Harrison Fisher

Hysteron-Proteron Revisited

When a ventriloquist has a dummy,

they have arguments, mostly silent,

but some last hours, always about control.

The man smoked long into the night,

lying on the bedspread, head on the pillow,

the dummy propped up facing him.

What are these doings of the evil self?  On what account?

I will not be tormented any longer full stop.

I am me the simple son the end of the line.

The dummy die

and rush into battle.  The dummy in tatters

fly over the hotel victoriously.

Melodrama

The houses make nice and the houses

make want.  Things we live for are on

the B list—jungle fever in my apartment

begets cabin fever in my apartment

begets sleep exhibit in the corner.

A native speaker intuits death

separate from his own tongue,

leaving one’s lingua unconsummated.

A score of braggart music swells, then

Kuklafranollie pessimism and deflation.

Harrison Fisher has published twelve collections of poems since 1977.  For most of the 21st century, he enjoyed a hiatus from poetry, ending in 2022 with the appearance of new poems in The Argotist Online, BlazeVOX, e-ratio, Gyroscope Review, Indicia, Oddball Magazine, Otoliths, and TXTOBJX.