The Poetry Project Reading Group, Spring 2021 ‘I saved this for you.

For our first session on April 6, our readings are centered around a loosely formulated idea of “The
One.” What are the ideas, concepts, images and words we associate with oneness or oneself, in terms of
identity, or body, or field of perception, or as a material, social, or imagined subject?

How is space or language created by, or for, any one?

Readings for April 6:

Gladman, Renee. Calamities, Wave Books: Seattle, 2016. pg. 1-10, 121-126.

------------. Optional: Lecture: “The Sentence as a Space of Living” 91-18.

Mayer, Bernadette. “The Way to Move Forward in Antarctica,” Poetry

Foundation.

Various, We Want It All, ed. Andrea Abi-Karim, Kay Gabriel. Nightboat Books,
New York, 2020.

incl. Bianca Rae Messinger, Caelan Ernest, Cyrée Jarelle Johnson, Holly
Raymond, Jayson Keery, Joss Barton, Kay Gabriel, Nora Fulton,
Trish Salah, XTian W and Anaïs Duplan

Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace or “Reflections on the Right Use of School
Studies with a View to the Love of God” Gravity and Grace, pgs. 105-116.

Weiner Hannah, selections, Clairvoyant Journal. Angel Hair Books: New York,
1978. pp. 7-9, 21-26.

White, Simone. “Dollbaby,” Dear Angel of Death, Ugly Duckling Press: New York,
2018. pp. 1-42 (in class we will look to first poem in the sequence,
between pages 1-19.)

Facilitators/Contact:
Joey Yearous-Algozin | jfyearousalg@gmail.com
Shiv Kotecha | shivrkotecha@gmail.com
 Published by Wave Books

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Names: Gladman, Renee, author.

Title: Calamities / Renee Gladman.

Description:Firstedition.|Seattle;NewYork:WaveBooks,[2oi¢

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I began the day with a group of characters, who were some-
timespeopleintheworldwithrealnamesandjobschatletthem
out for the summer; some of these characters wrote books in
which the world was never mentioned, the world where one
tookabusorwalkedthroughsnowtobuyeggs;itseemedbet-
ter that the reader not know the details. I read in a book about
a girl holding a stack of paper over a body of water; I read a
book where a flood comes and covers a town, and though
everything is wet all the people are dry; I read many books
about people sitting in rooms, and these were all by writers I
knew. I wanted them to come over, but they lived everywhere,
in too many places. I wanted coffee when I had given it up; I
wanted gluten all the time. At some point I began working on
the I)egirming and end of something at once. I hadn't had my
basescoveredinalongtime.Iwasreadingalineinabook,then
readingalineinanotherbook,andperformingsmallactsinbe-
tween: I sat at intervals on the toilet, I slept sporadically, I ate
kale and "fish food," and called myself "Renee" for a time. No-
bodyknewwho1wasatthegrocerystore,butgoingtherewas
my big event. I knew the books of these people; I knew these

[1]
people and I didn't change their names, 1)ut when they ap-
pearedinmybooksitwasn'treallytheirstories1wastelling,
so they didn't need my protection and I could go "Danielle,
Danielle" all day. I could say, ``Darielle," and not disturb the
I)aniellewhowassittingnexttome,readingzf#!.muz/4rcfai.£ecfs;
because1couldbesaying"Daniellehadhadacertainbody"or
"Daniellewasswishingacrossthefloor,"andtheDaniellesit-

ting next to me would go on reading her book. I could say

"Lisa,"whohadwrittenabockIloved,butalsomean"Bar-

bara,"whofoohadwrittenabookIloved,butsay"Lisa"be-
causeofasoundlwantedtomake,orsimplytobeanachronis-
tic. I went on to fill my days with as many writers as I could
findandsometimeswouldtrytosaytheirname§orthenames
Oftheirbooksorjustthenamesofthecitiestheywereinorjust
thenameofacolororobject1as§ociatedwiththem,thoughit
wasn't their story I was telling. Because it` wasn't their story,
sometimes I just paused in ny thinking and let them pass
through me, and wouldn't resume until they were gone, or
wouldresumewhenatraceofthemwasstillthere.

[2]
I 1)egan the, day giving a lecture to a group of university stu-
dents. I said, ``-" and made a certain gesture with my hand.
Theya§ked,"Howdoyouknow,"withsomesmallshowingof
contempt. Well, I was trying to say, "It's okay to think," but
maybe what they heard was "You don't think" or "You are not
thinking." I made the "Let's start again" gesture with my eye-
brows, and calm was restored. I started over from the top, "In
any case, one can see the city-" I was interru|)ted before I
could replace the errant word. These were conservative stu-
dents. "I "ecz#, the, sentence!" I yelled over their clamor. And
as they grew quiet, one of them 'muttered, "You don't think,"
but he hadn't planned on being heard. He Said, "I think you
don't think?" by way of correction. We were trying to get to
the heart of the matter. I said, from the head of the class, "This
is really good," and, smiled grandly, with so much love falling
from my cheeks I worried that Alex Peters, sitting in the front
row, might explode with grief. Everyone else grew sad, too.
But,wewereapproachingsomethingthatwasperhapsnewfor
all of us. Someone raised her hand. I don't remember who. She

I.1
said,"Wemightnotlikeyourquestions,"butsaiditwhilesmil-
ingwithherarmstillup.Ihadtogoonwithnylecture:"When

youturninyourmind,youleachsomewhere,opensomething,
make some gesture." I paused. My notes had quotes around
them. I was almost done.

[4]
Ibeganthedayhavinggivenmyselfthetaskofcompilingalist.
I wanted to see whether I could trace all the problems-large
and small-I had taken on in my somewhat long career as a
writer. But I didn't mean those asinine problems of writer's
blockorotherequallyfrustratingproblemsofself-worth(feel-
ing too much or not enough). Racier, I wanted to document
the questions that /GJ to writing, writing such as I was doing
then. I had to put my pen down. Suddenly, I was flooded with
sensations of a sexual nature. I didn't know from where they'd
come.Asljustsaid,mymindwas,inthatmoment,fixedonac-
ademic matters-what it meant to write and what I in fact had
written-andusually1approachedsuchtopicswithdiscipline:
I was a serious writer; there was nothing inherently sensual in
the act of writing (hands tapping at keys). So when out of
nowhere1feltherpressingagainstmyback1hadtoputmypen
down."Whatareyoudoing.?"Iaskedanempty,flamingroom.

`-`'
Ibeganthedaythinkingthatinordertowriteatalkon"The
OngoingStory"Iwouldneedtoincorporateitintothesees-
saysI'dbeenwritingaboutnylife.Ibegan,"1l]egantheday
staring into the face of the question of narrative-was any-
bodystillinterestedinit,and,if so,why?"Itwasasimpleques-
tiontoaskbuthadtakenmeeightdaystowrite-you'dthink
itimpossibletoconstructasentencetwowordsatatime,writ-
ingtwowordsthentakingthelestofthedayoffthenonthe
nextdaywritingtwomorewords,maintainingthethreadthe
wholetime,untilfinally,ontheeighthday,youhadit,thesen-
tence, but his sometimes happened when you were writing
aboutnarrativeinsideofnarrative.Recently,Ihadfoundchat
totalkaboutsomethingthatwasinessenceeverythingwastoo
exhausting,andthattheonlywayarounditwastotalkabout
thequestionofthethingratherthanchethingitself,sincein
theend,itwouldbecomeboth."Narrative-"Iwentonwith
mytalk,"Wasanybodystillinterested.)Ididn'twanttoopen
myeyestoit.Ihadn'twantedtothinkaboutnarrativeatthe
sametimethat1wasconsciousofmybodylyingintheobject
world.ItwasaproblemofspacesimilartowhatMarthaandI

[6]
were discussing yesterday: Was it possible to say that some-
thing was gathering outside of a thing with the intention .of
meeting something else when this something else was cue
largerspaceinwhichthatfirstthingexisted?Could1talkabout
narrative as I was operating within it? I closed the quotes en-
closing the text for my talk and took a train to New York. I
wanl:ed to surround myself with other people who were think-
ing about narrative and asking themselves whether they were
for or against it. Someone was having an event that evening,
and it seemed appropriate to the essay that I narrate the events
of the eveut before they actually happened. But not for the es-
say inside which I was writing the panel talk, rather the outer
essay in which I felt isolated and needed to travel three point
fivehourstobeamongpeople.When1openedthequotesagain
forthetalklwasthinking,Itwasn'tjustnarrativeweweretalk-
ing about I)ut narrative in relation to poetic time, which was
not the time of the object world in which I was lying but "af
the time of the essay toward which I was attempting to cJrczw
theobjectworld.,Oncetheobjectworldarrivedlhadn'tfigured
out what I would do in it (though you see the, complication I
wasunearthingsincelwasalreadyinit,theobjectworld).This
returnedmetoaconversation1washavingelsewhere.I'dbeen
arguing that the problem of poetic time was a component of

[7]
fiction but now I saw: fiction could not concern itself with

problem§oftime.Iftherewasaprobleminsideafiction-a
problemofanynatureotherthanwhat,'shappeningin§idethe
plot-thenthewholechingwouldswellandsmallholeswould
form across the surface and the swellings would become as
largeasmountainswhiletheholeswouldfillwithwaterandbe-
comerivervalleysandsoonwewouldbesofarfromchesur-
faceofchewaterchatwe'drecognizethepictureofthemoun-
tains and valleys as part of a geological map and recognize
ourselves standing in an object world much larger than the ob- -

jectworldinwhichwe'dbeenlyingwhenwebeganthisessay.
Iclosedthequoteswhen1bottomedout.Iwouldhavetoopen
myeyesif1wishedtounderstandfullywhere1wasandwhom
I was with, if anybody. The figures forming in the light di-
rectedtowardmyclosedlids(bychesunorthelampI'dfailed
to turn off before falling asleep the previous night or by the

paneltalkthatlwaslivingratherthanwriting)wouldnotgrow
in definition so long as I carried on not-seeing in this way, I
thoughtas1closedthequoteoncArinarrative.Ididn'twant,in
themiddleofthewholething,tobecomecz#fr.-#arra£!.ye.After
theeventinNewYork,whichwasformulatedaroundthecel-
elirationoftheappearanceofalong-awaitedthing,Iwasdis-
appointed to find people more anti-narrative than narrative.

