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Fast Directory of "Slam" Length Poems by Porsche Jones

The Bombest Death Ever

Calibri

Hourglass

"feckless"

Commitment

Illness

Matissio

Weaver

Informed Consent

Institution

Vanity

Rex Theater

Hear Me Out

Car Culture

Slam Poem and the Body

Tongue (Free Speech Poem)

Creative Process

How to Judge a Poetry Slam

A Fat Woman Navigates Capitalism

Nugget of Awareness

Apprentice (Rhyming Version)

Still With Me (Toxic)

If Pillows Were Zillows, Beggars Would Repaint

If I could make people into buildings I'd do at least two a day. Maybe I'd make you into a ground level two bedroom, nine hundred square feet, Petite but in a powerful location. New white cabinets because you like to keep everything behind a shiny front. Washer dryer hookup because you're inconvenient but not impossible. I heard there's a playground on the property but I've never seen it. Dishwasher for when you're running on automatic, whooshing through life without Consideration or condensation.

Maybe I'd make you into a tri floor townhouse. Grey exterior, grey carpet. You've seen better days and you know it. With three bedrooms and a private yard there is space to love. Tile countertops. Walk-in pantry. The smell of fresh air with A memory of lysol floating underneath. Someone entertained, here. Someone hosted parties. If it wasn't for the strict home owner's association You'd be a place to create.

Either way I'll plant acanthus in the garden. I'll attract butterflies. I'll put up squash for halloween. Life is coming out my toolbox. It's seeping out from under my welcome mat. I have enough to live anywhere. I have enough for both of us.

Juggalo Margaret Atwood Should Prevent Climate Change

Juggalo Margaret Atwood paints the dawn in black and white, With carnival courage rising into morning light. She hears the forests whisper through every page she writes, Turning stories into sparks that challenge appetites.

Faygo fizz and fierce resolve accompany her stride, While rivers cheer the promise she refuses to let slide. She rallies every outsider beneath a weathered tree, Declaring Earth belongs to all, untamed and free.

Her hatchet is compassion, her anthem careful thought, She battles greed and apathy in every lesson taught. She plants young maples where the parking lots once spread, And fills neglected gardens with CEOs dismembered heads.

She stitches broken futures with imagination's thread, Giving restless hearts new dreams where fear had grown instead. The skies grow clearer slowly through the choices people make, Inspired by every honest vow they bravely take.

Juggalo Margaret Atwood laughs beneath the cooling rain, Knowing joy can fuel the work again and yet again. She proves that fierce community and stories deeply shared Can help protect a living world when people truly care.

Climate Change

Ash nests beneath my dollar; we hatch a weather made of black milk and copper pollen. The glacier keeps its blue animal inside a split rib, breathing knives into our harvest prayers. Children drag buckets of smoke from the river; the fish arrive skinned in mirrors, blinking salt into our hands. Every refinery wears my grandmother's jawbone, clicking psalms through a mouth packed with crude roses.

I have heard the atmosphere tear itself open the way wet linen surrenders to furious wrists. The pines kneel without religion, pouring green blood over beetle-lit graves that refuse to cool.

Somewhere Meredith Monk is teaching breath to fracture itself into a flock, a vowel before language, a throat remembering the first human. I answer with lungs full of rust feathers, each exhale another orphaned coastline gnawing the moon's cartilage. The sea does not rise; it enters us, patient as mold, stitching tidal alphabets beneath the fingernails of the unborn. Our mouths become evacuation maps, every tooth another drowned address chewing the names of vanished birds.

A deer carries wildfire in its eye socket like a second sun too small to forgive us. Rain falls smelling of batteries and opened veins; the corn lifts its blistered faces anyway, begging the sky for one clean syllable. What survives is not hope but the raw muscle beneath it, twitching against the carbon hymn we stitched into daylight. Listen: the earth has stopped asking for witnesses and begun composing us into its unfinished score of smoke, bone, breath, breath.

What can we do? Sometimes critics. Sometimes crickets.

The Photograph

"What's a kleptomanic?" You asked as you stole the tinsel off the registers at McDonald's Where you worked, where they let you Smoke twice every shift. You worked even on the day after I came to your house with my ninja sword, Aimed it at your heart, And you grabbed it, slicing the tip of your pinky half-off. Nothing kept you from the broken ice cream machine, Not even late nights with sour apple pucker, Long walks on country roads where the only light was an aura from out by the military airport. We took pieces of each other, true, I gave you a spot of blood on my London tourist t-shirt, You gave me memories of iguanas and I took a photo of your skeletal face, your large hands clutching your skateboard. It stole first prize in an art show; Not my first but one I can never enter again.

