to the poor or persons in the past i suppose
i live the luxury of a most debauched king
while to my peers i seem a pitiable thing
the afflicted find fault in my astonishing
complaints; the threadbare really seem
to care about the level of my waste
prejudice, from the right and from the
left, from every gender camp and
disinformation factory, theme, caste
you don't know if you'll live throughout the night
and you're watching a rom-com? you can deduce
that all prospects are tongue in non-literal cheek
or that your level of acceptance is very high
or that it's depression giving up disassociating
and probably not production values, star power
a sudden insistence on minding the moment?
a pain strip that overlaps takes on is informed by
the stack of strips below it, a translucent
suspension of anecdotes, quips, romans a clef,
bulleted lists, self-pranks legends memoir
and these legs can take you from sofa to desk
and a desk can take and make havoc with an arm
and an arm is all it takes to stop an action or
refuse the sorts of service lacking which could
mean the end of a long but very young evening
it's that you're tired and afeared of a rapacious
environment which can be slowed cannot be
slowed by inaction but can be snubbed as one
would snub an earnest lover with no worldly
blame apart from the ancient code she arrived
with, no more agency than gravity and water
decaying cedar lodge in eastern prussia
clump snow dropping from high branches
crystal blue sky
trying not to boil it down into an unfair
and ugly blob or not even trying just
not doing that you know?
presents from four-score christmases
choke the closets and litter the plank floors
they're real planks that they'd cut from the
surrounding woods and made floors of them.
they were watching a season of Star Trek in
which the flow of the plot kept getting
stopped dead when each character had to
turn to the other and affirm their goodness
there's also a lake and silently dipping mallard
groupings, legit choppiness or gently rolling
in the moon, natural waters that are filtered
and stocked, ballooned over; still nature was
winning here, fungus by mouse by respect
by time no not by time. in the same
measure of time there can be renovation.
by age no not by age each age is just a
fashion. there is only movement, only
action, else there would be preservation.
by Reptily
they say never go into a situation angry or you'll lose
but if your spirit is angry all you'll do is suppress your
anger and not be unangry
that's how breaking the rules becomes a spiritual
pursuit especially if you have to pay off your
transgressions
and if not are you humbled by
rue?
the day after a full moon i felt and discarded emotions
rocked the bottom of the steering wheel
snuck nicotine vapes near a hospital's elevator banks
found the only saturday medical supply outlet
marveled at aisles of crisp alarming packages
how family characters rise to an emergency
in direct proportion to the value of the afflicted
or sink in unison if there's even only
one who can't hold her shit
by Donna
in one full-moon day:
ran out of my vape pen
with an hour and a half to go before the
tow truck
who said i couldn't ride with him because
he'd brought his girlfriend
the stepfather says:
pull it up right from the middle
give me a snuggie
and the woman with the broken hip says:
home healthcare workers
what for?
and the jury says:
let him go
and half the people realize
all we need is lies
dog pees on rug
there was a four-foot tube going from my nostril to my small intestine, and i pulled it out, twice, once while vomiting.
i figured out how to work some of the blinking, sucking, beeping machinery, and when i'd had enough, i switched it off.
i took the loudly ticking clock down from its high place on the wall and removed its battery.
i signed a waiver of liability so that i could be allowed to sit up in bed.
i told them i wanted ativan, and a full milligram, not a child's dose.
i allowed a young male nurse to wrap me with a vinyl leash and walk me up and down the corridor.
i became conscious well into a narrative with a daisy miller-like subplot.
there in trinidad and tobago, i gave her one more chance to choose between the hipster boyfriend and the security of her father.
i drifted in the streets after they made their choice and moved inland, toward the volcano.
i evaded pickpockets and thugs in a dark terrain of campfires, our shadows splaying against the outer city walls.
i got a ride in a jeep full of local teenagers speaking tagalog.
i cooked a pork shoulder in an aluminum pan at an outdoor community kitchen.
i slept in a flophouse full of mattresses in wall alcoves and flashlights and men.
i met the girl who was going to solve the problem of the tracking wires embedded in everyone's eyeglasses or canes.
i was desperate to find an overall solution, but i could only wander from situation to situation.
by Donna
story-verbal sleep
itching-layered
many-roomed structure
places on maps
view from grave
view from above
view from a passing conveyance
figures beckoning
bent coupling
generic horror
deeply unasleep
torque of somnolents
conscious paralysis
tandem breathing
ever sinking
scary clear
content bemusement
seeking moments
stranded in time
able yet not able
about the bed
night shrouded
stark light black curtains
sweet avoidance
stolen
form of eating
brain stuff
closest listening
despite discomfort
ring of saturn
bobble head
Yes, I used to contemptualize everything
like the bitter, curmudgeonly professors at
the beginning of my career. They filled the
smoking lounge with grievances and
plotting, derisive cackling in their blur of
fear. But for some the failure has been a
tenderizer, the corrosive beating toward a
climax of surrender. Is what I'm hearing.
by Peg
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