“Kiss with Recorder and Killer” is Jane Ormerod‘s hypnotically surreal & musical poem from our Spring 2017 issue.

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FLOWERS, THE COINS OF THE DEAD,
We take on all that is thrown
Flowers, the corn of the dead
We take on all that is thrown
Flowers, cauldrons of death
We take on all that is thrown
Flowers, the call of the death
We take on all that is thrown
Flowers, columns of death
We take on all that is thrown

thump

 The link of mustard to egret
The minus and forgiveness of bone
Coin purse, the flower, meander
All is away, to take, donate
Cease and care less to the letter
The flowers of postponement
slinking to yes days of shit and anger

thump

There is rainstorm     thump
Longer days, shorter fights
A sweater with back-burning buttons
There is rainstorm and man-known complexity
Hostage scenarios     thump
The dead daubed fluorescent again     thump
The uniformed and uninformed and beautified
The blue, the blowing, the yet-to-be healed
Himberama, the past revolves
Ideals drawn willy-nilly from the box of
do-gooder illusion
The thump on the way to the inside and insiders
The coils, recoils, the insiders left in the cold
The recollected elevation, the rainstorm
Roof tiles, hooves, a mineral-hard memory
of a herd mentality

Himberama
Himberama
Him-himberama
Our light forced rectangular     thump     again
Go out? Maybe not? Maybe drink at home beside
the silencer. Sketch extra lines on the night horizon
Drink so you are simply out of reach
Stop. Stop. That’s right.
Dream of crinolines, baking apples, your numerable mind
Count and then counterweight the past
Your mind made-up like a bed with hospital corners

Happy days?
Do you savor or sweeten them?
Those spoils of the wonderful and blessed
thump
I love to carry half-eaten maple cake, business cards with
misleading detail. The fold of an egg, the average family and
the average goodbye. The average six-thirty pick-up
outside work, the average rib-eye, chops galore

I carry smoke
I carry good
I carry vegetable
Hotels that lose a star every year
This is a big and damning city
Even a small-stringed instrument cannot find a home

These are my keys
thump
These are my personal flowers
thump
I drink in a house mentioned in pages 23, 29, and 95
I sleep in the house mentioned only on the third-to-last page
I will die in the house mentioned early in the second volume
The thumps remain the same

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 JANE ORMEROD is the author of the full-length poetry collections Welcome to the Museum of Cattle and Recreational Vehicles on Fire (both from Three Rooms Press). Born on the south coast of England, Jane now lives in New York City and performs extensively across the United States and beyond. She is a founding editor at great weather for MEDIA, an independent press focusing on edgy and experimental poetry and prose.