that we be a descent, serpent from high
where our path winds to travel swift
one cycle to the next we six times level
through chambers guarded and don’t you know
blocked paths mark our particular tests
how far long will you stand to gain entry
so too this chamber is where we let go
too it would be weather fair and rainy
this cloudy version of design was desire
that held us down in lifetimes, it was desire
that shaped its jealous tongue into how we
would be clipped of wing, clipped of song
you will never wander farther past this door
if you don’t learn to surrender all that you
would grasp, love itself can be twisted
let not the width of how long we carry on
here confuse that it is not dangerous, let
not the width of that path make you believe
many can fit upon it: we push against
an always dream, and it’s no matter
what else you got left, he sings to the wind
whoever you are traveling with now is who
you are traveling with now: poet is prophet
come to any of this with small intentions
now i am the door of adoration
how devoted to this animation
can we beset as it were to a billion
where there is light there is reflection
of sound, where there is sound there
is an echo of what we hope to contain
a poem is imitation as sure as the line
of our own songs is a mirror of all
we choose to give attention, that not
one story be held over another, that not
one breath more precious in the evermore
we confuse here the terrible rending
of what is offered in a temporary held
for an eternity, here in the manifest
we dense matter into what can possibly
surface for sane. we held tears back
now we share newly minted tales of our
dear suffering & cry in the bliss
of devastation, this is how the stars
were seduced down, she hisses, we were
winded by how much it took to cross
the sweet twinning of self mirrored back
all the other could hold was our dreams
& how we were hungry, oh how desire rode
us as if we were winged starlings, a susurrus
branching into constellations dressed in faces
familiar: better remember her name was Eos
better watch them gather there on the levee
at dawn, will you with me, will you with me
I spent all my
miracles for two gallons
of gasoline turned
round just after the new
year, right below the rim of dawn, you’ll
catch the shades of us wandering always
at that end, river in doubt, river in trespass
be careful or you will erupt into the next
lost of your own grounding, lost of the name
secreted under your tongue, you can find
yourself spending a whole life chasing what
is just a glamour, flash
of I have summoned
you with love &
to be nailed to the source
that each poem is a love poem, each song
our desire to be beyond the border of skin
here like everyone I
love who I can still touch
and not, we think
loss is what breaks us
in this silly temporary shadow swan song
as if love so small between just two had any
reason to be named in the universes, walking
around dead and with
your ghosted head
specialized love was a poison we poured
hand over hand and spoke so sweet,
feathers fold over
your ears when I come
home, treat me as
you would no other
arms once accustomed
to the thrum
don’t give to deities what you would give
to any, surrender absolutes, the digging
to the core of conversations, a coupling
divides, invitation to betray, this lie
as if thrown from the garden made
some sense, a man & a woman forms
an incomplete gesture, some loving
but the mothering of all is a chaos
that would never tolerate such a miniscule
thorn in the bounty of these misgivings
to look to any other to fill us is a closing
our eyes to truth: there is no other
who can love you outside of you
any other feeling is the pretend we mask
in this place of plenty, watch it turn
to suffer: what they name love is a little
wind blown off course, not the storm
not the tempest of consume that served
our earliest poems, our songs of union
no simple cadavers bound to a touch
but of fire burnt so hot at the core
when a goddess calls, you answer
how to out that net of lust, for the body
is a war, for the body is template for taste
and touch and all that would fill, oh poet
willingly, we nestle in the womb and pull
sound from the heart’s beat so all of us meters
to a tune we watered on, shelled monsters
emerge to a coddle, seek all our hours
a way back: do we surrender to desire
or do we surrender our desires, are we
branches calling
bird-song closer look
in the mornings i would weep under
the clouds and healthy the lungs gasping
healthy the heart beating and still i could
not hold it all, the unbearable being, names
listed of the dead unfurled and not like a poem
a poem is a song not a death note reminder
of how we failed one another always, We’ll
let them hurt us,
even as we tore each
other apart or worse, how our greed
colored nature till we believed we needed
to suffer to even be alive, we needed to cling
in fear to the scarcity handed over and be
grateful they say as the cell doors lock
be grateful they’ll say as the noose tightens
sad eyed lady of the low lands hums air
cooled to the touch and my skin is barren
my heart is a sieve, nothing holds here
Monsters do travel
outside. this chamber
is my whole life, don’t speak. i’ve
been in this wound so long i sift dust
In the end there was
so much light
it stifled, from
star we disaster, this
game is a matter-if-you-choose-it, stay
inside if you want to live, hide away
Everyone I think of is
alive somewhere.
i forget how to be a belief, even here
I chase tail feathers
instead of choices
no one has ever kissed me and meant
any thing more than damage, poetry
is an imaginary maze you can tread
here thinking there’s a solve in language
it’s a waiting, at the door to death, let
me in. i will knock here for all of time.
Notes:
Italics:
Italics:
Jerika Marchan, Swole
Jessica Smith, Trauma
Mouth
Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib, Vintage
Sadness
Rebecca Wolff, Warden
Paige Taggart, Last
Difficult Gardens
Travis & JenMarie Macdonald, Graceries
Megan Kaminski, This
Place
Annah Browning, The
Marriage
Sarah Mangold, The
Goddess Can Be Recognized by Her Step
Kris Hall, Dillinger
on the Beach
Jen Denrow, How We
Know it is ThatJessica Fiorini, Take
it Personal
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