Window Pain

There is a man

with a window

for a face.

He is perturbed;

it troubles him

because

he can’t see out

but any(every)one can see in.

The rotten hair curtains

hang down—frame his edges—

but do not offer any protection.

they are lacerated

beyond repair:

worms of death and decay

have torn each into each.

Each day he feels

the uniqueness of

the people who pass him—

but no consent.

His cracked countenance

gives no indication

that it hurts or

that he actively resists

the daily rape from the passerby.

But each day he

spreads into nothing

spreads into nothing.

He grows weak.

staring, staring—

there is no closure.

When you took me that day

underneath the boundless crystal sky,

the lutescent sun that could never burn

as fiercely or hotly as our lust,

and the delicate fingers of the clouds

that wished (in vain) to reach with intention

the way our fingers reached toward each other,

we left patches of flattened grass

in the shape of our love in that meadow.

I went back the next day

and they were gone.

functional organs

in medieval times,
people believed that
all your feelings were stored
in your liver.

in the present day,
i drink because
i'm happy and
i deserve to celebrate.

i think these two
are connected
somehow.

if i ever tell you
i love you with all my liver,
i mean it.
and if i say that my drinking
is carving you a bigger place
to sit, then i mean that too.

livers can regrow themselves.
so too, my spirits.

oranges are tumors.
morbid.
pick, drain, and drink.

i think
what i liked best
about meeting you
twice a month
in a seedy motel 6
in a tiny town off i81
is that you never called me
a(ny) name
i couldn't live up to.

summer is a good time
for sitting outside
listening to cicadas
and wondering about ants.

do they get confused
if they get on a bus
by accident
and end up far away
from their home?

does an ant feel
scared does an ant feel
loss does an ant
worry about the future
because he hasn't found a job yet
and he can't afford to live--

probably not.
what does he know
he's just an ant

If Medusa Had a Lover

i.

Fuck me with your eyes

shut—too dangerous to risk them open.

See me like (stevie) wonder-ment:

pleasure braille coating my skin.

Read me like wanting, fold and unfold

me so many times that my dents get dents

and I become unreadable. But you’ll

remember my patterns, even if my skin doesn’t.

“Dangerous” is pejorative, but I’ve been told

I’m bad for you like cigarettes

and local news. Side Effects may include

dry mouth, constipation, and limited mobility.

ii.

I knew there could be a look of Death

but I thought I had control. So when it

snuck up behind my eyes four days ago

and implanted itself into your slurpy flesh,

my insides snaked and my hair gurgled…

Three days ago you groaned

getting out of bed, like

your limbs were heavy.

I said I was sorry, that I didn’t

mean it mean-like. But that doesn’t

change I felt you start

building up. solid.

Two days ago I reached

for you as you walked in,

but you looked at me quizzically…

like who are you and what have you done

with my lover? Retaliation?

(sharp intake of breath: hisssssss.)

Or just a side effect of the slow

crumbling?

Yesterday I tried to give you

a massage like maybe

that would ease the tension

            between us.

But you said press harder

harder love, I can’t feel you.

But I had no more strength to give.

Today I feel your

arteries harden.

your eyes are dying

into a concrete—

            Chimerism at its finest.

iii.

I’ve heard it said that revenge is best

served cold, so now I only eat ice and sleep

without blankets.

I bought a hand mirror, but when I got home

the cold was so serrated that the glass

cracked before I could.

I can’t remember what you said

that made me so mad—

            I can’t feel anything anymore either.

I will never forget

the temperature of the air

on that day. Or that you

didn’t have a beard

when I was expecting you would.

I hugged you out of nervousness—

            what is etiquette?!

The word surprise ricocheted

in my stomach, pretending it was

butterflies.

If I could have known then

what I know now, I wouldn’t

hesitate—

            but when has love

            ever made a person smarter?

Now I just go

and sit in a house I don’t believe in

and do work in the same room

as another human, share a bed

with him to spite myself.

Maybe I’ll write about this

for insincerity.

but then why does laughing put us in stitches?

I never understood why
cutting a loose thread
hanging from a fabric
makes it stop unraveling.
It doesn’t seem right that
not securing
the problem area
makes it all end. fine.