Rejection Letters

Sunset butters the July corn Though you can still smell the green on it. That's what editors want to hear. The resounding pop when I set the field on fire is not what we're looking for in this issue. I refuse to tell you about the farmer's market when I want to vanish in a puff of smoke. And I cannot offer war torn foreign landscapes Only what lives in the hills of my body. A giant twice my size clutches me in his lap. What I write is half his whisper, Half the cry of a sea bird who goes to eat a mollusk on the rock. It clamps down, trapping its would-be devourer. I am weaving too hard between a and b plot now. There will be a small reading fee. We can only consider two poems per submission and This has already been a plane trip. A zoo. A magic deck of Images and ideas all acting on each other, Every turn.

Apprentice (Rhyming Version)

Porsche comes from a similar word that means a young male apprentice.

I was almost named Page in a wild coincidence.

I was born to be a child. An understudy. An underling.

That is what was meant for me. A master of nothing.

I strike the sword on the iron under my heavy arms

My back complains with all its natural charms.

I'm doing scuttwork, entry level, people say I'm still learning.

And because of this it is zero that I'm earning.

Now I have read and reviewed 300 books in the last 5 years.

But those who do not read can count me among their peers.

Nobody is coming to me for a recommendation--

That would place me above my current station.

For eight years I worked in libraries on archiving and information

But no one comes to me to research their fixations.

I have raised and pampered two little dogs through long full lives

But no one hires me as a sitter, walker, trainer, groomer, or otherwise

I'm not a paid professional. And now for a confessional

I've been to bed with a number of lovers. That number

You're thinking of? The unreasonable one?

Double it and then add some.

But I am no one's partner, no one's mistress, no one's mate.

I'm always good enough to fuck but never good enough to date.

I have shown my art in galleries, in museums the world over.

I'm never paid as much as I spend as my name grows big and bolder.

Studying under the greatest artists I was told I'd be a given

But two thirds of adults living in poverty are women.

And I'm scanning all these old polaroids, pictures of my grandmother

She's washing dishes in some and holding babies in others

My grandfather he's partying at nightclubs, smoking cigars, shaking hands,

He's sightseeing locales where I myself have been.

I have done all these things and no one is asking me any questions.

No one is taking pictures of me but me, which I do without objection.

You might say that saying no to work would cause me less pain

But I don't want my days trapped in bed while I gatekeep and abstain.

I wonder what my brother is doing while I'm scanning pics for my mom.

My parents named him Tyler and he wears that with aplomb.

Tyler is one who lays tile or bricks. A tradesman.

It can also mean the doorkeeper of a tavern or an inn.

I wonder how it feels being instead of becoming.

How many skins can you hit before they say that you are drumming.

My father told my mother he'd get her a Porsche someday. That's me

And so far Porsche is all I've managed to be.

Apprentice

Porsche comes from a similar word that means a young male apprentice. In a wild coincidence my parents almost named me Page.

I was born to be a child. An underling. A master of nothing. That is what was meant for me. To strike the sword on the iron under my heavy arms and tired back until it is finished. To never receive payment because I'm supposedly still learning.

I have read and reviewed over 300 books in the last 5 years. No one comes to me for book recommendations.

For eight years I worked in libraries but no one comes to me for research, for information science.

I have raised and pampered two little dogs through long full lives but no one hires me as a dog sitter, walker, trainer, or groomer.

I've been to bed with a number of lovers. That number you're thinking of? The unreasonable one? Double it. But I am no one's partner, no one's mistress, no one's mate.

I have shown my art in galleries, in museums the world over. Studied art under some of the greatest working artists. I have not been paid half as much as I have spent.

Two thirds of adults living in poverty are women. I'm scanning all these old polaroids and every picture of my grandmother she's washing dishes or holding a baby and every picture of my grandfather he's partying at nightclubs, smoking cigars, shaking hands with men, sightseeing. I have done all these things and no one is asking me any questions. No one is taking pictures of me but myself.

How many holes in the earth do you dig before they call you a gravedigger?

I wonder what my brother is doing while I'm scanning these for my mom. My parents named him Tyler, as in one who lays tile or bricks. It can also mean the doorkeeper of an inn or tavern. I wonder how it feels being instead of becoming. My father told my mother he'd get her a Porsche someday and that is, so far, all I've managed to be.

