Poems

Ice Breaker by Evan Simeone If this poem's logic recedes in shades
from hot foreground reds to distant pale blues
it contradicts itself. If it fades
backward from the sestet – from sunset hues

of gold and red toward a cool anterior –
it exemplifies itself. But neither way
is arguably much inferior
to another poem's monochrome display.

Okay, my poems are fraught this way; their rules-
based texts are overwrought. But the mere thought
of rigging every word with some device,

tinkering with syllable-sprung modules
to devise some trick contraption, some hot
shot widget, breaks the page's blank white ice.