[8]
Someonetookmynumberinsteadofgivingmehers-thiswas
anti-narral:ive. We spent hours at a restaurant called the H-alf
Kingandweregiventhewrongcheck,which,whencorrected,
turned out cheaper than the right check. This was anti-narra-
tive. Those of us standing around the table, hoping there
would be enough money to cover the bill, were thinking anti-
narratively about the people who had evaded this torture by
departingearly,theircontributionleftbehind.Whenwefound
there was enough money, even extra, we thought anti-narra-
tivelyaboutourpreviousanti-narrativeattackonthoseochers.
I wanted to turn our living toward narrative so suggested we
all take the subway home. This was not agreed on, but we did
all walk off together. Somehow it was only the black people
who'd been in attendance that remained in our group. We
walked along 2,3rd Street and I called a person and counted off
the number of I)lack people with me. I counted seven, narra-
tively. This was astounding, but I didn't tell the other black

people what I was thinking, only that person. This was anl:i-
narrative. But clearly I was happy, as this configuration of
1)lackne§sdidnotoccurformeinthelonelylitdewhitecitythat
I'd fled, thus was narrative. But within chat, an anti-narrative
moment, when I had to remind myself that it wasn't the lirde
city that was white but racier the neighborhood in which I'd

1`1
chosentolive.Imaginemysurprisewhen1founditwas\possi-
ble to be both narrative and anti-narrative at the same time,
whichwaslikebeingalirdeoverwhelmedinalargeclowd.I
wasagainpointedtoaproblemoftime,orrather,spaceintime

(itwashardtofigure).Howwouldlescapethiscrowd,butjust
togetoutsideit.>Woulditbepossibletoleavemynamewith
someone.)Iclosedtheinneressaytolockattheouter.Iwanted
tofindawordorsentencethatwouldprovetherewasaneven
largeressaythatwasfurtheroutsideofthisone.Iclosedthe

quotesoflyinginthebedwithmyeye§closed,andopenedny
eyes,19okingliterallyintothefaceofthequestionofnarrative,
which,wastheemptinessofmyapartmentandthelongstretch
ofdaythatlayahead.

[Io]
 14.

Ibegantowritethelastofitwichoutknowing,withoutsaying
anything about what I was doing to anyone who was around,
which was one or two scientists in the rooms neighl)oring
mine, and a musician and a scientist farther down the hall, and
anartistandascientistdowntheotherhall,andafictionwriter,
anditwasFriday,sonoonewasaroundtoseetheendofchings
or to hear all this language winding down or to think simply
that because I was here, sitting how I was (with my door ajar
and their passing back and forth, perhaps to the printer, per-
haps to find coffee), that I was finishing something, finishing
but also trying to get swept along a line of thought that would
be so long and strange and profound that I could follow it for
days and days, not only aging as this happened but also grow-
ing joyous and carefree. I wanted to write into a new territory,
for"thebookatchebackofthebook"tobeacountrythatwas
both unique and livable, not a country where buildings came
up and surprised you but where existed rooted I]uildings with
linesthatwerelinguisticinnature,1inesemerginginsuchaway
as to change language, to bring you down to cue street. .It was

[ 121 ]
amazing to see a line move from one mode of being to another
mode nearly counterposed to the first, as when concrete be-
comes paper, as when something that i§ rigid, performing sta-
bility,collapsesintoa.curvingbodyatthefloorofa.page,with-
outscenesofchebuildingitselfcollapsing-makingdeachand
chaos-but the mind just moving from the first context to the
second, following the line. The line wanted to thread every-
thing I was saying and wanted to talk above me. I was louder
but I had to keep turning to the line for emphasis: I couldn't
make my point without it. We were staring at a blank space for
as long as we could because my point began there. I said, "En-
counter." I Said, "Threshold." I 'had read "ecology of experi-
ence" in a boclk. The page was a "commotional field," I had
read. ,I was saying that the I)lank space was already commo-
tional when I turned to look at the line, which wasn't yet there
butwhichwasavibratorypresenceintheroom.Anditwasn't

ju§tonelinethatlfeltbuteverypossibleline,pressingatevery
possibleopeninginthefield.Thefieldwascommotional:it,did
not allow stasis. To enter it, you had to be in motion, an'd to see
where you were you had to be in, motion, and not I.ust moving

your body around constantly, frantically naming stations, then

movingatvaryingspeedsbetween'them,butalsonamingwith
impermanence,seeingol)jectsasinthemiddleofsomeprocess,

[ 122, ]
andunderstandingyourseeingasimpermanentaswell,chang-
ing always. Once I'd done this, I could look at the line falling
from the building and speak differendy about it. I wouldn't
havetosayonethentvrobutcouldcreatearelationthatsatout-
side of one and two, something that can't I)e named here in this
spaceofoneandtwobutperhapscouldbepointedto.Iwastry-
ing to say how so much was going on in the space of the un-
sayable, when we were looking at chat blank page, when I re-
leased the first mai.k across it. There was everything that
happened between the line and the page-your being able to
say, I have just made a. mark; it is a beginning and so on-then
there is all of the activity that occurs from the feeling of your
body bisected, your eyes bisected, the time in which you were
sitting,thereisthefactthatspacehaschanged,thathistoryhas
been opened (this line came from, the past). "It opens," and I
said "it" entirely without knowing to what it referred. We
Sometimes sayit when we don't know or when we have gotten
lost syntactically. I was not lost but I was trying to get in be-
tween.Thiswasanessayinwhichyouwereallowedtopursue
the unsayable, even though cue pursuit perpetually returned

you to the beginning, your first mark, the moment before any-
cling could be said: "It opens," I had written into the space of
the space to feel the onrush, the invisible matter, what mach

[ 123 ]
tries to account for. "It opens, and many people throw up their
hands" is a problem you insert into space. Yet cris was what I
was saying racier than my pointing to what was unsaid. How
did I lift this cover? I asked, and that was when the line fell
to the floor. A doodle that does not end is what? It was an
ephemeral gesture made in the margins that I hoped would go
unseen; it was a line searching for the book at the back of. "It
opens,andmanypeoplethrowuptheirhandsinthecauseway."
Something kept growing: my hand moved outward (it wanted
a letter), it moved out and into a shape that looked like an e but
was not an e because of what the next shape was. It was un-al-

phabetic,itwasasmallloop-somethingremrningsomething
to someone; and when it completed itself it made an extended
straight line, not coming out of its center but from below as
if to underline a figure that wasn't there (not yet there). You
didn'tknowifyouwerealwayswaitingfor§omethingtoarrive
when you were writing or if you were, conversely, following
something. I said "something" because it could be anything
andcouldexistoutsidelanguage:itcouldbetheunsayable,that
invisible matter that was brightly lit in certain situations. You
didn't know what time wanted to do to you. You didn't know
wheretimestoodintermsofdirection.Wasprogressingalong
a line of language moving forward in time.? It didn't seem so,

[ 124 ]
since I was still trying to say what I wanted to say, an idea that
occurred to me many moments ago, that was now no longer
with me but had hold of me nonetheless. I wanted to get to the
I)rightly lit situations, but they seemed out of time. It seemed
one needed to write in order to see; one had to move out across
the page and then through-but maybe not £Aroz{gfe the page.
Itwouldbemovementnonethelessandwouldrequirethebody
to transform, the physical body becoming astral or like a line
itself, moving further in. Something. But how did you get out
oflanguagefromlanguage?Isthebookatthebackofthebook
actuallyinthebook.?Therewasanelsewherebearingdownon
me,inthewhitenessofthisspace.Wewerestaringatitsblank-
ness, and this was when I lifted my arm and brought my hand
close to the surface. I made a mark: I moved my hand slightly
to the right and ended on an upward curve. What would come
next would be a continuation of that gesture, but at what level
I couldn't say right then. I couldn't know where I would go
nextwithoutfirstgoingthere-thatis,whendoingthekindof
markmaking I was doing. The itinerary came from something
beyond what I could sense, and it barely existed. It came out of
nothing, some place so microscopic it could not exist in the

present of my searching for it: it seemed as if it was one point

and the place I was going was another point, pardy because I

[ .25 I
could see my hand travel in its effort to arrive there, but I was
reluctant to conclude that when one wrote one wrote as one
from one. W€ were staring at something blank and I needed to
interrupt the space. I wanted to show you something about ar-
ticulation and memory and time. I wanted tQ ask you about
things, how they came into appearance, how that thought
erupted from your mouth. What would you write as I wrote?
Toputsomethinginthatspacewastomakeafieldofafieldthat
was already there, and it wasn't so much chat the day was get-
ting on as that I couldn't talk about the line falling to the floor
without picking it up somehow. And would have to do it in the

past, where soon it would be too dark to see.

[ 126 ]
“The Way to Keep Going in Antarctica”
Bernadette Mayer

Be strong Bernadette
Nobody will ever know
I came here for a reason
Perhaps there is a life here
Of not being afraid of your own heart beating
Do not be afraid of your own heart beating
Look at very small things with your eyes
& stay warm
Nothing outside can cure you but everything's outside
There is great shame for the world in knowing
You may have gone this far
Perhaps this is why you love the presence of other people so much
Perhaps this is why you wait so impatiently
You have nothing more to teach
Until there is no more panic at the knowledge of your own real existence
& then only special childish laughter to be shown
& no more lies no more
Not to find you no
More coming back & more returning
Southern journey
Small things & not my own debris
Something to fight against
& we are all very fluent about ourselves
Our own ideas of food, a Wild sauce
There's not much point in its being over: but we do not speak them:
I had written: "the man who sewed his soles back on his feet"
And then I panicked most at the sound of what the wind could do
to me
if I crawled back to the house, two feet give no position, if
the branches cracked over my head & their threatening me, if I
covered my face with beer & sweated till you returned
If I suffered what else could I do

"The Way to Keep Going in Antarctica" by Bernadette Mayer, from A Bernadette Mayer Reader. Copyright ©
1968 by Bernadette Mayer. Used by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.

Source: A Bernadette Mayer Reader (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1992)

