Two Poems by Jeff Cove

Here are my recent poems on Defenestration.

Two Poems by Jeff Cove

As with a lot of my stuff, these started out as senryu. I tore through a bunch of ideas with oddball perspectives, weird voices, surreal setups, and poems that intentionally fail.

Many of those felt complete in senryu form. For example, this one still feels finished to me. There’s not much more I want to say here:

this house is fireproof
no need to even worry
hi house, it's me: fire

These two, though, felt like they wanted to stretch their legs.

With Horse Thoughts I wanted to really circle the failed metaphor a bit more than I could as a senryu. At The Eldritch Horror Zoo felt like it could be funnier with a deadpan, bureaucratic approach.

I am proud of these and happy to see them out there.

Here’s the original senryu:

if i was a horse
i’d be, like, into horse... stuff
didn't think this through

eldritch horror zoo
we pet the shoggoth with care
and then glyphs appear