by Suzán Jiván
Performed on YouTube
An affront to sovereignty
under
the provinces of The Pentagon
as drones
buzz over the little-known
in unnoticed
unarmed and unmanned crafts
foreshadowing
examples of handfuls
of the last
man standing beneath
the rumbling
rafters of a whistling psychopath...
by Suzán Jiván
The near death
of the irreplaceable
having escaped
being tabulated
as slaves made
from bottle tops
under the moniker
of folk art
with the dry
brush markings
of a hermit
in a hut
made from
the fusty
ink and brush
of the unlucky
secreted away
atop a corrugated
plane an highly
attenuated play
in illusory booties
over shoes...
by Suzán Jiván
Man minds his sleeping grandchild
after midnight
while dreaming of pack ice
shrinking
like retreating white-
winged
endangered species
forced
to breed in captivity
in quarantine
hitchhiking on nursery trees
covered
by stone-eating microbes
blighted
by fungi and lichens
along
land-locked highways
Less
and less reliable
at different times
with heavy and light
rains
falling at varying
places
fractured into factions
of attack
unmarked and unmapped
in a monotony of gravel
parsed by tangents
on a sliding scale
nudged here and there
without looking back
at sniffing animals
wearing artifice as armor
while stabbing
a finger skyward
as a classically bona fide
striving as a rapt exercise
with a passive statuette
in prickly defense of morbidity
with pivotal trophies
proudly pointing out the rapture
of song and dance
with a contrarian maverick
from the prevailing underclass
complete with gross misunderstandings
praised as an idyllic cast...
by Suzán Jiván
Performed on YouTube
I
A calm
arm-twister
relinquishing
savagery
II
Speaking out singling out
lagging individual action
inside benign hide-outs
III
Becoming cut-and-dry like pie-
in-the-sky-high stealthy might
stealing by in noiseless flight
IV
Ready to strike
across blurring lines
of nonviolence
and deceitful hype...
by Suzán Jiván
Slightly stuffy but
somewhat humble
from the long-term fussing
of an absurdist public
in unusual numbers
culminating
in numerous dumpsters
as colorful sculptures
between finger and thumb
becoming
wonderfully messy
like an obsessive
blessing
concentrating on the chockablock
avant-garde as slightly bucolic
tumultuous objects
in ponderous chartreuse and olive...
by Suzán Jiván
Slightly stuffy but somewhat humble
from the long-term fussing
of an absurdist public
in unusual numbers
Culminating in
numerous
dumpsters
as colorful
sculptures
between
finger
and
thumb
Becoming
wonderfully
messy
like
an obsessive
blessing
Concentrating
on the chockablock
avant-garde
as slightly bucolic
tumultuous objects
in ponderous
chartreuse
and olive...
by Suzán Jiván
for Lamont Steptoe
and The Three Detroit Poets
@ Moonstone
Almost halo-like
escaping unscathed
by standing fast
in the face of spectators
like sword makers
on a background plane
illusionistically portrayed
and mathematically based
in heightened sensations
of unshakable faith
and irrepressible strength
garnering the fate
of "The Annunciation "
in a bedchamber
twice as high as it is wide
like a foreshortened Christ...
by Suzán Jiván
Almost halo-like
escaping unscathed
by standing fast
in the face of spectators
like sword-makers
on a background plane
illusionistically portrayed
and mathematically based
in heightened sensations
of unshakable faith
and irrepressible strength
garnering the same fate
as " The Annunciation "
in a bedchamber
twice as high as it is wide
like a foreshortened Christ...
by Suzán Jiván
for Anne-Adele Wight
A new light to the wider urbanized
sprawling across lifetimes
of mile markers
like prickly matriarchs
emblazoned
by bushwhackers
retreating
from the urban elite
closest to the city
freely or cheaply
as multi-tiers
blanketing
the region
with de-
bunkings
of the myth
of one
as too
vulnerable...
by Suzán Jiván
Lingering
over achy
phrases
as sophisticated
domains
gone crazy
sounding tacky
like tasteless
reality
sung ruefully
as husky
and bluesy
flotsamy
and blubbery
with satirical fragility
and random casualties
grotesquely hackneyed
as wannabes
with prominent scars
on ornamented bodies
of found objects
line epoxied hierarchies
of possibilities
at least initially
as anomalies
involving bleaching
and teasing
coexisting arguably
as wiry wigs
of irony...
by Suzán Jiván
for Anne-Adele Wight
A wealthy backer
aggressively attacking
the eeeewww factor
captured as chapters
of revulsion in matters
as shouting matches
for ick factors
in full houses
of haphazardly
quasi-autobiographical
smackings of animality
graphically portrayed
with an assassin's twang
while flooding the stage
with gross displays
unashamedly
followed by elation
in a parlor game
of disgusting charades...
