I drew alternating apples and pears

on the margins of a mortarboard cap

and thumbed inkwells and statues at Goodwill

slipping from trance to trance like a neap tide.

I used to retrace old sketches to reel

in my addictions. Now I’m stern-anchored

in terabytes of imagery. This is 

a test of my idiopathic rage.

My owlish scowl hiccups back to a glassed

frame on the wall above kids romping through 

reams of board books, the kind you just can’t help 

thinking will edge over into pat rhymes.

I’ll never know how far west I wandered

hitched to habits I once was sure I chose.

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Lance Newman‘s poems have appeared in print and web magazines in the US, UK, and Australia, including Action/Spectacle, Blazevox, Dusie, otoliths, No Tell Motel, Sugar House Review, Stride, West Wind Review, and Zyzzyva. He has published two chapbooks: Come Kanab (Dusi-e/chaps Kollectiv, 2007) and 3by3by3 (Beard of Bees, 2010). His first full-length collection, Proverbs of Earth, was published by Spuyten Duyvil Press in 2025. Newman teaches literature, media, and writing at Westminster University in Salt Lake City, Utah. For more information, see http://www.lancenewman.org