[Ugly ground you hold so much]

Ugly ground                you hold so much
in you               so much ugly ground              What occupants
you welcome               or at least
permit              Ugly ground     what host you are
you play-actor             too eager to be
a librettist        sans verbal      sans groundlessness    since
you      ugly ground     exacerbate the ecstasy            celebrate
the holdings you hold             the stakes you stake    the claims
you lay claim to          Ugly ground    you are active
in your passivity         an activity unto itself              and of itself
Ugly ground    this is what swell moss feels radiating
from you         This is what swell moss
attaches itself to          Ugly ground    whatever sense
of fallenness     whatever pejorative stockpiles you sift
for the sake of your own         what ownedness and onanism
you fault less is yours             You want to spill your seed
ugly ground     on yourself      your ugly ground        your brilliance
so be it            keep spilling and spilling and sensing
swell moss there to sop it up

Jacob Schepers is the author of A Bundle of Careful Compromises (Outriders Poetry Project 2014). His writing has appeared in Verse, Tupelo Quarterly, The Fanzine, Entropy, Burning House Press, Deluge, and the anthology My Next Heart: New Buffalo Poetry (BlazeVOX 2017). He tweets @JacobSchepers and finds an online home at jacobschepers.com.