Seagull Attack

November 5, 2022 Kevan Copeland

Seagull Attack

Suddenly, something went
for the head, and I
turned German
Expressionist, elongated
and aged in a vicious splatter
of American Abstract.

Through swoops, batter
and blur, I saw claws
scratch and extract
thick pigments, interrupting
watercolour assumptions
in my innocuous walk.

I think, observing
in furious whites
and occasional yellow
frenzies of angle and edge,
was a visionary eye
crafting something undone.

Now the physician is finishing
the image with pointillist
tracks, splashing tetanus
vaccine through avenues and cracks;
and as representation, when I am seen
I am more accurate than I have been.

An Artisan

July 23, 2022July 23, 2022 Kevan Copeland

An Artisan

The persona is a bruise,
not a self. It builds
being via craftsmanship.

Structure covers lack
of formation—scaffolding
camouflages decoration.

The body ages, contains
something young—
in him performs

The play
of discipline and inspiration.
Calloused, grasping

Is now granting
shape: into fabrication.
Construction is cacophonous:

Beams pirouette
before steeling; a father
once latent, now testing.

Cataract At The Lip

June 19, 2022July 3, 2022 Kevan Copeland

Cataract At The Lip

Of the glass, vision sipped
from the gush of amygdala—open
your brim to the lush
of Monet. Pour from the frame:

Chardonnay in a quiver,
disperse and flow—livid
strobes of Van Gogh.
Then, harden and flay

Off clots to metallic
coruscations—figments of Klimt.
Now: stiffen to spirits
dispirited, and disparate—pause

In thoughtful paralysis: Hopper.
No stopper for an Imagist
cascading the palate: paint
an intoxicant; the body, a blotter.

As A Novelist

May 14, 2022July 3, 2022 Kevan Copeland

As A Novelist

I control words coerced into being
more than myself. A concatenation
of pages, books, brains: manipulation
is my expertise. I shape your seeing.

I appease inspiration with my clutch;
whether tomes, music, lives—I have a touch
of kleptomania. Reined in my fist:
the fluidity of a pugilist

Dancing in a pen. Personality
disorders, so my borderlines are kept
writing, as I create reality

Conforming to my vision: great. Except—
buried in my lather of character
is a girl, and I cannot extract her.

Interview with an Immortal

February 13, 2016 Kevan Copeland

suture1

Interview with an Immortal

I don’t live the finite life, but life revived
within each mind. I’m not a mind, like the kind
I entertain; but when we meet, we share
a brain, where I’m alive, but not contained.

My planet is an active mind, aroused
through time; an ageless host, I know, but note:
parasites don’t enrich a life; I give
back what time invests. Though I have no flesh,

I have a form, and a depth; I just need
a being to give me being. When it leaves,

My end is not a death; just a break between
the lives that give me mine. From a line
my life extends, pulled by needle through each head,
and hurts: Sublime—suturing immortal life.

This poem appeared previously on the Very Nice, Very Nice blog under the pseudonym Anthony Zanetti.