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Three ways of writing American poetry that really bug me

KENT JOHNSON DOSSIER

for Kent Johnson

1.

The years go by

                                                 constantly

Two birds
                disappear into
                                            a blue sky.

Outside, the 
                    busy afternoon 
                                               street is
full of
                                  traffic.

In my house
                                 the door
                                                opens
awkwardly at
                                  first.

The glass of water
                                  is on the
                                                 table --

it is there
                         and I
                                                 am thirsty.

2.

Last week I went to the dentist
                                                           for a yearly check-up.
The woman before me
                                                          was in a long time (her teeth
were pretty bad I guess)
                                                          and I heard moans soft first then louder
coming through the white-painted door
                                                          with its smell of various
cleaning agents.

Afterwards
                          when I got home by bus
                                                                     it was late.
I saw my car still
                                     stranded on the kerb --
two wheels badly
                                     damaged
                                                           and no tyres.

With a car
                    so much depends
                                                          on tyres
if you
                          want to
                                                          drive it.

3. 

My feet are in my shoes as oxygen is in the air.
The sun bright and hot at two o'clock in midsummer.

I am awake, I am awake, I am awake,
                     a bird sings to me from a clump of sagebrush
                                    under the raggedy orange trees
out where my son's second best friend
                                   has dropped the basketball
  I gave him for his ninth birthday.

A handful of dirt on one side of the path,
                             a handful of dirt on the other.
Whatever path we take
                                we will be walking it.

It is the splendor of the equation in the manifest.
Some silence reclarified in the brushstrokes.
More or less everything ticking along.

No wisdom but this wisdom
                                                           and this and this.


All photos by Finnegan Boyle.