Sunday, June 18, 2023 from “I Can Focus If I Try” by Michael Flatt
Separated phalanges float above the soil. Horror
is constituted by an endless present, as every
present is. Doubly obliterating. Doubly ecstatic.
Ask the mind behind my mind. Put your hand
through the pane of water cascading in the
office park. The infinite grocery’s indelible scent
stays blank for good in a whole mind of infrared
tripwires. A whole heart of bodega carcasses. A
cheap audience for the rot cut from a child. Even
this is not the end. Your name changes beneath
a flame as we blanket ourselves in false burials.
Vaporous texts flutter colorfully out of reach. I
feel your nightly stab, a scenic cavalcade. When
the refrigerator buzzes, the heat kicks back on,
and every movement gets a little harder to hear.
About the Poet
Michael Flatt, a former Buffalo resident who received both his B.A. and Ph.D. in English from the University at Buffalo, is the author of “Absent Receiver” (SpringGun Press 2013) and, with Derrick Mund, “Chlorosis” (The Operating System 2018). This excerpt appears in “I CAN FOCUS IF I TRY,” his new book of poetry recently released by the Toronto-based publisher knife | fork | book.
Flatt was named by J. Michael Martinez to the Poetry Society of America’s list of New American Poets in 2013. He is the founder of Low Frequency Press, which publishes book-like objects of marginal aesthetics, and Threadsuns, a teaching press at High Point University, where he is an assistant professor of English.
Related Event
- At 7 p.m. on Thursday, June 22nd, Flatt will join poet Spencer Williams in a book launch reading at Fitz Books and Waffles, 433 Ellicott St. in Buffalo.
The “Poem of the Week” feature is curated by literary legacy awardee R.D. Pohl.