MOTH
︎︎︎︎︎ Adam Stutz
︎ July 13, 2023
The beleaguered material: the
same thump-skip heartbeat
drift/break wherein my smoke travels to other cities
spurs a nervous quiver breaking into broken birds of a feather
I disseminate my baggage like tatter quill coats & salivary stones
In broken trust I quip broke questions & I emit
burnout— a skeleton of questionable emotional intelligence
I have cross-over appeal for splinters to perpetuate cause
is a matter for conversational barrens determining
verdicts in absentia— the edges will not smooth over—
the calculus of hands/cut apart now render over & across
the argot of miscalculation I am a greet/slump a whole of offense
& the value of injury seeks pressure in the crimson twitch
of extraction & I unwrap a gift in the shuffle of evolution—
I become a moth rendered for the flame
drift/break wherein my smoke travels to other cities
spurs a nervous quiver breaking into broken birds of a feather
I disseminate my baggage like tatter quill coats & salivary stones
In broken trust I quip broke questions & I emit
burnout— a skeleton of questionable emotional intelligence
I have cross-over appeal for splinters to perpetuate cause
is a matter for conversational barrens determining
verdicts in absentia— the edges will not smooth over—
the calculus of hands/cut apart now render over & across
the argot of miscalculation I am a greet/slump a whole of offense
& the value of injury seeks pressure in the crimson twitch
of extraction & I unwrap a gift in the shuffle of evolution—
I become a moth rendered for the flame
Adam Stutz is the Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of Broken Lens Journal and the author of Transcript (Cooper Dillon Books, 2017) and The Scales (White Stag Publishing, 2018). His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Prelude, Be About It, Deluge, Dum Dum Zine, The Pinch, Where is the River, Dream Pop, Cover, Ghost Proposal, INKSOUNDS, Only Good Poems, Heavy Feather Review, and can be found at stutzwrites.com. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California.
Also by Adam: CONTROL TOWER