Poems that talk to each other by Ian Engelberger and Clark Johnson

villanelle and elegy by Ian Engelberger

I
Maddening kinds of people now
foreign and decimated, closed-nothing.
and what of me do they allow?
today will be fine, but how?
original and nothing to sing,
maddening kinds of people now.
nothing to sing or disavow,
liberated with lost minds composed of things
and what of me do they allow?
a million sub-americans vow
broken to do, broken to say, to cling,
maddening kinds of people now.
maddening women who lead, drop, and endow
to mediocrity, with nothing to bring
and what of me do they allow?
maddening men who sit or stand tall avow
the structure is nothing, an early spring.
maddening kinds of people now,
and what of me do they allow?

II
I will melt on the people, the people people all the people
with holy dripping stillness that slides right
side up

I will melt on the sort that go and see,
I will melt on the wall paper people,
definitions stuffed down throats into hearts

I will live in the folds of horizons, and all things non-
withstanding I shall find ways to move and spill
and form the people

their who’s who formations,
the long dead order

the broken canvas people the dead window people the
news people the no more people

constantly becoming becoming into dust

I will melt on the no more people under suns that grow and
spread

and what are hands up against them,
the sun people, the sun.

sun children watching themselves in shadows on the shore
at dusk

the sun children will melt on me

the sun children will melt on me at dusk beaches of their
own choosing

dusk runs into sand into water into me.
the sun is up.


the people. by Clark Johnson

People doesn’t make sense. People? Really…
People people, running around.
People people the people in the streets.
Nobody knows what I mean. I don’t know what I mean.
I don’t mean anything.
But I think the people do.

The people melt onto each other.
& the people melt into each other.
People people people, over and over
again.

And the ‘o’ jumps
out and grabs and bites and I
can’t spell it now.
Too many people too many
fucking people on the page.

And I didn’t mean to say that,
but the people mass and swarm
and now we have a sun.
Did the sun melt the people?
I think I should make them
ask, but the sun can’t
melt the people because the people
will keep on melting,
melting all over the streets
under that hot hot sun.

The people aren’t Christian because
they die for themselves. They die
for the other melting people and
they don’t know why. They don’t
know why but they do it all
the same. All the same, all the
people are the same I think.
They will mass and they will
swarm all over each other because
they touched the sun and now
they will be melting.

And NOW we explain, we talk and
tell and expose but what if
we don’t want to know?
I don’t think you thought of that,
You and your people melt all into
each other
and regress into your minds where nothing
happens, and their thoughts about
the people melt and drip? into each other,
I hope they won’t smudge.
They won’t smudge in the future because in the
future everything will stop.

It will stop and they will look and they will
think, over and over again until your children’s
people will melt in the streets, under
the hot hot sun of people peopling people.

That was a new one.