Valentine Jones

La Máquina // Other Mother // www.danielriddlerodriguez.com

[danielriddlerodriguez]

from Addicted

—Jorja Smith

You don’t know what I do

I try to defend you

It’s hard not to offend you

But your not mine to tend to

The hardest thing

Is you are not addicted to me

You’re the only thing that I need

You should be addicted to me

The hardest thing

Is I am too selfish to leave

You’re the only thing that I need

You should be addicted to me!!!!

[danielriddlerodriguez]

Funeral Blues (Stop All the Clocks)

by W.H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,

Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,

Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest,

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.

For nothing now can ever come to any good.

[danielriddlerodriguez]

Parting Song

BY JILL ALEXANDER ESSBAUM

First 

it is one day without you. 

Then two. 

And soon, 

our point: moot. 

And our solution, diluted. 

And our class action (if ever was) 

is no longer suited. 

Wherewith I give to looting through 

the war chest of our past 

like a wily Anne Bonny 

who snatches at plunder or graft. 

But the wreck of that ransack, 

that strongbox, our splintering coffer,

 

the claptrap bastard 

of the best we had to offer, 

is sog-soaked and clammy, 

empty but for sand. 

Like the knuckle-white cup 

of my urgent, ghastly hands 

in which nothing but 

the ghost of love is held. 

Damn it to hell.

[danielriddlerodriguez]

BETWEEN SHEETS

—John Compton

your hospital bed took you

into its arms and taught you ​

about caskets

[danielriddlerodriguez]

Innermost

—Shirley Stephenson

Within everything, something prior.

Within the sizzle of nerve, a remnant

of remote pox, and at the heart

of malaise, the mosquito’s

pierce and draw.

Within the swimmer’s breath,

the impulse of gills.

In the middle of the vacation,

fear of running out.

In the potential circumference

of a kick, the dog’s caution.

Within the loop of scarf, bruises.

Within safety, its counterpoint.

Within the forage,

the delusion of past fullness.

Within language, tongues,

and their longing.

Within the eye, a reservoir,

a dumpster.

Within surrender, the next rebellion.

Within the fig’s gluey heart,

a speck of dead wasp.

[danielriddlerodriguez]

A EULOGY by Tania De Rozario for everyone poked so full of holes, their own voice passes through them, history escaping the body in a series of echoes. for everyone distilled into colour of skin, choice of pronoun, place of origin, length of hair, years, skirt, name, limbs, medical record. for everyone made to believe that the petals of persecution blossomed from the buds of their own paranoia. for everyone passed over in favour of a name that seemed easier to pronounce, was less of an assault to someone else’s comfort. for everyone accused of prolonged adolescence, scars on their arms marking time like a calendar, body taking itself into its own hands. for everyone blamed for the stare, grope, catcall, assault that cut like glass into flesh as if they had asked to be broken. for everyone deceived into dreaming, everyone who left home and family to provide for home and family, returning with nothing. for everyone pumped so full of doctrine, the guilt which ate into their bones made them believe breaking them was the only way out.

[danielriddlerodriguez]

FERAL IS OUR NEW DOMESTICITY

​—Pony P

​“become a creature of war! DESTROY!

…no, not like that!”

a horse named Regret is the first filly to win the Kentucky Derby in 1915

65 years later she is followed by Genuine Risk

42 years after we meet in a Jupiter cazimi

​

                                         you tell me that carnations are the most abused flower

                                         milky oat tops calm the nerves

                                         how you almost became a bull rider

                                         and that you can smell the iron when I bleed

I lay down stressed out and sexy

my one trick is that I am a homing pigeon for good leather  

and I can make psychic pasta

                                       we dream of having two dogs named Chess and Poetry

                                                                              my sweet shield

                                       my Joan of Arc

                                       coming to meet me

                                       in the field of haha

​

​

[danielriddlerodriguez]

RUBBER BANDS & WEIGHT

—Benny the Butcher

My background official // I don’t back down from issues

I spin back ‘round and get you // pull my mask down and clip you

You can go and check my record // not a blemish on my file

The whole Griselda bought Rolexes // put VSs on the dial

My man calling home sick // said he stressing over trial

I said You get a hundred years // you still a legend in the town

We was youngsters who grew to be crooked // they threw me in booking

This beef shit, speak up // this Uzi’ll cook it

They played hoops // I played the stoop with the tool in the bushes

First day I met your old lady // she threw me the pussy

We real niggas, hundred grand // that’s my mother fault

I need another vault, nigga // that’s hustler talk

In this game of life // it mean death if you come up short

My man doing a stretch // for a body that his brother caught

Cocaine jumping out the pot // so you know

That my post game standing on this block // like Karl Malone, yip!

