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TERRELL JAMAL TERRY

 

CARAMEL WHISTLE BONE

 

Slaps himself aware

From the cold soil of sulking

Hands placed over his red beating organ

Moving a compliment

Towards waiting mouth

A bruise goes away under aerosol snow

Sniffing his pointless meaning

Two legs sticking out of the window

Sex bug in head, twitching lips

Entered the house & warmed it

Like a homely loneliness

Carved into the paper dome

Before one more made a crowd

Trashy eyes so coherent

She was blue Band-Aid blush

His bibliomania noted 

Sound recorder color

Yellow & white striped

Good quiet plastic black ink calm

Cups the lenses & frame

Lab pants hang above scuffed toe tips

At the back of the closet no reason

 

 

citrine ash #2

 

The sender packaged night-rust,
Red air & Styrofoam clouds from the mainland

I rest on a squeaky frameless twin bed
In a spiral castle near the mountain

Wattle fence: copied, cut & pasted around the perimeter

A skein of dust swells in the hollow room
The lining of my joy does burn

I know what I’ve been known to like

Imagine feeling the way a child feels
When a child sees the act of sex for the first time
I can’t make myself comprehend

An intimate miracle is God enough

Old stones keep rain from entering
& its corners cradle the dimensions of cobwebs

Lately, I’ve experienced a little daily nomadic hysteria
& few precious things that I want to think about

 

 

 

 

Terrell Jamal Terry’s poems have appeared in West Branch, The Volta, Memorious, Washington Square Review, Columbia Poetry Review, Green Mountains Review, cream city review, and elsewhere.