DAVID MARQUARD
SCRATCH PAPER
Invention begins with the initial experience
recalling back the images, the words—
a continuous act of arranging and rearranging:
part to parsed, the oft prescribed style,
just some agreed codes to construct
inside the conceived illocutionary force
which always falls and fails as
tenses and time pass the past patterns
scripted permanently and imperfect,
styled to blare at the blear, memorizing
the voiced pages for a moment, as then
it is aligned, committed to deliverance.
WHERE I WAS
I wanted to say
you won’t be around long
and I will never
promise nothing.
Soon I will be here when you
separate from everything I know
and I will touch your distance
remembering nothing.
David Marquard is a writer and an assistant professor of English at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan. He teaches writing, rhetoric, and linguistics. He has published in both academic and creative venues.