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.