 WE WANT
IT ALL
AN ANTHOLOGY
OF RADICAL
TRANS POETICS
Edited by
Nightboat Books Andrea Abi-Karam
New York & Kay Gabriel
BIANCA RAE THAT MORNING WILL
MESSINGER FEEL QUITE LUMINOUS
for Barbara Hammer and Pauline Oliveros
everything not always visible not
possible to be so – then what will
we do tomorrow – is there any imperious
sight for us now – greying in the corner, then
that’s what you did at old cafes when time was
less valuable – not against sadness exactly
or still vacant but not without character
still moving at times (keep moving they say)
not to worry then about softness returning
don’t hurry it or keep our time whole on that
corner a table & a child comes up & around
barely visible then slips away – not gone
just out of the frame – then moving.
then morning morning comes & you start
licking me working down towards a now
here you are on a curb that matches the
street no disambiguation – she is
riding an elephant banging on cymbals –
giving more palliative licks – last
session – but what will we do .
51
FINAL NOTE one I grew up in but that’s 300 miles away, dear m I’m sorry I
REGARDING haven’t called you you must be well – well my mother says so, do I
SOME ACTIONS trust her, do I trust you –
doing everything at once doesn’t feel like anything doesn’t feel not three not flies more nasturtiums more y’know lilacs – heavy
like an action exactly a stroller passing by the window two cops birds “hey bird I want to be you”
slinking by stupidly check the mail there’s nothing there just
the story you’ll tell what it’s like to
account “as much as.” – the rain comes
after many bad days my friends are mad at their lovers I love my
friends will we all be lovers in the land of “that was it” –
one last y’know foray –
try to flatten yourself to listen to yourself maybe a couple
friends, like one or two are better than none,
people like it – that gleaming again on the far side of the
roof, to the right, to my right. this neighborhood smells like the
52 53
CAELAN ERNEST four perspectives
(of the same object)
perspective 1:
an old lover in the latex bunny costume. the room
surrounding their body appears to stretch
with no sense of end. from this perspective
the subject looks to be encased. the old lover
performs a dance that’s not so much a dance as it is ritual
or a ceremony commencing the hunt. i’m nowhere
to be found.
perspective 2:
the orgy is an archipelago. the bodies appear to move
in & out like Pangaea, forming & unfurling until
all that skin obscures the optics around adjectives such as ‘disobedient’
& ‘unruly.’ the mass, having come together,
shakes the room in its feral mosh pit— the many
tremors it leaves in its wake.
perspective 3:
my body. strung up across the walls
of what appears to be a museum. beneath it,
a television set draped with ratty headphones
71
& a bowl of rock candy. members & visitors
of the institution alike listen to the sounds
my voice makes in the video in the earphones like a brass
instrument synthesized / digitized for semi-mass consumption.
a child, bored, reaches for a piece of candy
until what’s presumed to be her mother tells her
to spit it out. a man extends his arm to grab me
but the sound of a siren wails throughout the room
causing everyone to rush out before he can make contact.
as they go
i hear a voice say the exhibit would’ve been more profound
if the artist hadn’t put me in that disheveled blonde wig.
perspective 4:
a bird. a swallow, maybe.
72
CYRÉE JARELLE harold mouthfucks
JOHNSON THE DEVIL
Harold is 52. He drives roundabout 66 miles on I-95 to and from the tube factory
in Branchburg. He punched the glass over the speedometer yesterday. The automobile’s
tools of measurement are bloody, but he never checks them anyway. The cupholder
clutches a 3/4s empty can of Budweiser. It’s 6:15 in December and the moon is maroon
in the black latex of Pine Barren sky. His backseat is tetris’d with cans of O’Doules.
Nice try, Harold. A white streak darts through the road as if chased. Harold’s nausea
pulls the string beneath his tongue, presses its thumbs into his throat. He opens the car
door a little, its leatherette split from heat. It’s as though his insides are tearing
as puke punches through him, bilious, no longer containing food or even beer.
He lays on his back in the puddle he made, only an inch too shallow to drown in.
A figure above him. Behold, a goat; its ocular golden cleft. Harold’s bleary eyes peer
and correct. The goat stands dripping stygmata and flexing bicep tattoos.
Solve. Coagula. The goat has titties and a dude’s face and no genitals to speak of.
The thing no one ever told Harold about THE DEVIL is that when you see them
you get uncontrollably aroused. Sexually. Harold doesn’t like any gay shit
he ran off his eldest stepchild at 14, who is me, the narrator. Kicked his face and ribs
until he fled and in her fear the mother called it justice. But here he is, cock stiff before
119
 THE DEVIL
THE DEVIL strides closer to Harold on cloven hooves, in leather assless chaps,
unbothered
because they’re THE DEVIL. Although THE DEVIL doesn’t have a binary gender
expression
it’s still gay to Harold. THE DEVIL values consent so they ask Harold
if he would like a fellatio and Harold nods and screams YES! YES! 6 covens
of genderless magical practitioners arrive for orgies nearby because THE DEVIL
is into that. Everyone in the vicinity is on the verge of ecstasy when Harold starts to cry.
THE DEVIL turns the burnt out O’Doules cans into piles of glistering gold coins,
and we stimulate
ourselves with their ridged edges. Harold snatches his boxcutter from the pocket of
his vacant jeans.
He slits his own throat. He’s dead and he’s gay and he’s not sure which is worse.
120
HOLLY RAYMOND Secret Mission Orders for
Goblin Romantic:
The dream is to be moved by anything at all. By this Garfield fan-comic in which
Jon collapses on the kitchen floor, linked triangles and hoops painted onto a wall
stretching three storefronts, mannequins in full-plate clutching their scabbards,
folded t-shirts, the shape of a dreadnought through glass wearing all denim. Pass
through a cloud of vape smoke in the canned isinglass department, exit bawling at
the beauty of all manifest creation. You will aspire to enter into labor translucent,
like a paraffin sheet, wet and flammable, light passing thru shape. Alchemy is
based on such a fluidity of exchange-- all my affect splattering out into the public
sphere, cathecting onto every measly beloved thing. You are to be compensated
unfairly for your infinite labor, work your little mitts to the marrow scraping every
feel from every surface, squirreling away a bit here, a bit there, to balance the
scales, to furnish your home with objects of attention, popcorn chicken festering
under plastic, somebody else’s keys-- goblin in the streets, bugbear in the sheets, &
under the paving stones, defeat. This will all be according to plan.
In Goblin Mall, still melancholic, inexplicably, still reedy and thick with unchecked
pips in teeth, still gnawing the fibers from the goblin bills, still holding that nothing
up to the light and muttering. Such discontent to see the star twist out of view and
know the malls shall die anon anon. How the bridge shudders against the bridge,
and the bridge in turn goes coughing shyly. You, paid in double exposure, walk-
ing as it were on beetleshells. Say to the vast red eye overhead, you don’t know,
you only work here, and after work, sleep in the model beds (for fun). It’s mostly
pretense. Sun thru the fake palms and skylights. Total carapace to cup you in, o in
a worker’s armor, the vile smell of it.
153
In love with product, steal you what you vend. Peddle as a mediator, touch a strang-
er’s hand to pass what’s craved, squander, your smoke breaks are infinite; watch
tapes to lazily know each name as a grunt or a whistle, pockets fat with surplus,
fingers deep in the salad bar, gloves off, you are married to my crime-habitus. Your
earbuds and chargers and red vouchers, slipped into my burlap sack, will someday
come gaily to call me mom.
In Goblin Mall all the flowers are cops. They sing your title. All the birds are cops
too. Every beautiful thing you remember as named from a poem-- that’s cops baby.
I know not where you go to, hands in the apron,head low thru every hanging gar-
den, the cars for kids wobbling on their motors and tithe,
the perfume of the dogwoods calling you to your arrest,
calling your wage out as Nemesis in absentia,
unstoppable and demure and 10,000% fired
154
One or Several Goblin
Girl Workers Dreaming in
Unison of the Mothman:
In my dream its tongue was colloidal silver.
In my dream it was a hunter on the earth.
In my dream the bridges rumble not in fracture but in desire.
In my dream we all tied flashlights to helium balloons to frighten the townsfolk.
In my dream the Mothman took me in its maw like a cough drop.
In my dream a great machine called the Steam Man of the Prairie levels all the
walls, but when all hope seems lost a different albeit very similar machine called
the Steam Man of the Plain comes charging in and restores them.
We all watched helpless but knew the Mothman had a plan for all things that
would shake out ok.
In my dream the Mothman held the code to pop the till.
In my dream the Mothman barges in at closing with no shoes and no shirt.
In my dream the Mothman tips in feathers encased in amber.
In my dream I was slain by the beat of its wings in the middle of karaoke, I stood
there in front of all my dead friends singing a beautiful girl group bop called
“Tokyo Grifter,” the sun shone over and around me, gleaming, and when I woke I
cried that it didn’t exist nor I to sing it or nab it up in vanishing.
In my dream its shirt is too little.
I dream it glows like a bicycle reflector.
I dream the vortex is spinning closer.
In my dream the moon turns around and it has the Mothman’s face. It winks and
blows smoke from its great cigar, obscuring the city. The people smash windows.
Everybody coughs for hours.
155
In my dream I am its wife. I have it made. I sit by the pool drinking my drink and In my dream the going out of business sale is permanent and the savings
dragging my green toes through the shallow end. It travels for work. An empty live forever,
instant pot and a big brown paper bag full of vegetables and meat. like God does, a thing in a white plastic bag, a fake happiness, but still1
I am noble in inactivity. I await the Mothman’s coming.
In my dream we duck beneath a table to avoid it.
In my dream it is bossed around intolerably.
In my dream instead of money it strokes our palms gently and shows us in its big
red eye some premonition of our future happiness, and in exchange we fill its can-
vas bag with bottles of soda, green and red radishes, soap, and ginger.
In my dream, money, but with the Mothman’s face on one side and a crude
map of the mall on the other. It says “1,000,000,000 Mothbux” and can’t buy
much of anything.
In my dream its swordplay cuts me down to size in the field of love (primrose,
poppies, etc.).
In my dream the Mayor, swimming up through the wreckage, grasping towards
something.
In my dream mothdust snuffs me to a further sleep, behind the anchor store,
under the clover of the hills.
I dream of stress corrosion cracking in an eyebar on a suspension chain.
I dream of acting up all level 99 cut out against the sun and auspicious, of a limit
break, of a soft stat cap. 1. Correction! False. Every goblin has the same dream, the same dream every night.
They dream of killing their bosses. In their dreams they advance with giant red hedge-trim-
In my dream the Mothman crashes in with a gun and we huddle idly in the
mers. They advance with TNT sticks like piano keys arranged inside their mouths. In their
walk-in freezer. sleep they make their move with the mallet or the anvil or the conveyor belt with buzz-saws
attached. The mall is on fire. It is tied to the train-tracks and the train is coming. Or, in some
In my dream it lists its demands for eighteen days and eighteen nights without
versions, the mall blooms anew, a million pale blue flowers exploding from the meadow.
stopping for breath.
Bosses chopped up for scrapple. Boss soup. Boss cake. In the cold Yukon they look at the
boss and the boss’ head is a big cooked turkey. They all consume the boss’ boiled shoe, with
I dream of grinding mobs until it’s boring. I’m given a free longbow but I throw it boiled boss-foot soft inside. A million goblin hands on a million goblin pitchforks. The crowd
has their back. The crowd’s hand pulls the lever with the smoothness of a single hand, in the
out. It’s garbage.
dreams of goblins. When the bridge falls their eyes pop out of their sockets and their tongues
In my dream it never ends but keeps crashing into some civic flame or another, flop down the corridors like long wet carpets, and their voices say awooga, steam comes out of
their ears, this is a shorthand that means they’re happy or kind of turned on. It’s known that
burning with a deep howl, pressing its huge form against the bunker walls, against
each one smiles in its sleep to the melody of gigantic violence but what can you do? Anyway,
the plate windows. so, that’s what goblins dream about.
156 157
By the Gayborhood
Shake Shack I Sat Down
and Wept
hold a magic whip up and snap it
take out all the windows
I explain to 80,000 totally asleep-style swains
the way things are going to be
I am stomping on the head of my own vocation
they are staring impolitely at my alchemy tits
and forgetting what my name is
no
I’m kidding
I’m nice I’m nice
let us teach one another like
we’re robbing a bank,
those of us already married
hollowing our bodies out,
filling in wet space with
some stranger’s creature teeth
I encourage you to walk out,
I encourage it, oh, I encourage
your failure to mention
my little legs ambling
up stairs in novel sheaths,
this skirt
with black flowers on it,
my tedious red innards
158
on my office door the name of an evil magician
expelled from the academy, by me, a hero.
an evil magician with a haircut I hate,
destroyed with daggers.
let all my students become assassins
or sob like bastards
braced against the skeleton of news
let snipers carry my fake coquette
ass up to heaven on magic bolts
let them all skip class, what
do I care, let them tear up the pavement,
eat sweets dandy from deep in the trash,
for free,
I will give you all an A, for free,
while gently touching the poof of my hair
like a very mean widow
at a very small grave
all alone downtown and free from
all my obligations, knocked to shit by
wind and socked in the eye
dumb ingenue of vortex I
lift the hem of my skirt up--
spiders everywhere!
I may be mostly vegetarian,
but here I am, weeping,
with my fist inside the carrion,
dragging my fries through the wreckage and the mustard seed--
alive, tbh, in a dream of gentleness,
melting away like a jellyfish mating,
I will not die in this town without
some other mammal’s hot blood
in my mouth
159
JAYSON KEERY Me Problem
Well, that was a negative sexual experience.
Had sex with a person who said they were non-binary
but was shocked to discover my tiny penis.
I spoon my trans friends for comfort and
have an idea! Let’s all give each other tattoos.
They’ll say T4T, except, I propose,
we get two tea bags tangled.
Code.
Not days after T4T branding my skin,
I promptly have sex with
an openly cis-identifying woman.
First time for me,
if you can believe.
Something in me still scared
to be gay and okay in my
~cute~ new masculinity.
She kisses me at midnight.
It’s New Years and I hardly know her.
Someone tries calling at midnight and that someone is dying.
I don’t pick up.
177
New year new me. That’s a me problem.
She’s deeply gay and I like it.
She asks if I got a car to fuck in.
I offer a house and she scratches She talks about another poet writing poetry about her.
the back of my head I tell her I probably won’t.
the whole way home
long nails with the gay ones cut
short is hot. I’d do it too,
but apparently I need
all of them. Working my way in.
About to ask consent to be fisting,
she beats me to it,
she unbuckles my fitbit,
she slings it off,
she fucking threw it,
she fucking threw my fitbit.
Have to wait until the next morning
alarm goes off
to find it
she says
“I don’t want that in me.”
I have no way to track
how long I didn’t sleep.
Perhaps worried
I dream of only loving cis women.
Perhaps worried
I came in someone’s boobs.
First time for me.
This time my tiny penis
the one in shock.
Just because someone’s femme
doesn’t mean I have to be butch to it.
178 179
JOSS BARTON pink_sissy
A photo of pink_sissy posted on IG when she wasn’t looking: Bitch had just
started ‘mones and her hair was wrapped in silk mod pattern scarf, and child she
reads me in the name of Lazarus! Said she was taking out the trash like the fleets
in my waste can like the anon cum loads oozing out my ass!
The word ode feels too soft for the cocks she memorized in typewriter font
Craigslist ads plastered along South Grand. Left on Chippewa, swerve on a tranny
memory, take a right at the cursed intersection at Gustine where cars & cargo
trucks full of beer soaked day laborers meet in glass ridden amazement, roll past
the flats of immigrants growing young peppers in front lawn gardens and ruddy
women woven in rainbow cloth on faded brick stoops, readjust a chubby cock in
mesh basketball shorts as you park the HONDA, pass through the storm door:
KNOCK TWICE:
ASK IF TRANSSEXUAL DYSTOPIA IS HOME:
ASK IF ALL THE FULLY FUNCTIONAL TRANNY TOPS HAVE MOVED TO
CLEVELAND:
ASK IF THE DOLLS WERE ABANDONED BY THE ANAL SEX GODS
