TYLER
BARTON x2
Countenance
Countenance
We work on things
Things like streets
That carry buildings
Rocking softly saying
Really hard prayers
We paid rent to forget
Our long autopsy—
Those used years
As authorers
Of hopeful homes devolved
Into a dark defensence
Towering rock
With organization
Its mountenance
We behold
Feel our souls
Withining
Hug
When it comes to things men should know innately how to do, hugging is not on the list.
Killing a bug is, turning a corner is
Giving definitions by hand or by
memory is, lying is what the wine deep
underbellies of begonia leaves are doing
in the light. Innately
singing songs with wrong words swapped in is
And I love it when a man can be talked to as if
he were a wee babe without blushing or objection
just ruching around in the covers like a varmint.
Tripping an enemy
with twine is, kissing is, to know the flat back
of every tunnel is a place apart from truth
Donning boots is, too hard hands are, making
the sound of a train in a tunnel is, being both the nail
and its hammerer.
I want a man to know what is
The difference between virgin, varmint,
vermin, vortex, and not to simply name
an animal Vespers, but to know exactly
why he’s done so. I want
a man who can harness his Vespers
and take them on long morning walks
without his headphones in, listening
is, yes listening is definitely on the list.
Tyler Barton is the author of Eternal Night at the Nature Museum (Sarabande) and The Quiet Part Loud (Split/Lip). His work has been awarded honors from The Kenyon Review, Best American Short Stories, The Chicago Review of Books, and others. His visual poetry project, Gutters, has appeared in DIAGRAM, The Adroit Journal, The Northwest Review, december, and elsewhere. He lives in the Adirondack Park of northern New York state where he leads creative aging writing workshops with the elderly and the incarcerated. Learn more at tsbarton.com.