Mike Krutel

FROM MONUMENT

Each day I think about hunger
Without hunger
Without having to think

I go on break so long my body      gets confused Not
break What I mean
is I lapse   time is mud   is water deep
in so called whatisunderneath
All together  A sludging How can I talk to the world with this body    every day
I say hello to some geese It’s like a saying
saying goodbye

Where was a well
happening If they hire me by months what are days even and put
With month’s end I can have a wellness      Each day
I think about hunger without hunger
without having to think Is that working
Is that being professional meaning
It is a dying What is my wellness      Do I need water to
be a well      It is in a dying need
an enactment of/during That will mean anything
A professional stacks stones      A working
world circles the cavern alone
crawls in a What is a history working
hard in ground

 

Dream #6

 

Brian is missing    Everyone puts on their skis and begins the search      We’re told that night is too dangerous for       Cover of darkness too     Small figure pulling the likeness of Brian in the snow high on the hill              A cavern is in it A cavern is in the earth The aged former child star is in it Is lost to the cavern    Just as Brian     Appears    Totally alone     At the top He’s been staying with a family he’s never known    The cavern is in it   The cavern tries to eat us up

In the epilogue I stand at the counter ordering premade pasta dishes           A teenager       A teenager with a book behind the counter tells me just a few minutes     Jamie is gone   I do not know this      Like a fact    $8.96 / lb    The couscous is not ready made   I am made      to wait    Just a little longer   I know Jamie is gone because I can feel that she’s gone    Lost     to what     I walk home    Sky the color of stone

 

 

 

 

 

These strawberries make my teeth hurt

w/o hunger

 

 

 

 

 

DREAM #7

I come home from the convenience store I come home from the poetry reading I come home from the parking lot I come home from my old job I come home from old friends I come home accidentally wearing your khaki skirt and you are burned and I still love you and you are burned and I still love you and you are burned and I still love you and you are burned and I still love you and you are burned and I still love you and you are burned and I still love you and you are burned and I still love you and you are burned and I still love you and you are burned and I still love you and you are burned and I still love you and you are burned and I still love you and you are burned and I still love you and you are burned and I still love you and you are burned and I still love you and you are burned and I still love you and you are burned and I still love you and you are burned and I still love you and you are burned and I still love you and you are burned and I still love you and you are burned and I still love you and you are burned and I still love you and you are burned and I still love you and you are burned and I still love you and you are burned and I still love you and you are burned and I still love you and you are burned and I still love you and you are burned and I still love you and you are burned and I still love you and you are burned and I still love you and you are burned and I still love you and you are burned and I still love you and you are burned and I still love you and you are burned and I still love you and you are burned and I still love you and you are burned and I still love you

Mike Krutel is the author of FOGLAND and BEST POEMS. He is an editor for the online journal Pinwheel and co-curator of The Big Big Mess Reading Series. He loves in Akron, OH.
Mark Cugini