William Kherbek: Three Poems

The Corner Office

Snickering days of power,
 A flowering stream
That resists all efforts to guide it towards more productive ends.
We'll see how long it goes on like that.

You're stepping off the plane
Off the train, the electrobike,
The hire scooter lodged in Centuries of death. In your eyes, You're the lucky ones: meeting
 At a business roundtable, Expositions frozen in hyperstitions. Nobody winks

These days, a certain expressiveness dies like a tennis ball falling still
In Sunday's dew.
It was always just

An affectation, you say, portending something while delivering
The lowest feasible return.



Doge Coin

I'll forget about it tomorrow,
But maybe it lives in tomorrow,
Already. I get confused by the needs
Of markets. Sometimes we argue
Sometimes it's more like a leather strap
That links us together
In satrapies, in efficiencies.
Our violence connects us; it's wrong to expect too much.
These are some afferent days. Seriously,
I mention it 
Just in the hope of learning
How our final vortex will look.
I never learn.
I write blank letters to the editor
Who knows good and well
I'm never cancelling my subscription.



Debt Bestiary

Do you have a problem with
Blank
Drugs
Leaving the house
Lung fibres
Sleeping
Waking up
Staying awake
Being awake
Sleep walking
Institutional barriers to your existence
Inscribed in the very time in which
You experience the
Kelp
Dolphins you barely met
Back pain
Your subscription
New regulations concerning energy use Circulation
Assimilation
German poetry
Public speaking
Your bed
House music
Large objects
The weight of what isn't visible but present Restless legs
Wandering wombs
An unusually low shoulder
The memory of passenger pigeons Quantum conclusions
Wandering wounds
The way this ends,
Or fails to?



Habib William Kherbek is the writer of several works of fiction, including Ecology of Secrets (2013), ULTRALIFE (2016), Twenty Terrifying Tales from our Technofeudal Tomorrow (2021), and Fail Worse (2024) all published by Arcadia Missa, as well as New Adventures (2020), and Best Practices (2021), published by left gallery and Moist Books respectively. His poetry has been published by If A Leaf Falls Press, Arcadia Missa, and left gallery. Kherbek’s art journalism has appeared in numerous publications including Flash Art, Burlington Contemporary, Sleek, Ocula, and Spike among other titles. His collected art writings were published in Entropia Vol. 1 & 2 (2022) by Abstract Supply.