jayivan

to get over a
broken heart slice into your
chest and cut it out

what it is
is what it will be
and not even that
is up to me

–

what it is

is what it will be—

not like that’s up

to you or me

silence isnt golden
its diamond sharp

i open my throat
—and out it flows:
it’s ceaseless, the words—
but only soundless—i grow—

when you return from where youve gone
i’ll welcome you back with open arms

though i cant pretend i haven’t been
missing each then that’s never a when

but a love that eats its tail too quick
will only make the loved one sick

since really, it’s such a selfish thing
to insist a song for what you sing

id let it pass
but it holds so fast

this urge
prevents a purge

youre
free as air
(or is that care?)
but
im
thick as honey, baby
(or is that hunger accompanying)

when i woke behind
the mirror’s forward face
i thought love would outpace
quantum explosions in space

when fingers merge
into your curves
this fervent urge
grows encouraged

the peachfuzz spray
the quiet tremble
spit & semen
disassemble

i write in rhythms
it’s what i do
instructions manuals
or bugaboos

short conversations
over long periods of time

thin chats
in fat blocks

posts
for miles

your yolk
down my throat

given
taken away.

lovelorn
under the hawthorn

refreshing the weather app,
waiting for a better forecast,
as if atmosperic disturbances were
as fickle as quarks or human hearts

flowers dont suddenly grow
in dry rockbeds we sow.

but still,
we know:
something, will grow

when the sun sets before it rises,

this sinking heart heralds sweet surprises

trigger you
trigger me

spray your face &
tongue it clean:
so keen

red tensions inflame
the torsion of blue veins

the blossons swell
as leaves fell

cling — it swings
grip — it slips
tighten — it frightens

in absent-mind,
no mind unbinds:
wind rushes in,
the bind unwinds

where leaves have fell,
illusions stand bare

the saddest day,
the day i pushed you away

i want to split my heart open
have you eat out all the seeds

when sweet thoughts sour
ditch em
the trees still fruiting
let em ripen

dear godot
i know what
you know

what?

yesses cum fast when
nos keep you longin

Reading Wojnarowicz 30K high,
your distant body solidifies.

I dribble his words across your skin—
warehouse poetry leaks from my lips until
the verse of waterlogged lungs pours from my mouth,
kisses flood round your nipples,
teeth tightening, the soft contours of perked flesh against the sharp bone of teeth,
and the spray of poetry, wet and hot and electrified, hurricane force,
rushes forth:
our body a cyclone,
his words the wind,
my breath the water,
your skin the risen sea

cant defeat it
wont impede it
please, dont feed it

on the tile’s sharp lip,
like teeth biting gently down,
my chest catches breath

losing my cool faster
than the arctic glaciers

& brings smiles to my face
& a yearning in my chest
& waves of something indiscernible
pulses from navel to neck

optimism arrives once
the last glimmers of despair
go dark

these arent tears from my eyes,
but rivers sprung from my gut’s well-spring—
water flowing upwards
light flowing outwards
passion flowing inwards

my body undoes itself
extends molecule-thin until it reaches you

if only i hadnt grown so thin in the process that my touch became untenable

my mind is now
i breathe here, you breathe there
as it should be, because it is as it is, and no other way exists

but my body longs for your distant skin,
my eyes need your smile in their sights—
my hands reach across rivers and states to find your fuzzy warmth push against mine,
a wormhole of longing folding space

until i’m spun as thin as spiders silk

i am the bee
trapped in its own honey

our hands
our eyes
our stomachs
our thighs

low pressure rainstorms

wash nothing

An old man eats sour pickles

Beneath a memorial to a friend who hung himself

a longing—
like breath,
irresistable and revitalizing—
like poison,
hallucinatory and stomach-churning

expand,
a supernova exploding light and color and love

collapse,
a dense white dwarf pulling all within proximity
into an insufferable gravity

i expand,
a supernova exploding light and color and love,

only to collapse
into a dense white dwarf

pulling all in its proximity into its own insufferable gravity

with you inside
my lust unwinds

moonstone mind
dive / inscribe

the beast i battl’d
clawed its way beneath my skin

A pinched nerve

A hard word

A cold reply

A trudge through the snow

we huddle together like snow monkeys sheltering
from the summer storm beneath a rocky overhang
pink eyes stare out
and us two,
gripping wet fur
sights set parallel on the horizon:
lightning strikes the vine draped treetops,
thunder tickles our soles on damp earth

