Kelly Bartolotta – 2 Poems


Kelly Bartolotta

2 Poems

breaking big sky


slick curves banking around
the cool misted edges
of montana sunbreaks

the reservation, sixty miles
of crow indian land,
no utilities, no services

a shambled gas station, thirty in
wrought-iron door, puddled mud
my foot caked, my shoe lost

the men in the back
playing something to murder the minutes
before the day’s full impact begins
shoot us a look
while our eyes google at the prospects

but the cashier,
clad in laguna beach sweater,
nail beds collecting dirt
knows we’re tourists
hands us our change
four post-cards

laughs with the men
mocking our foreign accents


ruraled urban melody: in two parts

I.

dried o of a honeyed mouth
in looped lettering motions
              swerved unreason

dripped quarter note half note
plagued melancholy                     &
strung surface, glossed
              a silhouetted stranger

midnight wrens swell
melted skylines – blushed browns
              pricked thimbles
              sliced sails, belabored bays

carmelstick finger attachment
to an unknown
knocking brassy chimes
              cheap boxed wines
              lingering inebriations

II.

breadcrumbs:
shoelaces / retreats
busted rails
              &
              rusty nails

reflections inside(out)
mellowed goldfish bowl glow
beckons like an autumn’s hymn

              lucid

lucrative mechanics
              scattered glass like broken bones
embers etched
elements persistent

a neon bow
              her hydrogen dances
              mahogany

springtime elegies
only the narcissus navigates

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