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08.23.07
Two Poems
Broken Code

           I.
           The rostrum is able to mail.
           Malachy owns a keyshop.

           II.
           Safeguard is better than barter.
           Great Wall with tourists and tiffin.

           III.
           Crinoline is surface for stencil.
           Brinkmanship begets a willow.

           IV.
           Expression is tinder or organ.
           Muppets maneuver toward maunder.

           V.
           Sultan brings pleasure on raisins.
           A date palm is edgy or eider.

           VI.
           Helmut does straddle the chicken.
           Synecdoche is plangent or pointed.

           VII.
           Circle is square without meter.
           Americans are easy to wiggle.

           VIII.
           Succotash lurches through fecund.
           A lasso wrenches its maw out.

           IX.
           Rabbits are present in moonbeams.
           A king is comment on quickly.

           X.
           Futures are brokered by miters.
           Chalk cliffs betoken what other.

           XI.
           Sports fans evaporate sofas.
           A chintz or cheesy vanilla.

           XII.
           Burr oaks in winter in forest.
           A girl lives in houses in cities.

           XIII.
           Brillo is etching in yellow.
           Jejune is junior to Jello.

           XIV.
           Annul the meteor’s engine.
           A cymbal is knee-clapped on fire.

           XV.
           Ribbons of postulate costumes.
           Certain or seldom if giver.

           XVI.
           Bombay is mob scene for lauders.
           Unguent is oily in ointments.

           XVII.
           Praise for millers and figments.
           Luring at minors through spindles.

           XVIII.
           Ekphrasis of enemy objects.
           On-time depends upon mailers.

           XIX.
           Tempo is under or hector.
           Yearlings believe in their Mecca.

           XX.
           The war enables the agents.
           Empathy widows the children.

           XXI.
           Bentleys roll tightly in corners.
           Ignatius sees plenty of stranded.

           XXII.
           Young ones in vans or in hutments.
           Driving through carbon tomatoes.

           XXIII.
           All boys in bodice and elbows.
           Something or maybe just money.


Vocabularies

           I.
           Crickets in the witch hazel.
           Building the proper dementia.

           II.
           Wootton is fine for wonder.
           A gouger needs no google.

           III. 
           Synagogues along the border.
           Paring before prevail.

           IV.
           Beer nuts but never to barter.
           Clues to half-full mangos.

           V.
           Mojave next to swelter.
           Trails predate the subterfuge.

           VI.
           Switch grass bends in summer.
           Leaking improves the organ.

           VII.
           A factory for fiori.
           Assume ends at action.

           VIII.
           Three Fs for available fingers.
           A major is open to modular.

           IX.
           Chinchilla cycles the meter.
           Acting initiates contact.

           X.
           23 fish followed by dinner.
           Waistband raised in wary.

           XI.
           Gas lamps in the watercolor.
           Blueprints err bazooka.

           XII.
           Transoxiana high in climbers.
           Pink tinges pallid minnows.

           XIII.
           The cattle without a tiger.
           King trips on crosier.

           XIV.
           Micrometer draws on gaiters.
           Melanesia or witness to wading.

           XV.
           Lemons mean more bother.
           Papooses play in wigwams.

           XVI.
           Pets train on mortars.
           Pillau is nowhere to pooh-pooh.

           XVII.
           Fouls flagrant or charging.
           Tattoos gather Morgana.

           XVIII.
           Savannahs or liminal mirages.
           Labia or Lapland in tonnage.

           XIX.
           Branding manages the pit bull.
           Sonata is safe as sauna.

           XX.
           Mittens name the mirrors.
           Kaw, Konza, or Kansas.

           XXI.
           A chick is anti-sonorous.
           Teepees house the brethren.

           XXII.
           Walking produces a filter.
           Box turtles piddle on contact.

           XXIII.
           A Korg is steady for alter.
           Slippery minus the menace.

           XXIV.
           Milwaukee debits or ledger.
           Baboons with whatever collections.

           XXV.
           Holidays harbor idea.
           Tributaries empty in harbor.

           XXVI.
           Circular if only a pleasure.
           Chasm swallows the stagecoach.

           XXVII.
           Opposites ergo not never.
           Hamlets beneath gondolas.

           XXVIII.
           Sacrifice alum to pleasure.
           Arranging tempts the Germans.

           XXIX.
           Monocle may be mother.
           An oboe is other than echo.

           XXX.
           A marathon likely to matter.
           Saguaro is urtext infuego.
 
 

Matt Reeck’s poems have recently appeared in Brooklyn RailConjunctions, and Black Warrior. He will publish two translations in 2019: Deep Vellum’s "Muslim": A Novel from the French of Zahia Rahmani; and Wesleyan University Press’s French Guiana: Memory Traces of the Penal Colony from the French of Patrick Chamoiseau.