new from above/ground press: BUSY SECRET, by Micah Ballard

BUSY SECRET
Micah Ballard
$5

FRANCIS FARMER

Embroidering
pranks delicate helix hand
please forgive my radiance
of new and ferocious types
this is your tomb too
the remote control is for everyone
in the sky there’s no competition
cigarettes smoke themselves
all the clouds could care less
banter is only banter
it polishes its own secrets
when the heavenly demons
come back where will you be?
Please keep next to me

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
February 2024
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Cover image/design: Colter Jacobsen

Micah Ballard is the author of over a dozen books of poetry including Waifs and Strays (City Lights Books), Afterlives (Bootstrap Press), The Michaux Notebook (FMSBW), Krewes (Bootstrap Press), Selected Prose, 2008-19 (Blue Press), Evangeline Downs (Ugly Duckling Presse), Daily Vigs (Bird & Beckett Books), Vesper Chimes (Gas Meter), Muddy Waters (State Champs), and Negative Capability in the Verse of John Wieners (Bootstrap Press). He lives in San Francisco with poet Sunnylyn Thibodeaux, their daughter Lorca, and co-edits Auguste Press and Lew Gallery Editions.

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; in US, add $2; outside North America, add $5) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9. E-transfer or PayPal at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com