Three Poems

By Trout Fishing in America

Heatwaves

Men more content to change in the reflection

Of a lake, and break in dry heat underneath

Than try on skirts in air-conditioned rooms

Go there to feign dry deaths down on the beach.

I’d say whatever their intentions be

They’re renting tents to sense they’re being freed

Much unlike the line and length of me:

A sense of seeming penitentiary.

I’d only thought (if Zürich stained it well)

I’d set myself up somewhere south of hell.

In the sculptor’s fever-dreams I saw

Some arms bound up in gold-leaf paneling,

With melted entrail-wings hung limp astride-

No skull to mount atop the bloody thing.

No! Not a muse and never meant to be

A subject - rather take the rule of eight-

Or nine meters of dirt.

Though statues to a lover seem

As though they’re built too late,

I have seen my body hung to dry,

No linseed cracks or flax breaks open where

The sea-dead heat stops prayers for self-defeat,

And prophecy’s no matter in hot air.

Ten Thousand Mics

Well now you’ve stitched up all my time

Til nine shows on the analogue.

If beauty does as beauty is

A little kiss and tell

Would never sell the sun so well

In dawn’s hangover hell.

come on

come on

COME ON,

dear,

I’d rather have her calmer, and another beer.

Well he was an Englishman, and now he’s toast,

And pulling up the drawbridge over the moat

Spinning mozart on retro stereo sets

The very model of a modern

Gape-jawed mineral stimulant man,

In freelance MD-days.

Well now the mouser’s out the bag

And the rabbit’s in the hat,

I’d don’t go for easy picks, they’re not for me

But now you’ll see

I’ve drawn you as Top Cat.

That one should stick.

From The Archives:

- Strung-out Puppet Misses Birthday Drinks

- Man Thinks In Meaningful Rhymes

- Everything Seems a Sign Of The Times

just get a little rest sometimes.

This acid-trip shock casualty scene

Was never cleaner than genius,

So be lenient on the intake, dear

Just be careful that you don’t get caught.

Or you’ll end up

The page-three girl

In Sunday’s police report.

A Little Dog-Like

I could have sworn this morning you were there

Stood at the paintbrush, choosing what to wear

Before you leave them heaped up on the beach.

You teased out all those lesions with your leash

And left them smoking in the bedside drawer -

You thought that that’s the way you wouldn’t bore

The viewers at home.

If you and I were spies

And crawling through the house of love, then I

Would wear a skirt, or I’d disguise myself

As something like a boy with leather belts

We’d call each other target practice, shoot,

Then maybe we’d undress, and I’d have you

By the suicide protection windows, known

To bring it all a little close to home.

TROUT FISHING IN AMERICA is either a world-weary Minnesota fisherman just trying to get his big break, or a second year History student at Oxford that you can find on Instagram as @kit.r.h. It’s up to you!

Art by Poppy Williams