1. Zergoni and Zern
(Inspired by text discovered from the search phrase “Outerspace Romance” on Goodreads)
Let her in to Burberry’s. She was no pure Baryonic matter. Just a female hard vacuum who expanded from glorious dark energy legs. Zergoni ran hot, she was millions of kelvins hot. She didn’t know what to do with all the plasma as often is the case with alien puberty. She wanted a nice cubic meter of borax, a cold moon rock. She camouflaged everywhere she went, zapped magnets with her long neutrino tongue, Her double lidded eyes a parlor trick on Earth’s Halloween. She could not fit into pants— the protuberance was a problem. She had to wear skirts and tie it down to one leg. (At least she had legs.) Others from the Karmian line just floated about, weaving through humans’ continuous thoughts. She wore a long coat. Then Zergoni met Zern. He (it?) was hydrogen and helium to her plasma. His tone was skittle green. Two species who didn’t have much to do with each other but can live side by side. Zern had too many eyeholes, registered on a shorter vertical plane than Zergoni. They navigated celestial bodies, however, played chicken against cosmic rays amidst The Lagrangian Points, stole crew altitude protection suits from NASA’s re-entry satellites. It was a match. He wanted longer legs and she had ‘em. She wanted to slink along the Earth’s atmosphere, undetected, and he could. It was a love made to last until Zagoni/Zern life span time—so give or take two thousand years.
(Inspired by text discovered from the search phrase “Outerspace Romance” on Goodreads)
Let her in to Burberry’s. She was no pure Baryonic matter. Just a female hard vacuum who expanded from glorious dark energy legs. Zergoni ran hot, she was millions of kelvins hot. She didn’t know what to do with all the plasma as often is the case with alien puberty. She wanted a nice cubic meter of borax, a cold moon rock. She camouflaged everywhere she went, zapped magnets with her long neutrino tongue, Her double lidded eyes a parlor trick on Earth’s Halloween. She could not fit into pants— the protuberance was a problem. She had to wear skirts and tie it down to one leg. (At least she had legs.) Others from the Karmian line just floated about, weaving through humans’ continuous thoughts. She wore a long coat. Then Zergoni met Zern. He (it?) was hydrogen and helium to her plasma. His tone was skittle green. Two species who didn’t have much to do with each other but can live side by side. Zern had too many eyeholes, registered on a shorter vertical plane than Zergoni. They navigated celestial bodies, however, played chicken against cosmic rays amidst The Lagrangian Points, stole crew altitude protection suits from NASA’s re-entry satellites. It was a match. He wanted longer legs and she had ‘em. She wanted to slink along the Earth’s atmosphere, undetected, and he could. It was a love made to last until Zagoni/Zern life span time—so give or take two thousand years.
***
2. Atypical Lines to Say on a First Date, or Wedgewood Bear
Instead of (( I don’t like to have to read at the movies))
My palms caress you like newly poured concrete,
unfasten a repurposed paper corset.
Instead of: ((I climbed the highest totem on vacation))
Sit here with me in front of our television screen fire.
Instead of: ((I don’t want to be your friend))
I flew off the roof, shattered the sky,
broke the sun when I picked up your glasses.
Instead of: ((So many things…Mapquest))
There was dirt under my finger nails in Texas.
Instead of: ((I was in Germany for twenty minutes))
I want to be a rhyming, white laced girl in the best horror film.
Instead of: ((thread count is overrated))
Shatter the wedge wood bear.
Black and blue is the new black.
***
3. on methylphenidate: a breakdown breakdown
a paper doll is ripped into bits by a plastic knife.
a rain soaked cereal box, split open like lips, crumpled in the street
I wait for head lights. The time vault slams shut.
time warps stop motion photography at fast intervals
and the sound the sound the sound is a freight train propelling down 5th avenue in the east and groaning up the Cahone Pass in the west
All of my brain trains start the slow slide back down the mountain,
the rocks fall faster when you are high
My insanity is a broken glass sliver in a goblet that is swallowed anyway
meanwhile in this nursey rhyme A dingo circles a tiny dog sees its own savageness
My insanity is a white mask that starts at, no, no, stares at, me from outside glass, outside plastic, outside wood would
insanity tied to wrists and ankles and face and what I am trying to say is is parts the parts are made up
the walls blee______ they stop running down the clock.
Cornflakes on the side of a surgeon’s mouth— like what else did he rush through?
My insanity is octopus, shoe, stick, intestines, charred book, exposed negatives
I’m not fooling anyone
My insanity are fake wings you think you can get away
from a most wanted poster in a video game from 1999
My insanity is a fan at a Prince concert of that same tour name who cannot find her car
alone in a sticky skin graph world
My insanity is turning my torso into a bruised strawberry—moldy, gray and fuzzy with brown bruises: too tart, the sweetness not tasted though it ripens
***
4. The Juggler with ADHD
He tosses the rings up in
the air, there’s a rhythm,
a body to movement counting
ratio. Focus on a fuzzy smudge
somewhere above his skull,
a spotlight zooms out of his
third eye. He can juggle forever.
