Mike Bagwell
![]()
GRAMMATOLOGY
One animal is an animal but
more than one animal is a longing.
At night, the shadow that glides and falls
comes back with malevolent intent
and a metal-reinforced vector of desire.
It is safe now to want it all to last
or to be compelled to weep.
Here, this is a method of blinking in a hole
the size of your palm. Skypenis, newly arrived,
proliferates this knowledge, basks
in it with a birdbath joy. He gestures
and lightning slips out as thoughts.
God is too small. He is meant to be the last,
but the rest of the sky keeps planning more
which is a little sad. My friend filled
my hands with rocks. Not that kind of fill,
I mean taxidermy, only the good rocks,
the unsmooth ones that no one throws.
As in wild longing, remember
where your home is and don’t try to find it.
PASTORAL
All the time, regular things
still happen. Breeze gathers
in wild oaks, noon moves on
to the west like a gunslinger
to get swept up somewhere
along Hegel’s dialectic,
black letters on cardboard signs say
distance
is a worthwhile enemy
even to itself.
Guns are as close
to telekinesis
as we’re going to get.
Ruin some beer can’s day
and just barely think about it.
Glow in the dark leaves:
now that’s a technology
I could dedicate my life to.
When they fall, they light a path
that takes me behind the pond
to somewhere else.
Biographical Statement
Mike Bagwell is exploring gratitude as a poetic form until it's overwhelming, while still overcoming a recent bout of mutual antagonism towards the sky. He is a writer and software engineer in Philly. His work appears in Action Spectacle, ITERANT, Sprung Formal, Heavy Feather, HAD, Bodega, Okay Donkey, and others. He is the author of chapbooks A Collision of Soul in Midair (Bottlecap Press 2023), Or Else They Are Trees (El Aleph Press), and micros from Ghost City Review and Rinky Dink Press. Find him at mikebagwell.me, @low_gh0st, or playing dragons with his daughters.