Not Ley Lines

Oli Hazzard

Wintrytwigs makea pernicketyclicking soundamong blotches of Januarywindow light, post-panic white . . .*Cooling hot milkin an ice bathtoday’s screaming.Roaming the ratioslike a dioramarubbernecking vernacularI basically don’t what it*Leave thedishes tolook upa theoryword onmy phonehold thebig nounin myother handup downsquinting, ishingexposure sloshingin sideand partsto repealin instalmentsash dabon my therefore head*Still frilling around objects with a Jacobeanruff. Freaked out, set a tea towel on fire . . .Your poem says put that in one of your poemsfor drunk relief, to frolic in leafso familiar now I hear it before it happensa kind of hologram, a blotchy auraof fungibility, written down January 33rdorthogonal to the line, the “sun’s lesion”in the curved upside time of the poem’sakin to being rude to a spoon. Just listen tothis tune, embarrassinging our room . . .

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Headshot of Oli Hazzard

Oli Hazzard is the author of two books of poems, Between Two Windows and Blotter; a book of literary criticism, John Ashbery and Anglo-American Exchange: The Minor Eras; and a novel, Lorem Ipsum. He lives in Glasgow and teaches at the University of St. Andrews.

"Hazzard’s avant-garde confessional invites readers into an impressive, kinetic cinema of organized chaos."
—Publishers Weekly

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