JOHNMICHAEL SIMON POETRY

When the final arguments

have been squeezed out of us

when an unflinching sun beats down

on dry-as-desert dissertations

when all that remains of muse

manuscript and civilization

are bones of pterodactyls

and silver tracks of extinct snails

 

Let us resurrect the workshop

of an almost forgotten worm

a fragment of yellowed newspaper

the echo of an anthem

locked inside a dry discarded

sardine can

 

Saying: remember us

poets and painters, pens, brushes

held in frozen outstretched fingers

all our tomorrows

a rolled up toothpaste tube

its final sweetness oozing

onto waiting bristles