Remember the before when we knew the world was wrong but we acted like it wasn't?

now some people compare the state to a natural disaster, a wave that will pass, a mother in birth pains, an old white men's death rattles

pain is the poison of pretending seeping out.

to force out the baby rebirth of a better society.

To extend a pretend,

return to the cat, rat, hedgehog, bird, dog and goat

to tv

or wed

to a goal any one that will keep your nails hanging to the boards before drowning,

turn your head into something

Up a steep hill, sweat to get there to another door to another door

to a closed store

Students live in Victorian bones unwashed skins and sit on porches

communing with the lice

Nearby there are empty store windows, behind duct taped cardboard a random unsold object and

down the street a selection of ethnic food options

Dad sits mostly silent with his college son in one and eats a big piece of bread scooping up the lamb. Proudly unfurling the wallet, he pays the bill. That’s a kiss.

I wonder if my friend at Columbia saving her poet’s ass by doing a doctorate ever walked by

Mahmoud now hidden under a precipice dangling over nothing?

The thorn in my side has been plucked

By poppies in the midst of the swirling disasters of the everyday..

Student building Victorian bones unwashed skins and porches with lice nearby a selection of ethnic food options.

Up a steep hill, sweat to get there for nothing

For another door to another

Dad and father

pays

proudly unfurling the worn black wallet

A friend at Columbia saving her poet’s ass by doing a doctorate does she walk by

Mahmoud

Mahmoud where are you hidden under what college precipice?

Mahmoud, can we get to you before they do?

The thorn in my side has been plucked

By poppies. I cannot keep my eyes open in the middle of the chaos.

1.

Lover does not know my name

he is happy to see me

and I, him.

2.

I want to leave

this place

like I left before,

3.

can you breathe and not feel it

4.

my lover doesn't know my name

or even who he is

5.

not on an airplane.

I'd rather walk into the sea

where children

not only the one I gave birth to

are wandering in a fog whisper wailing "how did we get here"?

6.

baby berceau

beyond in no memory of mine

held quieted

7.

Haunted by knowing so little about each other

you'd stand at the cracked door like Paul Mescal

smirking enough to save me a bottle of whiskey, swinging

slurping

and volunteering to decimate me/you

here comes the bomb

8.

touch rough not love anonymous protector of your soul

accidentally keeps mine in a bubble.

9.

many words everywhere everyone dizzy looks for a moment silent

hear yourself

hear the bird

do not look

never look

at the landmine.

10.

We stand together smirking at our

kitty kitty

sit here no here.

I don’t believe in marriage Toasts the mother at the wedding to her daughter’s eyes closing Get a tagline Get her tagline at the wedding shouts the boss at his nephew to get one morsel more of gold from her

To make his business run

Little tousled nephew is at her heels to keep his new job

Until after all night, she turns around and fucks him sensing it in her body

It looks friendly

That’s what I was telling you

it

IS friendly

Daddy

You know what I think, sis

of your plan?

I think it is shit.

Heal

No

Babies say no

before they say anything else

Say no

And then say yes

A is for align

You can leave knowing you will not die if you do

Chopping down the forests

Refusing aid

Casualties in

I ask you to commit I have your shirt and wait

Boiling barrels of poisonous water

An experiment for which I am paid

The cubicles are not for us

Blue phosphorescent water

You sense the end in your body and other bodies do too and instead of comforting in the dirty water they break off into little islands And die.

I am not dead

she said

having taken her own life

into her own hands

to wake up and watch

no one will fly away or fly except if they are flown, put in a cage

music will sound like hymns to hatred

our world is hollowed

into a distant cover of a song at the tip of your tongue soundtrack

plastered gold plated gowns and flattened lawns

gingerpissale

It is cruel that it is snowing

flakes to persuade

there’s no end and

my cat and I

we

slip by

landmines everywhere

and here where am I

where I am

then we re-

turn

to the rhythm to the

contrast of colors

intensified

how bad can it be

when snow is still falling

a seduction to

quiet, a passage to ongoing

drift.

He is a circus barker

he is calling me out

I say I want to hide why

do I have to come out of

my self

she is in a playground

her children in her arms

she has left her

quartet instruments to the side I am worried that they are

expensive

and will get broken

or stolen.

a violin among them

Between the last time we spoke

and

now

there is

a gaping hole

of compacted seconds

I need more

space

before facing

the devil

loosed in the air.

what is here is now

feet

on

a rug

that does not cover the hole

forever gaping

underfoot.

They are running after

your brain

(mine, too)

and they have

caught it, holding it in their fists

a toy, your brain, mine, useful until

they throw it into the heap.

Feel something once a day

run away from them running after

so as not to sink

into

the

gaping hole.