanging curtains on the rubble
to spice the light looking in, on a privacy
collapsed under the weight of a secret
taken as a window on the world.


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If 9 were 6


Chasms in action taken to resolve a quandary
at large.

Where this ephemera has hair on its nipples.
This fine feathered giraffe has stuck its neck
out long enough.

Where ceilings are etched with subtleties.
A mystery as to the colors is being squared with
features of those sure to notice shades of gray.

The ridges in the plain as day old as Methuselah.
That the dirty little in the hand is taken to the
birds in the shrub-a-dub. That the complexities
rule the details finding a home in the wilderness
of hurt.

All to be at a distance prized for its brevity
in getting to the point of no return. Absence,
in its guise as elevation, staving off the joker
riding herd on the riddle finagling with
the sensible below.


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return to sawbuck 5.2

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Philip Byron Oakes is a poet living in Austin, Texas. His work has appeared in numerous journals, including Cricket Online Review, Otoliths, Moria, E ratio and Blue & Yellow Dog. He is the author of Cactus Land (77 Rogue Letters), a volume of poetry. His second collection of poetry, Sard (Otoliths), came out in the latter part of 2010.