Botchwork

(For flat vowels and high places.)

‘And of the two men who had made automobiles, would you go to the man who had made a good one, or one who had made a botch?’ – Ezra Pound

Town, like an open air museum
That smells like a sewer
Three o’clock, the postcard sky is
Blue as hands of market sellers
Dirty puddles hold reflections of
These ancient places,
And you keep showing up
In other people’s faces
Night-old water from a wine glass
Tastes like toothpaste, and I’m trying
To smooth out all our crossed lines
But my brain hurts from feeling
Your sharp edges so keenly

Something isn’t right with me
A mountain of botched motorcars
Pound down my throat;
But method without madness
Takes the magic from this craft,
I need a break with tradition
I won’t come back.