Featuring Jake Sheff

A Duplex Only Turns 45 Twice

 

The era was not convinced that I could read

When I signed a check “Jakub Sheph” on Monday 

 

And a contract “Jehcup Cheffe” on Tuesday. Us

Artists get ahead by knowing what to change

 

And how. In exchange for more austerity,

I chose this psychosis. You grow to love

 

A tool the more you use it. With growing things

Familiarity’s effect is different. 

 

Hence, they’re not tools. The father of diseases

Was the scapegoat for my natural teenaged angst. 

 

No cap! Teste testy me. Against rage,

A fire burns politely. Each separate 

 

Karate agreement I signed with a match

Convinced the era that I could not read. 

##

A Duplex Only Turns 48 Twice

 

He lived a hundred years and never ate

The prices paupers pay for acres, nor did

 

He the pressures papers put on races. 

He’d email the BBC from his “teepee

 

2.0” and put “Love” after “bcc:”;

The kindest kind of rude. An obstinate

 

Buttinsky, but no obstructionist, each day’s

Dynamism turns every avenue paved

 

With hope into a macadam of diamonds.

Men are born popular and love robs you blind;

 

The spoliated evil underdog’s

Lawyer says, “Groups must decide: distinction or

 

Extinction?” To reach for lower layers,

He lived a hundred years and never ate. 

##

The Seagull’s 409^th Seguidilla 

 

Between the politician 

And sincerity,

The poet stands, a grown-ass

Breath. For adyta,

His eskrima sticks

Talk. He tells reckless freckles 

That eczema sucks.

##

The Seagull’s 101^st Seguidilla

 

With friendship gules, what sieges

Seagulls do! So false

It’s true, what rattles the bones

Of chaos enthralls. 

A late adopter 

Of dissembling, now that cloud’s

A helicopter.

##

Death Song 7: Beneath a Thixotropic Sky

 

“The air was more than ever like a blue forest, with the moon releasing soft currents of yellow.” 

-       Saul Bellow, Henderson the Rain King 

 

I map the hollow bones of Hell

And bid the time of day farewell.

Farewell to cranreuchs, morning’s smell!

Farewell to meekness overpriced!

 

A motivated moat could swell

The Nile, 

But that would get it sliced and diced. 

Make pruinose all Sainte-Chapelle, 

My belle

Will scream that I’m the anti-Christ. 

 

Like aspens sharing roots, they yell;

My enemies. They serve a bowl

Of thunder’s thumbs to all who crawl

Before them when their days are lysed. 

 

I map the hollow bones of Hell

And bid the time of day farewell.

Farewell to cranreuchs, morning’s smell!

Farewell to meekness overpriced!

 

“Where cheekbones age like checkbooks, sell

Your soul”

No flower-bringing song advised. 

O Death, you lack the seguidill-

A’s skill!

My blue guitar’s a catalyst!

 

The seagull’s seguidilla kills

My heart. To cast another spell,

The ocean takes your form so well,

Paleozoic poltergeist. 

 

I map the hollow bones of Hell

And bid the time of day farewell.

Farewell to cranreuchs, morning’s smell!

Farewell to meekness overpriced!

 

With copypasta’s crocodile,

You rule

The sky, that watermelon sliced

And dripping light. The commonweal’s

White hill

Has gold-implanted eyelids closed

 

At last. The craziest bells peal.

It doesn’t faze the shopper’s zeal

Or fortune’s prosecutor; he’ll

Be shopping till the truth is iced. 

 

I map the hollow bones of Hell

And bid the time of day farewell.

Farewell to cranreuchs, morning’s smell!

Farewell to meekness overpriced!

Bio: Jake Sheff is a paediatrician and US Air Force veteran. He's published a full-length collection of formal poetry A Kiss to Betray the Universe (White Violet Press), along with two chapbooks 'Looting Versailles' (Alabaster Leaves Publishing) and 'The Rites of Tires' (SurVision).