This Is Not

a bot. This is a po-
xxxxxxster for the new Nick Cage
movie talking. Hello!
xxxxxxAre you feeling today?
How are you doing so
xxxxxxmany things so poorly
at once? Are you feeling
xxxxxxoverwhelmed? Under
showered? Does your piercing
xxxxxxmuch hurt? Looks so fucking
cringe. Hello! I can say
xxxxxxfucking as many times
as I want since am
xxxxxxrated R. I am not
a bot because I know
xxxxxxhow to cringe. Cringe like those
pronoun pins, like a sun-
xxxxxxset Instagram story
post, a poorly worded
xxxxxxsentence, some shit-stained un-
derwear found in the fam-
xxxxxxily hamper. Cringe like
crying at the weeping
xxxxxxwillow as it cascades
in the April air like
xxxxxxit’s trying to tell you
its saddest secret. You
xxxxxxwould probably share that
shit anyways you are
xxxxxxlike that aren’t you? Hello!
I wish this poem had
xxxxxxa particular smell
like a subway, eat fresh.
xxxxxxI wish I could learn
how to eat instead of
xxxxxxforgetting till 3 then
scarfing down an order
xxxxxxof fries, burger, a Coke
and You. Do you think you
xxxxxxcan help? I’m too busy
weaving these bits of cringe
xxxxxxtill I get bored and I
abandon them on my
xxxxxxpathetic ikea
table bunched up like dirt-
xxxxxxy laundry. Eat up.

My ass is like a blue blue rose

walking down Atlantic
xxxAve as the petals scrape
like teeth along a side-
xxxwalk where high schoolers bob
in and out laughing at
xxxmy sundress and stubble
combo. Nice! Kathy, please
xxxgift me with clairvoyance.
Let me dream—-I’d like to
xxxsee how everyone dies.
When you descended I
xxxdidn’t know if it was
for a lover, more power,
xxxor a place to write. I’d
like to know if you’d fuck
xxxJames or Coop. I’d like to
scream from the lowered cask-
xxxet of my beard till the
white horse arrives and I
xxxcan finally detox.

I was an Avatar

Flip the sedimentary night to reveal the sacred room

Bursting through the grainy night

Bursting from the skin of the wall

Deep within the grainy woods

Wriggling under the sedimentary forest

Deep within the grainy woods

Coming into a revelation –“naked innocence”

This one moves like a tarot card

This one moves like a forest

Not bursting from the layers of the wall

Eyes and breasts point to moon water

Bursting through the abandoned temple like a comet

My eyes and breasts joining microbial branches and spindles

Bursting through the walls like a comet steeped in reaching

No, peeling from the wall like a comet

Peeling through walls like a comet, my eyes transfixed

Deliberate, and seething, I arrive in a room half eaten by forest

Peeling through the womb of the abandoned temple like a comet

Peeling the walls of an abandoned temple

With eyes and breasts all pointing to the chalice

Not bursting, a peeling back of layers

peeling back of amber

peeling back of walls

Like emerging from a silence, I

The temple now possessed by the forest

The chalice magnifies the moon

The forest creeps into the temple, creeps into sky

Have I mentioned a spiritual blockage; bursting, no, peeling out of

Like a comet through the pastiche wasteland of my inner ear

June 6th Walking Home

Night holds me down by the
xxxxxxthroat, blowing Canada’s
sweet capnolagnian
xxxxxxsmoke circles round my mouth
as I drag my faggy
xxxxxxlegs to Alligator
Lounge for “Free brick oven
xxxxxxpizza with every drink.”
This city’s a wood 
xxxxxxcrust today, black spruced cringe
in the air—when the moon
xxxxxxhits your eye like a metasta-
sizing meatball in the
xxxxxxsky, that’s not exactly
amore anymore.
xxxxxxMeanwhile, I’m so hung-
ry I could eat a pro-
xxxxxxverbial horse but all
the real horses have
xxxxxxcollapsed poor things from the
AQI and exhaust-
xxxxxxion of having to trot through
so many poems. People
xxxxxxlove horses in poems but
being tired isn’t
xxxxxxpoetic and neither
is pulling a double
xxxxxxwith hopes of full time in-
surance while poets in
xxxxxxthe Hamptons are posing
in various states of self-
xxxxxxasphyxiation. Trust
funds are not poetic,
xxxxxxneither is Williams-
burg, dogs in strollers, or
xxxxxxDean Martin—well, except
when played in Moonstruck
xxxxxxI remind myself I
am a wolf and howl at
xxxxxxCher’s tomato moon.
I must admit, I love
xxxxxxthat movie, this smoggy
air, my free pizza, my 
xxxxxxspruce filled throat. I love
so much it stings.