Anthony Procopio Ross
Kōan #5 (Connoisseur of roads)
Some of us, in pursuit of our survival, stay up late
reckoning the quickest passage between two
points in a line. Gramatica parda
tells us there ain’t nothing worth not the breath
of a few days’ time. Order exists within the mind,
is a construct built out of our need to pick up milk,
the eggs, and a loaf of bread. Anything more
is a testament to mother modern science and her
tendency to gossip about our future until it’s here.
Wow, just look at those coin-rich pop-dispensers
shimmering, seldomly in need of repair — god-like.
This is a picture of the new world, and as Barthes
once wrote, is dead once the film is developed.
Not to put a pin in hope or anything, but watch as
its wings quiver in an ecstasy, there is nothing else
quite like it — the quickened flapping of a failing bird.
The crows around here seem to possess
an intelligence drawing them to perch above the abandoned
house undergoing constant renovation. A hearth
worth the sum of those coming and those going,
“I’ll call you when I get there. Shouldn’t be too long.”
Anthony Procopio Ross is a Poetry MFA candidate at Minnesota State University, Mankato. When he’s not teaching, Anthony spends his time writing, interviewing artists and creating hand-cut collages for himself and to support the literary arts making flyers and covers. Anthony’s poems have appeared in the Laurel Review, Thrice Publishing’s 2018 Surrealist Anthology, Levee Magazine, Evocations Review and Warm Milk Magazine among others.