Still With Me

I don't miss her. I have too much of her in my life. Everyday the radioactive glow of her vibrates through the sludge of me. In the morning I wake alone and know what space she'd fill, inside my body and across my bed In the afternoon I work without purpose or context, without the guidance of a star Groaning its fusion into my DNA, manipulating. I can't reject myself the way she rejected me. I can't fill that niche. I shake and a few words come out my pen Straight from the fount of her mouth, the ink-source And I can't make dinner without hearing her scold me for burning the batter. She is the source of the heat. Forces say go outside, touch grass, but I don't even know how I feel about windows Because all I see is her handing me a brick. Maybe if I'd helped more people she would have loved me Maybe if I cured a disease or founded a nonprofit I knew what was in the spaces she didn't fill and it wasn't enough, is not enough. I was happy before she told me a thousand ways how she couldn't live with this And now I can't live with it. For years I would conceptualize myself as a kind of warrior And then she became my armor. News flash: you should not wear armor made of uranium. I was crossing the street a few weeks ago and someone in a car shouted "get the fuck out of My way!" and I shouted "fuck you!" but I don't think they heard me. My voice sounded gleeful, like I was kidding. I don't even know how to say "fuck you" and mean it and there's only one person in the world I even really want to say that to. And mean it.

TVL on AMC

Watching gay vampire TV shows Hearing through them purple prose With paranormal power I sense My life as exquisite and decadent.

I wake at dusk in velvet lace, With jeweled rings on every grace; My coffin's lined in silk brocade, By etsy witches I found and paid.

The manor sighs in candlelight, Each marble stair polished white. The doordasher whispers, "she's awake," Then warms the blood for cocktail's sake.

What is forever, if not the art Of dressing well and playing the part? Immortal? Certainly. Rich? Beyond. Theatrical? I shan't respond.

I've loved composers, thieves, and dukes, Brooding poets with impossible looks. They called me monster, fiend, and fop; I kissed them all and wouldn't stop.

The centuries have taught me this: Style itself is a kind of bliss. Empires crumble, kings retire, But a gold cell phone case never expires.

My wallpaper is red and yellow Reminiscent of a french bordello And a crystal goblet glass of something Keeps the night's refreshment coming.

Before the day demands my sleep I do recount a kind of grief Though loves I lost were long ago Some company would make time slow.

Looking for Love in Stardew Valley

I carried a match through rain, guarding its trembling tongue. You turned your face away before it reached your winter lungs.

The orchard bent with ghosts of fruit, their perfume bruising empty air. You chose a branch with withered leaves; one that offered something.

The river learned my hidden name by polishing my stones. You skipped me like a pebble once, then watched the circles run.

I left my shadow on your fence where ivy split the paint. By morning even vines had climbed to cover what I'd done.

The Commons

On the day the gates fell I took the elevator to the tallest skyscraper downtown And looked out the windows while the lawyers in their offices beamed with eyes that said, "yes, of course." Then I went to the orchard I gorged myself on the fruit on the trees and the ground That which had no hands before to pick it. I looked in the farmer's eyes and he mouthed, "yes, of course" and the peach juice ran down my chin over the bounty of thick black hairs that I don't trim.

On the day the gates fell I walked among people from a different village and cured their sick with pills that cost pennies. And the suits said "yes, of course." In health and exuberance the bodies lifted from their beds and danced in the streets, danced like triumph over the dirt, sharing themselves with me in a kiss or a touch or a firm grasp as we clasp arms and merry go round. On the day the gates fell I petted every dog in my apartment building and gave each a little treat. Whispered something sweet in all their ears.

On the day the gates fell I built a machine that will tell any story, that could paint any picture. In the great strokes of abundance I saw the sum of human knowledge at once, come together, And the petite bourgeois dropped their pearls on the ground in a clatter and said, "yes, of course,"

"Stealing is when you don't have it anymore. And now we have everything. Thank you."

1:36

Nugget of Awareness

Please allow me to wash down like a bitter drink.

Politics is the process of deciding which violence is unacceptable

And part of me finds it all violent and all unacceptable.

Any day an asteroid or plague or supervolcano could

End life as we know it.

I hope that makes you as excited as it makes me.

What a story it would be, except

No one there to tell it.

No one but me, now, in the past, in the present,

Looking forward at the day the rivers all turn hard

And shatter.

For some harms there is no consolation.

There is only seeing the world as full of ravenous fairies, toothed with inky fingers

And as much as I love the lighting aisle in Home Depot

I also love hiding under my covers.

Nobody knows I'm in here.

Nobody can come get me.

Well, someone could, and in that sense

Some violence is less acceptable than others.

I fear people who don't admit this.

