Bruce Morton splits his time between Montana and Arizona. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in various magazines and anthologies including, most recently, Muddy River Poetry Review, Main Street Rag, Nixes Mate Review, Grey Sparrow Journal, Anti-Heroin Chic, Sin Fronteras/Writers Without Borders, Pinyon Review, and Blue Unicorn. He was formerly Dean of Libraries at Montana State University.

World’s Fair 1965

Was a blast
 Of sacred and profane
 There in Flushing Meadow,
 Aptly named, where the world’s
 Shit was all on display.
 A huge transparent globe
 Unisphere; I could see
 China from where I stood.
 I felt like dope standing
 Before the Pieta,
 There on loan from the Pope.
 She was devout, holding
 Me fast, my hand in her’s.
 All I could think about
 Was the beer pavilion.
 Well, I mean, Jesus Christ, 
 We were hot.

This Guy Asks Me

 So, this guy asks me,                                                           
 How do you make a poem?
  
 I say, one word at a time
 With or without rhyme.
  
 He says, you know what
 Would make a good poem?
  
 "A guy is sitting drunk at a bar
 But he is making sense."
  
 And here I am thinking,
 I wish that guy were here now.
  
 But, you know, you never know 
 What can make a poem. 

Yeah, Right

 No doubt—absolutely positive.
 The double negative is fixed
 In the rules that rule how we think.
 It cannot not be that we know
 What we know. We are positive 
 It is correct. It must be so.
  
 A negative added to it
 Makes it less positive, even,
 Possibly negative, so that
 There is no certainty, so that
 One is certain or uncertain
 Like Schrödinger’s fucking cat.
  
 But this we know is impossible,
 Two positives cannot be negative.
  
 Yeah, right.