His over-focus on the “wrong things”
considered a flaw; his head
full of unstoppable noise.
But look at the world renowned
surgeon who had Tourette’s Syndrome:
twitches vanish during the right
hand to eye coordinated activities.
The one,
one, two,
one, two, three, then one.
He catches one ring when the
second ring is mid-air,
tosses up the third. It’s all
math above his head.
The audience disappears on a raft,
floats out into the ocean,
the organ music, a comforting cacophony.
His trailer is a catastrophe but that doesn’t matter.
Nothing is easier than counting and catching.
If he could just deposit his paychecks
on time and call his girlfriend with
such ease.
***
5. Hall of Mirrors
Kitties, always truth tellers, scourge for meat. Talking tigers
roll in the dirt, ply scent with metal and tongue, lapse a quiet
existence. Succulence rumbles, is a far away Carnival cruise,
as poisoned as a face in the same hand held mirror. Now I see
twenty of my face, twenty whiskers per cheek. My face, the tiger,
the tiger, my face. I am not in the fun house, or how did I get here?
If one face could hold your attention for hours, it was this one,
dreaming in the casket.
2. Atypical Lines to Say on a First Date, or Wedgewood Bear
Instead of (( I don’t like to have to read at the movies))
My palms caress you like newly poured concrete,
unfasten a repurposed paper corset.
Instead of: ((I climbed the highest totem on vacation))
Sit here with me in front of our television screen fire.
Instead of: ((I don’t want to be your friend))
I flew off the roof, shattered the sky,
broke the sun when I picked up your glasses.
Instead of: ((So many things…Mapquest))
There was dirt under my finger nails in Texas.
Instead of: ((I was in Germany for twenty minutes))
I want to be a rhyming, white laced girl in the best horror film.
Instead of: ((thread count is overrated))
Shatter the wedge wood bear.
Black and blue is the new black.
***
3. on methylphenidate: a breakdown breakdown
a paper doll is ripped into bits by a plastic knife.
a rain soaked cereal box, split open like lips, crumpled in the street
I wait for head lights. The time vault slams shut.
time warps stop motion photography at fast intervals
and the sound the sound the sound is a freight train propelling down 5th avenue in the east and groaning up the Cahone Pass in the west
All of my brain trains start the slow slide back down the mountain,
the rocks fall faster when you are high
My insanity is a broken glass sliver in a goblet that is swallowed anyway
meanwhile in this nursey rhyme A dingo circles a tiny dog sees its own savageness
My insanity is a white mask that starts at, no, no, stares at, me from outside glass, outside plastic, outside wood would
insanity tied to wrists and ankles and face and what I am trying to say is is parts the parts are made up
the walls blee______ they stop running down the clock.
Cornflakes on the side of a surgeon’s mouth— like what else did he rush through?
My insanity is octopus, shoe, stick, intestines, charred book, exposed negatives
I’m not fooling anyone
My insanity are fake wings you think you can get away
from a most wanted poster in a video game from 1999
My insanity is a fan at a Prince concert of that same tour name who cannot find her car
alone in a sticky skin graph world
My insanity is turning my torso into a bruised strawberry—moldy, gray and fuzzy with brown bruises: too tart, the sweetness not tasted though it ripens
***
4. The Juggler with ADHD
He tosses the rings up in
the air, there’s a rhythm,
a body to movement counting
ratio. Focus on a fuzzy smudge
somewhere above his skull,
a spotlight zooms out of his
third eye. He can juggle forever.
His over-focus on the “wrong things”
considered a flaw; his head
full of unstoppable noise.
But look at the world renowned
surgeon who had Tourette’s Syndrome:
twitches vanish during the right
hand to eye coordinated activities.
The one,
one, two,
one, two, three, then one.
He catches one ring when the
second ring is mid-air,
tosses up the third. It’s all
math above his head.
The audience disappears on a raft,
floats out into the ocean,
the organ music, a comforting cacophony.
His trailer is a catastrophe but that doesn’t matter.
Nothing is easier than counting and catching.
If he could just deposit his paychecks
on time and call his girlfriend with
such ease.
***
5. Hall of Mirrors
Kitties, always truth tellers, scourge for meat. Talking tigers
roll in the dirt, ply scent with metal and tongue, lapse a quiet
existence. Succulence rumbles, is a far away Carnival cruise,
as poisoned as a face in the same hand held mirror. Now I see
twenty of my face, twenty whiskers per cheek. My face, the tiger,
the tiger, my face. I am not in the fun house, or how did I get here?
If one face could hold your attention for hours, it was this one,
dreaming in the casket.
