poem: oxbridge

he came from his side of the bed: whiteshirt, white sweater, whitetrousers with the cresses pressed in, as if he was a gothic romantic caricature of the fine, last old age, aging likeyoung wine, the dorian grey bright and apparent andhelium-esque on his face, he took my thinwhite hands inside his own,unworked, thin hands --…

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: Angelika waited for Henri on the sidewalk

she felt that anything that happened; that had happenedpast highschool -- was notreal -- she had three dollars and 81 in the account; she kept herhair in a white ribbon in a queue; she romanticized the vomit on her bathroom floorlike she romanticized her cafe-haunts and the blackcoffee, Listz at breakfast and during poetryreadings and…

poem: the coffee-shop people

the lights in the coffee-shop are plaguelights; the orange faces of men neutered and hung upsidedown. i am the lonely one, sitting at one of fifteen tables round like breastsand remembering why i studied in university to suchan extent that i had only casual friends; people that collided into my bodylike accidents; and i spent…

poem: liberal arts

the woman in the k-mart gable ate french breadwith dirty hands, she had opinions about impressionism but did not know who monet was, only that debussywas apparently an anti-semite, a fact retold at theoryseminars, when she was a young woman and threwher body around like dough. it impossible to say: sex and not also: woman'sempowerment…

poem: i misspelled the name of the artist and had to google it

do you want to know whythe academics are elitists hatedthatcher have politics like sexfuck their candidates roughlyin campaign emails andsupporting media; they knowinside their flower gardenskulls ironic skeletoneyeholes, thinking nothingeverything all at onceall like nothing, my mindis a frida kahlo painting, it is derridait is torn and deconstructedand "torn," a 1997 Natalie Imbruglia pop hitnominated…

poem: insular

is it like last year – the self inside the self? the same lattes, the same late-night girls,working working workingfor ivory schools,jades – and pearls – i can forgive the coffee if it counts towards yale,princeton – oxford –the university of nowhere,un château dans l'air, hiding in front of me,resurrecting what –might have been: the…

poem: suicide is metaphor

she is leaning out the window, considering— the view. she cannot hang here forever, she will either step away and keep the sky a separate god or she will lean into the inevitable, her fingers splitting in the air her head smashing into damp pieces. her skull is a throbbing lump hanging on a broken…

poem: blame the angels

I should be writing love poems; I am in love. But I do not feel— whatever it is that the poets promised. My mind—is coming loose and falling far; the stardust hazy, hazy in the fear. the people are applauding, making riot noise: he is just a boy— it is just love. I am saying…