Three Poems
Darren Demaree

A DAMAGED THINKER #40  

I would leave a note
for the director, I 
would simply leave

& abandon my use
as a landscape
for the Ohio academics,

I would go back
to Europe, for a while,
maybe find a Greek

with both of her arms
gone, lost to time
& looters, we could

try not to lose too much
skin as we rested against
each other.  I would

 never actually leave
a note.  I would leave
& owe them nothing

more than my absence.


A DAMAGED THINKER #41  

I am an original,
now.  I was one
of many originals,

there were twenty
of us, almost
too lovely to be

brothers, and most
of them never
knew how I became

disabled enough
to be original enough
to become held blood

& not one them ever
asked what else that
bomb took from me.


 A DAMAGED THINKER #42  

Go on
with your camera
& snap

the whole book
of my goodbyes
& snap

 it off, your fistdeep into
my sharp-edging.

There is an angle
where I look
strong enough

 to go on
& snap free
& dive into

the water only
a hundred yards
in front of me.

There is an angle
where I appear
to be cavern only.


 

About the author:
Darren C. Demaree is the author of As We Refer to Our Bodies (8th House, 2013), Temporary Champions (Main Street Rag, 2014), and Not For Art Nor Prayer (8th House, 2015).  He is the Managing Editor of the Best of the Net Anthology.  He is currently living in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children.