Poetry from Patrick Sweeney

Older light-skinned man in a library or study surrounded by shelves of books and a dictionary or encyclopedia open on a desk. He's seated with reading glasses and a trimmed white beard reading a large book with words and pictures and holding a piece of paper. Black and white photo.

shedding ten-thousand shipworms of worry

skip the low-interest, multi-step directions...  
I've a better chance of deciphering
the Voynich manuscript

swallowtail   guess what I was about to say

even though the complex probability amplitudes are against me, ‘Moon Ra’

tic convulsif…  elder brother’s son home from war

let them use the glitter

heads bowed in the next yard, requiem for a woo woo

kids blowing bubbles in a world without end

he was a nervous talker, 
who punished wide-eyed historians
with Roman forecasts

she preferred he accept a non-speaking part

graciously receiving morning salutations from the thundercloud tree

hard as I tried, the infinite series continued right on out of the back of my flat head

the voiced and unvoiced consonants that happened in the front of the room

Patrick Sweeney is a short-form poet and a devotee of the public library.