Web Poem Reply Poems

Five short language-only poems written in response to Dina Kelberman’s coded Web Poems (2017).

WET PANT

L is a tongue

unfurling at a pink right angle

tense curl as it licks in

 

WET PANT

WET PAINT

half-glossy and drying

lifelines flooding the plain

up, up to the first knuckle

 

I don’t know what nice is and I’m pretty sure I don’t want it

 

I know what you mean about the square in the corner

This one time

my friend gave me a dimmer switch a foot from the ground

for beauty, also

 

TWO, TWO

Earth does not have two moons

Tatooine has two suns

Earth has two not-moons

 

2016 HO₃ has not been named

(maybe they have a secret name they call themselves)

Caught in a little dance with Earth too long-distance to count

 

Cruithne has a name

(this is probably why it is called our second moon)

((‘our’ here feels like the ‘us’ of a sports team))

we chase each other through space

1:1 orbital resonance, you know

crossing paths once or twice

 

round of moon

curve of bathysphere

 

the prospect of escape

instead of bearing witness

 

ZZZZZT

I had heard that lightning never strikes the same place twice

But no: it is attracted

whatever’s easy: height, metal

 

water

 

In a pool

you can’t feel your hair raise

or skin tingle

can’t place your hands over your ears

or tip toe touching heels together

 

In one foot out the other

No place like home

 

 

I DON’T KNOW HER

Can’t rely on a shadow

to be there when you need it

 

Probably leaves for something better soon

 

Reach out for a hand

Grasp at its trace

 

 

SUGGESTION

Yarn is not a worm but it looks like

(as though injured)

Drying in the sun

 

Worm is not a line but it looks like

Invasive earthworms of North America

(reality tv show I would watch)

 

Lines are not music but they look like

Levels stretching and flexing

But making no sound