466 Steps in Trying — J. Zachary Kimball


        wise in ascertation
        for a rebuttle called helemph
        A left-handed nearness to a
        center needed.
        grave and earnest    infeasible
        to eat a stabler’s shortcomings
        There is a white wall
        too understood
        too robust
        to bisect.
        hand is to pass
        as obdurate is to penis
        as to disintegrate an
                (I)
        would be to
        silence this,
        dregs upon dregs
        and full of
        impermeable sediment
        as if sentiment mattered at
        the wask of a
        tin raised
        steel-plated
        wing
        that never gets
        much use in
        post-clement phases.
        It could brush a
        decrepit trumpet
        of its vein
        or
        a floor from its feather.
        sometimes angles stick
        to wetter places
        more giving than this.

        not see weight melted
        molten die
        and all clothes are close
        to same
        when in sunny eyes.
        Though, be asked may
        though who molests
        the sun?
        who is qualified to
        model
        a model and
        model unlike?
Supplant (I) eat shears
        and shears alike
        will not condone
        fluidity like this
        overheads
        because they are
        on top of bodies.
        The nature of heads is
        that they are inflexible
        to nod in 466 steps:
        to nod in desperation
        to nod in pretendation
        a bitter bitter thing.

               -one to drink
                           to

       h t boet ies at act
       s rs w p ed I pla c
       c er a s a ham


       And it wonders
       how a star can find
       the way to black and white
       suppose xanthoderma
       suppose a sudden “then as well”
       then and only then are
       we allowed to respell ~
       This is why jobs are lost
       This is why we realize (we suddenly have jobs)
       but cannot say: (the meal is the most important)
       because we cannot say
       anything at all.
       Halloo, yelp, cheer, bark
       in an arcane triumphant
       quarto…
       listlessness
       broken-winded passing through
       the open station
       There should be an aunt
       reading the tarots’
       exhibit, guide, trench
       wise in intersection,
       There should have been
       a stop sign planted by churls
       and swains alike.
       There should have been
       regularity in
       pasts of syllabic pasts
       decretal
       of what stands
       shall stand lozengened
       by wax and vets claiming
       they found “god”
       in a foxhole!
       “I’ve found God in a foxhole!
       I’ve sprained my ankle and
       found God in a foxhole!”
       stories to stories upon spider webs
       bent backward by tin to silver
       and into the wind.

       Backerei must be an
       assemblage
       to cannot look but
       impulsively bid.
       Ice cream to be business
       to be “adjunct”
       to be eaten quickly
       as not to pressure
       but volcanic tide
       from highest ranks
       slidden down to
       a hand that will mop up
       swiftly as a manner could
       be taught
       to prevent
       to indulge
       a heart-shaped lick
       be one seam
       in sleep
       where these
       seen substantiations
       can take place
       with a nocturnal vision
       that they actually are
       as is.
       to have hatched an egg
       before sun takes its course
       to let the birds know
       of premature
       natal care with a
       flick flack wrack
       of a wrist
       poised backwards an
       entire life
       spelled in a pair of socks
       barbed with holly
       and rosemede but mostly
       holly.

       Euthanasia spared a person
       from living
       to boring a house circumvented
       with thoughts of
       pretty people glow
       less in light     draw upon
       to upon brevity that
       show itself in walking
       marionette to be the
       sickest thought since
       pancakes in the thick
       of a bloated mojave
       less phlegmatic than
       the dead cacti descending
       into a gray dashed triangle
       that would determine the
       space in which to write.
       to never say what is to
       write what is beheld
       behind glasses of eyes
       that stamp and clam
       angerously.
       Cambric like some
       Ill-trotted cooking book
       mosting on a brain
       than can give the
       best: as less as
       can morsel a satiation
       if were less than
       the drunkards of the moon
       shine as they spitfire
       genius only to be once
       said and never remembered
       never like the rays
       that made a league
       of fire for lips to cook
       the irrevocable red meat
       that no one eats
       only because they say so.

       blush as said to
       heat is said to
       cut blades of grass
       and what are they cut to do
       in times like these?
       in times like these
       isn’t there supposed to be
       a heat wave or a fire
       to crane
       us high
       to where we can never
       see again?
       To clamber in pride
       upon a ladder
       would be the height of a
       civilization called boy
       and then he’d learn
       of why missing left hands
       and protected boxes are
       as they
       are
       and sometimes
       are
       as they
       cannot help themselves
       to be.

       the more lived would say
       a diamond in the skull
       is the worst terror
       a general could fend
       if he were a man
       he would allow a blackened
       pit into his liver or stomach
       and let it be while he shaved
       and carried on
       pendulant as if his brain
       moved with the fault line
       it was set upon.
       As if the Volga never
       stopped
       for a good reason.
       it is wonderous how
       the ineffectual never
       yields the river
       rampant or hated
       continuous and bitten
       to where a bite is no longer felt
       because it is done by a mother
       supposed that given thing
       still holds sacred.
       suppose that things were
       as planned?

