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Poems: Live From Bookmarx Local Writers Reading Series

by Chris Drew

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1.
number 15 Life is a mega-deal number 17 I am pausing I am holding my breath I am waiting number 29 forever the timed out moments break forever the slip of present slides past temptations go on the hesitations of trips down sidewalks cut through alleys peer over corn-syrup products waste seconds kicking stones and rolled up papers gas prices neon oil and free air mud coffee who is playing the lottery? eyeing the shelves? left behind in the lines that stretch around aisles to the notes of electronic new customer bells half-hearted thanks receipts to the tunes of plunging and rifling plastic? one after another never looking any other in the eyes trying not to touch hands trying not to brush boundaries in the embarrassment of being alive number 38 one in the afternoon aspirin number 44 my visions are last night's popcorn's number 47 sapling paper bug bite knees johnny cash number 53 masochist stairwell heavens digital tropes of bygone sexist binary allusions to hero and villain good and evil fight delight of symmetrical conflicts persuading thoughts toward phallic prick hierarchies hark the ferrel merry tongues lash bath of sure language spit flood suffocating cultural lungs breathing shit self-made air care received and reiterated and worn on sleeve internet page hearts compressed files down payment reach of electric cash tools fabulous discrepancy social bugs lugged like empty suitcase vocational school friars blown out tired lessonless narrative irony flapping rubber lips prehistoric dead financed machinery corpses bleating lukewarm melodies leftover lasagna earths atmospheric pull of lit pixel pupils on affinity handheld displays on dirt stained broken concrete chunk nature on nurtured stupidity sold presumptions touching realities rim enough to meet graceful illusion needs. Number 59 look at that cotton ball sky pale blue your eyes cool breeze kept out but that sun through the window warms my thighs number 76 walking down the street full of stars and angels number 86 how honest the carpet on my feet soft soled breathing air between my toes Number 88 a record is skipping number 92 midafternoon breakfast swept under the rug the sky between somewhere like rain and all day sunshine through blinds a dusty sepia turning wheel courses towering in slight conversations ever-so set on fire by each moment the stomach twists and turns breeding inclinations out of inclinations pestering everything is growing old number 112 bouncing screensaver burnt in image number 126 allow me to suggest the rain
2.
3.
Homebody 00:42
toil is gone sometimes foil covering pizza in the fridge tossing the trash a wait for nothing beneath the fall of brick refracted light on my shoulders outside it would squeeze me if i let it i keep it out so nothing can hurt me but inside, my hot water body bubbles with excess heat black like my teeth which bleed the very same tar that you will find dinosaurs in locked through time yes, inside, the power cords plot against me in their bundle a corner of the house refuses to get clean no windex discourse back and forth with a rag on this stain will do and under the small of my sweaty back a cool bit of air wipes me too
4.
Dishes 01:13
i do the dishes some people don’t some people have probably gone their whole lives without doing the dishes, or will go some people have probably never even seen a nice & dingy sink over-flowing with dishes and thought about doing them, or how long they could hold off on doing them, or about what they even made for dinner last night that created so many dishes in the first place, or where the sponge is under all those dishes i do the dishes one at a time my sponge is blue and rough on one side it oozes bubbles under pressure bubbles are the opposite of grime bubbles are the opposite of food i do the dishes listening to the radio i do the dishes listening to the running water and the sound of glass and metal knocking around and whatever noise is outside traintrack asphalt gutter human bird helicopter i do the dishes because i have made dishes a part of my life i am thoroughly committed to them, the cycle of dishes doing and undoing is inevitable for me i do the dishes and think about buddhist sand paintings i do the dishes and think about the parking lot outside my kitchen window, and the people who sometimes live in their car there i do the dishes and splash water all over myself, or cut my thumb, or break a glass i do the dishes and stack them clean, beside and upon each other into a glistening wet precarious dish mound, after awhile I dry them, put them in the cabinet, undo a few; go about my day
5.
Seen 01:05
when i speak i am a subject you see me i’m an object no wonder folks wanna speak to a god they can’t see see them existentialism is dope without you i’m selfless with you i’m selfish many theorize that ancient peoples literally did not possess a concept of self as we conceive it some theorize that ancient peoples literally considered their internal voice and thoughts as divinely derived they stayed up late every night sharing stories in turn our people invented movies and tv did you ever get a thought when an actor looks the camera and you right in the eye? human beings have learned to manipulate matter and energy human beings have learned to manipulate language human beings have learned to manipulate images human beings have learned to manipulate value human beings have learned to manipulate their eyes i remember learning to pick the international space station out of the night sky with my eyes and watch it streak into the shadow of the earth there are always a few humans in space fading in and out of darkness and a few machines we’ve sent hurdling into its endlessness i sometimes consider if we will colonize anything or one else? or be colonized ourselves, like in battlefield earth.
6.
August 23 01:42
hot out there amorphous dry breeze tugging at the elbows or shirt hung stomach pleasantly sweaty back stuck to seat car with the a/c kickin’ in eyes lacking too much tears and mouth wavering with the endless music tunes passing a couple dozen businesses pounding rubber on the streets and shaking with that coming in train counting dollars with that ‘some sorta’ mindfulness which attempts to consider ongoing loss and worldy degradation but falls short of real sympathy and never amounts to changing the world and driving by the recycling center downtown to deposit an arm full of faith in something to get back and plummet into ourselves beneath a ceiling fan beside a window poetry dough rising not-so-far-away bodies trembling causeless violence unleashed soft-but-firmly-held rages twinkle like stars and we see vestiges of time bent by gravity and space provoked on over eager streams of liveliness and fear is crushing strength violence is crushing love humanity is crushing itself as if we’ve forgotten how to speak it is poetry’s job to teach what words mean on their own and to each other beside or opposed to one another and how and when they provoke any semblance of our reality’s order we must forget what we know what we’ve known and learn to talk again my infant psyche provocations the terror in empty heart widening and split peas leak out of cabinets at my feet while i knead at flour and people murdered in the street come alive in voiced chorus towers becoming the street’s wind and push come to shove endings flanks of men and tear gas squeeze children eyes like grapes promises add up as specks of dirt towards unavoidable grime stuck in the gears

about

Recorded live June 25th, 2015 at Bookmarx bookstore in Springfield Mo. as part of their monthly reading series.

Read more of my work at my tumblr: proliferate-propagate.tumblr.com
Buy some at etsy: etsy.com/shop/rasasvada

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released July 7, 2015

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Propagate Springfield, Missouri

I love to make things, including music.

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