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Tim Rogers

Bio: Tim Rogers is an American poet living in Czechia, Europe. He runs an English-language bookstore there and sits on the board of a non-profit English-language resource and community center. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Bombay Gin, Brooklyn Review, Otoliths, After Hours, Indefinite Space, Molly Bloom and B O D Y among other literary outlets. He has been anthologized in The Return of Král Majáles and was a fellow at the New York Mills Regional Cultural Center in Minnesota.

Watch Dogs

I can’t follow you through busy streets , narrow Walls , white-washed facades , brick , strict Uprights shadowing the light . Who knows who Built the verticals , who drew up the plans ? Curbside litter might have been a signal, a dog Marking boundaries of its territory carefully Inscribed along lines of what’s theirs as opposed To yours or mine . Two daily loaves , grind of nine Blocks up , five over , familiar as your mongrel Living in the labyrinth , every step a mind field Memories , the past , puppyhood and innocence Stalking predators the avenues know all too well Countered now with posted fliers pasted by Vigilante mobs supporting comforts they prefer Remain in the safe confines of intimate society

Destination

According to reports in a city of tall buildings People earn wages toiling anonymously In stark boxy office cubicles excited by neon People who appreciate the beauty of the moon Dressed in a mottled face reflecting yellow greyly
When suddenly the blinding sun bursts in Through a sky bluer than your eyes It’s strange you don’t quite remember The day , the date , the details of the hour He desired to give you as a gift , he’s left
Questioning everyone , “How do I get home? How can I explain the river jeweled in precious stones Floating free unbound from any setting?” It was then someone sold him a job
Deciding he’d earned his ticket , a passerby pointing Shading his eyes against the blinding glare Said, “There!”
In that moment his decision had been made He swam for it , discovering a word One he’d never heard uttered anywhere before A sound with the ring of everything unfamiliar It finished all his communications Entirely and forever

Signal to Noise

unfamiliar with technology streaming inputs filter in from geosynchronous satellites
how did that come to be? how had she arrived here an ignorant traveler as if
what happened had happened by design , according to plan where is it she’s going to
whizzing through eternity? she became interconnected dependent all over again
every algorithm calculated reinterprets a lived history simply laid out pages need
kindness in a map of words she lost herself over and above faces that she thinks she knows
warm flesh she wants to caress as she set out heading home whatever meaning home has now

A Distant Memory

She’s afraid of how the past looks back on her In the gallery of the Ottoman Empire The market for desire is as yet unknown She’s the undiscovered prize scrabbled afterIn a box of Cracker Jacks waiting to be opened
Better the forgetfulness of Anatolian uncertainties Looking her over head to toe , feelings maybe She turns heel hoping for something a touch better More available , lips puckered in sensuous ruin
A shared parade of byzantine embellishments Bag of popcorn and only a little dismay Losing the stone cold couple staring at her Hammered blade with dried blood flaking-off That’d been passed hand to hand, a souvenir
Everything denied, preserved, given time Their kiss was just an artist’s depiction Passion wrapped in the familiar film of allure Frozen when preservatives would have done

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