The Poetry Project

Luke Roberts

SEVEN POEMS FROM ACT NATURAL

ACT NATURAL

What I’m for now is hatred, raw data,
peak silence, and silence for beginners,
okay. Think of surviving on air. Open
an orange. How euphoric in the face a crow
crows, announces our defeat, salutes a crew
a cruise ship, a cruise ship hijack
didn’t know if I was hostage or taker.
I’ve been dreaming of deaths not my own,
diastolic and abrasive, systolic and pliable,
like a life of slow perforation.
Who you trade blows with is phantoms:
John Wheelwright, Buzz Lightyear, Walt Whitman.
I wanted art to be exciting, and it was.
The punishing elegance of gritting your teeth.
For a decade what we loved was pretty cheap.

For a decade what we loved was pretty cheap.OBSERVATORY

For a decade what we loved was pretty cheap.1.

For a decade what we loved was pretty cheap.all that handsome
For a decade what we loved was pretty cheap.gravity, abrasion

For a decade what we loved was pretty cheap.the confusion of pathos
For a decade what we loved was pretty cheap.and catharsis

For a decade what we loved was pretty cheap.2.

For a decade what we loved was pretty cheap.listen up you little fuckers

For a decade what we loved was pretty cheap.this isn’t my mouth-voice

For a decade what we loved was pretty cheap.it’s my teeth-voice
For a decade what we loved was pretty cheap.it’s different

WEAK EXCUSES

Can I do it in language magnetic and you,
can you do it turning out in Monday best
and best at night the air conspiring dream
a logic I can see the wires inside across
the glass and water.
txxxxxxxxxxxxheWhat happens is gravity,
the good funnel up and breathing out.
I can hear your chronology quicken and empty
go breaking for cover. When the bird outside
my window whistles I know to disappear.
The time it takes to walk across a room,
every second minute of my life a trip,
a big trip, a song for sailing out without
protection. But I trust everyone. I am
brick by brick 200 metres stacking
loss around my head. I do this gesture
with my feet, like a dancer, going back
before the language of my slice. Who
remembers what it was we put in front
to keep from falling over?

to keep froThe leafblower downed tools.

Too much looming.
Too many clues.

to keep froThe leafblower downed tools.PROXY CONSOLATION

to keep froThe leafblower downed tools.To reiterate I’m writing makes it
to keep froThe leblower downed tools.true.

x
to keep froThe leafblower downed tools.Float is what I think of if I have to.

THE DECLINE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION

THE DWhatever’s open I don’t want it
x

THE DWhatxdriven mad at home
THE DWhatxby my own song

THE DWhatxby my xxxxown songCOUNTRY COLLAPSE UPDATES

THE DWhatxbxxxxxy my xxxxown songIn my dream urns were crashing
THE DWhatxbxxxxxy my xxxxown songfrom the sky

THE DWhatxbxxxxxy my xxxxown songThe radio in Japan

THE DWhatxbxxxxxy my xxxxown songtells me this is the era
THE DWhatxbxxxxxy my xxxxown songof beautiful money

x
THE DWhatxbxxxxxy my xxxxown songI got the wind-up ghost

THE DWhatxbxxxxxy my xxxxown songI got the duck

VOICE NOTE

xxxxxMy role in your life has a limit:
xxxxxI can see that and still not know it,
xxxxxstill afraid evenings or on waking
xxxxxof myself.

xxxxxLove sleeps in the room I came from,
xxxxxthe draught connects us and into it
xxxxxI speak a little to myself, get the air
xxxxxfeeling tight, not alone.

xxxxxYou know where everything is.

xxxxxBe definitive.

Issue 20

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