Michael Berton

Poetic Topspin

alphabetic surprise typeset
splices lexicon mimicry
provokes syllabic altercation
code switching on the microphone
techno cipher pivot
callous braille theorem
inflammatory tuba tongues
on bass face snout apparition

this pure riot end rhyme
syntactical word dice
emotes zigzag assault
dueling larynx inside
nincompoop sinus
enjambed purrs
obfuscate rhapsodizing
jugular and gagging
duplicitous diction
corroborates the besmirched
trill festering like corns
contoured in stiletto chords

who could endure the grunt
and the carnal logos delirium
roughed up signifying
faux-paux emancipation
persona misrecognition voice
criticism mandates
reader ensemble exit
performing on community conduits




Scotch Broom

dots of quantitative yellow surprise side
of trail tics often at calves thick hair
protruding curly cued muscle flexing congruent
blood vessels thorned by subliminal pigment
splat splotched verse in transit stanza on
rotation rote poetics dangling breaths backwash
self potential driving the chi and tao
dribble across abrupt tracer gleams tensile
on the bum or call the bum an ass hole in one
whole in body and mind cleft among leftovers
soggy and spoiled now left to the dregs
drinking dollar draughts during daylight
squeeze rubber string bands taut along
heaven to hell route in the zephyr clique
medusa cult springs spectacle raving macabre
spelling lingo quick on the gringo grub




No Shade In Aztlan

Crossing the border
on a degenerate pack mule
the burden of hauling
a tumultuous diction by rote
with an omniscient narrator
on your boot heels
a stigmata of predacious proportion
exculpating the rubics
of maximum gore.

You the refugent reeking
of carcass spirituality
reeling from spasmodic
torrential borings
pumicing all visibly
known nomenclature
from quagmire faces.

Humans excogitating
in their greedy
anthropomorphic foibles
rebarbative cackle of the millennium
redivivus conviviality with
spoken deity scribbled
virulent upon virgin sabbath sands
sojourned a dry gust impress
on an exiled shroud.

Dead skin parchment flayed
tendril shavings of pecados
laconic and kinetic in a lunatic
skeweyed prepotent perusal
bewitching a gnostic gaze
in tangled recusancy
los dedos son mal
brazen gringo mimics
smote bulbous sores
on three chisled hail marys.

Your muse as persona non grata
satan’s black pabulum
fabulous facsimile
derivative of its coarse dialect
as character’s shift archetypes
a mirage in the reader’s foci
a desert dirge tabla raza
questing as a disputed voyeur
copacetic to the lunar eye
in a crimson sage spectrum.




Michael Berton (M. Wescott Berton) is an educator, poet, worldtraveler, percussionist and tequila aficionado. He lives in Portland, Oregon.