Two Poems
Mark DuCharme
Blue Mirror
Don’t tousle the rude becoming
Grow reckless with spitfire allure
Fecundate shadows with the wideness of the sea
Sing a song of new beginnings
Eat a daisy. Let the moon fall backwards
Embodied in the wildness of your hair
Phenomena scouring dusk with silence
So children can cry out one more day
Let wasps gather. Let the wind fall away
Convulsive in its singsong avoidance
Awaken in the light a blue mirror
Ominous gravure, wind’s perfect smile
Do Geese Scream?
Who decides what counts as kitsch surrealism?
Have a penny,
An itchy style
Downright autosuggestion below the shoulder
Tell me how my hunger launders witnesses
Without laughing at the remains
Do geese scream?
No sideshow is perfect
A breach of habit
Downtown nomads
Erecting shadows
Empty day
Empty day
Firetruck
Raw moon
Gaping
Mark DuCharme’s poem “Thirst” won the Synchronized Chaos poetry contest in 2026. His recent books include Complicated Grief and Thousands Blink Outside, both from C22 Open Editions; Here, Which Is Also a Place from Unlikely Books; Scorpion Letters from Ethel; and his work of poet’s theater, We, the Monstrous: Script for an Unrealizable Film, from The Operating System. Since You Asked will be published by C22 in 2027. His poetry has appeared widely in such venues as bethh, BlazeVOX, Caliban Online, Chant de la Sirène, Colorado Review, E·ratio, eYeland, First Intensity, Gas, Glossolalia, Indefinite Space, Moss Trill, New American Writing, Noon, Otoliths, Shiny, Talisman, Trilobite, Typo, Unlikely Stories, Utriculi, Vanitas, Var(2x), Word for/Word, The Writing Disorder, and Poetics for the More-Than-Human World: An Anthology of Poetry and Commentary. He lives in Boulder, Colorado, USA.