Singing the Careful Steps of Brash Youth

These are a selection of poems from a larger collection of the same name

you

you are the violence humming

always at home

you are the figure you are

a pooling in the side-winding road

the street lamp flickering

you are the inept electrician that comes

you are not to be fixed

brushing hair from your eye

not a grin

a reminder that this nothing

is grasping for ripples a flood

in the basement room

you are not the landlord you are not

a lonely shiver you are

a hand passing through

you are the curled limbs of a dead beetle

in the bottom of the tub

drowning under the shower

w/ the lights off you are

the overcast rooms dangling

your feet over the railing

effaced

you are not the current or

the inquisitive gulls hanging on the wind

you are looking through

the pristine glass of large houses

you are the rat in  their pristine walls

you will battle the exterminator

you have lost the bill is on the counter

at the mouth of this slow-trembling beck

all i try to be

is aware of the arc

my arm takes

out of the water at night.

Down For

Certainty in false light:

an amble at night under street lamps,

a broken glass jar w/ holes in its lid

tucked under one arm.

Every road is a dead end leading

to the lake where

I dirtied my hands pulling a rusted chain

from the water. Its crusted chime

still rings over the waves.

I straightened every link along the dock

& tied it around my neck.

I stripped naked

& walked through the streets.

I knew I was a dog.

At night we are still zealots

of the bridge, spitting over the railing.

I am still asking the old question:

When will we cement the feet

of our concrete obsessions & throw

them over the side?

The water a welcome black,

smooth & tame as fresh-cut obsidian.

Can we please?

Lights already drown

long, wavering on the surface

shimmering pillars

that cannot hold up the dark.

Birthday

But today I will not receive

that estranged text & I will not remember

my mom crying over the washing machine.

    (or the splintered / burning dining room)

But I do remember & I remember

the hatred, too. Only “memories of”

no “memories [with]”. I could not understand

the color of your eyes. When you moved home

you kept all the lights on, in every room,

& all the curtains drawn. I was afraid.

I could not understand, I did not try.

(That was when you were dying

& I didn’t know [it] but we did.)

Now your shoe rack is mine. Your phone

is mine: the menial things

because I couldn’t find any jewelry

of yours that I liked. It makes

me feel strange because

I never think about it.

Try not to think about it.

One line on my ankle, one

among four others. A red cross

put up on my eye, took a swing

at it. At your funeral:

in the pastor’s smile:

I saw God’s barren tide pools.

Lay myself out to dry. Did you

like to swim? I can’t remember.

I remember wishing you would go.

I’ve seen you twice in dreams. Once

as a corpse, walking: rotting next to me & once

as yourself, pale & young as you were.

Singing the Careful Steps of Brash Youth

on a brick wall shadows pass through each other

as smoke passes through its self & in a strange memory

(perhaps it is a dream): cars stream by I see them through

the bushes in front of the window & keep thinking

they’re people—a light flickering in the gas station refuses

to be kept: condensing space into a whine

so when walking in our calloused thought

i’m reaching for your hand / not reaching—

I’m reaching for the dried wax at the end of the table.

it doesn’t melt by the heat of my palm.

& you smoke out the window—leaning back in

you thank me for going shopping w/ you.

light-headed—|—I’m ready to swallow this city: to pluck it

from your closed eyes & place it crying

on my tongue—these aren’t people these

are spectral projects / the single shadow thrown

across our face. a reflection of rank & file glow—an illusion

of order—support beams murmuring an uprising

each night & in the streets clatter falls in

on its—.—self. for a long time no one has believed in magic

(yesterday an automatic door would not open for me

I didn’t know then what to do w/ my self).

there was never a frame i could place

on the wall (I keep them all in the closet)—you

always trusted chaos. finally

my arms have blistered from the new sun

you pretended to pinch but I turned—its bald face too novel

& hard: my shadow pulls through my tendons / peels from my back

down constructed halls I try touching the ceiling & then

you’re dragging me over a wailing carpet—it’s using my voice

it’s using our voice w/o echo—this darkness

so absolute I doubt there is an end until I hear it laughing.

i always avoided fluorescent light

still my shadow elopes: tripping over its wires / sending

notes humming through my flesh

& out of my lips—but not my voice. this is some space

outside my self dwelling on vague precipices w/o limbs—

moving into a plane supporting

no binaries——dictated by no other force than its own.

