Organized by Casey O’Neal
FAILURE OF MALICE
Nicole Trigg
Tell you what
Exactly how I feel
Write you
There aren’t words
Phone you
It isn’t wrong
Call your softness
Cocked
As if knotted
Silence speaks
As if beaten by the knots
If it explodes
Radiate you
All the better
To arrive at the point
Unpleasantly
Surprise you
By the knots
Hoist my email
After hours
Close the door
Or wall of sounds
Or an action is over
Is not a failure
Or an action is imagined
By the knots
Or an action never ends
Tiny cries
Spikes of icicle
Melt against my heart
Instead, shoot you
A line with three points
I admire
Plus three Leaves, Twins
And a Squid
By the knots
The words and feelings
Multiply
Each one of these
Passes underneath
Inside bubbles’
Torn edges
Little rooms I’ve said
with my technology
In silence, a picture
We’re sharing
A brand new message
the same despair
A brand new sentience
Announce you
Arouse you
Or an action never seen
As many Diamond Rings
As you are old
FROM MIRROR MAGIC
John Sakkis
I’m content to be left behind
it’s scary, actually
I was promised a jetpack
and boxes of candles
but the flame was not working
the tone of singularity
now seems too dramatic
like when Bob Grenier
said “I HATE SPEECH”
he meant technology
but that’s the kicker
it’s a self-canceling gesture
there can be no perception
w/o a perceiver,
and as we’ve seen
speech is a selfie
not easily shrugged off
the contemplatives retain
enough to perceive
as they rejoice,
I’m content
to be considerate of others
multi-authored, the loner
is a liar,
I am a media event
BY THE TIME I ARRIVED
Elaine Kahn
He spent hours
mouthing as he chewed
His hands smelled like ketchup
I wanted to wipe them
on the clean braid
of the beautiful woman
who had sat beside us
Mouthing as he opened up
the packet nursing
folds to tiny noses
he is waiting
for a call
but I
will fuck
the face
of any man
who looks
away
Glove eyes leave you
nothing special
A painting of a tongue
covered in sand
needs no explanation
I will run
my fingers
through your dark
fermenting hair
This is a blank spot
a black fricative slowly repeating
and I do work and he does nothing
