May 1, 2025 Poetry

public beach and s is for negation

Artwork by G. Meggeson

 

public beach   
	
	
you pull blades of grass   twist them   bow ties
afraid to swim   show your body   

I fall   waves   glide dumb   eyes shut
you sit on shore   a boy 

staring down edge   flat Earth   falling 		 
dreaming   no dream   no     

we were both (I say it now) adopted 
bodies once removed   forwarding

shaky crests   spilling breakers   look   
silly dogs dance and pee on public land  

gull wing feathers mark now   X    
we dust sand   kids run   waves   forwarding

we ride from Frenchman’s   you hold me on the bike
each stop start   you fall   catch   stop start     

lost an earring   I want to tell you
slipped off Earth or skittered hell down road

I want   I want to
I want to tell you




s is for negation 


&for scrounging   for sinking  stinking   empty signifying
for sliding   so sorry singing   somatising   for Schrödinger kitty killing    

&for falling   failing   forgetting   always fidgeting   &reiterating  
for Felicity &Fiona   for flagrancy   larceny   hair lice residency 

&for banana peeling   dreaming   slipping   10 sec just wow finishing   
for sucking/blowing   for fighting unto losing   i.e. not winning

for sabotaging   coasting   running   doodling   hoarding  and not sweating
for not just being   for not bees-kneeing   for not (except for ass) kissing

for not washing   for not working   for not waiting    for always wah-wahing        
for blabbing   biting   bullying   yelling   yodeling   yawning   tearing   &teething    

for sitting with you standing   for I-ing and not thouing  dogging   dodging   deking 
for empty promising   blasting   cruising   &spendthrifting with poor souls dying

for Mr. Tambourine Man-ing w/bootheels not wandering   for sleepy being and not  
   followin’ you
for evening’s empire not returning into sand   nor vanishing from my hand

&for name-dropping   star-fucking   talent-draining   scatter-braining 
for garbage eating   gate-hopping   binge-watching   &fart-ripping           

for clowning w/o smiling   for grabbing w/o thanking   not even nodding     
for remembering    &then repeating without remembering   not even   

for liquor   for licenselessness   for stolen sentences used any old way   
&for sleeping splayed   below blue sky   w/door of beauty shut all day

Sean G. Meggeson

Sean G. Meggeson lives in Toronto, Canada, where he works as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist. He has written and lectured on such topics as Lacan & James Joyce, neurodiversity, and interspecies intersubjectivity. Meggeson has published poems in print and on the web.

Profiles:

X/Twitter: @lippykookpoetry

Website: https://lippykookpoetrymachine.blogspot.com/

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public beach and s is for negation

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