John
Schertzer has taught at The New School and has been an editor of LIT.
His poems and criticism have appeared, or are forthcoming, in 6,500,
can we have our ball back?, Shampoo Poetry, Terra
Incognita, The Germ, Drunken Boat, and Frightful
Stages: from the Primitive to the Therapeutic (Haworth Press,
2001).
Days' Treasury
These tender elements refuel the ship
for now's knotty discovery. How would you
like to take a bath in it while morning
has you tying the last of your shoes. By the printing
press but in half the time. The yellowing
of the leather in your room is disasterless
but not fruitless. There is a blue umbrella
over a purple owl whose name is written on a white wall
behind a cart of melons and pamphlets
or manifestos. The letters are so faded even the owl
can barely see them without its special glasses
made of forgetfulness and austerity. It is raining
on the roof but not the patio. An oud player breaks in
and removes his shoes made of his most recent
compositions, but the owl doesn't hear.
He pretends it is bazooki music instead of himself.