by Suzán Jiván
With tingling pleasure
unretrenched as tellingly celestial
with an unbridled sense in extremis
bound together in intrepid text-free spreads with chapter headings
of incessant assuredness
in indelible complexities
of multi-directional reflections
ecstatically brandished
as an exacting scrapbook
of poetic couples
squiggling in the clinches...
by Suzán Jiván
Unpatterned black
bare nostrils flare
heavy boss svelte
forehead erectile crest
black garters upper legs
spotted flanks hind legs
undulate, elongate
punctuate full length
mouth agape
unrestrained
noisemaking
nearly naked
floodplain...
by Suzán Jiván
Performed on YouTube
Between finger and thumb
dun-colored sculptures
pleasantly jumbled
all
of a sudden
posthumously
loved
in burdensome
tumult
in watercolor
studies
of supplicants
sensibly
enough like new-
comers
entirely in the nude
in casts
that include
idiosyncratic
humor
and pharmaceutical
cures
as tear-jerkers
of absurdity
seeping
outward over-
poweringly...
by Suzán Jiván
Performed on YouTube
Slow moving
mostly nocturnal blending in perfectly
with a good supply of prey in between
parted front legs in a genus capable
of decay as a papery egg case
in a wooden chamber containing
communally pre-chewed food unsuitable for wingless forms
feeding on fungi, algae and lichens
anchored by nymphal skin
with abdominal segments
split down the back into the thorax
remaining attached
with visible wing pads
as a praying mantid...
by Suzán Jiván
A welter of mayhem
building momentum
from a glower
to a pout
hands down
spellbound
underground
lilac walls
red floors
onslaughts
just, " Because "
living by wits
in flash-lighted
pictures
and the like
undisguised
and anchored
by uncanny eyes
in pursuance
of mankind
like tough guys
hobbled
by black and white
at first light
in memories
of ice at first sight
with razor-bladed vibes
designed entirely
with snippets from diaries
incessantly reprinted
republished and revisited
as unexhibited inhibitions
along with the pale pink
light green and deep lavender
refractions of extravagance
trickling in hourglasses
coated in wax...
by Suzán Jiván
Busy amping up
with flashbacks
in a strange land
foreshadowed
by glamorous
attractions
of alchemy
in admiring
eye-blinks
while hiccuping
blindly
woefully
unrecognized
sniffing
and pinching
the predictably
grisly
in the midst
of whimsy
above
the groove
then digging in
decisively
like the two-timing
rarely harmonized
velvety quiet clear delight
like youthful reminders
hard-wired as fictionalized
grim statistics in a predictable grid
of silhouetted brilliance
intrinsically dimmed
by double-crossed victims
as inconsistent sentimentalists...
by Suzán Jiván
A passel of honors
on the long
list
of the glorification
of war
as a short story
filled with morphine hits
Changing hands
in an armistice of the hellishly
compelling brownish reds
intimately connected
with the lethal
letters of the cleverly senseless
Giving up
their dead as learned lessons
crammed
into a head immersing itself
in revenge
at the multiplex..
by Suzán Jiván
The barren expanse
of a hilly wasteland
with gruesome flashbacks
of ragtag brass
swooping over the area
frighteningly baby faced
shell-shocked and raving
battered blatantly
at strategic locations
of futile engagements
in a foreign language
with machination...
by Suzán Jiván
The perception of inevitability
permeated by the incapable
decimated by hard labor
bound for the stage
in an adaptation
of, " Hairspray "
with ease and imagination
like a bequeathed beauty queen
in a nation weary of the weird
being criticized widely
as glittery and incisive
in capering dance
and brass fanfares
with advanced ticket sales
for the jaggedly handsome
and the raggedly romantic
as slicked-back shaggy
shaping the fragile
played dazzlingly
culminating in a standing
ovation of harmonic celebration...
by Suzán Jiván
Forward-hooked horns
calf born in highlands
exclusive harems
distinctive patterns
as scarce aggregates
of bachelor males
curving backward
in a darkening arc
of miombo
short bodied
knock-kneed
scraggly
next to the camel
largely adapted
as an extract
from plants
like tussock grass
built rather small
dewlap at jaw
equally long
insubordinate
S-shaped horns
forequarters
loping along
migratory
ridged horns
U-form
offspring born
waterless wards
sizable hoards
cow-like horns
knobby boss
somewhat longer
returning
to the taller
spiral horned
dorsal borders
spotted torsos
legs tawny
thornbush
erect crest
flexing chevron
X...
