Two Poems by Grant Matthew Jenkins

by Grant Matthew Jenkins

11/10/2014

Marks

Along the river valley who hears the cry of the raptors?
Will you avail yourself of the talents at your disposal?
Why can’t you congratulate the suicide?
In which dimension lies your unfelt emotion?
Would the leave lilt in the breeze of your meditation?
How long will she go ignoring the fact that she’s breaking any hearts?
In fiction, why must the unities persist but in poetry we take license?
In the reading, does the mind make words?
Life or art—which one would you choose?

 

From Q to A

All maxims are short sentences, but not all short sentences are maxims.
Like this one.
Use line breaks to create drama within in your syntax.
Art is everywhere a person looks.
Everyone is not an artist.
The raccoon was at the back porch, not Melanie.
She said I was her favorite person.
Write movies, not poems.
The person is essentially no one, as in the French.
Many people do searches for Zsa Zsa Gabor.
Get over your email frustration.
With a prepositional phrase, you can break the monotony of starting with the subject.
Drama only works when there are people in conflict.
He said it was a long-throated stapler.
Why not see counseling as a way of maintaining a good relationship.
Last resorts never are.
He called it an “answer poem.”
Kate Pringle was featured; she was traveling through.
She is going to give him the key.
Leave it under the chiminea mat.
The Phoenix house is on Phoenix street, but it’s not in Phoenix.
Will everyone have the same fields? or will they each be different?
It will open; it will be permissible; it will end.


Originally published in This Land, Vol. 5, Issue 20, October 15, 2014.