Three poems
by Glen Armstrong
The world delivers cotton.
Shirts.
I can’t condone its methods.
But the shirts are nice.
I pay two dollars for lemonade.
And understand.
Little about maintaining.
The trees or attracting.
A waitstaff that remains pleasant.
While earning about a lemon.
Ade and a half an hour.
The world showers.
Me and lays out my cotton.
Shirt for tomorrow.
Until then I’m free.
To dream of meteor showers.
Naked.
The world delivers.
A late-summer breeze.
It delivers a change in seasons.
Rave Review
My daughter wears electrical tape.
On her nipples.
At something she calls a “rave.”
People tell me that she’s beautiful.
This I believe.
Though I distrust people.
And their rave reviews.
Concerning all other matters.
It’s like trying to get a laugh.
With wind-up chattering teeth.
When you have no idea.
What a mouth is.
Her mother used to say that the “devil.
Is in the details.”
Which I only understand to mean.
I’m haunted before I’m doomed.
I could never see her mother’s legs.
Through the joyful synchronized swimming.
That they set off.
As soon as they registered as legs.
Doodad
Everyone has to have it.
The weird little doodad sells out.
In under an hour.
It breaks each child’s heart.
Even if they get one.
Like a purple-haired gun.
That destroys.
The child’s playground rival.
A lightning bolt with a secret.
Pocket.
I need nothing with a red.
Wing falling through it.
It’s an experiment.
In monotony and interruption.
I need less than nothing.
With a candy swirl.
Bird’s skull.
It takes but a moment.
For plastic to have its way.
And then dissolve.
Glen Armstrong holds an MFA in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and teaches writing at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. He edits a poetry journal called Cruel Gartersand has three recent chapbooks: Set List(Bitchin Kitsch) In Stoneand The Most Awkward Silence of All(both Cruel Garters Press). His work has appeared in Poetry Northwest, Conduit and Cloudbank.