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Nathan Moore

Argument #20

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A.
These velvet slacks
turned a jury against me.
Note for the future: boiled
wool is felt.
Dress around an unequivocal sob?
Chisel time capsules out of ice.
Flip a light switch – something
scatters. Down
in my shoes famous bruises throb.

B.
Don't burn books.
Slice word from word
and scatter them around
famous restaurant restrooms.
I will fight against the will
to serve crème brulée
to the unequivocal.
The tip jar is a chisel
that bruised my vocabulary.
What felt? Down in the place
where decisions are made
I buy a little sob.


Argument #18

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A.
Fish at thread's end.
Wine bliss the body surfs.
Professorial palms. An elegant
cropping of bridges will not
qualify. Fantasy: the young
return through a monumental
arch.

B. Elegant exposition palms
the thalamus. Each line
is a thread tied around
a finger. Remember the qualified
body's blissful arch? Some types
of fish learn what hooks do.
Wine wins: cropped confessions
meet applause. Young day:
here is tea. Here is toast. Here
is the epiphany.


Argument #12

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A horizon frozen or in flames
is easier to imagine than a future
of successful payments. Keep
an ax handle in the gun rack.
Draw straws and flourish. One
day the Mercury disappears.
A grim crowd demands the equal
distribution of punishment. Time
is a lie the law tells: repossess us.


Argument #10

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A.
Let others debate our value.
Fourteen in awe under a smoking dome.
Unmistakable and relative: spoon use
and the shape of the globe.
That sound – a laptop. Draw
battlegrounds – we value others.
Sweat, finish and fade. Again.

B.
Unmistakable dome of your skull:
sweat globes. Fourteen hours to finish
the value of a spoon.
Check-cashing is a battleground.
After dinner, read the paper again.
Listen in awe to the car crashes.


Argument #6

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A.
Uncanny pilgrim, sink
hour by hour.
Sink and dissect.
Odd, unwanted teacher:
sculpt a broad
balloon shape.
Relieve us? No.
Up without us. Always
up without us.

B.
An uncanny hour is our
teacher. Sink, dissect
the roof. Without pilgrims
we have no aloof relief. As
we wait, balloon sculptures
fill up … an odd shape: our
Broad Street address.

C.
Odd sink, pilgrim swallower,
sculpt our hours: balloon script.
Up without your dissection
scissors – uncanny shape?
Cut it. Broad snips. Who
can teach us to
relieve ourselves?


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