WHOSE PUNISHMENT ARE MEN WHO DON’T RIM!
HOLY MOTHERS! PROTECT US IN THIS TIME OF HOMOSEXUAL
BANALITY!
DO NOT TRUST THE GAY WHITE MAN RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT!
DO NOT TRUST CIS SAVIORS!
DO NOT TRUST WHITE WOMEN WHO DO NOT LISTEN TO BLACK
WOMEN!
AND DON’T EVER FUCKING TRUST TRADE WITH YOUR CAR!
AMERICA! MOTHER OF MULES! QUEEN OF HOLLOW VIRTUE!
203
 Sing us a song! Scratch the bowels and paint flowers with the blood! Tell us
the world is beautiful on the other side of barbed wire fences where owls hang
executed by divine destiny. Rip the sheet metal off my back, straddle the bones
of my satin bedpost, saturate Saturday sins with seroconversion-sonnets, and
pink_sissy crushing a roach beneath concrete bitten pumps. See the guts, white
and soft, smell the stink of insect brains wiped across the sole as a site for para-
sites or the kind of tongue that roots into a man’s asshole searching for real lies.
Another filter of static stars in our hair: another roadside motel to pull double
dates in: another anointed ass to breed: another client to fist: another question of
what it means to be alive in this world, at this time, surrounded by these hor-
rors: another movie to check into the viewing queue: another strain to mutate:
another world app fucked and wiped with snot rag cocks slimy and pulsating
and our lips whore neon as we enter the temple, stoned, burning the foreheads
of faggot elders, pumping our transsexual cocks and cumming on the money
tables. The good old boys play Def Leppard’s Hysteria as they suck us off in their
pick up trucks. They send pink_sissy texts of dick pics and coke mirrors begging
to breed her, their incessant snaps remind her that everyone wants a whore, but
no one wants to wake up next to one.
The problem for many old guard gays is that trannies are now living the
lives that dangerous faggots used to live which in part produces both jealousy
and resentment that the dolls are more subversive more radical more gorgeous
and more cock hungry than they ever were: SO IT IS WHAT IS ALWAYS IS:
TRANS MISOGYNY FROM BITTER QUEENS: How fucking typical that right
now it’s trans women of color, BLACK & BROWN TRANS WOMEN, who must
grin until our lips bleed as we watch our rainbow peers pat themselves on the
backs for their tranny flag avatars while simultaneously refusing to fiercely pro-
tect and nourish us: We get to see how much our lives really mean as we count
the hashtags against the job offers, the HIV infections against the second/third/
fourth/fifth chances, the willingness to let us bleed out our political traumas on
stages and screens for THEIR HEALING against the bruises on our bodies or
the obituaries they never read.
pink_sissy sheds the skin off her nipples like human scales, wraps her
heart together with a bouquet of transsexual molting, bites the flesh, rips the
ligament memories, warms a nest of cellophane with the light of electricity
204
against a black sky stabbed with white pins poked through the lining of night
silk. Haunted bodies buried beneath this estrogen soaked skin brittle nails
chipped on the teeth of transsexual ghosts wailing for freedom or a chance to try
it over again to re-wind the tape and roll the dice and this time aim for healing or
heaven or anywhere but eternally stuck on this elevator to Human Resources.
She keeps trying to write something better than these shemale Pornhub
poems. She sits down to type a title: NO MORE DEATH POEMS: tries to
find sentences symbolism stanzas about absolutely anything: rows of lines on
watermelon seeds spit from the wet pink lips of milkweed boys smoking pot
in red florescent bar lights: prose on Detective Pikachu, pisco sours, pine trees
in June, potted plants in macrame webs: Haikus on the Holy Trans Mothers:
Sylvia Sylvester Marsha Ms. Major Ms. Leon TS Madison Tracey Norman
Candis Cayne Candy Darling CeCe McDonald Crystal LeBeija Laverne Cox
Trace Lysette Flawless Sabrina Van Barnes Bamby Salcedo Maria Roman
Passion Principle Janet Mock: BUT ALL THAT COMES OUT ARE THE AGES
& NAMES & HOMETOWNS & NAMES & HASHTAGS & NAMES & CAUSES
OF DEATH & NAMES & FUNERAL FUNDS & NAMES & WHERE THEIR
BODIES & THEIR DREAMS WERE FOUND & THEIR FUCKING NAMES
but the grim rhythm of reaper repetition fades into white noise and she knows
this is what an epidemic sounds like: dead static silence running across the
black nothingness of Arkansas Delta as she drives out of Memphis: How can
anyplace be so pitch black? So empty? No trees or stars or the whir of moths or
the screams of locusts or the choir of crickets or the soul catching of whippoor-
wills or the howls of coyotes or the chirps of rain frogs? Every rattle and bump
on this goddamn road reminds her how fucked we will be if she breaks down
here. We left the last gas station a good hour ago and there’s only the white eyes
of a semi-truck in the desolate distance floating in more darkness ahead of us.
A crackling voice across the radio relays a message that catastrophic winds have
ripped across Iowa and the reporters discuss a death march disguised as an
election while the sky blinks in balmy storm lights against other kinds of veins.
pink_sissy sips on stale coffee as she continues driving through the night, cuts
off the news, rolls down the windows as the storm front mixes with the tears
dripping off her cheeks, stares straight ahead as she reaches for my hand, hold-
ing it until we reach the dull haze of Saint Louis.
205
KAY GABRIEL You Say Wife
Dear Kay—
A letter in seven arguments.
1. ON LIES
In another poem a man compares me to pussy, and then it happens again.
Rosario says straight men don’t even like pussy, an attack so devastating
I took it vicariously. Cause of death: personal correspondence. Do I care
about straight men? The question is maybe misplaced.
Anyways they care about me. That coy interval between gays and trans
women is good for a couple things, one of which is giving the lie to hetero
protestations about themselves. I don’t even believe them, culprits of
their own desire, though as Cam says I think they believe themselves.
This thing is multiform, contingent, ambivalent and I call her my sex.
Even if I make choices I still like everything. I like myself and you, but the
hole we share accuses us both. I’ll call it autofiction; on its head it accuses
the world.
2. ON HIGH SCHOOL
VISITING HOURS ARE OVER FOR THE BLOODBATH, PLEASE
231
3. ON BEING A WIFE
Q: Are you polymorphously perverse?
A: No, I am betrothed to the present.
Consider the wife. Desperately Seeking Susan: Rosanna Arquette, wed to a
jacuzzi and skimming the personals, rearranges the opposite side of the bridge.
Anybody can be Madonna, so everybody’s a wife in Fort Lee. Even the tubs
dull the senses into a staycation. Arquette wants to be a club kid too, and briefly
succeeds—at the precinct, in a gutted loft. Get into the groove and rot there, oh
comely bohèmes! You’ll even like it.
You say wife like style or you say wife like rifled through someone else’s stocks
or you say wife like wages. Wearing only animal print and plump in the right
places. Dear Kay. Suspicious, you delayed wifery. Now you wear it like a
polymer mink. Anybody can be a wife in the country like everybody’s a piece
in town.
Q: Does everybody feel this way?
A: I suspect they do, the fuckers
4. ON JOIE DE VIVRE
It comes out of me like ohhhhhhhh
5. ON BEAUTY
“By origin or not I am ‘of ’ the city until I can’t be—a choice, as choices go,
made within constraints, one of which is surely beauty.” I’m saying beauty like
a person, not aesthetics like a grad student, though for my sins I’m the persona
of a grad student and I’ve been one for long enough it feels like a condition.
You say aesthetics like style or you say aesthetics like a pretty face or you
say aesthetics like a brand. Brecht says you can’t write poems about trees
232
when the woods are full of cops. An aesthete says you can’t write poems
about sex if the city’s full of brands. Or: art has no vocation after 1991. Or:
beauty is a fixing for the wealthy, a commons in a paywall. Do I like this
world and what it’s full of ? Like hell but there it goes, spitting you in the
face and waiting for you underwater. You don’t refuse to breathe, do you?
Meanwhile behind this handwringing the hushed suggestion that women,
gays, transsexuals are especially to blame for the miseries of brands, or
what the metropole inflicts on everybody else. Hello, I hate it. Or: how
interesting, the smack of the feminized in buying and selling.
Dear Kay, hi, I’m waging a sub rosa war. Who loves me will know what I mean.
6. ON GRIEF
It comes out of me like god fucking damnit......
7. ON LIES
Desire is the suture of a new (say it) world—I’ll fuck you till your dick is
blue—following Jackie’s lead it won’t be one of winners in a virtuous game,
or letting agency skid off your ethical shoulders, or of sharing your toys
based on a common Rx.
What are you and what does it mean for me a question nobody could stop
asking if they wanted. Re: perversion you meant to say and follow it with
something about bodying forth the new but Rachel heard one word played
together like a chord. Say it’s the same old sex bent double. It’s mine now,
and goes between me like a stent.
Dear Kay. I’m writing the same letter always, let me try it again. Here’s
a fable in the perfect tense: some friends—perpetually adolescent and
vengeful, with a weekend off and no particular reputation—make the drive
to bully a medium-famous writer. He’s speaking at a private college for a
233
 couple hundred bucks a pop, the subject “modernist difficulty” or you
get the idea. They’ve got a megaphone, which they use to frighten local
wildlife. The poets they intended to swirlie have all scattered to satisfy
their appetites on bowls of seasonal produce. Or maybe the Rimbaldian
creatures enjoy their promised encounter after all, irritate the Tenure out
of every mom and dad. Campus cops usher them off the handsome pri-
vate greens. Over fries the maudit kids hum some poems about difficulty,
poetry and rent, which makes them feel a little better—even triumphant!
Two of them are dating, and sort of clocky. En route back to a dingy
apartment in the ‘burbs some guy on the train resents the way their faces
look, how they touch each other. He’s got a couple slurs to share—his
parting shot to “stay away from that AIDS.” Which missile, however
graphic, lets something slip.
I’d like to say that he got his but actually he disembarked at Newark
without consequences. It’s a shame for words to be more vibrant than
sex—and sexier, too, says my enthusiastic boyfriend. Write back with
something genuinely new, I won’t be disconsolate or have anything
unkind to say, palpating that world in a caress, your palpatrix on call,
Turner
234
I Could Go On
Dear Jo:
Good morning, I'm shallow, sleepless, irrepressible. Does that endear me
to you? 5 AM in March, wind smacks the skylight and hustles refuse over
Flatbush like somebody's idea of a Zeitgeist. Hi it says time to nap but
instead I'm writing testaments of what and who I love—Mike is sleeping
in my bed warm and furred like a cat with a beard and a tattoo sleeve,
maybe he would resent that description, I can do no other, I'm awake in
another room achieving nothing in the second person singular, hello.
I do it for God and the television, with a promiscuous heart. I do it with
prosthetics but à propos of anybody with an opinion about them: you
are forbidden I want to say from evaluating my component parts, I am an
atom, fuck a metonymy, fuck a catalogue. First I composed that sentence,
then I felt myself get eyebanged by every guy with a beard on the subway
platform, don't think, Jo, I didn't sometimes return the favour. Mike's
gone now, who brought me Oreos and spooned while I dreamt my nipples
turned into mice and died, it's spring and I've been eyeing every aging
wonder boy in the park plus his leanly pumping quads, their sprigs of
magnificent hair, there's even crocuses, furious purple delicate violet
contemptuous yellow, now I'm on a train, hello.
My imaginative lusts riddle bullet holes in the side of the achievable.
Have you ever wanted to get fucked by an abdomen, an armpit, a couple
235
TRISH SALAH Manifest
i.
Exist it, if you can. Beings that so luminesce
us alive alive—being so
Where do they go? We aspire and abandon
eat our selves and shit and sleep and eat
We drag our loves, we burn out raw, we passive
aggress our families that fail us, turn us out
We don’t know where to go we shelter online
and in shelters are refused shelter often
ii.
Look up, eyes fallen asleep again,
welcome to this echo
against the redaction of being
we’ve grown used to
These are cuts, measure them:
acceptable, or
399
Tracts and declarations, pride
is a hollow you might fit in
hide, deeply
iii.
What is hidden guides more than our voices
leads through the past, to what?
What is hidden guides more than eyesight
to stutter, stumble at a human form
Guides more than touch or hearing
more than sensible becoming, acute fixture
Being only a spare measure
only rumour and glimpse
What is apparent is the ease of our death
To whom do we die? To whom wish to live?
400
What’s to come
either past as buried or relentlessly of the present
neither recourse to urgency nor the denial of urgency
more than breaking the frame of sex’s reach
more, or before, and under, what grounds?
more than the frame of the oppositional
tender proliferation, gender euphoria
beyond being counted
where they ceased to exist
breaking the frame of the oppositional
what frame is that, exactly?
2.
bios and necros and bios and necros and
as in an analytic “no”
what are the dialectics of oversight?
familiar genres of ruse or rouse,
but to re-entangle
as in human with murdered and murderable
401
what new humanity without purge and burn
Love poem
what from the discarded and or loudly ignored
what from the rendered inoperable, non-possible
what newly new do we now passionately live?
3
either past as buried or relentlessly of the present
did somebody say literature?
Is this spite, in repetition, in the signal back?
Is this a longed for annihilation— longed for?
What part of envy is false consciousness, or
a symptom of internalized oppression?
Too easy to envision violence
we do ourselves on that model
The horizon’s market share, capitulation
as of a radical recycling already new
Leavening hunger, for visibility, for a healthy
narcissism. Why not?
Call it a solidarity of trans girls, a trauma
of trans girls? A grave of trans girls?
Is it respite from the relentless consumption
of consumption as a topic of critique of us?
Is there a dare, a bid for love, a survival equation
lust for life unburdened of fear’s repetition?
402 403
 Is it
what dusty winds kiss
dusk’s hoped for chill, mercy of
a novice affection?
404
XTIAN W AND i am not prepared is it
ANAÏS DUPLAN essential to change
& i think that the mark
of a good relationship may be that it doesn’t change my life
very much
at all
or
change me
i really like how non-goal oriented that is i mean srsly should that
of course every relationship is transformative be the
stated point?
coming out later in life like in order to
become one thing i’ve become
is kinda closed
cuz like risk
what if i am undone by it
i am who i am i’ve always been
this bae i mean pleasure is a reason
a conversation as are all these
emotional intimacies. i keep thinking kinds of emotional
intimacies
about this phrase “amorous friendship”
friendship WHAT
A QUEER
CONCEPT
as the thing i want most if i have a goal for any of my
relationships
421
 it’s that they are alive
pulsing dynamic vital subject ______________________
to disruption fluctuations all that
it’s so romantic! omgx yes
friendship is SO romantic!!!
HEART EMOJI i didn’t call my dad for father’s day friendship needs currently in an uber
liberation there in ~20min
(xtian loved a comment)
(Anaïs loved a comment)
SELFIE – Anaïs + xtian
SELFIE – Anaïs + xtian
something clicked & i–– SELFIE – Anaïs + xtian
SELFIE – Anaïs + xtian
SELFIE – Anaïs + xtian
SELFIE – Anaïs + xtian from devin:
the reason i have trouble valuing myself SELFIE – Anaïs + xtian “Also!!! Do you happen to
is the people who raised me have
didn’t value me i went along SELFIE – Anaïs + xtian PDFs or links to xtian’s
with their appraisal to preserve poems
our relationship i think even then SELFIE—Anaïs from tonight? Three beers in
i had a sense that my own self- SELFIE—Anaïs & we’re still talking about them.”
worth & what people were reporting back SELFIE—Anaïs
didn’t line up i guess i figured
i must be wrong with my self-worth intact
or at least on the mend i have
no picture for what relationship is
422 423
 whaaaaaa !!!! my heart! b4 i knew it in one sense
i was reckoning w it all in another
medusa’s
pubes
alchemizing
childhood trauma is a dailiness
is that what adult life is lol?
(Anaïs loved a comment)
but i wanna comment on
something you said in our talkback
last night about your
poems being smarter than you
when i was living in southern appalachia
i self published like 3 or 4 chapbooks
whose content ugh like i don’t even
wanna know those
poems were full of bodies
bodies changing genders
turning inside out feeling
too much or not enough
struggling i think for some
sort of articulation bodies
fucking & being fucked desires
i was so frightened of
for all i knew of trans
& queer anything then it felt like the end
of any kind of livable life
courting those possibilities––
in poem space
what i’m saying is it was all there
424 425
 CLAIRVOYANT
/
JOURNAL
rs 1974
3S1'3

