Michael Lambert is author of Circumnavigation, (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2014), loosely based on self-propelled travel in North America. The recipient of a 2015 residency at the Port Townsend Writers’ Conference, recent work has appeared in Bayou Magazine, Midwestern Gothic, and Timber Journal. He lives in Tuscaloosa while pursuing an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of Alabama.
from All Intensive Purposes
“—the water’s fine, come in and drown.”
-John Berryman
Tell me something wonderful.
Like, you know, how some people will swerve
At hemlock on narrow streets just to make things interesting—
Their faces as calm as Hindu cows. Lynchpin rev
Ival got me like: It’s my money and I want it
Blown out of a humongous bolo tie! Smokestack light
Ning, for heavensake. Better-had pick up some
Gizzards at the next Texaco, Llewellyn.
We’re in for a liverspotted potshot, sending holy
Water to the hydrophobics. Hallucinating John
Thoreau—Henry’s brother—who nicked him
Self shaving and died of Tetanus.
Lockjawed horse named “Traveller,” Robert E. Lee’s noble ste
Ed, stepped on a rusty nail now he’s a white girl. What?