Barren Form

Barren Form

Dennis Hinrichsen

I push a little money into the algorithm
and am unrelieved ::

I am seen ::

the perfume of
my living

unleashing
bombardments I must be inured to

by now ::

time's shimmery robe flexing over
each thing

I might consume :: even this chair
I am

sitting in right now :: see how the poem
digests it ::

river sound I noticed earlier
slowly

leaking ::
there is found Christ in it :: the immolation

of what I've spent          what
I am saying now

processed ::
assessed :: taxed :: this spread sheet life

throbbing in ragged
lines like a bar of enriched uranium ::

and so I linger     being watched
lingering ::

this is the fallout ::

cash tip
freighting last human message

I share with barista :: you are poor
as I am

poor :: together we shall beggar

this hollow day ::
it's how we keep the god-yachts alive ::

O soft porn world 
how you slayed with

crypto-mania-bikini-drone strike

when I scrolled morning dose ::
body

may be diminished

but libido
is this world's zombie fire :: brain still

burning from the inside out
as if

struck by lightning :: it aches ::

the arguments
for total frontal nudity arriving later ::

that
file's marked Anonymity and Death ::

the coroner scene ::

maybe some ritual washing
if wife

still lives :: if daughter's brave :: the lyrics
fashioned

if memory is truly lyric :: minimal ::

compressed ::
not market share or trends :: brisk

futures
in grain or metal :: but

one slim man :: living done  ::

he won't burn long :: naked before the fire

---

Dennis Hinrichsen's most recent book is dementia lyrics from Green Linden Press. His previous books include Dominion + Selected Poems, Flesh-plastique, and schema geometrica, also from Green Linden. He has new work forthcoming in Barrow Street, Bombay Gin Literary Review, diode, The Indianapolis Review, Petrichor, Rawhead, and elsewhere. He lives in Lansing, Michigan.