by Suzán Jiván
Flight feathers
black, but white
under primaries
brown juveniles
along shorelines
around a yellow eye
large carcasses
tiny larvae
big cavities
hatching
through
Sahara
waiting
for scraps
shaggy ruff
dusky pink
bone-eating
revealing
underwings
raucous
screams
nest lining
mammalian
skin and hare
canting
side-to-side
feeding
on hares
and dik-diks
monitor lizards
drinking preening
inconspicuously
hidden heavy bellies
sub-desert stick nests
at rest wing edges
red defenses
graceful descents
shallow nests
semi-desert
watershed
empty steppes
snatched nestlings
livestock pens
compulsive theft
rivers edge
long crests
lapping wakes
seizing eye-rings
dung beetles...
by Suzán Jiván
Haunting the outer beaches
as most migrants in the interior
short thick bills in winter
mournful whistle
dropping in the middle
long distance slimmer
wing tips rich whistle
golden-plover
snowy, piping
Killdeer
broken wing
flopping
mostly orange
white collar
field mark
obvious
underparts
mobbed
dark-tipped
whistle
clear, "wheeep"
wave-washed
rocks
harsh sharp
foreparts
hard, "kwip"
stout bill
over winter
teetering
bobbing
uncommonly
solitary
barred
underparts
muddy pond
bush top
stodgy
bulky body
marbled flocks
of godwits
fairly common
on one spot
whistles
of wandering
on and on
whinnying
trilling
early
in winter
darkening
still...
by Suzán Jiván
Like an afterthought
as strength by default
varying enormously
back and forth
as eyes crossing
into relentless formulas
out of proportion
on hand as freelance
petal patterns that vanish
clearly scattered off campus
by a pathological draft...
by Suzán Jiván
Rising and falling
robinlike but hoarser
as a dry call while foraging
along tall cottonwoods
all year long waddling on lawns
short tails green gloss
gurgle whistle rough trill
spiky bill high-pitched twitter
dark whisker dense brush
buzzy buff fluttering up...
by Suzán Jiván
Raw and raucous
coming to the fore
ground out and tipped off
at the epitome of artistry
as paradoxical spots
of goofy honesty
applied to white
like stated desire
in a staid place
of, " Home, Home
in the Range "
with the density
of dangly dipsticks
stippled with drips
daubs and dots...
by Suzán Jiván
Hairpin twists of coincidence
with plausible principles
of nip-n-tuck
not soon enough
seemingly brittle
as one tough chick
of funny money
all of a sudden
unscrupulously looping
in gestural movements
gone askew
covered in tattoos
in a lurid romp
past nagging problems
with reasonable analogues
as markers snap and snarl...
by Suzán Jiván
for Zoe Strauss
Who am eye? Where am eye?
In the eye of the beholder, Zoe
"Zoe Strauss:
Ten Years "
at mid-career
in concrete and steel
versus plaster and lathe
for photographs
hung up in museums
opposed to beneath
elevated streets
Public places
exposed faces
reclaimed
landscapes
self-preservation...
by Suzán Jiván
Inshore waters
spawning
dorsal and caudal
fins forked
much sought
caught midpoint
trawling
overhanging
predation manmade
distorted proportions
of body forms
swift water
heavily silted
turbidly intolerant
dark markings
dissolved oxygen
Corners of jaws
unusually long
at midwater
lips thick
rounded tips
small rivers
brackish
habitats
dusky to black
chub gathering
course gravel
aborted courtship
off shore...
by Suzán Jiván
Performed on YouTube
Boldly in the open on poles
bright rufous shoulders
juvenile wing linings thighs
streaked down below narrow
two-toned scarce and local
visible only on display
puffed up rapidly drumming
wing thumping, " cluck "
rusty rump, sharp, " chik "
harsh, " check " red bellied
distended upended on head
chattering rattle, white patch
red cap, cactus, canyon
barred on back, black-capped
carrion overlapping black bib
whining, wheezy, " Deee Deeer
Deee Deeer, Deee Deeer " ...
by Suzán Jiván
A fragrant mixture
self-seeding
on spreading leaves
as silver filigrees
of Artemisia
with chives and times
as stoneflies
For a moment
biting violins
both as logical
and inexplicable
like a pilgrimage
with a shimmy
left unfinished
Ably depicted
as straightforwardly
as a poet and mystic
of the lickety-split
at a crowded vigil
for prowling animals
as artifacts of the wary
In fecal matter
between two camps
pliant and groovy
in a mirrored universe
on the multiple
moons of Jupiter
Like widely-separated
compound eyes
with projections
called style
on the undersides
Considered primitive
with slender cerci
on threadlike antennae
simple biting
predacious cycles
on stone-bottomed streams
cross-crevicing
forward-facing
torpid prey...
by Suzán Jiván
Even more
hauntingly formidable
as sapphire crystal
re-imagined
as amethyst in a pyramidal prism
of vitreous
solvents of silica
simulating hydrologic
cycles
of vital electrolytes
in between
Isles
correspondingly
re-aligned
like a crystalline
skyline
in hard type openly
mined...