The thing about closure

within un-closure

is that making a new something

that won’t (shut)

even though the open-ness—
is attractive

is truly frightening.
Exposure always is.

I want the unraveling
the coming undone(!)
          the urgency, necessity—

exciting.

and they are doomed to repeat it

You smell like

fakeness and lies.

Where have you been?

            “no place”

oh. alright.

Your nose…

            it isn’t right!

Why is it above your eye?

            “you’re seeing things

            it’s the drugs again”

sure. that’s it. easy.

Your voice is much too

yellow. So happy for

causing so much pain…

            “I have no idea

            what you’re talking about”

i guess you never do.

That kiss is sour—no.

            bitter.

It’s never been this way before.

Who you are anymore?

            “i’m just me”

I’m having déjà vu

and I don’t know why…

            “repeat that?”

exactly.

Spidery eyelashes open and shut, but not like a danger. like a beckoning. The tendrils of my gaze wind lazily toward you, asking gently. When you don't look away, they intensify; you've shown them that it's safe to root. Their fingernails gouge your corneas--ripping you open--forcing themselves deep into your mind, rods and cones be damned. "Please?" flows from my lips; the timbre of my voice scratching the itch in your brain you never knew you had. "I'll do anything" licks your neck, oozes down your spine. The ether of my breath is intoxicating; not like a numbing but like tingles. An inch from your face-- the heat in the air smells like kissing, but not yet-- I feel your heat rising, bubbling awareness as every nerve ending awakens at my sound. "Pour it into me"-- my inky breath dissolves your last remnants of strength...

pathetic

someone told me
that emerson once said
            writing is easy. all you have to do is
            sit at a typewriter and bleed.

I tried that,
but it didn't work.

I just got re(a)d all over.

About a Boy

I picked him a flower

(I wanted to see his reaction.

It would speak volumes.)

He smiled and 

I remember liking the way that flower looked

perched in his glasses,

and the way the pollen

coated the side of his frames,

like spewing reproductive fluids

was on the corner of his brain

but not the center.

I guess it makes sense now

that the flower was a buttercup;

something about yellow meaning happiness

and happiness being with him

even though he wasn’t big on

words. But as much as he hid

I knew a tenderness was there

for me to thread the needle

of his compass and direct him

back to my safety, sew up

the gashes trauma tore in triplicate.

If I run fast enough,

my feelings can’t catch me,

But he always can.

Rule 34

I think, therefore porn.

            (because that’s what

            the rule states, you know:

if it exists, there is porn of it)

which is why there are so many

office trysts, I think.

people must have been watching

too much boss/secretary porn.

and that’s why bisexual is a

fetish—the pretty little unicorn

giggling as she teases fake from

between the legs of one and

receives lies (in the ass, of course,

because it’s filthy) from the other.

           oh hell—

that must mean god doesn’t exist…

I’ve never seen porn where Jesus comes

(ha) down off the cross and has a threesome

with His Father and the Holy Ghost.

maybe they’d throw a vagina

in there to make it more

interesting, tryin’ to race

to see who could fuck it first but

JOKE’S ON YOU THEY’RE ALL THE SAME!

            shit like that’s all the same…

But there isn’t porn of me… fuck.

L'appel du Vide

I could write a poem

about the way her nose crinkles

when it presses against the sheets—

but a physicist told me that things

don’t actually touch,

they just have electromagnetic

interaction.

It’s a little unsettling

to think of the people you love

as only atoms and that void,

like maybe all you ever really love

is nothing.

But even though she is mostly nothing

and sometimes something, I am

still insanely vertigo(ne).

It’s that primal anomaly:

when confronted with an infinite

Nothing,

all a person yearns to

hungers and thirsts for

lusts after can’t resist the temptation to

jump in.

And if she is mostly nothing

And if I am mostly nothing

And if I look on her and need nothing, then

the next time I see her, I’ll beg:

Let me dive into your dark places.

Let me taste the gap between your

atoms. I can fill your spaces.

Help Wanted

There are no job openings

for benevolent dictators,

so I went on Monster

and made one.

            I got 400,000 views

            but no replies.

Then I posted an ad

for a violent dictator.

The only reply was

from “Anonymous”—

            an image of a

            melting armadillo.

