"Poem Excluding Answers" appears in Exclusions, a book of poems, published by Tupelo Press in August of 2020.

POEM EXCLUDING ANSWERS

Someone spends her entire life 
dreaming of how it will end. 
It makes her sad. We sail 
a small boat within her heart 
and discover another heart, 
though it looks more like a moon 
lit from within by a single 
exploding bottle rocket.

https://www.tupelopress.org/product/exclusions/

"Poem Excluding Answers"

"Poem Excluding Modern Technology" appears in Exclusions, a book of poems, published by Tupelo Press in August of 2020. https://www.spdbooks.org/Products/9781946482334/exclusions.aspx


POEM EXCLUDING MODERN TECHNOLOGY

You fill the pool with cough syrup,
and the hot tub with a thousand
hollowed-out cicada shells.
A man becomes the state bird
in the riflescope of a child,
and the trees, the trees remember
themselves as seedlings.
A teenager mistakes his shadow
for an old friend. Together they
think the unthinkable.
You climb a tree
and grow your hair shoulder length.
We are almost too young.


from EXCLUSIONS, track released August 1, 2020
sound recording & mixing by Benjamin Jura || juraaudiohouse.com

"Poem Excluding Modern Technology"

"Poem Excluding Taxes" appears in Exclusions, a book of poems, published by Tupelo Press in August of 2020.

POEM EXCLUDING TAXES

On this day in history
the moon died of natural causes.
Astronauts were unavailable
for comment. Though there
was an eerie white silence
in all the rabbit-shaped clouds.
To comfort you, I read a bedtime
story where everything
died of natural causes.
It began: On this day in history
the moon died of natural causes,
though we still dreamed it was full.
You shrunk beneath the sheets
with the most German of smiles.

from EXCLUSIONS, track released August 1, 2020
sound recording & mixing by Benjamin Jura || juraaudiohouse.com

"Poem Excluding Taxes"

"Poem Excluding Future" appears in Exclusions, a book of poems, published by Tupelo Press in August of 2020.

POEM EXCLUDING FUTURE

Now the snow is black and we feel
dirty in its presence. Cigarette butts
blow across the wet pavement like
children leaving school during a bomb
threat. There’s a good chance we have
no chance is what your thoughts are
during your daily commute to the
office. Roads break apart as variations
of sadness. And now the sky is all
truffles and shoe polish. It rehearses
the end over a cemetery full of
children trapped in moonlight.

from EXCLUSIONS, released August 1, 2020
sound recording & mixing by Benjamin Jura || juraaudiohouse.com

"Poem Excluding Future"

Poem Excluding City" appears in Exclusions, a book of poems, published by Tupelo Press in August of 2020.

POEM EXCLUDING CITY

The sky was a concussion of clouds
and notorious for dropping everything
at a moment’s notice. And the fog,
how it removed everything and then it didn’t.
People gathered in the distance and made history
until it hurt. They devoured field after field
with bad ideas and took pride in the
groomed ruins. It was never a photo
opportunity. The mood when the forest
met the asphalt: Too little, too late.

from EXCLUSIONS, track released August 1, 2020
sound recording & mixing by Benjamin Jura || juraaudiohouse.com

Noah Falck