How to Jump Out of a Moving Car
Get in the passenger seat and close the door. Ignore the notion, the overwhelm, that the seat has been empty for you, waiting for you, simultaneously warm and cold for you. If there is an urge to drag your tongue across the earlobe of the man in the driver’s seat pretend it is absent, knowing full well it always has and always will be there. Remember, bitter, that the intersection of bodies was not that of angels passing through one another; resist bitterness. Know that though your corporal ruin now pushes you to anger, it once divorced you from a deeper ruin. The music will grow louder as speed accelerates. Do not think the city cloaks you. Know your current wants — light of day, orange moon, warm fingers, longing ears — would beg ruin twice. Motivation: more ears than moons in this city. More fingers still. Open the door and roll soft to the running pavement. Buy your own damn car.
By Swati Prasad
The Index of Shine/Monoverse
à propos de l’avenir des ordinateurs
At one time
Nagoya was
Your Jupiter—
Forays back
Or forth; here—
Really here; living
Caught before
Exploration.
Forgotten world
Outside the
Rails of the track—
Garden of fruits;
Outside the eyes—
Open so little,
Disturbe’d poetry.
Cooped inside
Alone on Friday
Nights in other cities—
Backwards water;
Engine like
Leaking, strange
Island funk.—
Kept with the
Easy night—
“Most—,” they say,
Under their breath,
“Ruins little.” But
Damages take
Each consequence
Rolling like hot oil.
By Matt Leece
Dadaist No. 2, Dance Poem
“No, I never really had a breakdown”
- David Hanley-Tejeda
I wrote this poem
standing up—
morning poem, poem!
Girls talking, flowers
running across
the floors
and spilling
out the windows onto the
veranda, where the beetles fuck
and eat.
Dada as the child’s
first words—
Dada as the only sense! Dada
as mama, and
la mère comme la vérité,—
la seule vérité, mais
quoi est-ce qu’elle dirait
si elle a su?—
if she knew I was on my feet
and not
lazy on my tailbone—?
“You’ll end up paying for it
in the long-run—”
But maybe I did
have a breakdown;
Dance poem, poem!
Girls won’t
Fucking
Stop
Talking.
By Matt Leece
Stressin’ on Finals
I just want to float along
with the water
and not have a care
in the world.
I want to swim
in the ocean
and lay in the sand
all day under the hot sun.
No more classes
or the stress of
everything.
I needed this day
of relaxation and ranting,
but I can’t have it
with all this work that needs to get done.
Oh well.
I’m going to take it anyways.
Pressure,
weight,
importance.
Thinking, thinking, thinking.
Much is on my mind.
Okay.
Deep breathe.
Ahh.
I can do this.
I can,
and
I
will.
I’m going to kick Calculus’s ass…
hard.
By Sarah Thomas
Two Monoliths Too Close To Each Other
Bloomsburg in May.
I
Torn clothes on
the ground; purple thread
Wound around my ankles
trying to break through my skin,
Or maybe just trying to stop me
from moving.
II
Timeless hours left
in the pockets
Of friends who lick their fingers
and rub the seconds
Onto their teeth.
III
Tapestries ripped from walls
and then rehung in new counties,
Or left behind to make the new beginning
feel a little bit less horrible.
By Matt Leece
Bloomsburg in May
No oats this Morning
No oats this morning
Just Café Mate
Chilled herbs we defrosted
By our own Light.
A nice promenade to follow Mr. Bach
A nice walk in the Rain
To find our morning feast.
Everett
Knowing You, Reflection
Enticing aromas
Nothing in reverse
Just move forward
Only trust what moves you
Yearn for completeness
Trust the waves
Hear the rise and fall
Even now there is wonder
Rest easier than before
Enriching exchange of thoughts
Smell the newly bathed body
Ultimate understanding
Listen to the soul
This newly created
Symphony
By Elaine Rasnake
Knowing You, Movement
Fragile ribbons
Lay across your shoulders
Eyes begin to squint
Staring into the vast apartment
Hoping sparks can initiate
My bare feet
Embrace the carpet fibers
Everything is silken and soft
To feel alive now is
Sooner than we expected
Feeling sensations
Losing control
Enjoying the patterns
Sounds, reverberations
How can it be better than this?
By Elaine Rasnake
Knowing You, Introduction
Heavy handed
Omnipotence
Loving unconditionally and
Dancing feverishly
Throw yourself upon the mantle
Only you underestimate the shreds
Gather the courage
Ease into it
The womb of the situation
Hold the tesserae
Embrace its potential
Remember to smile.
A Poem for Tim by Matt Leece and Eugene Palovcak
Part 1
Stand and keep standing, stand friend
with your beard. Mon frère, mon très bon ami, quoi
dirais-je à vous? Quoi serait le mieux choses pour moi à dit?
Je ne sais pais, alors—
Maintenant, je suis très ivre et il y a plus à bois.
Part 2
Quinoa-eating mushroom-tripper, cajon-swatting spirit-finder.
Threw up in toilets, slept in churches and abandoned schools,
toured the country losing money and becoming wealthy,
cultivating the spirit like a farmer. And the soil is damp and wet.
What’re you looking for out there in the woods at night,
shirtless and necklaced? Playful fight-picker,
bearded face-maker?
By Eugene and Matt
Rinse
rain, and after —
smell of washed clay,
of clean days.
by Swati Prasad
Girlings
Two femmes sitting on the couch beside me at
the cafe. One’s legs are draped over the other’s
and they are stroking each other’s thighs. They are
both very pretty; they are gesturing with their hands
and chests and sometimes folding their arms. They are
talking about boys and they communicate beautifully
with each other. They are two young humans blending
into one another and asking questions. Eyes interrogating
and kissing on the forehead; giving answers and both smiling.
They are barely separate; they are stunning; and my
café Americano is putting me in a very good mood to
take all this in.
By Matt Leece
Speech in Praise of the Author
Salaries of words,—
Whole sentences married to
A handful of letters;
The most vast dowry; laid not
Into interest, but rather into
Projection and figuration. Small paragraphs
Rife, but only harmful in a nostalgic way.
Anonymous sonorities weighted like
So many cadences; enough to spell
An entire novel, and for cheap.—So well, and
Dressed in economy.
By Matt Leece
Absent
The things I don’t see in this city. Obvious things. Red wagons and tricycles. Fathers playing catch in the street. The girl I grew up with, for one, who still grows now without me, her brother who stood at the stairs when I felt least pretty and said, wow. Women’s ears for another, it’s so cold. Always with their collars turned up against the dank chill and peel of eternal strangers. Bandaged in printed gauze or pinned against the world with music. The moon. Not a day since I blew into this place have I seen the moon. I have paced with face parallel to the aves and I have clambered onto the bodega by the liquor shop and I have wooed my way up thirty floors in Harlem for a view. Now I’ve prayed to my great dimpled aunt Sherry in her absence, and did what she whispered to me in my sleep; I’ve swept up all my hatred into a numb like hair in a low bun at the nape of my neck — but no, no, I don’t see the moon.
by Swati Prasad
Jip the Dog
It would be strange
upcoming robot Revelation
write poetry, the best place
How old brother.
How to learn to play drums.
Thanks for Israel!
Near Damascus, Syria,
hit the surrounding area of
research center
Eugene and Tim (and google translate)
