my first semester
by Joseph Milford

the era of un-err
the erroneous with stipends
this variable that no one makes
slang with is un-slurrable

make this the cord you cut or tie
around monuments’ neck
all the same jugular
I made respite a pincushion for quilters

when in gout, doubt pharms
at least these days the monitors are external
back when I was alive, I had
to self-examine

the Dark Age trolls around stagnant ponds and lakes
and makes its fish there
in the era of un-err it is never your fault
who could teach anyone how to read the mangled guts of Europe?

augers we aren’t
ensigns we are to be
sling the thing less precious towards notching your gold
be the same as conquistadors

MALARIA = More Anxious Louts Always Raising Inaccurate Ages
and then the mosquitoes kill the weak
to even out the architecture
just ask Alexander the Great

we are on the greatest high of all, the angel
whose wings falter briefly
it is far more than enough to be a culture discreetly
this is the thing that lichens have taught me

a fellow instructor has me pegged
as a Romantic
it is a Romantic notion on his part
that he could ever think so

so I say to the lichens, the nematodes, the frontal mold-encrusted lobes
let the music videos infect you
let the pop or punk force you towards commerce
let the wave be the only thing in a stadium

let the @$#%! hit Heisenberg’s Fan
and spread itself out across the Universe evenly again
if you could write it on a Post-It
then that’s it

and always not it
I am only concerned with
knotting up it and not what
the great thought taught and written as a poem, formula, or piece

of warp
is nothing but a man’s last gulp
we know after Enola Gay how to say
“fuck it”

let’s just wear kimonos in our samsara
and call the end of a day what it is
and sleep good beside what children we have:
books we never read

CD’s we bought for one song
shirts we wore
only once

Other poems by Joseph Milford in ActionYes #2:
I let the reins go
On the edge of the initiate’s fingernail lies the secret longitude, the lost Parallel
the somnambulist
Fossilized Roadmap
a way of getting there
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