avant-garde – Kevin Trent Boswell

A Collage of Chimeras and Phantasms

by Kevin Trent Boswell available on Amazon

Now available on Amazon

Coming Soon

On Saturday, I spent the entire day editing and submitting the manuscript for my new book.

I got it finished and turned in, then treated myself by eating too much pizza.

The author’s proof should be here in a day or two and I can proofread it. Then, it will go live and be available on Amazon.

thrust

make whatever you like of this,
but know that it may, likewise,
make whatever it likes of you.

thrust and struggle and burn
loudly feign, but ever so quietly,
an attempt, in the corner,
through muted silence, to enunciate

struggle with the reason
why is it that one does so yearn
to take the difficult lesson
one cannot be brought to hate

twist and then don’t,
because of the can’t
and moreover, he will not,
exactly as they were never told

a question, wide-eyed, receives
the penalty of the question’s answer
and it stings, being cold and hot,
enough to make one shriek and pant

a perjured testimony, it will recant
a tortured, and elated dancer
flailing there, on the dance floor,
it joyously thanks and aching, grieves

the hatches all battened down
and lashed to withstand the wind;
the wind begs contritely for more
claims not to know instruction

the end result, ruby red and sore
scoreboard racked and tucked away
nothing else to buck, or smartly say
all done for the night, playing the clown

make it into anything whatsoever,
anything that you want it to be,
for it won’t be made into something
that it isn’t supposed to be already

it has always known what it is, steady
to be whatever he chooses to shape
to make it speak and twist and sing
if only it is able and willing to see

locus

weighted dice spilling from broken jaws

tainted allegories and
flawless renderings of the invisible

dry beans pour out of sacks
onto tables of diamond and ivory

an abacus of emeralds,
strung on strands of horsehair

a tiny pewter coin sits
atop a scale of solid silver
resting on a column of solid gold

pristine smudges of chocolate
on acrylic peanut butter tapestries

buckets full of comets kicked over
and showers of sparks
falling on the floor

it’s enough to fill
the silos of the universe
top to bottom

but is it enough?

each individual grain of sand
grates against another;
all are dutifully counted

the hourglass is emptied
of all its inexorable empires

excuses are forged from breath,
and hammered into the sacred elixir
of nothingness

there is no motion
in this river’s torrent

the asphalt streets stole it all,
sold it to capricious eels
who swim in desperate candlelight

germinating helixes
bristling thorn vines

funneling promising poisons
into the infant mouths
of ageless behemoths
who rule small places

culmination is the beginning
of the termination of endings
and the siphoning off
of all the intermittent middle bits,
the ones that,
as an afterthought,
we tacked onto the ends
in carefully coordinated haste

the endeavor,
doomed from the outset

thank goodness
we never embarked upon the journey
and that we saw it through
all the way to the end

we can scarcely contain ourselves
from raving about
what raucous ecstatic bliss
it was, from the pistol start
to the razored end

steal the serpent’s fangs

replace its venom
with politesse
and useless smalltalk

watch giddily
as it pathetically
gnaws and gums
unproductively at its prey

we dare not speak
of our elusive mysteries,
not to the droll, sour, uninitiated brood,
lest they discover our secret formula
of beginning in the middle
and ending at the front part
of the second third half
of each hind quarter,
but only on Thursdays,
except on leap years of an august May

the excitement would surely
be too much for their frail constitutions,
and over dead, they would drop down,
into new incarnations
of ceaseless wonder

and when, if so,
would any of it
ever cease?

take care,
that none of this ever occurs,
except for those precious few times
that it unavoidably does not

dial back
the wilting clock
and try not to
try again

The music and poetry of Kevin Trent Boswell.jpg

a nice big mug of hot rococo

a little understated skywriting
announcing the death
of a loved one
brightens up any picnic

a small, unobtrusive
mountain of mayonnaise
or tapioca pudding
in their living room
makes for a wonderful
birthday surprise

a subtle moat of blood
around your mansion
is much classier than
any ol’ stupid
infinity pool

a modest bouquet of wildfire
in your neighbor’s garden
is a much more imaginative
housewarming gift
than a dull plate of
homemade cookies

one will never present
as rude or ostentatious,
if only you remember
not to scream obscenities
in the movie theater…
until after the opening credits

it’s not beyond the
boundaries of good taste
to have an assortment
of gangrenous appendages
on the bureau in the foyer
instead of the more traditional
candies and breath mints

