Mark DuCharme

4 poems from Defacement


Program

To make of the city a garden
Anointed with heat & birds’ flutter
In daylit anatomy, ripping out your tongue

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Marrow

To begin again, without knowing
What will or won’t take place
Except in flutters of the marrow
Which we place, transcendently
Evolving from the map
In a language of the sparrows—
Broken effigies
Unique & darkly strung

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Grope

What, the hidden, violent charm
Within that country of no art
Under birds’ laughing
Birds only laugh when you grope
Under wings’ thrashing
Within laughter’s violent charm

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Serious

                 "An opportunist! Should get married!
                  Should do big oil paintings! Get serious!"
                         —Ted Berrigan

             These days
The real opportunists

                                              Screw the paintings
                                     & Just do big oil


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