Kevin can be reached at bl.kbo@rlg.org. His work has recently appeared in Exquisite Corpse, and he edits the wonderfully notable little magazine GAS.





THE SWAMI

1
I'm going to Tierra del Fuego
I'm already there actually
Preferring the fait accompli
To the centrifugal breeze
I dive into a pool of mirrors

2
For what is love but the air around us
& seeming deja vu spanks the cerebrum
Whose perforated vehemence must be sullen
Arcing this tragic sense I have of it all
In blue shadows that cling

3
It must be a kind of death wish on my part
As life continues ripping the
Memory of kisses from these lips
& I'm welding hallucinations to
The sheet-metal wings of angels

4
The strings continue to tremble & vibrate
Premonitions, throbbings & the damage (love)
Closing in on me the way the night does
Night after night
Performing brain surgery with a crowbar



EMOTIONAL RETREAD

paddling out now or swooning in a word
where we live day by day in multiples
of smooth interactive devices become habitual
as in numb

slowly & alone I seek...
what I seek is a door to open
& shut

my needs are simple

a door
a window
some warmth
a gun



NOTHING LESS THAN THIS

Nobody ever said that it would be
less than tragic
if you're dead I guess it doesn't matter
the grass grows
the flowers open up
birds fall from the sky like
feathered stones...
Nobody ever said that it would be less than
this
a hopelessness I despise
with bells on
& TRY
that is green & secret
splintered
broken
shattered
crushed
Tell me again
is grief a disease
like turquoise
the underpinnings of endemic desire
raking the valves of her attention
could be a distant music
riding a wave of emotion
that crashes on the wide shore of
this sense I have that everything is
dead







SEEMS LIKE

whatever I'm becoming it
staggers in puddles of moonlight
lifting its head, looking around
like a man waking up in jail

it comes in waves it's
packaged that way
like seagulls wings like
long cool windshield wiper blades

& you (even you) are sometimes aware

you can live from moment to moment
but between those moments the
gaping maw of the abyss
how can you jump it?




Kevin Opstedal



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