And I knew he was The One.

I sent an email

requesting an interview.

He said look around;

            I am everywhere.

Lost and ____

I do not want to be¹

a female impersonator:²

the part is sick of representing the whole.³

“Who are you anyway?”⁴

took a little tabula rasa with her caffeine—⁵

me, as ever, gone⁶

to be beautiful…enough for someone to want.⁷

Can you make a double negative of⁸

our physicality…?⁹

It is important not to be fooled¹⁰

[by] a heretic’s mirror for the true story¹¹

no matter how many pages you eat,¹²

but it’s also true that you can’t really know until it’s¹³

one of many dull aches.¹⁴

The process wobbles wildly and accelerates.¹⁵

there is no need for this—¹⁶

[a] body of flaws¹⁷

disguises the¹⁸

shapes the shapelessness was taking back.¹⁹

a world of bone seen through to!²⁰

continue: we’ll discover where you sweat.²¹

We sleep together in the dark—²²

(default position,²³

trying to become one creature)²⁴

it disguises the kissing and makes us less sad—²⁵

but confuse²⁶

equal opportunity²⁷

with love.²⁸

does it follow that the sleep of monsters produces reason?²⁹

a boy just like you took me out to see them³⁰

and he wanders among strangers all he wants³¹

marking a stillness we can’t keep,³²

finding all of the stops.³³

There are moments in our lives which, threaded, give us heaven³⁴

Unbodied!³⁵

because we never existed inside time,³⁶

its pale and inconclusive utterances—³⁷

Are you still there for me in that dark?³⁸

Empty rooms love the dark,³⁹

made you glad for beauty like that, casual and intense—⁴⁰

the more-than-you-bargained-for surprise of it⁴¹

most delicate of manias,⁴²

until the sound of the cataracts grows.⁴³

The key to tranquility is⁴⁴

—rule of the mad—⁴⁵

(to yell is the rule here)⁴⁶

Any simple problem can be made insoluble;⁴⁷

water seeks its own level.⁴⁸

Attention wanes,⁴⁹

even in a fish tank.⁵⁰

1 Carson, “Stanzas, Sections, Seductions”

2 Carson, “Stanzas, Sections, Seductions”

3 Armantrout, “Own”

4 Armantrout, “Wannabe”

5 CD Wright, “One with Others”

6 Carson, “Despite Her Pain, Another Day”

7 Armantrout, “Later”

8 Carson, “Totality: the Colour of Eclipse”

9 Carson, “Decreation”

10 Carson, “Decreation”

11 Carson, “Decreation”

12 Carson, “Decreation”

13 Armantrout, “On Your Way”

14 Armantrout, “Minimum Sum”

15 Hass, “Misery and Splendor”

16 Hass, “Late Spring”

17 Graham, “Two Paintings by Gustav Klimt”

18 Carson, “The Day Antonioni Came to the Asylum”

19 Graham, “What the End is For”

20 Graham, “San Sepolcro”

21 Carson, “Aria of Last Cherries”

22 Armantrout, “The Light”

23 Armantrout, “Just”

24 Hass, “Misery and Splendor”

25 Carson, “The Day Antonioni Came to the Asylum”

26 Armantrout, “The Light”

27 CD Wright, “One with Others”

28 Armantrout, “The Light”

29 CD Wright, “One with Others”

30 Graham, “What the End is For”

31 Hass, “The Apple Trees at Olema”

32 Graham, “Over and Over Stitch”

33 Graham, “San Sepolchro”

34 Graham, “Over and Over Stitch”

35 Graham, “What the End is For”

36 Hass, “Then Time”

37 Graham, “Over and Over Stitch”

38 Graham, “What the End is For”

39 CD Wright, “One with Others”

40 Hass, “Spring Rain”

41 Hass, “On Squaw Peak”

42 Graham, “Over and Over Stitch”

43 Graham, “What the End is For”

44 CD Wright, “One with Others”

45 Carson, “The Day Antonioni Came to the Asylum”

46 Carson, “The Day Antonioni Came to the Asylum”

47 CD Wright, “One with Others”

48 CD Wright, “One with Others”

49 Armantrout, “Poem”

50 CD Wright, “One with Others”

Under Pressure

The First Post.

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