Noah Eli Gordon in Small Town
Poem Beginning Without a Capital Letter
or beginning without capital, crushed
as a caption below the figure of no figure
mimicking night after day the contour
of evaporative logic, consistency flushed
from the lamp, hardwired to the mush
under a half-formed statute made obscure
or beginning without capital, crushed
as a caption below the figure of no figure
that mimics nothing so much as the onrush
of the poem, twisted like musculature
or scaffolding, or twisting in its non sequitur
a reasoned voice, a rising voice, a voice hushed
or beginning without capital—the voice is crushed