the neighbors will appreciate
a conservative display
of heads on spikes;
it’s a nice way to
outline the borders
of one’s property line
without being too
uncivilized about it

it’s hardly meretricious or inelegant
to wear a fifty-foot royal purple robe,
with the ears and eyes
of one’s enemies
stitched into the edges

it is, after all, a formal affair;
one wouldn’t wear it
to go out dancing,
obviously

no one of good breeding
will think you garish,
just because you
proclaimed yourself
lord emperor of all unicorns

most will assume
that it was merely
the wine talking

if you bring your honey badger
to that karaoke bar
where all your coworkers
meet for happy hour,
you’ll have the envy of
everyone at the office

it’s not too glitzy or braggadocio
to wear lingerie and furs to church,
not for the easter service, anyway

no one can accuse you of
behaving bodaciously
when you drag a couple of
five-gallon containers of gasoline
into the library, then proceed to
dump them out, and
light up a cigarette

after all, some of us like to
enjoy a good book
with a smoke

never too splashy
to pass out sex toys
and clean needles
at the old folks’ home
and the orphanage;
it just wouldn’t be christmas
without the spirit of giving

yes, it is “commanding”
to slit one’s throat
over the punch bowl

but everyone at the party
knows you’re single,
and you really do
have to peacock
just a smidge,
if you’re ever
going to
attract that
special someone

anyone who
scolds you
for pissing on a
wedding cake
just doesn’t know
how to party

who cares if you didn’t hit
every single note perfectly
in that show tune?

before you started boldly
livening up the place with song,
it was so tense and somber
in that operating room;
those surgeons should be
thanking you

it’s anything but too splashy
to throw mardi gras beads
at a funeral

everyone appreciates it
when you spice things up
with some colorful fun,
and who doesn’t like
free costume jewelry?

people are just
too uptight
these days

don’t take it personally;
they simply
do not understand
your special brand
of panache

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The music and poetry of Kevin Trent Boswell

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truncated thermometers

my harpsichord needs new spark plugs

there’s a little too much play
in this troglodyte toggle switch;
it’s randomly going on and off,
and that could mean that
no one at all is going to get hurt

I went halfway around the world,
just to change your mind,
turn it all around,
and go the rest of the way homeless

I stopped being witty and cute
about five and a half hours
before I ever got started

horrific crash,
a dust bunny in the corner
slammed into me, head on,
and I nearly died

when I say that I’ll
wake up again tomorrow
and carry on as usual,
no one ever takes these
threats of self-harm seriously

a good scouring scourge
is a healthy part of any
unbalanced individual’s therapy;
I recommend you go on Tuesdays,
between the hours of midnight and
fathomless apathy;
ask for Tomás

embracing the barn owl’s lofty promise
was always a noble goal;
if we’re talking about the goal that is
that precious few inches
of golden airspace
between your drunk friend’s fingers,
in which they present you
the priceless opportunity
to hit your paper football through it

back into the lab,
to draw up new schematics
for sucker punch melody grinders
and rambunctious shades of taupe

the widget blueprints were leaked;
the balloon factory obviously has a mole

every single bit of this
was somehow even better
than the other one that you
weren’t paying attention to, either

the pretzel grenades will
make short work of our adversaries;
short work that will malinger
through the frenzied millennia

even now, in this
early phase of the campaign,
our garden gnome mercenaries
are gathering reconnaissance
and torturing the water hose
for useful information
about that twig over by the fence

let’s synchronize our watches
we’ll reconvene at eleven hundred hours
to plan our assault on
that blueberry cheesecake

to imply that there’s some potentially
better use of our time and energy
is an offense punishable by
not being offered a slice
of cheesecake

that’ll teach those bastards

in the meantime,
I have hired a new duende,
and we can trust that
all the the arrangements
will be handled appropriately

our schemes of passive conquest,
followed by a bit of relaxing seppuku
are quite safe within its capable,
razored claws

tonight’s humiliation is the epitome
of postmodern junkyard chic;
I like mine sautéed with garlic,
onion, mandrake root, capsicum,
wolfsbane, and a pinch of dill

de rigueur new wave infatuation
folds up nicely, and tucks away neatly
into the furnace

these feral scarecrows
wander through the violet patch,
looking for windbreakers, opium,
and elusive moments of quiet,
inspired slaughter