The Poetry Project

Serena Devi

SISTER SAYS

every day it’s like an unhinged pageant. . .
I couldn’t stand to have, like you, beauty damned and hellenic.
you say you were never as young and this twisted joke
we used to have comes to mind:
xxxxxmother blissed among bizarre leather,
xxxxxpink lewd and sprung --
xxxxxI’d sooner die about it!

well, you hid well, whetting that fever in this
pucker-floored hellhouse.

we’re the same hungry -- remember, you remember
watching videos that go on forever, endless spill
from every gape and one of us cackling;

there I go, unspooling this turn of a life I’ll soon be reflecting on --
it’s no chapel glass, the great “you-know:” our similar wells of perversion,
a long line of sluts for splendor on both sides.

you should consider laying lower. your faith is just bad.

ORGY THE MORNING AFTER

For a long while nothing was
everything and each new void
stayed un-filled.

When the people woke up to find
the most vital bag fumbled
day in day out
nothing was everything.

. . .

Bless the rain and bless the crops!
Take stock of glories!
Gather manifold things!
Choke the breath out of them!

. . .

All the women were suddenly so tolerant –
you’d think there had never been a song
so bottomed out
but soaring --
xxxxxxxxxxI think I know this one,
in this state, everybody could.

something special happened, so special
it caved in on itself and became unremarkable
entirely --

the song was coming from nowhere specific,
and in fierce spirits,
even staring at the wall became a righteous act.

. . .

Dollar dollar
Dime dime
every forever
again & again
each time no duller
than the last
filled to the brim
withering and
beloved.

. . .

They’d spend months talking about this phenomenon where everybody left their
doors flung open for their pets

(maybe for a chance to escape, likely so
they could die under the sun. . .)

Only some knew to come back,
but it was no tragedy:
now there was eternity to chase, infinity to capture
and to hunt was to fuck was to love was to breed
and even fighting grasps felt reverent.

. . .

To sing of death and dying / is to lose the plot entirely /
I want to hear something soft now.

Issue 18

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