N. Ian McCarthy of Mad Bongo Maze
Consider this swelling loaf,
browning on our oven's steel
grate: it expands under yeast
power, all its continents
skating apart, bidding brief
adieus tectonically, like
night trains scudding absently
toward opposing suburbs.
I can unfold—by the solipsistic streaks
rappelling from your lashes—your inward crease.
Not intoxicated by
baking, but by the tent pins
that stake down a widening
morass of neural umbrae
into the loose, damp loam of
your conscious; your tin fingers
yawn limply—thin, unshut jaws
like two vagrant pitcher plants.
You depart my platform, a dusky engine
dissipating into muffled remoteness.
A minor experiment in syllabic structure, this poem has been kicking around my keyboard just a bit too long for comfort. It’s a made-up form consisting of eight seven-syllable lines, followed by two eleven-syllable lines, repeating. Visionary, right? It helps if you have a penchant for locomotives and/or a flair for the act of kneading dough.