[danielriddlerodriguez]

BELLE OF THE BALL —Carson Jordan​

I’ve got a bad case of the slips hip clicking in nylon jaw tipping sexy Post Nut Clarity oh Fiona, we’re all a bad girl in someone’s song tell me the muse of that man maybe we can call her Candy In The Wild sparse and unheady a girl who can really make a g-string sing hold her to your ear hear the open promise to come Worthy Club, do I speak or am I just gorgeous 

[danielriddlerodriguez]

BEFORE YOU CAME

—Faiz Ahmed Faiz

Before you came,

things were as they should be:

the sky was the dead-end of sight,

the road was just a road, wine merely wine.  

Now everything is like my heart,

a color at the edge of blood:

the grey of your absence, the color of poison, of thorns,

the gold when we meet, the season ablaze,

the yellow of autumn, the red of flowers, of flames,

and the black when you cover the earth

with the coal of dead fires.  

And the sky, the road, the glass of wine?

The sky is a shirt wet with tears,

the road a vein about to break,

and the glass of wine a mirror in which

the sky, the road, the world keep changing.  

Don't leave now that you're here—

Stay. So the world may become like itself again:

so the sky may be the sky,

the road a road,

and the glass of wine not a mirror, just a glass of wine.

[danielriddlerodriguez]

Fighter —e ​ They warn; don’t tick her off if you value your life. Red firey locks. Her major muscles upon muscles are stronger than most men. Easily provoked but not easily subdued. Strikes or spits on those who stare, smirking, saying something smug, smuggled softly or sharply. Glad she stays on our side, as long as she’s not mad at us. They say she had her baby taken from her, deemed unfit in her condition. Was she too weak after labor to fight back? I wonder if her strength came from being a mother or just from being a woman. I bet it broke her when they ripped her baby away right after she gave birth. I wonder if the father even knew to care; if they even let her hold the baby.

[danielriddlerodriguez]

DIRGE —Anthony Ostroff Where are the lips, the breast, the thigh That were such poetry They sang the sun into the sea? They have passed by.

Where is the hot, smouldering eye, The tongue that burned deep As ever the cold truth could lie? They have passed me.

The cold, desert isle I keep, The steep, cold sky, Will not, will not close on me, Will not pass by.

[danielriddlerodriguez]

THE SINCEREST FORM OF FLATTERY

--Katy Haas​

​

everyone is making pavlova

and drinking topo chico

everyone is all

   good vibes

   hot girl

   no sleep

while summer writhes

on its back in the dry grass

but i’m all

   gender dysphoric

   googling giardia symptoms

   bloated

in my brand new bikini.

and it’s thoughts like this

that keep me up at night:

there were so many reasons

i knew you would never

love me,

and now everything

is a bad omen

in retrospect. besides,

my skin smelling only like sun

is just one of many things

i won’t change about myself.

because i try not to say    can’t.

i try to say words that feel good in my mouth

like      lifelong

like      aquafaba

like      lilac

like      fuck you, pal.

   okay

but what i meant all along is that

   everyone knows how to do the same things

   and i don’t even know

   what to think

   when no one is looking.