I put the pebble
in my shoe

i do my best
to despise everything about winter—
that dry, drugged darkness—
but bright midwinter mornings
tease out a smile:
skyline cranes stretch against the river’s midtown reflections,
brown bark breaks open early with spring buds,
the settled sadness of grey faces flaking off to trampled yesterdays

we wrap our transformations in silk stretched from spit dyed yellow: the tumeric drools thick and muddy from our prewar lips

the whipping wind
the rivers risen
the air aflame
our bodies driven

Stick bug made of brick
trailing clay dust
laying in wait

in another place and time
this sleepy candle bar
would be a rocket ship
to a wild eyed star

sun-dreamt bodies
rise from short grass

would sink fast——
in mud thick black

can’t sleep, won’t sleep
now that ive opened the windows:
the sun pours over pores,
the wind washes me in soft touch,
the whole of the earth rises up against me in its sweet hardness

tripling reflections of street-walking
puddles
windows
glass doorways
falling from the sky and rising from the cobbled stone
passing through walls, benches, placards, treepits, bicyles chained to themselves, tree pits soaked in the morning rain that lingers until dusk’s delay

moonlight creeps across the ocean bright
turns the flat black into shimmering white

eating a perfectly ripe peach,
the whole world stops,
breath and time and horror

we light candles
for lost fathers
for born sons
for temples unstoned
down to foundations
for unmanned women
for unmooned man
for fields unfenced
by fires’ flight

we kindle
so nimble

cling to idols at your idol’s peril

Loose time lost tightened

be the body in the street:
rally loud
the marching beat

be the body in the street:
bloodied down
when ‘greatness’ greets

be the body in the street:

the furrowed head

defeats compete

We all need more poetry in our life. Not to ease our souls or brighten our eyes: not that anymore.

But to gird us.

Arm our language.

Sharpen our sight.

Tighten our embrace.

The breaking of treaties. The disregard of sovereignty. 

The water cannons. 
Badge-bearing corporate-sanctioned henchmen.

Apartheid dressed in arrogance. 

Mendacity made Word and Weight. 

i left you standing by the shore
while i went out to explore,
believing, with convenience,
this would lead to no grievance

Finally unpacked my suitcase from Berlin. Really missing it, me there, us there, the other people there. To come home to the
slaughter we did…I’ve had a hard time getting present, or rather, was so fully present that I had to leave that bag packed, to remember some wonderful times, still fresh, the bright nights of beauty and grit, I didn’t want to undo that, always something better to do, but come on, it’s time, remembering has turned to longing and jealousy (cocktail weekend oof), so had to unpack, and feel more present and forward facing, but then I look forward, and I’m still feeling so fucked about this country and where we are and where so many of us want to take it, and the spirit of Berlin and the minds the best parts of it attracts, that spirit calls out to me and I know it calls out an energy that’s already inside me regardless where I am or who runs what but all it does is call call call. 

New York exists

If no longer as a place

As a place of mind
But it is no longer Here

Here is no longer here

New York still exists 

In part here

In part in distant cities and private hearts

Truth has stopped coming out of the truth factories. Not sure that we lost anything though. Maybe that factory always just pushed out plastic bolts meant to burst pipes.

The falling into line

The reins of the low-level party-apparatus

The remains of unclear long term ends

The refusal to condemn

And then the world’s undead, 

a dusty piano set in motion

by a cool wind

unplucked,
yesterday’s weeds
grow flowers

 “lean into fear” he says

“lean into it”

she says “lean into fear”

“be complicit”

The flashing red light

Of a passing bike

On a warm winter’s night

Hard-edged white-grey city-eye

Lush-curved aqua-green sea-mind

The awkward stumble

Of humans bumble into

Dawn’s translucent waves

encapsulate eyes

amber lights

wet tarmac

this lust—
a thick yellow yolk—
swells behind a thinning shell

The ghost of you in me 

Thumps against my chest:

Compressed, I lose breath

Sooted gray brick,

Silver shining rooftops reflect the flat white of humid skies,

Steel wheels squeal against wet black rails,

Eyes stare from clean windows,

Pupils widen,

Vessels stiffen and pulse,

Blood bursts. 

let me feel the heat,

the insistent push and pull

of sun against sweat

Sweet dog days

Of lingering heat

Of languid sweat,
Breath ripe with illusion

The muggy morning whose dawn never breaks

Sun high, sea low

Skin salt-tight

Body born

Hot mornings and long shadows

Beckon September blue

Night trains pass transmission towers, 

Salomé dances in lightning showers, 

Babylon gods and The Children delight in 

Spirits unveiled in the powdery night. 

Thick gray smoke hovers above the river; 

White bursts crack the screen,

The boom lumbers behind. 

Heads up child

The blue sky needs you

Borderline button-up 

Wingtip wanderlust

What

is this shit superglue

?

i keep my head high:

the stench from within

shutters the senses

Slip off my skin, and

let me slip, paper-thin,

between the scrim

self and sidewalk,
as the winds picks up the empty bag, and

abandons it in a newly leafed-out tree.

Sands caught up in the waves’ gentle wind

Spiral into opaque mists before the rocky jetty:

Monster sandstorms ravage the plains : silent mountains turn to ghosts. 

Bright green tips

Shoot from thorny lots,

Shake in the rising winds. 

at the bottom of a well

the noon light shines bright

and anxious shadows fidget 

Your voice,
Humid and salty

Thumps the snare

last fall’s pine needles

blanket the shrine’s cold stone steps,

weeping cherries sway

dogs run through wet muddy fields
a pianos song drifts in cloudy gusts

My hands roam unbound

Before an unnamed expanse

Lost shackles imprisoning the freed eye in the illuminating magic counting sands