Delirious Hem

elisa gabbert

*

WALKS ARE USELESS II
..................After Chris Tonelli

There’s nothing to be sad about.
My sadness grows restless, nostalgic

for a better bore, the tragic bore
of yesteryear. The stink of the city

grows worse, but at the same rate
that we get used to it. ‘Tis a bore

and nothing more. Even the clouds
are bored, arrange themselves into more

and more exotic vegetables.
Where is the war? I can’t see it.

I feel incredible. What I mean is,
I feel like no one would believe me.

*

Elisa Gabbert's recent work can be found in Colorado Review, Diagram, Eleven Eleven, Meridian, Pleiades, Typo, Washington Square, and other journals. She is the author of two chapbooks from Kitchen Press, Thanks for Sending the Engine (2007) and My Fear of X (forthcoming). She is also co-author, with Kathleen Rooney, of Something Really Wonderful (dancing girl press, 2007) and That Tiny Insane Voluptuousness (Otoliths, 2008).

The poem originally appear in COMBATIVES, the print offshoot of H_NGM-N.