Staccato breathing
mechanically makes the air
move in and out
short and frantic
shrinking consciousness like
flesh rotting from a carcass
insufficient surface area left
to save
to graze
disoriented and abstracted reality
stinging and dizzying
inches from dancing
for eternity
The breeze carries sticky caramel sweat
through long summer days with no lunches
I have packed up all of my
old worlds and have brought it for you
tales of youth spoken
through long-dried acrylic color
chemical stories stored for good
on yellowing canvas
move-in day is unearthing
unnerving revisits to past lives in
past homes
we expected her long ago
but she came not until July
she came when she knew we were ready
prepared in the mid-summer heat
to confront pasts—burn old blood
iron wrought purges and starting anew
I have a new home today
ink ribbon smearing ivory cloth
curtains pull open to a new street
I breathe new air
this is welcoming myself home
A song is muffled under
the weight
of thousands of tons of sand
under the weight
rocks break
and on the limestone, I lay
listening to the night
we cannot see our hands before
us but
they are orange
stained from the dust
that coats the wild dog’s fur
and sifts between the camel’s lashes
you, small and skinny,
misplaced your desert lover:
vulpine and wily
you found your way
through the sand
sink deep into the dunes
and lie with me
in
a haunting synthesis of
Arabic and English she writes
genre-interruption
this only works
because without emotions
we cannot make decisions
we are nobody without our
associations; she writes an experiment
untangling the world
she presses on the place of bruises
as she writes, she moves a hand
she passed at her own hand
but what moves a hand:
she writes in systems
untangling her world
everything is only systems
because without systems
we cannot make emotions
untame me
soft and unfocused
the universe spins and
shrinks around me
I am a giant in this
chromatic aberration yet
I am absent, fragmented light
dancing for stained glass galleries
consume me with your
color fringed eyes
express movement with me
fluorescent intent in each
of our strokes—
flat black paint pulled
across alabaster lips
the air you breathe is
immaculate
milky movement adrift
riding incense wisps,
our world has become bokeh
what are we standing on?
I have found myself: here
at this intersection: now
between aromatic impulsion and
the calmness of your mundanity
it is here we will sink much further
into this down-feather dream
Thank you to the Creative Colloquy for having me perform as a featured guest at their last event of 2018! Check out their online journal to see where I got “Pacific Grooves” published!
Special thanks to Jake Thomas Shaw, the featured poet who performed right before me, for taking the video! For more poetry and any personal or professional photography/videography inquiries, check out his website at RadioReality.City!
Setlist:
Washington Beaches
Hammock
Pacific Grooves
Arsonist
Wild Heart
letting out a soft moan, she
brings chills to my skin
and paralyzes my bones
her icy breath caresses the nape
of my neck, she is nostalgia
dark hair and pale eyes
her lips whisper my name
my nose blushes in shades
of red
my fingertips ache
in shades of blue, I meet her
soft, pale body with the
harshness of mine and
once again, tangled together,
she has come–
my love, December.
