Michael Philips

Your gentle yawn
while reading the sports section
as they fill your prescription.
A light scratch of your nose
...

There are two types of people:
Those who play golf,
And those who recognize it
for the idiotic malpractice that it is,
...

I want someone to invent
a coffee table book that
rapidly deteriorates and
transforms itself into something else,
...

She made a scene at the wedding
Wearing a black leather miniskirt
Upstaging the livid bride
My kids thought she was exciting and cool
...

I.
Researchers say Mormons have continued
to posthumously baptize Jewish Holocaust victims
into their faith despite a promise to discontinue the practice
...

Colleagues who die
kept in my rolodex
alive in circulation
flipping round in ritual
...

You cannot see the upper reaches of Everest
from the base camp, where you acclimatize
with attitude and finger exercises.
...

Those old communists – the ones in the
triumphant revolutionary posters with
broad shoulders and eyes on the horizon
where the sun is rising on a better world,
...

The white one purred and was soft.
We gave it a name.
Got hit by a car.
We buried it in back.
...

Just shut up already about herbal remedies, I told her.
This was on Valentines Day, hours before Sally fed
my dog some herbal medication
and he brewed butt coffee
...

Sitting on the patio
At Jeff and Melanie’s
Just to be near Melanie
In hopes I would be well positioned
...

Roll down your window and smile.
Hold it.
Now let me get one with the background of vintage automobiles,
tinted postcards, motels, and Route 66 trying to slake my
...

I forgot the bug spray
So mosquitoes keep attacking me
Some guy brought a blender for Happy Hour
And some people even bring their TVs
...

As he crosses into
the end zone
and the crowd
ejaculates in rapture,
...

When people heard
that you sent me poetry
they commented that
you must be a wonderful and sensitive man
...

I’m giving all my Colombo videos to the library,
I don’t know if they want them,
Perhaps curious folks with time
Will check them out and get hooked,
...

When your rationale for going to war
turns out to be false,
...

Saturated in morphine
breathing like a hurt animal
maybe somewhere deep down
at the bottom of the mineshaft
...

Now why would you question my love for you, honeybunch?
You know that you are more precious to me than
A 1973 Gibson ES335 sunburst semi hollow body guitar
(Which I would love to have)
...

Have you watched the slow caravans of clouds
And felt the earth’s pull as they lean into the sky
Or maybe zeroed in on a single star in the wash of a black night
And know this tapestry of distant heat
...