twentythreebooks

Raymond J. Cummings

Book Excerpts

The Last Room
The current frame is a comfortable place to sulk; We mumble and glow under the warm glaze of audiences worldwide. Lukewarm reviews stuff the cracks in tenement apartment windows. You are present now in the protracted buzz of halogen bulbs where seminar meetings fell comatose and burgeoning egos have gone slack. Spotted pigeons explode from the ruffled white sleeve of a street magician as he leads us South with a sad flourish: A sapling blooms in the boiler room. ©2009 Raymond J. Cummings
Verse for Seasons
Mothballed marauders hymn ‘Ave Mumia’ (the refrain’s a swollen alabaster drone) Sparrows shy South in a lopsided V Bacchant at the very promise of Soft, yperite rose She’s no albino poinsettia From fragments and symbols We’ll assemble the Lord. ©2009 Raymond J. Cummings
bonus poem Let's Knoll
These words trickle, anymore I’ve husks, not kernels Pop pop pop pop pop Corks, weasels, bottled bubbly Silences molten down The hatch and cheers, Everyone: what’s imparted Here is ballast, uncertain, coded, Backmasked language As confined, unassignable Noise, shakey re-entry or Nonsense made manifesto ©2009 Raymond J. Cummings