four poems

by Philip Venzke

Vermicelli

Night crawler, what time is it?

The heavy night rain has

sent the last call to your posse.

Droplets dimple the sidewalk.

Maybe a last rumble out east.

Perhaps a flash-bulb in a cloud.

Leaves shining in the streetlight.

Labyrinths razed underground.

Contortions on the blacktop

create an ancient, lost alphabet;

speak an unspoken language.

Silence is a Spring

Who deconstructed Dali’s clock?

As if a weedless, manicured lawn,

the envy of an impressionable neighbor,

could self-wind its internal clock spring.

Deconstruction, it knows, captures

the shiny clippings of an actuality.

Blinkers

 (”Blinkers are used to indicate intention.” - Driver’s Ed Class)

You won’t use them.

No one can tell you

what to do.

To-Do List

Create a new superstition.

The list items will follow.

Photo of Philip Venzke

BIO: Philip Venzke grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin.  His poetry is widely published in magazines throughout the U.S. and Europe.  His chapbook “Chant to Save the World” was a winner of The James Tate International 2021 Poetry Prize (published July 2022 by SurVision Books, Ireland).  His second chapbook “Rules to Change the World” was published by Finishing Line Press in November 2023.  His poems also appear in “Contemporary Surrealist and Magical Realist Poetry (an International Anthology)” edited by Jonas Zdanys, Lamar University Press, 2022.  His third chapbook "The Chronicles of Little Zero" was published in August 2024.  A fourth chapbook "Song of the Empty Hand" is expected to be published in April 2025 by Anxiety Press.  And a fifth chapbook "Abandoned Barn" is expected to be published in June 2025 by Kelsay Books.