C;
ICJ 'H
March-June

Hannah Weiner
1'/

ANGEL HAIR BOOKS

Copyright© 1978 by Hannah Weiner

Cover photograph by Tom Ahern

"Sun June 9" was published as a pamphlet by

Diana's Bi-Monthly.

A taped performance of CLAIRVOYANT JOURNAL

1974, read by three voices, is available from New
Wilderness Audiographics, 365 West End Ave.,
New York City 10024.

The publication of this book is partially supported by

a grant from The National Endowment for the Arts.
I SEE words on my forehead IN THE AIR
on other people on the typewriter on the
page These appear in the text in CAPITALS
or italics
2/ 28
GO FOR A SAMADHI
feel different

1st CHAKRA BEGIN

BEGIN WITH ME

Hooray GET OUT is a JOE musical not an order COME SOON NO I PASS
NO pass the paper wine YOU HAVE ORDERS fix the page WRONG BAR
Too late u met Michael at the Tin Palace PARTY free pass OMIT to La Mama
good night Bernadette BEGIN Going backwards: QUARTER TO TEN:
see GO OUT WHERE YOU TRY SOBOSSEKS FIRST. agent London
ACTION. dont hesitate MISS TIN PALACE SEE MICHAEL GO WORDS
He knows an agent WOWget linoleum TALK TO MARJORIE see Joe, hello to
Bob conscious person at NO
NOW SINGLE DONUTS eat the glazing NO DOUBLEDAY POPULAR
SO ELSE WOWie DRUNK leave more space dont underline that's an
order SO WHAT