by Suzán Jiván
Giant damselflies
fore-and-hind
wings in flight
plucking spiders
large eyes
nymphs climb
claspers
on abdomen
still gasping
stagnant
native lands
club tailed...
by Suzán Jiván
Spit and polish
lavishly stocked
in an avante
garde salon
of the remarkable
holding out for promise
presciently conjured
like the bygone
preoccupied
at the same time
identically in exile
with a quadruple
bow and jabot
among the oldest
ingeniously folded
in alternating rows
unassumingly
striking a pose
as a shaggy coat
grizzled grey
tapering
at the base
speckled red
becoming
widespread
standing erect
broad head
digging claws
conspicuously
moist and noisy
like a swooping
swarm...
by Suzán Jiván
Performed on YouTube
Awkwardly akimbo fully uninhibited
like the carnal and demonic
insights from scholars
overseeing departments
of opalescent shards
from demolished hospitals
for auteur prophets'
ode to prominence
in neat arcs
sheepishly departed
like a rickety car
Roots and tubers
with tender shoots
dependent on lagoons
and a single white goose singing:
" Coor-a-loo, Coor-a-loo "
while facing intruders
in communal roosts
with eclipsing plumage
Powerfully built, distinctly ringed
nearly spotless with springing
and climbing abilities
uniformly tawny hindquarters
nocturnal forage fox-like proportions
arid savannas short grass...
by Suzán Jiván
Awkwardly akimbo
fully uninhibited
like the carnal and demonic
insights from scholars
overseeing departments
of opalescent shards
from demolished hospitals
for auteur prophets
owed to prominence
in neat arcs
sheepishly departed
like a rickety car...
by Suzán Jiván
In the years before
invigorating portraits
with the past roaring
and squaring off
as thoroughly absorbing
with something more
converging on a corner
against forces
of mind-numbing conformity
never crossed...
by Suzán Jiván
Within the cozy confines
of the only place of its kind
on the spine of a sideline
swingin' on by with the arrival
of a shim-sham shimmy
as a real-time link
lovably scrappy
cohesively dramatic
cooing on ground
head bowed
gray crown
conceal
surround...
by Suzán Jiván
Gotten on enough soapboxes
from grand to modest
and on and on
having gone way too far
as a grande dame
with the peek-a-boo quality
of overarching works in progress
while on the cusp of possibility
like tongue-in-cheek
measured in feats of captivity
with limited experience
in idiosyncrasies coinciding uneasily
with the bottom line of domestic life...
by Suzán Jiván
Performed on YouTube
Other people's secrets
contrived
with an insider's vibe
strikingly destabilized
getting wise
to the absurdities
of life
Ferociously nearby
locked in tightly
on consecutive nights
with bloody fistfights
bestowed
as a worldwide title
Imbibing
like a life-sized
wild drinker
in the bacchanals
of the 60's
with an occasional
martini
and an accented
flip
of the ambitious
as exotic
and unfamiliar
when and if
caught in the middle
with an interest
in an idealistic
uplift
from a quixotic
beginner
in intoxicants...
by Suzán Jiván
Performed on YouTube
Nearly nonstop
as an inventive
concoction
of wit and charm
with subsequent
mockery
lost in revelry
unsettlingly skinny
like melons in spring
roughly touching
gently sinuous
Grey green
laid singly
in ravines
satiny sheen
hillside
faraway heights
Magical properties
buoyed by steam
bulging streams
scorched pieces
jagged peaks...
by Suzán Jiván
Performed on YouTube
Gently appealing
less radical
than originally planned
with the bravura of magic
as a convoluted tale
like an iconoclastic pastor
as a quirky slacker
for the must-haves of blandness
practicing acting as mild-mannered
has-beens forever on tap
for virtuosos of the so-so bo bos
Enough to make it glow
at the base
of a cleaved face
on a basal plane
lulled by a volcano
in a conical shape
with an oozing crater
Greater and lesser yellowlegs
with whitish marks on dark upper parts
running then stopping
while nesting in a shallow depression
with bits of shells and pebbles
streakings on heads
barrings on breasts
underparts awash
low staccatos
spotted Godwits
distinctly larger...
by Suzán Jiván
Performed on YouTube
Cashed the heart Jack
and played another heart
while thrusting a partner
in an interlocking plot
after leading the 13th heart
and seeking solace in an armory
after piercing the heart
with submarginal eyespots
on a red distal bar
sleepy orange
iridescent copper
territorial posture
wooded swamp
cobweb quarry
Masterpieces
of Ming
hard to see
entering
the scene
hand-scrolling
smoky calligraphy
above the tundra
and hummocks
fast becoming
a summit
in great numbers
at dusk
turning the back
of his head to her
as a wood duck
wings tucked under
grass or brush
green speculum
tail tipped up
head pump
white clutch...
