Geoffrey Detrani

Tripwire

Haloing DNA

old paint drawn tight

with line like a trench

pulled through tripwire mud

staircase and banister

savoring and anesthetizing

as dimensions for mating

in cataract of warming bloom

Feint

Don the posture of the fallible lamb

wish-loving bas-relief else

To stand confirmed

as farcical daemon

Pooled into shade

prancing fulgent

To lift the skin like priory habit

in exposé feint

Diplomatic Cable

Museum cases are always

unstable at room temperature

Population tables

perform an exaggerated hygiene

Nowadays an entire province

is lodged in the awnings over a fruit stand

Buckets of produce and human velocity

sheltered in the warehouses

Someone is sending the last diplomatic cable

wood plank frottage on cheesecloth

Wrapping the rasping brick

this will be the lasting image

Despite the unworldly heat

the man is still alive

Just past city center

there are dispensaries

That serve to hyper-saturate the relief caravans

positioned at intervals along the wide avenues

Pastoral Utopias

Diorama makers craft

pastoral utopias

scenes of load bearing realism

with quarantined melodies

appended to their parts

Grins don’t mean what they used to

a baby and a stake holder

and their miniature novellas

breeding a brand-new leviathan

don’t feed themselves apart

Melodies accompany the use of

chances

in the dying art of lip-service

to use an engine oiled

with separatist

plots is to lead

just as oxygen looking for origin

becomes its own arc

pulping its flammable norms

People say that they always swelled

that they’re woven through their tissue

in circular logic

just as here it is always known

they are all poised in tottering crescendo

Speaking demands clairvoyant strength

you have to be able to call

heaven and earth

suckling twin fiefdoms

giving their caduceus-like

fraternity

a task of its own

Cerulean Pox

The circus

the market remnant

cerulean roman anthill

handing pill case

or erstwhile indenture

Between ax

and thin spate

of pox’d memory’s looking

The family of forget-me-nots

ossified there

like ash weight eyes

themselves of withered ends

Geoffrey Detrani is a visual artist and writer. His artwork is in private, public and museum collections. He is the recipient of multiple artists grants and residencies. He is a two-time recipient of the State of Connecticut Artists Fellowship award. He was the recipient of a World Views residency award with a studio on the 91st floor of the former World Trade Center south tower in New York City. His poems have appeared in Fence, Aufgabe, New Orleans Review, Black Warrior Review and Parthenon West Review among other publications.