serious now dont hesitate tonight followed all wrong go to bed

no periods orders go to bed glad get out is New York dont repeat 3 months
dont sit down dont perspire dont do it leave get it get it at door noney
mother's word be careful drunk also HERE where? bed alright dont per-
spire hear shout NO dont explain GO TOMORROW Explain the interference
it stops you from ber:fagyng what the other words tell you omit DONT GO
BE A FOOL It's 7 1ST CHAKRA see clock DONT EXPLAIN THE CHAK-
RAS RHYS K OWS FOUR GO TO BERNADETTE'S it's 7 WOW
BEGI Going to Phil Glass concert POPULAR WIFE GO TOMORROW
Tomorrow is Joe's musical and a party DONT GO BOTH This is silly
2 MOS dont comment yourself SO HUMBLE ENOUGH Rosemary is
back in town, THINK Einstein's definition of thinking Bernadette doing
No more neno....,
pre thougnt thm king SO AM I says the refrigerator in the pink bulb GET OUT
Change the bulb Bernadette's MAYER EXPERIMENTS this book is mind con-
trolled th \\' ALK Bernadette language ex communicate her words so through it
goes_ through The way I QUOTE to destroy a word is to change litters too
y tematically derange the SIS I MUST DO IT cut tt short SLOW
I QUOTE Pick any word at random let mind play around until ideas
with so 0 WITH RHYS it's CHARMING'S word He behave t r ug
yourself \V ME YOUR NOVEL CUT IT SHORT PLEASE PASS THE PAGE
3/ 2
THREE MORE space when it says 2 more weeks it means 2 more days 2 hrs, 2
MOS OR WHEN ONE MORE YEAR appears at Phil's c0 Saw OBEY
n
Saw OBEY CHARLEMAGNE 30 feet long dont over obey ce as I was
the kitchen wall DONT OBEY CHARLE- rt MAG now
BREAKFRONT what is a CLOUDY PUBLICITY AGENT OBey must
have one GENIUS NO MORE PROOF If pronoun I GO BREAKFRONT
to Ave A? DONT GET IT Jerry's AN HOUR LISTS GOOD FOR YOU
GOOD FOR AN HOUR GO TO AVE A The Chac Mool doesn't what a
woman make suggestions have jade eyes that's a poem I wrote about Yucatan SO
WHAT I WAS climbed the dont quote more money third voice IS IN UNDER-
LINES or I hear it QUOTE THE POEM Temple of the SHUT UP and sat on the
sacrificial stone behind the Chac Mool Dear Stone dont mention names dont
QUOTE remember steps what a chac mool is YOU DONT REWRITE
THE POEiftigYfitfe You can see the steps You see the steps, gray, they
appear as you type Breakfront "I have orders for you , or vessel another life
indicated" DONT GO BE SORRY Can sit here and wonder I or go to sit Ave A
WEAR THIS red sweater POWERFUL LUCKY DAY LEAVE THE
POWERFUL SOURCES. no more periods Could type or put the books away
finish July SINGLE MAN TYPE HANNAH I hear EXPLAIN that phrase in
Michael's voice TWO MONTHS STOP IT TWO MONTHS Go to Ave A find
CALL RAYMOND a storewith th at across the door , $5 antique chair WORTH
CUT OBEY MONDAY Why did pronoun see RHYS CHATHAM across the
entrance to a store sort of an erased money I RHYS doesn't call but safe does see
a big DONT in th e air can't meet home not on time later ROSEMARY CALLS
DONT WALK TONIGHT DO T TALK YO U SEE WORDS Come home
see YO U'RE BEA T IFUL FIRST COMMENT YOU'RE A PRONOUN Don 't
wait dont comment sometimes there's an ' and sometimes so Saw Eliane Ra-
dique said the cat is walking on the keys take your gift seriously YOU and find a
master RHYS ACCEPTS appears on her tunajish MAYBE RHYS SECOND
CHANCE GOOD SECOND WHY TUNAFISH Went to 82 Club wild direction
dont call extreme after Phil's concert beautiful a party NOT PHILS very confused
energy the words were all unpleasant continuous I'm tired THAT'S WHY felt
awful concentrate SECRET see GO TO PHIL's embrace Niblock on my forehead ,
goT ALK TO BARBARA Phil's wife see DRINK YOU MILK outside their door
SEE The vibrations smoothed out must hurry dont made a mistake it
said GET A RIDE oh that's why wife talked to the man who was in the Coast
Guard and knew the men who had helped ELIANE SAY WHO ME HANNAH
with the flag WALK WITH RHYS rode instead funny thing at 82 it said YOU
RHYS DONT FINISH THIS SENTENCE STRUCTURE
Aprill4
wrong recommend talk to long Sun night is important not ready to play Lucky
Strike take Lucky out he bites hear recommended he bites. Noa calls be quick
not alrightyou hear seven is important stay up 1 big2 3 4 not jour put it in feel
different. it takes time it makes nonsense. Wolfe in the bedroom pillow and
mattress at night dont laugh at me you've got no Palestine Barry wear dungarees
dont laugh Rhys c0 very important you bed eagle thrifty dont think now its terrible
coming out even bl!l:e e in capitals over here bed tqnif.!.ht . .
ve . aont tee£gutty 1 goof you en7oy com-
pany he is rhys cor:n.Jort ry apnl very well you saw angel
tt your abusini;SS modern art
a ratning out
. tsn
an d t h ts . ,comfprt. y d a gm
t prdlestme covere . rummy tomg . h t rea d a11 aprt'1 t h at .s
different comfort this takes time, haPP.Y Q.ont write thats all NO SMOKING
pents ili1nt omtt . . . .
see the danger signals coffee mive up opaqumg ltqutd go to the store M1ke
calls Soltanoffd JACK in town a\,eek biological reevaluation CALL FOR
APT GOOD SHOW Iris's party this afternoon see her black and white images
clean the stove temper navy blue sore throat WIPE DRY la wear the navy
The blue pants talk get angry with WHO Noa clean cleav gb 0 blue
me
give up eating walk to the drugstore RHYS FOOLS YOU r
He saw your image with blue and lilac light coming from your 3rd eye to his heart
center this was timing important 3 drunk you thought of him 1 hr earlier
stn e man
when he was playing the flue your hea center wanted to go to the concert spirit
world: CALL IT OFF When you called Soltanoff phone said 1 hr later
when you called an hour later he wasn't there MAKES IT CONFUSING YOU
DONT KNOW WHO'S TALKING TALK TO RHYS Rhys are you coming
here? 7-8:30 before the concert Rhys stay home BEST HURRY PHIL
worth it bpjp[e April15 DONT G}_Yii..!-!P THE DUNGAREES COUNT to
fifty five 6tYfSIDE CHRISTMAS m<Xllfu NAME 46 HOW OLD ARE YOU
2 more mos WHEN THE BOOK IS PUBLISHED THE ANSWER
Jackson Pollock @.§.]

Aprill 4 p 2
Easter Sun Rhys is difficult Rhys is Christian came first Rhys is pretty jar out
nuthin didn't Iris feel different Mon didn't call back in time too J:egvy for
cakes you didn't Rltllf small on floor
kitchen it said DECISI8N'ifbR YOU TOO COLD
this is a novel because nothing in it The BIG NO's big decision big
postponement unlike Rhys to seven 'Jo a ggod dye write a
like Charlema§ne do a seven it's funnier in the Kitchen if the lf'cfb'oil o"Ps
firtfJJ ille spaces See Rhys image at 6:30 N'8\v WALK fi ¥ms at
6:ig reach Samadhi CALL POSSIBLE PHONE WORKS see.uou ln.wr
1
walKing i:liJJiCU t
 OMIT PALESTINE he lauds please concentrate on the devil you laugh
big little You wonder if Rhys saw a big Hannah when you saw a little Rhys?
Once he saw you get larger then he got larger 20 feet YOU GET IT Once
you saw high of his left side enough not
complete lert'si'a'e no 'feet CONCENTRATE BIG LITTLE Sun night feel
different two more three fear you aren't working good morning live in Brook-
lyn Martha does now advice SHE KNOWS you called her on the last day she
was in the hotel for ...s.ervices see the hospital he tried twice
Phil Niblock TELL phone off the hook p is deficiency petty
novel one more week let it happens read it write
degraded him also Charlatan who see WHO IN your money
BOSTO Rhys to Palestine YOUR LOVERS genius two more the
doorbell rings for the movie think of me save space

April IS Mon Man go directly

GO OUT GO TO JERRY's APT DON'T HESITATE GET STONED GO

AHEAD GO TO JERRY'S APT it's early what happened up all night got a
shot of penicillin you go to Jerry's apt TALK TO DIANE be difficult Now
automobile get rest you stay until many GO SOON GO SOON and finally large
GOthink company coming red ;acket unbelievable we go to the
Cage concert or Charlemagne's. having a party write much simpler good appe-
tite his laundry POOF descnbe big concert tonight RHYS don't forgive
reach Leonard at Jerrys you talk to Leonard get the movers to bring congratula-
tions a breakfront and a table Diane and Jerry can't use good lookin perfect
English you wont be happier says the table but its a complete sentence like you
seem too drunk repeat Jerry says repeat technical you hear his penishigh good
enough Charle f new raincoat could out go to the bathroom says Luba at
Elaines CUThe HIS VOICE 4 oclock April redback time to retire you go to
bed too g drunk BIG PARTY 5 oclock miss party too drunk to write NOT
n
Luba invites o See RHYS tomorrow GO ON you leave Jerry's AT HOME
0 MESSAGESw CALL CHARLIE MORROW in the kleenex he's busy
You hear Jackson's voice CHARLEMAGNE says the phone you wrong you
·
rem em b er h e b uys a ramcoat CALL ME feel vibrations ILL on t h e
fanttJ,$.tic
change
phone cord in coat WINTER call alright the phone's just been connected he
plays thlf,J!i0;,11f!., RHYS you £:ffrt:frdin leopard spots appears lingerie GIVE
UP see WHYS on Charlemagne's forehead not a single person
champagne give a party now you saw that under his name in your telephone dont
;ump GO TO IT book YOU FEEL GUlL TY GIVE UP CHARLEMAGNE
to d ay goo d loo kin d ant obso lete t he spina l cor d you dont{orJ!i,ve
didn follow the WHYS
RHYS KNOWS GOOD INTRODUCTION THIS IS YOUR IMAGINATION
At the party Many WHYS NO RHYS Charlecon plays THE ANIMALS on his
penis piano have words conquest you dont {remember the words the animals
Columbine no excuse RHYS be bolder ediNVITE EVERYONE when he
tn
SHUT UP plays the piano these huge red words appear REACH SAMADHI get
angry TOO MANY WOMEN BIG LINCOLN later he says popular 0 Yn THYS
very important 4 oclock you are so drunk you cannot touchdown to ma see a
thing write 3 HRS thats negative his loft said DO THE LAUNDRY unfit for me
HE PLAYS PIANO doesn't move his little finger BREAKDOWN FLOWER get
directions WALK SAY HELLO
MOVES HIS LITTLE FINGER

L
EVE
Aprill7 Nic{).;s advice reach the level MORE POWER HI lmore
get drunk see yourself you AD concen-
trate you get higliseventh important one AM more year
F.a.ll River VlSIT RIMPOCHE , HS .tooth
1}-qt kidding . F?UR DOLLARS YOU RE OKAC try for Bernadette cry
't s the combmatwn feel OK energy t'efeased in back E NOT RELAXEOSee
Davidwear t h e pants get out 01 it across c h est R f or me d ont cance1
l
no anger NOT OK 'J see
in vaudeville the tooth
crotch nex t says upper left t lth
in Connecticut learn the tricks of the trade dtctwn
WEAR DUNGAREES USE THE FIRST PERSON I, THE PERSOt.r,'
baggy dun garees f eel the energy iacket too intense stomach hurts more pain
Not because theyre baggy 0 10RE you eat yea cramps THROW THEM
OUT dun garees take them off feel better STOMACH
B E R N A D E T T E