[danielriddlerodriguez]

MINNIE MOUSE VS. SECURITY

--M.K. Foster

—my revenge narrative is not going as planned. Again. Neither is my self-improvement montage. Whatever. If my body isn’t vomiting these days, I’m choking on it. And vice versa. I rinse my mouth. I wipe my eyes. I clear my airways. I straighten my clothes. And all of this while thinking how, in another dream, I’m a body in the costume of another body trying to fight, trying to kill back everything that wants me dead, the way in a video online, Minnie Mouse yanks off her yellow booties like hold my shoes and then proceeds to beat the shit out of a guy with her bare little gloved hands, slamming his head into asphalt like it’s her goddamn job. And I’m thinking, at least one someone gets me. At least somebody else knows the body for what it is: a clumsy weapon wielded with four-fingered hands. And I’m so scared. All the time. Of nothing— does anyone else know how to live so visibly possessed by so much invisible fire? Strike hard, strike true: the head like a run-over peach or cat, the head of a mouse flying off like a lost hat. That’s what you get for living like your life depends on it — I didn’t mean that. I mean, how can you stand it? Because I can. What I mean is, I told you I ain’t no bitch. I would be afraid of me, too—

[danielriddlerodriguez]

FILM ADAPTATION OF A LOVE SCENE FROM MY UNREAD COPY OF WUTHERING HEIGHTS

—Britt Ashley

We open with a wide-angle shot of perfect misanthropy, all pears and desolation. I love your eyebrows, the way everything sounds French for no good reason and most of all, your ridiculous name. The kind of name given to a boy raised by lions after he is finally brought home, shaggy, royal, and confused.  This is a cup, a knife, a kiss, a plateful of dinner that never ran from you. Still, you keep meat in inappropriate places, secret rare steaks in the library, nestle tender legs of lamb in dresser drawers. I tend wolves in the nursery and pretend not to notice. Before you, I loved beyond my means, loved a girl so fiercely I swallowed my tongue before I could tell her. So now I am all brindle and howl, spoiled bitch, all yours.

[danielriddlerodriguez]

GLITTER IN MY WOUNDS —Caconrad                             first and most important                             dream our missing friends forward                             burn their reflections into empty chairs             we are less bound by time than the clockmaker fears this morning all I want is to follow where the stone angels point                      birdsong lashing me to tears                              heterosexuals need to see our suffering                   the violent deaths of our friends and lovers       to know glitter on a queer is not to dazzle but to  unsettle the foundation of this murderous culture         defiant weeds smashing up through cement                      you think Oscar Wilde was funny                     well Darling I think he was busy                             distracting straight people                              so they would not kill him                       if you knew how many times I                  have been told you’re not like my                          gay best friend who tells me                            jokes and makes me laugh                                no I sure as fuck am not                           I have no room in my life to                    audition for your pansy mascot                         you people can’t kill me and                            think you can kill me again                      I met a tree in Amsterdam and               stood barefoot beside it for twenty           minutes then left completely restored        yet another poem not written by a poet                    sometimes we need one muscle to                                       relax so the others follow                                    my friend Mandy calls after a                                  long shift at the strip club to say                                 while standing in line for death I am                           fanning my hot pussy with your new book                   will you sign it next week my fearless faggot sister

[danielriddlerodriguez]

GOSPEL OF THE MISUNDERSTOOD

—Safiya Sinclair

I want to be the blade striking    knotted brown, to kiss the nape of any hunger; American beautyberry or rutted cane, warm branch    of man pinning me here in mute study. To be an ache in the breast of a burst jelly is what I wanted, vine-slick    and torrid in summer’s greed, pressing my fears against the light of the lonely. Nameless, I haunt for god and love    in extinct places, curve myself inside desire’s eye and drink. All peeled vermillion, all caught promise. Again all-seeing, and finally.    To be seen. Is what I wanted. To trawl the sleep of his body. To make a burning room of this mouth. Skinned eager    with spiderbite and holy. Split-pink, drunken. Choked quiet, as life unfolds its sticky wings in me. Snuffing me sweetly.

Isn’t this love? To walk hand in hand toward the humid dark,    enter the ghost web of the hungry, to consider some wants were not meant to be understood. Some women.    The way my brother prays I’ll still find a man to divine me, and my father tells me lazy women will never be loved.    Like today’s new trumpet pushing its bright flower in my slutty way. The slow voice of its angel hissing breathless:    No. He is not here. He is not here. He is nowhere.