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"Ice Wage"

By David McNicholas

subzero air, and the set was fixed like concrete until I came to chop it loose

because of the breakage, how many must have starved that winter,

            frozen in low wages, loose

 

whatever you do, never attempt to mix colors on your paper. you may drop,

you may wipe out, the properties of points, lines, and planes, loose

 

to stand frost, and handle the burning, all on your hands

I purposely repeat, repeat, paper, palette, possible, let it dry loose

 

this direct laying on of, not over a plumb line

shown in a piece of aspen, but willow will do, loose

 

nailed and wired together, because of waste little crimson

will supply you with a dull green, kept on coming loose

 

staining the snow and flooding the ice, minutes and seconds

each degree is divided into sixty minutes, and each minute is loose

 

large irregular mound, never forget what it amounted to was work

flat when compared with the first, interest is usually considered money, loose

 

and of not touching it afterwards to say that transparency, and  charm,

peculiar to out there in that amaze, often with thin gloves or nothing, loose

 

in the usual sense of the term of brushing an arc is any

irregular or free curve represented in the low of the mouth, loose

 

find it again in the spring, a tremendous multi-layered sheet

of ice built up on the slough. nothing could be loose

 

parallel lines make a small ring of deep color a constant

distance apart and never cross, rinse out your brush or seize another–loose

 

the brown pond water, released from its ice prison, surged up foaming

sometimes the water, contained by a straight line, a tangent line, loose

 

here is the suitable place to suggest, not far from where I thought

the deepest part ways with the big chisel through six feet of ice

as I stood there, perspiring in the cold, ice clear river water bubbled up in the hole, loose.

2024 spring head shot_edited.png

About the Artist

David John Baer McNicholas is from a working-class background. He has been on travel in New Mexico for three years. He is the author of the novel Lemons: In an Orchard, and operates the nascent imprint ghostofamerica ltd co (Anarchy, Abolition, Art). He is currently at home studying for his BFA in Creative Writing and AA in Native Studies at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe while reading CNF for BendingGenres.com. His linked CV can be found at ghostofamerica.net. David loves doom jazz, tostones, and absurdist films.

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