COOL HIM OUT table talks cover it, stop eating or THROW OUT
SAM AD HI BEAUTIFUL huge letters come in pussy cat
Malcolm is in England Sorry about Rhys meditating SIT FOR RHYS no
LUCKY connection The old kitchen table on the kitchen floor SO
throw it out COME BACK HEREMeditating refrigerator with Dorothy's
sef!se penis emergency DONT OBEY healing group see NORA, AMHERST
BACK aero the shoulder, GALL BLADDER SAFE NOW Xray The
. ee e e ashes
is good for the typewnter? It wobbles It types last night STOP t e
top of the casing the whole thing vibrates you didn't finish GOODBYE says the
window IT GETS STOLEN, says the window COLDCREAM ON THE
LEDGE there's PUT FLOWERS OUT on a wide curved ledge PIECE more
confident correct height of table? sure WEAR EYE MAKEUP IT'S SPRING
MAKE IT CO RRECT TOO MANY STOPS THE ENERGY INCREASES CALL
GNEat midnight? NOT ON THE PHONE COFFEE NOT THE
CORRECT POSITION DEADLOCK does that mean FOX IT DOES FIX THE
TABLE Not another APOLOGIZE PLEASE APOLOGIZE NOA YOUR
BROTHER'S CALLING SALARY IMEOR'I:A:NT NOVEL the underlining
stopped with the typewriter on the low IT BACK BIG IMPROVE-
MENT the keys are under our chin reach Samadhi level call Josh? Reynolds
You didn't Rhys tonight meditate on him after finishing make an apptwith
Dorothy's lunch good grief you go CRAZY PRESIDENT Dorothy's voice see
a picture of the typewrite on
the little table

Aprill7 p 2 apologize to Rhys BIG APPLE MODERN ART THURS

WEAR IMPORTANT
John Ashbery reads, Ron Padgett NOA'S VOICE: LOW INCOME GO TO
BOSTON, C.9JFTING ONCE NOT FRIENDS
l!.trt nend , utrae.rstan ST, THE
explain the'lo : one fox lock that doesn t work, one slip loc easy SPITAL
bar
to bre!_tk, one police floor NOT USEFUL FIX THE BAR
Then there's a deadbolt the city could put in IT ANSWERS What's the
answer to Noa we don't see each other MUCH DONT GO HOME TO ENGLAND
p ro blem money b e careJu .+ z clothes
witches good for you feel Malcolm RHYS AT
SAMADHI LEVEL Nothing jumps into the bath too much starch now luck
take it.bqck MUCH SAFER in cucumber juice thinking of CALCIUM
7wce

THURS
GO TO BED

appreciate it Michael calls early asleep call back SO MUCH SETBACK the black
GO TO SLEEP 1:30 IT'S A SIMPLE AFTERNOON BRAVQ This is Michael
NOW TRUTH GO HANNAH a huge one in front the where you
were settipg in the not OK GO OUTSIDE Wmdowstll but it says NO as
lingene
you get the jacket Wondering whether to wear the scarf or not, Bernadette calls
anger NO NICK SCARF that must be her opinion BLESS YOU always
, k not Stmple go to
wears one SIT DOWN smoke a littlean hour goes b y you re o the museum of mod
HELP best issue you're kidding ia wear scarf GOOD FOR not for you art
YOU Larry jokes GOOD AFTEltket s NOON STOP THIS NONSENSE
carf

STOP TH SENTENC
 Simone White
DEAR ANGEL OF DEATH
Dear Angel of Death
Copyright © Simone White, 2018
Dossier Series
DEAR ANGEL OF DEATH
ISBN 978-1-937027-92-6
First Edition, First Printing, 2018
Edition of 1600 copies
Ugly Duckling Presse
The Old American Can Factory
232 Third Street, #E-303
Brooklyn, NY 11215
www.uglyducklingpresse.org
Distributed by SPD/Small Press Distribution (USA), Inpress Books (UK),
Raincoast Books via Coach House Books (Canada)
Cover design and typesetting by goodutopian and Don’t Look Now!
Set in Adobe Caslon with DTL Caspari titles
Printed by McNaughton & Gunn
Cover printed letterpress at UDP
Cover paper donated by Materials for the Arts
This book was made possible, in part, by a grant from the National Endowment
for the Arts, and by public funds from the New York City Department of
Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and by the continued
support of the New York State Council on the Arts.
DOLLBABY
First, secure the milk
then quick I must show you
my body’s inventing itself
that my body should make herself
ground for the great shock of suck
that, I
quaking metal in fixed
ground, I
site of infection,
I, arrowroot cookie
Taste is the true prophetic word
Secure the milk
and I’ll tell you
grammatical properties
of the pronoun
motherfucker
Secure the milk
and we’ll talk about
“Marxism Leninism Mao-Tse Tung Thought”
which is milk thought
which is what I believe
 ||
 Of the long poem I had said there could be
a secret text, a sacred accompanying text
4:18 am
unreadable but for its having been written
left boob:
and erased. But how to establish secrecy?
the baby
Not undiscovered, nor buried, then unearthed.
saw a spirit
Its paradigm is the burning bush; psychosis
clowning on the ceiling,
matériel, madness of cause.
the thing or things not there,
There must, I’m saying, be a listener, also mad,
certainly amusing.
ready with testimony to extinguish doubt.
the baby’s face is kind of flat;
There must be witness and whispering
that’s beatific. I scare easily.
and uncrated objects that have not been touched
except by these two.
||   ||
The primary position taken by me as against
the secondary position (the backward, the prone);
that is the point. The point being
to run down the arbiters of licensing
with a demand for pictures. Show me
an image of your perfect listener.
Deep sound.
Trash musicality, folklore of the heard,
remnant of the flightlessly flapped wing,
I forbid. I forbid pathos.
And contrast. Forbid that, too.
Me in the primary position.
|| 
The primary position’s rough justice being
to run down the arbiters of listening.
Put myself to the side of listening
Put myself over listening
Take a vacation from listening
and listening’s homonym
udderance
and listening’s key practice
“damnation.”
 ||
On whose part comes such failure
of imagination? Upon whom does it come?
Upon nothing of threat.
Straddle this longing.
It is circular.
Its “self-regard,”
which is also flat,
abiding anti-calculation.
|| 
If we have failed to prosper,
or rather to become prosperous
in the sense that one earns silence
on the federal holiday of one’s choice,
if we have failed in that,
in prospering according to proper functions
of the glands and of capital,
it is called poverty.
In the above example of hypotaxis,
weren’t you her man?
Her man of opportunity.
So-called prospering.
 ||
Excellent French of the seminar,
many early years in language training,
of the language lab, of the contest.
Then French of the tutor. Bad French
Of the baby class, the first grade Mademoiselle.
French of one’s own Fanon translation
Also the French of jealousy of tokenism,
The soft sexism of the academic job market.
What might be, yet never is because.
On Sunday one scrubs the toilet, in French.
French of the kitchen and of Colette,
of the nicest suitcase you’ve ever seen in Paris,
in her brightest trousers, drunk in Pigalle.
French of correct sense memory.
The sweet smell of familiar cock.
If you can still say that today in America,
cock. Familiar or favorite.
Do the French stand alone.
|| 
Perspicacious beyond health,
All things are effortless.
You milk the baby; it is effortless.
Your choices are beautiful.
You have read everything.
Let this be the reason
you go without
Deetjen’s vacations.
Repetitive motions,
swept along by the overtures
of the injurious dance workshop.
This is no one’s fault;
not my pussy’s fault, nor yours.
It is deep February. You are not depressed.
Primary is new to you, primary red.
A soft and suckable red mushroom
reminds you of a nasty wen
or a witch bauble for striking
on black rocks.
Maybe the dancers will bust their wrists,
how careless and cheap
their twirling appears from this vantage.
White like the crystal Stacy has promised me
the mind grows light and visible ice.
 ||
You could get pink eye, by poet revolutionaries.
one would think, In English we don’t say
putting your face on on the subway. I can’t care about it.
But, anything for Eileen. I can’t care, coming out the side of your mouth.
An outline of face Where did you come by
preliminary to appearing at the sad gig your taste for blood.
in the endangered garret.
Languor, like headrags, unfashionable.
At last, life is ordered the way you wanted
with once a week cleaning,
a child sleeping on his side (tiny man!),
chocolate cosmos renounced
As now,
in retrospect, the wicked nonce
happiness of cut flowers
all too plain,
solitude comes back on you.
Taking leave of the dynamism of organizations,
ad hominem attacks wash over you
from another dimension.
The mind wanders to Robert De Niro
at the club in Atlanta.
That would have been fun.
What do you know about capital really?
Perhaps the intelligence
characterized by willingness to stretch,
not proud of having learned the study habits
of the white shoe,
is offended by burrowing actions.
Taking offense a lot, then.
The action of the day burrows.
The day is taken up in most bewildering
deflections of informational assault
||   ||
SPRING POEM under the pressure. Not me. Ha.
Oh Lord. One resents His invocation
in the poems of others.
Unless there was a turn in the way of things
all would continue to vibrate It was frustrating
with foreboding. Hazard littered my wish for a biscuit, a true biscuit
the pink tree bud. of White Lily flour
Hazard would ruin the festival of the peony as I’m living now on cake
if nothing was done, and soon. and meatballs.
An odour of scorched broccoli
followed you down
Fulton, then Clinton, then Second Avenue.
The olfactory sense pricked up
in concert with descent, its due
in the order of consciousness
coming round like psychosis
sooner or later.
Perhaps this person does not understand
the extent of my exuberance.
I was taking secret photos on the subway
that week of young black men
all in black and flowers;
trendspotting it was,
as well, an extended meditation
on the troubles
or where the testosterone package
has led. Francesca the bittersweet,
one expects to be visited in the nerves daily
by the tragedy of early middle age.
And yet. Who expects to break down
||   ||
FOR FLOSSIE snuff bourbon and soda god a lot of bourbon where were you you
called from maybe Ghana dunno next thing I knew you were in
my bed so Ghana so few surprising number of nights this was
You won’t remember the first time it was 1989 you were flanked never your way pancakes I imagine you were heartbroken which
by an Ankh and person I would learn to call your woman very I was too stupid to know can’t remember. More night visitation
soon and this would be things there would be a woman and I was in Ft. Greene. Reluctantly one admits to having had a great deal
something else other than early memory which is now perhaps of good or great or excellent sex but east coast apartments one is
memory of not having been noticed therapist would say of an never away one is never one. One’s mother is often correct. Several
invented hardship in long time of never mattering enough and realms of protection averrals won’t take I believe in the god of
seeking out long time of not mattering by finding in first moment open mouths and the Sherwood Forest. I remember our only fight
definitive sensation of a given desire’s co-existence within erasure. means nothing about money as to why to “make love” all night
Possibly of a certain age body of a nineteen year-old wincing not sleep. Assuredly it was not possible not to persist hi Candace
quality of woman who will never be presence of your body exactly thanks to take advice at thirty after the breakdown although I had
in cinematic “past” the body which in 1989 began to be yours and never felt better you don’t stay. Several hotels. Once we fuck and I
became body of your woman became also body of the changing don’t come. You are heartbroken and then you have a son and I was
year I remember 2:17 am. Expectation is a curious thing to develop cooler than that I remember I know now it is possible to deny even
around the problem of not having been noticed or been absent or how I have loved you and for how long for how very little indeed it
been without yet this was your hour to begin to expect you one or costs except what is out of the flesh once is out forever and then we
two minutes prior is expectation was. Once your woman within are forty and forty-two and forty-four and I have a son.
hearing you were gone teenaged gossips you know how you know
the sex will be good or great or excellent none of these I remember
what’d she know about it having any idea what good or great or
excellent as at that time of being seventeen happily blundering into
some truly excellent fucking arrogance and having at least sense to
know 1990 it wouldn’t happen unless you could relax a little about
you know Kenneth Clark’s bougainvillea trellis or fingerbanging
whatsit out of doors I remember that. There was correspondence
Bronx were there horses at that time or twenty years later riding
lessons baseball hats I could be the kind of woman mothers love
then now hard around the mouth set to trials over being without
several places to live later a white cat and another woman same
one you loved her deservingly what was I wearing skinnier so
many boys I sort of loved at twenty-two when bourbon law review
||   ||
LOVE POEM
“you” tell me how fucked up you are
as if my secret were not general drift
in partial or limited attention on the spectrum
of whole attention or love
in the way “I” had hoped
this symptom or failure is ongoing
even now wounding myself
as another separation begins
turning back to keep a simple measure he grips my clavicle in the dead of night
to accurately say the cost with unexpected power
this kind of womanhood whose longing he moves the skin along the bone
is not to be made stupid in its face under skin cradle
as could be implied alors this woman this hard place
in her prom dress on the subway like that known to us in the dead night
like that lives for you in the measure of almost pain
of stones’ distance from the fully built I watch us work to move away from each other
we grieve and press some virtual
line our muffled days
||   ||

