POEM OF THANKS: REVERSED SIX OF SWORDS

backfill mechanism

with one face I am prepared
for anything
light finds me
on my own terms
the way I want to be found
a trumpet blows
I rise from the dead
my bones coming together
from thousands of miles apart
beyond the river the mind
is an empty city
ghosts pulling on their cigarettes
to form a net of small fires
and now I flow flow beyond
and out and in and out
which is just breathing
a feeling arrives in disguise
as a physical object
then stands and disrobes
in a shocking
but poignant sequence
feelings almost feel
is what it’s trying to say
where are my words
rowing to with such fervor?
I can’t tell you
they’re dipping their descenders
as oars again but now
into a sky
that roils
they’re pulling water
into the hull

reversed six of swords

at an amusement park
I am the park
saying things in my most fun
Hegel voice forgot to thank
the lazy trees for their shade
and now I’m out floating
swords burying their blades
in the wooden sky
who in the world loves me?
honestly that number
is growing
teach us to scale these walls
in our desires
to ford these depths
I navigate towards
a forest state
where I am the forest
reaching out with my
darkness slowly
I’m struggling to find
the mode where animals
speak through me
maybe I’ve already said
everything
or there’s everything
to say

sun’s out

better open
the curtains
for the plants
good thing
I’m around
I guess
if you are my plant
my neighbor’s elephant ear
is nearly two stories tall
could pass for a tree
its trunk
is so thick
even from behind
my window
I climb its stalk
wait out the day
in the pools
of light
it borrows
from the sun

square

news of the genocide
flows from my phone
across every poem
and every one
carries grief
like seeds
in the pulp
and the fuck am I watching
on the TV with my kid?
existential conundrum
of being a square pumpkin
in a round world
which is of course
a classic inversion
of rectilinear metaphysics
Ayla asks where's Spooky?
when he’s out of frame
bounces when he’s back
subtitles ripe
on the vine:
this is breaking my heart
[BLOWS NOSE]
[BOTH YELL]
[BOTH YELL]

another poem found in the margins

of my gifted copy
of Robert Creeley’s
Hello: A Journal
handwritten by Graham Irvin
and transcribed by Google Lens’
handwriting recognition software
which dragged in
a whole Creeley poem
and a page number to boot
with its artificial net
as if there was nothing safe
and everything sublimated

CREELEY FEELS
LUST INSTEAD
OF LONELINESS
OR HIS COMMUNITY
COMMUNION
CAN ONLY HAPPEN
IN SEEING
CATALOGING
BODIES
PROBABLE TRUTH
A TREE IN
KOREA
it's best
to die
when you can
A NAMELESS WOMAN'S
THIN BROWN HAIR
I WANT COMMUNION
OUTSIDE MYSELF
72
I WANT TO FORGET
MY BODY
ALTOGETHER / FOREVER / ETC

adapting to frequency

I am phoning it in
in this and all
my past lives
lately altering my grip on reality
to be more ergonomic
the earth is as quiet
as the dark
in my utter blindness
I accidentally toppled
the constellations
just trying to hydrate
and now
every star is dying
trembling in my palm
like a baby bird
feather fluttering
on skin
song tumbling
through memory

Mike Bagwell is a form of mutual antagonism towards the sky. He received an MFA from Sarah Lawrence and recent work appears in Posit, Poetry Northwest, Action Spectacle, Texas Review, ITERANT, Sprung Formal, Annulet, and others. Recent chapbooks include Poem of Thanks: Swords and the Devil (Thirty West, forthcoming and including this section), Poem of Thanks: A Court of Wands (Metatron 2025), and micros from Ghost City and Rinky Dink. He runs the Ghost Harmonics reading series and magazine in Philly. Find him at mikebagwell.me, @low_gh0st, or playing dragons with his daughters.