       Unluckless as an
       unleavened egg
       see weatherman
       for a bid that
       made the air
       so flat
       please forward
       to one that
       can keep the hand
       still enough to
       specialize in sitting
       pattern to pigeon
       when we see a quilt
       in the patterns
       of starvation.
       No one
       appreciates your calls
       results reason to think that this first one failed
       to Hebrew to hiccup
       right now is a great
       part
       a great part of our history
       bivouac to remain in houses
       in a place grown sterile
       for their own sakes.
       don’t touch this stuff
       just hope in vein
       you will shoot
       your own head out

       estuary in an armpit
       isn’t an armpit.
       it is what the monolith
       felt to plant
       when it issues
       nothing of wetness.
       All the stars have
       their rook and twice
       a queen.
       when is a queen disgraced
       when oh Edmund
       can skin be felt
       when there is hair
       between the hand
       and the skull.

       A curtain call
       bellied-up in a
       pond or a moat
       disinter something that
       continues to live
       deed without name
       process with more
       than needed.
       Perpetuity sans
       all-terrain vehicles
       stop at stop signs
       only for a rearrangement of
       colors and chalks
       sharpen lines
       elongate eyes
       that were fit to
       see only
       sunlight.
       If you open
       your ears
       you may even hear
       a shitty mother
       protect her vomiting
       daughter.
       presentiment with shoes
       that they’ll actually
       help. to calcium
       deposit walk
       walk for longer
       feet for rocks
       petrified for wood
       that still stands
       in middles of deserts.
       To gull there is
       a bread that would
       fit into a trunk.
       to roots that house
       the standing
       sand. Aw,
       piss on Atlas!
       here see a dipsea
       trail and a clan
       to secure you from it.
       preservative feign
       taedium vitae
       Katcha was a
       fleshpot of Egypt
       and light as beer.
       A neuron
       A center
       of pomegranite.

       to incure in
       a swamp no less!
       exposedness
       datil datil datil
       helemph hod
       shawanee sheak  ey
       teak ey.       A bench.
       This is your birthplace
       child.
       and said “child”
       ignis fatuus
       did you get saftied
       into your life?
       did you try
       to cut your nails
       like that? On
       floors they
       catch to the wires of
       hair and nightly
       visitors.
       Breadth
       evance on hills
       that show
       to show
       how small we’ve
       made the sun’s reflection
       upward.

       en teflon
       seen jutted out
       praxis on white
       tile to line
       to a point where
       it can condense
       no more
       silly vases cracked
       into a store
       to store is
       to never exercise
       or walk these
       466 steps past
       darkness to light
       in midsleep. Convecture
       co-dependant only
       if one were to
       remark “sleep with me
       for godsakes”
       when lost for
       translation object
       to terms introduction
       for narrative.
       Commutative is a favorite
       son. Powerful sun
       to carry this
       down
       upon grass.

       Take this rotten
       old tree to see if
       in there and here
       is better than everywhere
       rock-studded rope promising
       something unobserved. It
       can depict tired. formulaless
       to x there is x
       kiss us all
       poor serfdom mainly
       silenced for not
       bothering to see
       consequent revulsion

       da l a I e be n
       w in g ant p a g
       it e r c ms s

       chased out by
       dreaming horizon
       nature’s dry well
       to no no clearly
       have climbed for
       no reason apparent
       into prison
       to and fro before
       standing draw
       on a screen
       philistining what means
       a favor from
       to a simple hander
       as easily said
       and done.
       please leave us here
       when walking to
       never away    for cars
       need their rest
       nocturnal bumped
       a shoulder tapped
       only lightly by
       headlights to downstairs
       if you’re lucky.
       Only if you’re lucky.
       Elapsynchrosity from
       two rooms panting
       to belt one another
       in time
       to feel careful
       oddities when planted
       to revise as
       best they can
       electricity never
       leaves
       to point the way



J. Zachary Kimball was born in Baltimore, Md. and is currently living in San Francisco where he runs and operates his own pressure washing business. He is finishing an MFA at San Francisco State where he rarely attends class and drinks as much scotch as his body will allow. Every so often, he and his cronies are the continual subject of a documentary based on the post-modern renaissance man dilemma.



Typo — Issue Two