I write in secret to extend / the attention for channeling
going on without recourse / to interpretable phrases
games such as pinochle / are attention in retreat
secrecy shreds attention
makes for it unlikely perforations
so little gasps illustrate folding
one word over another / one is inside the other’s attention
or conceptual field / you bring attention inside
in the way of by way of secreting / in a dump motel
where everyone would be looking
but for the proliferation of dumps /
your key witness
|| 
NICOLE EISENMAN, I NEED YOU TO MAKE A PICTURE
Nicole I saw you at the church and need your help. I think it’s
important to record relaxin’s long term distortions. My legs are
slightly bowed not from doing anything so that is immaterial.
What about this gappy thing between my thighs there is
something wrong with my hips they are stuck or something, I
mean they get stuck when I move so there is an arc in trying
to move forward so that every forward movement involves a
circle that was not there before. When I bend over completely in
Prasarita Padottanasana like my groin is released in such a way like
I feel the turning of a ball of the joint in such a way that I imagine
my hip joints as padded with cork there is a softness such as was
not there a soft hole that was not there in the groin which is related
to the gappy hips. My boobs are ruined and ought to be painted as
soon as possible as I cannot say whether they are ugly or beautiful;
they are a ruin so how do you show that or what do you do about
change of that nature where overnight you were one thing and then
unimaginable punishments and then you were out of that even if
you are not religious or a very small child I think you need a picture
showing this kind of bodily rage although I admire certain aspects
or angles of what I now see as the brutal indent of a formerly
powerful ass. And the way I am eating which cannot be pictured
but might be symbolically “pictured” or I pick up and secretly eat
carbohydrates I load in ways previously revolting to me as my fear
of obesity is intense everlasting earned. I think my digestion is ugly.
Returning to the privations of the past is tough despite years of
trouble sacrifice of blood blisters under the toenails I sweated this
muscle in the modern way with only moderate success. The limp is
runner’s knee.
 ||
T WO THINGS WERE HAPPENING AT ONCE Then let this book be a glory hole I will lay on you the time
my period returns and I spend all day shamed by thought that
would not be jammed through anything. Fuck my thinking it is
the ghoul bug’s a practical terror so undisciplined! I think and feel embarrassed and cannot stop
you cannot commune with sneaking around my imagination looking for ways to commit
nor Klan idiot with a sickled knife adultery in a thoroughly surveilled world or rather put myself
the rape sneak, however in a psychological space where I would be myself again no one’s
I think I had medicalized a violence wife and do what I want. Frankly I am jammed up even in fantasy
I, too which seems too effortful and for the birds in a 1970s sense of
slow to feel as usual being for the birds all Mary Tyler Moore and the adults secretly
labor, then tear tooting away at parties. Children of the age of AIDS, we learned.
where, “This mode of commemorating Christ On the mercy of the book I place this accursed thing.
is not suitable to me,”
while sometimes I am like
your assessment of this thing’s causation is faulty
in the following three ways
the rape sneak walking the earth and the door of the house
blown open in explanation
for the baby, wind
inside, behind
a change in register announces itself
wishing at the wall of the Getty: cold white
I wished to be, to turn myself under your body
a globule in the mixing interest of trollops and representatives
at Berkeley, I, too
cackling in the mirror
||   ||
STINGRAY
Having had no proper family name I made do
with Stingray never loved a man so-called
for more than a generation black and white
suffer nameless conditions
instigated by the father’s line of nobody
murmurs to the baby “goodnight nobody”
there is no longer any way to count
beneath the highways of the Eastern Seaboard
above the Mason Dixon line
underlie so many crossings
|| 
What to me the arched wing of a black Stingray
who think weeping over her vicious mouth
somnolent practice of stuck terror of the wave
is Stingray the atomic principle of giantism
make my whole mouth move around the fire
make the fire everywhere or cold
on this street Stingray where a man thinking his boat
beauty knowing moneys or leather, white leather
feeling however the killing power of the great sea monster
her haunch whip a think acquired as a gorgeous capital
 ||
Wait and sting why Odysseus
always in trouble with the one-eyed
what caused His love of lake demons
(her gauze whimple
under blacklit stars)
His very early anticipation
of the right guitar sound
its fullness, no
re-union of the ocean and the desert
just reflect on the history of the house
|| 
57 rays die in Chicago
for want of so lush a malapropism
I wait a long time outside the ocean
and your body sometimes nothing of images
dead brown and such like luminous captivity of the dead
repeated back to our obsessional contemporary
says back a weird lie
when inside me a bit of god comes out your mouth
as the command to feel you what
kind creature will you take me from being to what
 ||
Her mallow glamor warns
warmed in the glowering ripple light
this liquid this death to you
lady come under this death it is ablaze
in its blue white perfection hold your hand like a cup
water light will pour you into the whole day
the deafening memory of your tenth year
occurring in the space between sunup and sundown
on a plot the size of an hibiscus flower
you, miss
|| 
The Bicentennial was yesterday
write queer and muggy apparently evening
every minute the Declaration must be signed
firework on the barge child mind
to which no Superfund has yet gently repaired
get me a Stingray the color of slate
a little girl switchblade the horizon of which is an arc
gutter oil slick Delaware that horizon
is New Jersey a plot (her shore)
farms send blueberries and war
 ||
In this form it is impossible to be together Shadows beyond wishing
it is being nothing at all then cast in this court trick and male news emplotted to hover
vulvar form o clamped then no wools or porcelain anywhere in sight
between together and nothing of the flat class
forms of sand coarse pink edible Stingray
no seams along which to break vanities pool
a black flag waves in hot wind heteronomous in the tight
form of formless a craft, a craft appears grate
materialized hot gas withdraw from earth
raucous to suspend life outside of life one fractal initially
||   ||
Retreat then The very source
the slick thing quavered she said or the veil
of sediment rustling abashed complete silence, the silent
contemplation of stones rushing together inhalation or stopped time
under the fresh time, being unmet
lake not the elementary bite of capital totally unregulated
give that is a wound slack and unreturned
and she, raw, bloodless threshing
could you bleed housed gowned the dna then
fucked in a prehistoric manner she becomes another one
still sea monster
||   ||
DOG POEM structure or apparatus without the help of lyric rendering.
It’s not a matter of incomprehension—evening for death. 
Vacant shacks on land the size of a town that once belonged only
On this day 11 years ago my father died. to my family deep in Scott County, Mississippi;
I watched him refuse death. this for mine, or ours, and also, guns.
There was no reason to share this. I first touched my grandfather’s beloved hunting weapons at this
It was an indignity.  “homestead.”
There is no refusing. Touching, an act that did not resemble in any way the late
The brain stops even if until the last it performs miraculously the experience of inspecting, loading and discharging a 9-millimeter
duty of remaining illuminated.  handgun.
He died on an evening like this warm one in November.  Range shooting was an activity my father enjoyed, found amusing.
Loose leaves blew around the parking lot as I drove away from the The unnatural power of tiny hand canons is disgusting.
place of his death, a hospital. When I found that my hands were neither large nor strong enough
I smoked with my mother’s second sister just beyond the gate of to manage an automatic weapon of this kind, for the first and
the house my parents bought, owned and lived in together for only time in my life I shook all over, my arms and hands were
twenty-six years. shaking.
I lived in that house, but did not live there then.  I could not participate further or again in this kind of family outing.
We smoked and a reporter came to the gate and asked her My family thought nothing of this.
questions. There is one story about me as a melodramatic type—a swooner –
She was ashamed. which is utterly ridiculous.
There was no need to answer her. Someone suggested a smaller gun, a .38-caliber revolver.
We did not answer. Apparently this was the gun for a woman prepared to manage the
We smoked. killing of a human person.
The night was strangely warm, like so many peculiar Hallowe’ens,
November in just a few days.  Now the local tragedy of my father’s death passes.
Autumn quiets or casts itself between the warm parts of air.  It has passed through the writing of these sentences.
It fills spaces of warmth with cold. It is past.
The fleetness of death is most impressive, crushing in its casual
On the eastern seaboard of the United States where now there is completeness and simplicity.
nothing like the four seasons we knew as children, I suppose The brain stops.
I have come to understand ecological disaster in these limited The heart stops.
terms, as fallen evening, as a reflection of a more general Then there is no more breath, a sign that life has ended, its signal
limitation of world ideas, inability to enter into discussions of end, I suppose.
||   ||
If, stay with me for a moment, I am not sure how to begin to
say this, it is the case that one takes the measure of vitality as
against the instantaneous cessation of all things, then to be alive
is to be held by or to hold the thread of being continuous.
One wishes on occasion for the relentless dailyness of living to,
what, go into retreat.
Retreat is a word I like.
For example, because you will not come to me, I decide I am going
to tell you something.
I decide that it will take a long time.
It will take as long as I want because you are not waiting, and I am
incapable of waiting.
Through the lens of another self I regard the actions of the mad
one.
I drop her anchor.
She is not physical.
We are together and apart, space, sparks, speed, as tonight the
sleepless baby shuddered in my arms, at last, at last away, we
wrest one another from the ordinary, rudely entwined at
deepest night.
Suddenly I see, not because of the dark, but in it, that this is a new
way to know the organization of time.
Leaning back with the child, limp in my arms, un-subject to the
sides of time, no longer given to a three dimensional vision
of time’s progress as cubed units, which thing rises up as a
monstrous extrapolation from the illusion of lines,
I understand my baby, my mad self, as merely pricked by time’s
stabbing proboscis.
Is the minor space of an hallucinated freedom nothing?
I’m asking what you think.
|| 