strange loops and monotony: short poems

(1)

we are all remembering

solo pictures of daffodils hang

in the memories of his plastic heart

where I work like the aphid to an ant

in the amalgamation of my fears

and wipe away dews from the picture frames

and milk sweet tears of ancestry dry;

so low I go into the seas of my own fate

pools of reflections I dare not sink in

not to be slow-swallowed in lakes of black like

leaves slowly pushed in tar

I swim in this mirror maze made fluorescent

made sin by the numbness of conformity

(2)

fork in my pocket

the question “would I devour you?”

left to shimmer after being asked

the impending line knives through the air

we would eat us and all things

slice down ourselves

to forkable slivers

and pass our plates to the back isle

so we’ve waited and became overripe

but you know already know that - you’ll say

our hides are splotched,

fruiting bodies, not left-overs

we agreeably picked ourselves to early

befriended by the grips of our teeth

and naked as dogs we merged

“what good are plates half-full?”

left to chew, left to dart and fork your way in and out

“what good are train cars that are left empty?”

“what good are sweets without a bitter snap?”

in and out of my hands

(3)

thoughts when I unclogged the bathroom

my connections get lost in a sea of a thousand others

they dissipate into the manifold of shadow

of shrouded, rippling nature

tips of trees are lost in the array of our silence

touched by the dimensionless quiet

this passion ran out of pace

too clean for us to skate across the span of seamed love

direct are our mouths when we haven’t hated ourselves enough

my lips driest when the fondness of others drips

and salivates down the mouth

like a black thread sucked into a hairy sink

we watch ourselves sink down

starry-eyed

(4)

it’s not me you’re talking to

it’s not me you’re talking to,

just figures in my head

each star will cast its shadow.

each lithium lead bead will poison it.

each starlight thrust will puppet waxen mouths with single strings of jelly beans.

each clouded thought,

each dream that builds a sacred box of hugs and good-night kisses

like thick stacks of sediment

Each shift,

shimmer, shale-shake, and shape

the empty shallots waving coarse,

will make you want to cry

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Going Under, Coming Up

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2020