Monday, December 9, 2019

Michael Estabrook - Nausea


Michael Estabrook small press poet since the 1980s striving always for greater clarity and concision rendering language more succinct and precise more accessible and appealing a Sisyphean adventure for sure. Retired now writing more and working more outside just noticed two Cooper’s hawks staked out in the yard or rather above it which explains the nerve-wracked chipmunks. The Poet’s Curse, A Miscellany is a recent collection (The Poetry Box, 2019).

***

NAUSEA

as gnarle
d bony
finger
s knuckl
es
cracke
d & white
grappl
e with
my
guts
squeez
ing out
waves
of
yellow
ish
NAUSEA
the
relent
less
hump-b
acked
glower
ing drool
ing press
of
time
calmly
laughs
its fetid
breath into
my blank
& wrinkl
ed     face.


TIC SCRIPTORIUS -- Writer's tic; fast, short, stereotyped, involuntary movements of the writing arm and hand that result in adventitious inclusions of varying size in handwriting.  Such movements have been reported in patients with Gilles de la Tourette syndrome.
          (Psychiatric Dictionary)