William Kherbek – Four poems

Mermaid Haikus

She half-expected
and he half expected her
to kiss like a woman.

Porno tableau: pink
hair mermaid cries pearl tears.
Hunger leaves a stain.

Vision: stoned fish tank
glow, her face pokes out just past
the plastic castle.

What Happens on Tour/Generational Spokes-Mermaid Haibun

I still live in those cold unknowing journeys, eternally half-asleep but
with the deepest recess of my brain violently awake. Everything is passing
unreal when you can’t read road signs or advertising, or even the syntax of
the visual clues a culture leaves for itself. In total night I was walking
through some barely real town, my head barely fastened on. I looked up at
the light bulb areolae as they set the face of a young German
spokes-mermaid gleaming. In the end, I managed to wrestle something about
broadband from it. I slept that night next to the train station because it
was lighter there than anywhere else.

In the station moon-
light, everything is possible
even this mermaid.

William Kherbek is the visual art critic for Port Magazine, his weekly reviews can be found Fridays at http://www.port-magazine.com. His writing has also appeared in several publications produced by the London gallery Arcadia Missa including in the forthcoming edition of How to Sleep Faster. For more informationwww.arcadiamissa.com.

Order a copy of Lines Underwater if you’d like to read three new poems by William!