A Victorian Murder

    I’ll not confess I engaged that rat who in a Rubenesque repose,
    Around battered dreams of parrots, smiled in the hawk-nosed mask.
    Her awkward spout that of an active art of doom: Spots of blood
    Her risibility

    And nexus. Contemplation that might be some sporting letter
    To lessen corruption’s blowsy dart shaking in my fingers’
    Timorous axe ‘round crowded lessons of sexual musicality.
    Cupid the investor

    Jungle bird molester; spoor rotting in the rank collective air.
    Rabid topsy: Skull floored by my grave, inveterate advice.
    I’ll be your fool, your death, your smooth, well-fingered stone
    To whistle up.

     




    Bio Note
      Carl Martin is a MacDowell fellow with two books of poetry: Go Your Stations, Girl (Arion Press) and Genii Over Salzburg (Dalkey Archive Press). He has poems in Rhizome, Ribot, and Combo and was the featured poet in the American Poetry Review for January/Feburuary of this year.

    Contents

     



     Carl

     Martin