Ray Succre

 

 

 

Joan of Arc in North Bend, Oregon

 

She reads and drives, does make-up

and eats crustaceans on melba toast.

Apples imitate her head and go up

in flames while a chalkstick runs her

figure on the ground.

 

No general's war is underneath her

brainsheets, and seldom boys locked out

from forgotten keys in a doorside dish.

 

She goes to sleep next to an alarm clock.

She wakes and puts on makeup.

 

 

 

Live Via

 

That knowledge brings estimates is frontal,

and wisdom cripples spontaneity.

Each fact is a blustering fan pressing wind

over coals to sweatbox the reason in learning.

 

Blood draws from lungs like

joy drinks from compassion,

the eyes as from light while

burrowed in a kettle place—

 

there is only news, and next whistling moment,

more screeches into news.

 

This has possessed the magma that centers

our nature, though it hasn't ever turned

the world.