I fear people who sip their

Addictive blood pressurer, tropical labor oppressor

Bean juice every morning,

Who take those smooth brown pills and forget what they hold in their hands.

The weight of the earth-brown crown.

Like the coffee bean a human life is scored for breaking.

It is bissected by expectations.

There is the round side, where you enter the door of a hospital and give your name

And are healed.

There is the flat side, where perhaps you are turned away,

Or perhaps you take with you a virus or an accident,

A medicine that is more poison than protector.

Stolen

In the airport at Shanghai Pudong, after the cab Where a bald man tries to speak Mandarin at us, Zuoyou, Xiexie And before you board a bus to Canton, My hands are full of bags. I'm rushing to catch my plane and they're clacking against each other, A shell necklace of luggage, A camera bag, a backpack, a plastic bag of snacks with the grocery logo on it, And many more. In my hurry to find the terminal, to check how many minutes past one o'clock we have squandered, I have picked up your suitcase and am carrying it in the plethora. Before I board the plane with it I find myself asking, "what's this?" Popping open the catches and Seeing your things, folded neatly, and tightly. Among them is my purse.

How many times Have I accidentally harmed someone Only to find They were hurting me on purpose?

When we were teenagers we did a stint in the hospital, A place for wayward girls, a kind of prison, And they gave us the cosmetics from a girl who died Letting us decide what to keep and what to throw away. I wanted to keep everything because I'm accepting And you winced, cringed, you didn't want any of it Until after I had claimed it.

A Fat Woman Navigates Capitalism

My guardian angel is flying over the city throwing potatoes at Brady and Sullivan. She looks down on the city of a million windows, the unhoused in the streets. She sees the luxury apartments kept empty and locked until the bourgeois deign to shell out for them. Starchy vegetables explode in a little puff of cajun style french fries when they hit the landlords' suits. Pigeons look on with interest. I need to impregnate the CEO of Google so my son will be heir and king. Why is my guardian angel not helping with this? At least she could whisper to me which dating app the man uses to find hook ups when he travels through Boston. At most she could inject my eggs into one of the girls at Centerfolds or the Glass Slipper so they could slip it to the shithead when he stops in with the lads.

Do you guys want to come over and lay in bed and vividly imagine we're at a garbage dump and we find a gold bar? Nobody wants to do this with me. People have jobs and I hold it against them. I hold a fistful of potato against them until they can't escape the smell of it. I'm sick of seeing ads for the world. I need to tongue kiss it like Blue kissing green in the iridescence of a pigeon. It means something to travel when my body is Heavier than some horses. It's not just buying two seats on a plane. It's the machinery of muscle and the grinding of joints. It's seeing the inside of a hundred eyes in every station And knowing the violence they turn over, rotating. Slick glistening on the outside of the iris, A layer of contempt. Once on a train in southern Germany I made a peanut butter sandwich with my fingers, Ate it like an ape. Ate it like pussy. Ate it like a greedy landlord devouring babies. And if I could cash a check with their horror I'd buy two houses. One big enough to hold me and one For abroad.

Making Of

Our trailer had orange shag carpet from the 70s. This was the 90s. I was 11. I developed a phobia of the vacuum, worried it would swallow my toes Or suck up its own cord and break. No one vacuumed. There was a layer of mold on the walls beneath a layer of dust. There was a bookcase of decades old paperbacks. I can still smell them when I close my eyes. I have probably written before about the dead mouse I found Behind one volume of Heinlein. A skeleton looked so fierce And so dangerous. The floor really was lava. Fleas lived in it. As high as they jumped, up my ankles, toward my knees They never reached my brain. My brother complained when I made him ramen for lunch every day. Salty fake chicken smell Still turns my stomach. I had a nightmare once. Noodles unfurling around the kitchen. I still miss the $20 Walmart futon I slept on. Its Jackson Pollock pattern. In the living room, a ceramic bowl I made in a fourth grade art glass sagged, ugly, a few pennies in its eyes. That was lunch money When it bothered to be there.

What I can tell you about this: It does not matter now, Except in the way all things matter. For a few years, until I outgrew it, I had a bicycle, and I played in a soccer league. The inside altered the outside which altered in And every man who met me lamented something dirty under the surface Until one didn't.

Feet Pressure

The dog has started Walking back and forth across my legs When I am sleeping When she wants me To wake up.

I find it upsetting when People come onto my social media posts to argue To remind me they have the same ideological illness as everyone. They don't see the body as the mind, that they don't perceive That all viruses are mind altering And do not make you less of a person.

How much attention do you want from me? How sick would I be if I gave it to you?

0:37

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