Boatman’s Call
reading Jared Hayes’ Ferry Ride & Zuk’s A-12
should I weep in May
separating myself
as I have done so many years? (Bernadette Mayer)
the secretary of mountains collates clouds
arrangements casting off moments
eddies dissolving bewilderments
second-hand clicking off esses at the ends
being a plurality: transcendental paradoxicals
feral shells tides chasms sidereal laugh lines
i used to think sidereal meant sideways
now i see i was right (i mean star-wise) is
deep-wise like a cave in us sometimes
black air arbour-mouthed oratory kingdoms
joyously adrift in the occasions ecstatic Os
cut into the middle of transOformations
high on clean fresh air and nothingness’
twisted instruments: no wonder no thoughts
no fool falling victim to the classic blunders
all your spells saying so singing without harmony, yes
Egypt Strut
after Salah Ragab & the Cairo Jazz Band
“this is how it came to the air”
a cataract stares
through the cross-
stitch macramé
black butterflies
cross the prism
ra loads the sun
syncopates in 6/8
with kleopatric devotion
into shadow’s cosmic
resistance this space-
time’s kingdom of knots
Morning Line
the morning sky is one
vast open mic night & each of us sign up
a stream of brokenhearted desperados
gurgling on the banks in abecedarian sugar
with an achilles ache.
oh sir galahad!
what a lonely feeling — this sensation’s
a rambler gone over 3 minutes or one poem
when it’s just one poem we’re asking for
(who am i kidding who’s asking for one)
can i get two sunrises? it is 8:27 a.m.
the city fountains wrapped in plastic
crystal can you get ready for your break
from now to wherever there was as if ever
a way there was
is to be a now within.
there is. there is? there is. cool. okay.
i think of rosemary and cross this bridge
of whatever you say as the moon fades
through the tunnel of a faux-fur hood
Song For Goners
after Jeff Tweedy
inside our tiny place
there’s still a long way
to go walking off the pier
at a loner pace, together.
i forget the least time
i meant home.
i mean, that’s inevitable.
i'm a fibre of a fibre,
goner than miles.
while i'm here, i'll stay
in the salt of a crying
day. say what you say;
i'll try to listen,
reply in my cosmic
unpaid-upturned-
out-tuned-intuition-
think-i'll-call-it-a-way-
kind-of-way. sifting
the evidence, pouring
milky dust from a bowl.
remainders of reminders
until they call me back.
i don’t mean to forget,
there’s just not a lot of time,
my love. the in-between’s
been like a lot of things
with lids – unfastened.
just stay. if it’s ok
with you, it’s ok with me.
if you say that it’s just,
then it’s so.
Virtue Sunrise
did the walking by creature just say
i want my body to body
while that other sitting down creature
says in a different conversation
(which is not to imply
a different conversation)
ok. i love you sir
i walk into the drug store
smells like citrus sunrise
or a sickly essence candle called that
(phone thinks i meant to type virtues)
i guess it does – aloft
under this day of the dead balloon
daisy cartoons on skeleton toes
dance round
these present handsome channels
while my body bodies
waiting
in a virtue sunrise
Andrew K. Peterson is the author of six poetry books and several chapbooks, most recently Secret Equinox/Scorpio Journal (Spuyten Duyvil, 2023) and Erasure for Holy Ghost (C22 Collective, 2025). A chapbook The Big Game Is Every Night was mailed to the White House in 2017 alongside other publications from Moria Books’ Locofo Chaps as collective protest. Another previous chap Bonjour Meriwether and the Rabid Maps (Fact-Simile, 2011) was included in an exhibition of poets’ maps at the University of Arizona’s Poetry Center. In 2017 he co-organized the Boston Poetry Marathon. With Jared Hayes he co-founded and edited the online lit journal summer stock. He lives in Boston.
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