Clint Smith

Of Restlessness

Say “it’s something that goes away.” Say “you can’t explain fire.” I can’t draw a flat line, or sketch the
dead outside of their habitat. Say “don’t think of trains as a way of escape.” The taken away is evocative.
Cast about: something to do. Something to say, eat, smoke. Perhaps a variety of wasting disease in
repose, yet the mind still putting children and roundabouts in dreams. Something eating away at the trunk.
Don’t have to feel that there should be a destination. Casting out: tendrils, netting, a needle. Doesn’t find
anything. Say “you leave your house, and don’t know where to go.” Wandering into I’m not sure it’s a
place. It could be advertising, a drink, a color. Returning home, not fearing travel, what is close to the
meetings of the walls, end of the room, purpose. 



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Clint Smith is a jazz musician, poet, and fiction writer who is at his best when improvising and writing in boisterous public spaces. A graduate of New York University, his poems have appeared previously in Full of Crow Magazine, The Petrichor Review, and on the online cultural portal turbula.net. Further works can be found online at https://clintsmithpoetry.wordpress.com.