Colin Huerter

The funny looking figures​ – bodies flat
Pressed into stone wall​ and inky washy sky
Invisible to the hand​ that can knock over
A cup or curious dog​ and the tall horse that stares
Off into the tall trees​ transition of silk wool
And sniffing of clues​ of supper out the page
Whereby what’s that in the gravy,​ hmm, in the certain
Slant of leaking weeping god​ in gold in straw
In the wide glassless window​ too far from
All that the us and the her​ and the them they fear
And what’s that son,​ what’s that what’s the use
Of the rainbow flexing​ in her hand mirror
Gentle as sand is to move always subject to change –
Meet me halfway today.

 ​
 

– Colin Huerter

Tied down and impatient for vultures,
I look surgically across uninhabited land.
Hours later and the horizon is as clean
as a hummingbird’s jerk. I curse the plane
I jumped from, my porcelain ankles.
Cacti bowl shadows of mud at my pathos.
By nightfall it all still matters, just less.
A shepherd in the form of turtle
muses that this grassless terrain is heaven.
I say something that smells like onions,
and an oasis drifts past. Desert flowers arrive late.
Since they hadn’t cleared it with the moonlight,
they were sent packing before they could perform.
Backstage, they decided to hit the breeze
with all they got. And I for one was smeared.

 ​
 

– Colin Huerter

You can’t call me a taxi any more than I can call you a window already I’m as lost
as the earring my darling cannot find I had to ask someone to get me high for the first time

some people will just never figure out how to buy cool jeans there’s a happy hate in me
that cable television keeps getting more and more expensive

 

– Colin Huerter

Toothbrush, tweezers, nail file,
thick bristled hair brush with
the yellowish tint of having once
lived in the house of chain smoker,
the gift, perhaps, a well to do accountant
would have given their niece or nephew
for a graduation present, with teak
inlay and now the dark stain of being
owned by someone afflicted by sweaty palms
and an appetite for salty things.

 

– Colin Huerter

It is raining
lightly
misting

along with ten others
I wait

shortly
a bus will be by

my lower back
feels as if
I’d spent the day
in the garden

weeding and
mulching

pain causes
dissociations
dreams

I’m learning about myself

all at once
and then
not
at all

 

– Colin Huerter

At the laundromat, staring off,
Remembering that Mickey Mantle
Wore number seven, bluebirds
Are Missouri’s state bird, Rita Hayworth’s
Cropped blond hair is the reason why
Welles’s The Lady from Shanghai
Fared so poorly at the box office – answers
To the trivia game you lost last night.

On the interstate, blinking off sleep,
Nothing to look at or take in
Because it’s night and towns are few,
Considering the roadside, if that was a tire
Or a clobbered deer, your appetite,
The requirements for a hunting license,
The smell of mown grass at the last rest stop,
Reminding yourself again and again
To bring news to the city that stars
Still exist, if the number of people
Who consider you their enemy
Has changed significantly since you left,
The last time you slept till noon.

 

– Colin Huerter