rats occupy this space out of necessity—you sleep

here as a means to what end grazing my shoulder

w/ that pointless rebellion allowing my exit: I’ll return

in the pause of tides before they erase intrepid scars

the sky freezes over & the stars skate in pairs to the vacuum space

ripping over earth’s atmosphere. there is no more glass <\ >>//

to take into the alley we shatter our voices on silence

it doesn’t reveal the roads we refuse to tread. I don’t see the world

in the shards of empty bottles anyway.

the shape of your palm is a pothole in those roads straining

oil’s inky tentacles from the rainwater—I see you drink it / grimace

as a drop slides down your forearm unzipping

your security—you bring it to your chest afraid

of exposing bone to the futility coming up from the river

but we love futility (I say) a cruel love not outside our selves—

I’ve seen the “---:::;--::;----:-:::,” “~~~—~

___—,” “---;;-----:-----------::::::::---;---;-;----,”

“~~_~~~__~~—~~~_~~~——~____~~~—?” we once stood

four feet apart & stared at each other I was looking

in a mirror looking down at my shadow sinking into the asphalt

I claw at the black surface to pull it as it pulls me. but then

I only see my self when i close my eyes & I’m trembling

in this thought as it strokes my hair / runs its fingers

down my cheek like tears of course I’m afraid I haven’t cried

in weeks your room became the boiling of a few

strange afflictions that have since been sorted alphabetically

(unanimously) on an estranged bookshelf supporting its self

under a weight it will never comprehend.

what else is there to be done with all this pacing

by now the floor knows our name it knows

we’re not done exploring we don’t want to know

anything yet. i whip the bushes growing over the sidewalk

out of habit the basic premise lodges in the tread

of my boot I’ll never discover it—it’ll leave

for some other place. & here’s another city—same city

w/ the stained hue of a bartender’s rag.

you’re whistling out the window to the alleys—

we don’t meet them till night

& the neurosis rushes up trying to get in

not yet (we tell it) not now. freezing puddles flash their menace

& knowing it i shatter the binding—the dream breaks loose!

I wake up w/ a head in my hands bleeding all over the sheets—

they demolished the bridge—we came to its streaming grave

& felt sad for the meaning we thought was lost. rubble remains stubborn

above the surface: islands that once ran a spear through distance.

& what?

& what else moves in each crest beyond

their own disturbances? I tried skipping rocks

but you said it was disrespectful so i just ---____---—======_-,---.-..--``—

-———_____----~~========——

.-.-.-.-,-,-,-,-=-=-=-=-_-_-_-_-—-—-—-—-`-`-`-`-~-~-~-~-’-’-’-’---- ~~~~~`````````,,,,,,,,,,,----——____--==`````~~~____’’’```’`’`’`’`’`,.,.,..,.,.,. ;;;;;;;;;::::::::::::;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;...........;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;,,,,,;;;;;;;;;. I know

this pavement is hard to walk on but I’m clinging to it trying

to be a part of it a part of the petrified system glowing

/ dreaming w/ such force the buildings levitate—

I glimpse the fragile pipes & the liquids running through them

all twisted / screaming this is when I take your hand wishing

I could meet you again later in my sheepish life—if i could’ve

skinned my knees more I would have something to show for the reckless

ignorance I’ve kept in a jar tucked away in a cabinet I’ll always think

about breaking it between us letting its awkward limbs wrench the boredom

out of our teeth everything is unfamiliar death is an obscure mumbling

of taller figures it doesn’t know you’re name we giggle when it exists false & rubber

on screen it’s lost / terrified it stumbled into your bed on accident at least

that’s what i figure it’s the only explanation I’ll allow—staring into corners

joined beautifully why is this my one body only ever my one body

not even blood in me—rolling in a void the bridge pulled us under

you’re gone—

gone my breath

limps wild I see the surface wavering like a statue trapped in movement

Jasper Riley grew up in Seattle but found their footing in Missoula as a poet & performance artist. Currently based in Portland, they attempt to conjure palpable sincerity, a felt work. In their spare time they like to chase pill bugs & make daisy chains tall as they are.