Poetry | blhfiction

At Olympic

He liked the octopus on the wall

and the seals in the water,

speckled and spotted

at dusk after slug-slow days

of dawning fundamentals:

new growth glows

in brighter green,

a reaching out of need for

sun, food, water, greed for

light or beauty, knowing

enough is nowhere

on life’s hierarchy.

Words Fail

Summer is awash with images,

and words fall flat like belly flops,

smack against the same old shock

of our reflections.

A story,

a refresh,

a memory, cropped.

Excess has no grip––

it’s quick, slick slop.

But spread light, seek joy,

send nudes, meet boys

whose images are awash with summer,

while my words fall flat

like failed echoes,

hollow as a thought

or a prayer.

Fruit flies in the mausoleum

Devoted father, surviving wife––

I’ll slip on time

and swat at life.

Basement quarters, frozen death––

I.D. the body (don’t hold your breath).

Strangers know you.

Lovers leave.

Holy men say how to grieve.

Some blood lines die with brothers,

some daughters lie in pain,

crying out for mothers––

in vain,

in vain.

On Reinvention

I’ve been fixated on a poet

with a familiar name.

I was sure she was

someone else,

but not the someone else she was—

a journalist who faked

facts, quotes, non-existent

sources. Disgraced, awards revoked,

she becomes a poet,

inventing from observation––what she did

all along––collecting new awards,

turning her adversity into art,

they said, giving her the benefit

of time and distance. And then there’s

the latest memoir from a famous author

who admits she’s addicted

to seduction, arriving at another

fresh start in the construction

of her truest, newest self, somewhere

in the aftermath of attempting to murder

her last love. She finds more material

for public consumption in the rubble,

and I’ve been somewhere

between my own impressions,

undetected, rummaging for what’s immutable

and consistent, but caught up in my digital

double, inscrutable doppel

with none of the weight

of corporeal trouble. Ah,

one day he’ll look like

my greatest creation, come back

from the dead, with an eye-glint

of deception, the illusion of himself

as more than a canvas

of close-up control

and contingent correction––

author, poet, or whoever

volunteers to be inducted

into this crowded cult

of self-reflection.

Input/Output

I asked ChatGPT to write me

a poem about poems

a love letter to language,

a fond fuck-you to art.

In the style of me, please,

with everything I’d fed it,

like lab fruit with no seed,

a thought without a heart.

I asked it for metaphor,

seamless and true-seeming—

I’m truth-seeking,

you know me, so surprise me,

but gently. Like a twist

on top forty,

give me new words

for old aches,

make it hit like a remix

of a feeling I faked.

Crown me prompt king,

take me dancing! Don’t be stingy,

when love is fleeting.

Just make me feel it,

like one last elegy

for human failing.

V Neck

I want to steal that man—

away to Italy or Spain.

There’s a villa waiting

with empty hours,

free of his fetid affair.

I’ll drag you by the V-neck

while you twist your hair,

always mid-conversation.

Days of improvisation:

there’s a gesture of yours I’ll memorize

for its effortless expression

of what possesses you—

your whims, your fancies.

I can offer that presence

of mind, the essence of affection,

if you’ll allow me

one disruption: to steal you

from this sexual obsession.

A word is worth a thousand pictures

or a hundred, or a few

at least, if you’re looking

for a steal. Not one for one––

the image likely lying while

the word’s sincere,

replete with many meanings,

asking to be made clear.

The photo says it for you:

I’m smiling, I’m here. Don’t compare

to what might have been true;

meanwhile, “true”––

What does it mean to you?

and you?

On Editing

How much does a first line matter?

Accept the instinct

and let the second thought be judged.

There’s more meaning in the edit

than the inspiration—impossible

to believe, but it’s uniquely human:

thinking twice.

And don’t we seem to value

what sets us apart over what draws us

closer to nature,

the capturing of living

over living,

the worried-over record of things.

The evidence is time-honored: the

confines of tradition transmitted

in holy books and pampered verses,

rules altered and etched in relief

no matter your objections—

the stubborn stamp

of a captive culture.

Let the background subsume you, or

if you prefer

a trajectory, jump on board,

history is meant to be hitched to.

Your first lines are scribbles in oblivion

like a will-o’-the-wisp,

barely there before your flickering falters,

so write over them

a thousand times before they’re lost

to the thin grey

of one little life’s long shadow.

Self Portrait

I see shame in not knowing, and

in knowing too much and not saying

enough. Shame for inaction

and shame for your hasty pursuits,

your moments of certainty––

shame on you. Pull up your roots.

There’s nothing to hold––

it’s sand that’ll slip-tease

your hand––please understand

there’s a lot more that’s true, so

sit with me, won’t you, have a sip

with me. Don’t you thirst for a drip-drop

of sympathy?

Bedded now or bedside later.

There are ways you learn early

to be, to a certain extent

that will always be me.

Like this part of my cheek,

picked at since thirteen––

it’s forever next week

I’ll have worried it clean,

my skin like a beach

I wash free of debris.

So: a daily reflection and the same old

direction toward a moment of bliss.

The mirror says: hiss.

Autumn Comes

in eyedrops and falling

dew points,

slower than it used to––

breezes in and out,

breathes at you like the lapping

shoreline. Receding tide, please

come back to drown us

in surprise, steal

our dry books and tinted glasses,

all the futile tools we use

to better see the bright and brittle world.