poem: storm

the faucet is on so the pipes don't freeze; throughout my wholebreakfast and coffee-drinking ritual, the water is a silentlurker in the background. i have never read Faust, but somethingin this snowstorm makes him omnipresent; he is a man and he isstanding in the snow. watching me naked through the window. i puton an old…

poem: letter to myself

the only thing I could imagine piercing me todayis the long cat-vomit pink, stretch, of sky -- and after driving home, the awareness of the earth that would notaccept or come into me, the places I will not go because they are outside, and I cannot? cannot! leave this bedroom, the walls bent in and…

writing: screenplay #3, “muse”

The window is gothic, church-shaped, above her. She is bending over a wooden desk, working furiously; outside, it is autumn and the light is brilliant and orange. Her hair tucked hurriedly behind her ears, curling out. He comes and stands above her, looking down; there is something unusually serious about him; he is a person…

poem: writing camilla

he slept on the desk, in half-glacier grandsnow sweaters, the pine trees and cardinal birds, their throatsbright and ready! red, sloping down to his hands --big and masculine, and knotted up fromwriting her, sad long letters; when the day swept to a small close, the trees leaning in, snow falling off and conjoining; he slept…

poem: I could die? a footnote?

or: "aesthetic irl"thirty day poetry challengeday 09– ‘goals‘ the plead tweed coats, manufactured in England or Bangladesh, and ink-on-fingers, cigarettes. leaves Rattling againstthe gothic, heavy windows because what else? /how do I describe James Joyceand Virginia Wolf: like readingemotions. reading the old novels, in cafes(because what else?); the middle-class, they kept writingabout God, now we…

poem: my charger

thirty day poetry challengeday 06– ‘my charger‘ was sometimes a wattpad boy (and I mean that ironically and also unironically) -- who wanted to go to Heaven nowrather than later, because it seemed betterthan whatever else; I don't know if that really counts as wanting to kill myself, he said; but I was listing, the…

poem: cold war in the fridge and reheated

thirty day poetry challengeday 05– ‘leftovers‘ am I supposed to relate to the third-child motherstanding on the porch with her vaginaon the flagpole and a joint fuckedinto her mouth like a second-smile, the smokesagging through her -- she is Americanmyth; at least during the Depressionshe probably believed in God and sold her childrenwith some feeling,…

poem: my father said he was going to the store, we needed milk

thirty day poetry challengeday 04– ‘buy milk‘ I broke down, like my father's car, which had been breaking down again and again, like my fatheralways broke down -- in the parking lotor the pharmacy queue -- where his latestprescription sat whore-ishly orange;he prized them like my mother's tits or my grandfather's slaps or my own…

poem: telling him about the affair

thirty day poetry challengeday 03– 'no more staples' no more staples in the mouth, I will(I think) speak -- angel, devil drag medown; cut my polaroid in half, swallow the denser edge, leave mymouth on the vibratingtorn-off edge; I told you all thisstanding on the edge of a mausoleum and your face was white,reflecting the…

poem: old romance

thirty day poetry challengeday 02– ‘CD‘ the CD was a iron disk that she slippedin and out of her mouth, and when he called her from the bathtub she pulled off her skin threw away her face; he sang along to her in the car and laterremembered nothing, it waslike juvenile sex with all the…