The Fiddleback

Excerpt

Poetry by Tony Mancus

Listen Here

from Landscape with Bedsocket and Winds

it’s a long waltz to where we lay down

and the shade is only one side

where we’re crazed by things we forget

three wings make the flood rise

how swiftly our disguises are measured

a pair of binoculars: rose-throated

finches bloom at our looking

what opens beneath the field

a courtroom for seeds

I something its doing in the back of my head

I open up

cavity

the tears come

clamp forms its wit

out of wood and what grabs

two shapes like a pocket

the heart for

one fist will get together

with uniformed syllables

in all its fingers

(not to be sylla-

da-dum

dum-duh-dum

dum-duh-deedle

bullied anymore)

the flag’s a tired machine

whose letters can’t even wink

such glass in them

& seeing through

their compartments

to kindnesses of drawers

junk in all its gathering

my mind

my mine for your pot

& brittle bones (I mean mine)

the sleeping nettles are hardest

to find & remove

habitats natural softener

We wake the dark without arms

(into)

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Tony Mancus lives in Rosslyn, VA with his soon to be wife and their two cats. He is co-founder of Flying Guillotine Press and he is generally sleepy. Some of his poems are published or forthcoming at Lines + Stars, Phoebe, Verse, CUE, Forklift, Ohio, H_NGM_N, and elsewhere. He keeps a sloppy blog at inlandskirting.blogspot.com.