Mark DuCharme

Horribly Dull

                                         a collaboration with no one
for Jack Spicer

Horribly dull body calligraphy (courtesy
Franz Kafka
Horribly dull words processed
as if despair were not
an answer
Horribly dull bright mint rendez vous
Horribly dull evening post (there are no
evening posts
Horribly dull expressive spillage (as if life weren’t
full of joy
Horribly dull fake poem posted here & called
a poem
Horribly dull suburban epiphany
snatch of magazine idleness
(can you say ‘driveway verse’
under neon appletrees?
Horribly dull entendre play (do you remember
Aretha? (do you remember what
once was
Horribly dull, the unread
or uninspired
Horribly dull lives which don’t
accrue in animal form
Horribly dull machine voice syntax
Horribly real, the animal
lives
which burn us
with their throats
Horribly real, all animal life
accrued
then lost suddenly—
In breath of flight
upturned)—