Darren Demaree
the echo is a dance of abandonment #10
clearly the caste system
of art
has provoked you
into reading these poems
so that you can say
you read these poems
to someone who has never
heard of these poems
what if
we kept this between us
& nobody
could challenge the music
we hear when we imagine
the stumbling desires
we share
because the hum
is enough motion if we sit
together long enough
the echo is a dance of abandonment #11
the legs of reality
exist in
& around the shadows
beneath the day
bed the rich recline on
in a modernity
that makes it even more
absurd to recline
in lighting that can hide
reality that can subvert
any idea
that begins away
from the spinning certainty
that we should eat the rich
before they lay down
the echo is a dance of abandonment #12
it’s all buffet
even if each piece of art
is both absorbing
& so masterful
that it is grotesque
on your coffee cup
& grotesque
in your coffee cup
if you drink
the free coffee it will
come without the art
coffee should come
without the art
the art is meant
to consume you
Darren C. Demaree grew up in Mount Vernon, Ohio. He is a graduate of the College of Wooster, Miami University, and Kent State University. He is the author of seventeen poetry collections, most recently “the luxury”, (January 2023, Glass Lyre Press). He is the recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, the Louise Bogan Award from Trio House Press, and the Nancy Dew Taylor Award from Emrys Journal. He is the Editor-in-chief of the Best of the Net Anthology and Managing Editor of Ovenbird Poetry. He is currently working in the Columbus Metropolitan Library system, and living in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children.