Tyrone Williams
Three Poems


Arapt

Oars at rest (backed-up
sloop), logged out.
blank screen, slack
sail (hedged canoe). Listless
list, save for sleepware
error—snore [sic]
snort—[sic] pitch, yaw-
nth boot. Broken
link, a wake
hog-tied to this hand-held
(ahoy)—please God—heliport.

Asocial sans Socialism

get thee to a job
circumcise circumstance
the girl next door, beheaded
imho that's so lol lame/gay/towelheaded/…
debt—the new decade
gold-chained, patent-leather shoed, the Constitution is in the ccclllluuuubbb
take that hat—off
put a cap in yr sass
seasonal employment during the Arab Spring
I stand to reason
beret that burqa
between and inside the lines is the problem
a boy with prospects
chadri—the last frontier
the opposite sex drive ed.
Democrat Republican=free will
dubya do you do
burn all flagships
have you read the latest plantation
they stand to anthem
speak near English—utilities not included
ride shotgun
recycle flotation strategies
insider confessions to appointed ombudsmen
ice that anime down
anchor ankh

Maroon

On the other hand
………………………………
real Kool-ad
hoc,
abut men
running for exception, a
once-now-nonce, esq., briefly,
………a drawn shade
WANTED here, however
castaway shadow of the drowned—
………warriors walking underwater—


there, a shore
peppered with spent rounds



Tyrone Williams teaches literature and theory at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. He is the author of five books of poetry, c.c. (Krupskaya Books, 2002), On Spec (Omnidawn Publishing, 2008), The Hero Project of the Century (The Backwaters Press, 2009), Adventures of Pi (Dos Madres Press, 2011) and Howell (Atelos Books, 2011). He is also the author of several chapbooks, including a prose eulogy, Pink Tie (Hooke Press, 2011). His website is at http://home.earthlink.net/~suspend/