Tom Goff Poems

Let me stroll coatless, even though January sun
set. Sleeveless tee. Wind, ratchet across my

goosepimples the way I once made slapslat
...

He calls it his “Red Cob”─ American,
the name stemming from a Tennessee
strain of corn, red in the ear, white in the kernel.
The country wellbred think his freethinking
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January cloud, shot through with light blue light:
not nomad. Nimbostratus
refuses, though cold, to snow.
Nacreous gray-blue not rack stuck flat, flat.
...

Because if there is climax in this life,
such as impels symphonic argument,
it burgeons by virtue of brass instruments
─ the orchestra’s boldest beings, chief lawscoffs─
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All dawns begin gray. Clouded,
clear, they all start like this one,
God unsure how he wants the day
till the light brushes his leg
...

encrypts its Mediterranean
Blue #1 (Midwinter) into San Juan
Rapids. American River surf runs
dairycream: note its icy refusal to break
...

Revealer of the star at the apple’s heart,
you slice the fruit along its tart-sweet equator.
Didn’t you say we are much the same matter
as those cosmic makings we dream ourselves apart
...

The pink of her blouse
pairs with his powder blue
shirt. He won't leave the house
without her coming too.
...

I’m not your lover. Don’t make me your priest
when qualified confessors can be had.
You broke your own hive, left bees unreleased.
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Will the injured man forever see, feel, only
broken images, disjunct hindquarters, tensed neck, incisor-
studded mouth, as victims of certain head traumas perceive shapes?
...