pozem

pose those words. pozem. ooze oohs and ahs.

[pozem]

on the roof deck

he: why is desire such a turn-on?

she: because it boosts the ego. positive feedback mechanism.

he: mm. you're right. you're so right.

she: i know you want me, which makes me want you more. it's certainly clear that i want you, which makes you want me more.

he: yes.

she: also, it's a promise of a certain level of...enthusiasm.

he: let's go. bring the wine.

[he follows her inside]

[pozem]

i crave you as co-eds crave iced coffee on monday mornings and monday afternoons tuesday mornings also and tuesday afternoons. i swing in moons closer to fall than spring closer to dying than living things scrape each piece of my body that can come loose into a bowl and make a paste for you: each finger's cut nail, each knotted hair each phlegmy sneeze each bloodied rag this is how i can be more human for you. since i am not human enough to be with you.

[pozem]

ode to my old apartment

being 23 in you, all the men i fucked in you, /dreaming of my friends in you, drinking with my /friends in you, drinking by myself in you, /learning to be myself in you, /never gone to church in you/ crying by / myself in you, rescued by friends in you, /rescued by the sun in you, rescued by myself in /you, rescued by you from gas leaks and dog's /teeth. you are a great you. you with the 12-foot /ceilings and red dust that settlings over everything/ you classroom windows and ghosts of children i've /never seen. the first place i chose and felt happy /in my choice: the first place that was alone and /really mine. hating my neighbor and her alarm, /hating the scratching dog inside the ceiling, hating/ the occasional clear spiders but not minding a /terrible lot because of their occasionality. watching/ lemonade in you, sneezing/ in you, anxiety in you, all the tv i watched and /every day i came home straight from work and/ found food and got into bed and watched tv and /fell asleep for months. running home from the train/ at night. learning which streets are safe to walk /home from at night. discovering fishtown with you. /cooking for emily in you. ordering emily food in you. /(and here even on my last morning I can hear her/ alarm). traipsing out with bags and bins of laundry /from you, sweeping you and chasing flies from /you, climbing sills to crack windows in you, blessed/ apartment of only the blessed, my solace and my/ home from may 1st 2015 to june 3rd 2016. god /bless you this home with painted grey concrete /floors and endless sunlight. god bless you steady/ stream of water at a satisfying pressure and hot as/ i want it shower, small cabinet and nooks that fit /my furniture, tiny kitchen where i remembered /again and again that i can make food for myself /and where i didn't need to move my feet to open /fridge, turn on stove, open cabinets, wash dishes,/ all rooted in one place and then so close to you./ you are a lovely apartment and unlike those /temporary spots, you will always be my home. /

[pozem]

being black is the most alternative thing

more than anything you've ever seen or been

700

700

700

700

700

700

700

700

experts say it

[pozem]

o spurned man

o control lost

baby's operatic pitch shatters concrete

[pozem]

myth of the water-walkng afrcans, or myth of the flyng afrcans, or igbo at dunbar, g. county. heard about the ebo float? a mass death. 1803. those who had control of body(s), took control of folklore and hstory. may 1803. a boatload of caught west afrcans, not deceased flow over the sea. set on Savannah beach. Savannah people, planters and slavers sell people. who story. who color. morning dredged the sun. dunbar creek owed earth dirt for carving itself a mouth and tail through St. Simon. marsh so drafty it wore a shawl of fog, refused to undress even on early summer days. so a ship lands. what ship. wooden ship. whose ship. slave's ship. no, slaver's ship. what year. 1803. who's slaves. your family's. who color. nude. igbo are people from nigeria nigeria is in west africa. if you do not know about west africa i am not interested in you. in a reasoned attempt to understand the racial tensions in america early sunday morning while two men from comcast talked shit about women in a woman's home, i found on the government website a census of race in america and how they define it is so much everything [[i'm only concentrated on two girls right now. whitney and michaela.]] how felt the igbos at landing? out out out out out out who story, who color a drowned caul, hollow soul culled on cusp of love as cubs if i write enough will i have nightmares of it out out out out out ouch color damned spot out out out who story, who color, heard about the ebo float? souls as dark as roses rose out, flow over sea boatload of caught west afrcans, not deceased set on dunbar creek. chose drown over drought. drown over draft for naught. those our ebos at dunbar. death dense as ocean oral freedom, ocean eden --- morning a hot drawn bath and them in shackles grounded and chose to drown blacks are lauded for killing themselves this writing is nothing

[pozem]

hollow owl haul,

laud a laudanum. o lawd.

a caul shawl, awl.

ma's maw mauls, culls a cusp.

at dusk gull dips

swallow all.

[pozem]

[[write about the lady who lived with the dolphin]]

[[kaspar hauser]]

[pozem]

shore people have a shore following

shore people have a sure following 

[pozem]

always stay gracious; best revenge is your paper. 

[pozem]

i don’t like living here like this, by halves. 

today a dental hygienist told me to take

small sips of water each time i wake

up in the night, as she does, 

so here am i, irregular and tripping

over boxes, irregularly filling

up with club soda. why the dental

hygienist wakes often in the night

i do not know. 

[pozem]

flesh free

Clingstone is a type of peach. Cut through, and when

the flesh is gone, plant tree. This year we dance

with stones for toes, painted heavy or light

and lacking nails. She'll blow a hole. She'll wear

tears in your hair with tears. If we don't sink by

December, this cruise has to win some to lose some. This

tottering tower of tugboats I'm towing trails. Sails white

as sea-foam green. Long as a ladybug. Strong as a snail.

You could drown me for play. Watch my bubbling breaths,

or sleepy leap down beside me. I'll rake your arms. We'll

turn pink and pass a patch of piranhas. I'm finding fishfood

to fill up a flyfish trap. What I find's a live fillet. Flip phone,

send a video home. Water's a blue dust today.

imitative exercise

Harryette Mullen - sleeping with the dictionary, "Bleeding Hearts"

[pozem]

Yung lovers

Yung lovers

Slow, a first blow into the lute

of my fluted future. Yung lovers!

Smother, New Jersey. Was the pie

really just tomatoes? Is that globe,

your own aorta, meant to melt

into skin? Oh my hovel of cloves,

a jinxed depot that smells of basil.

I was always old in my nightmares,

and happy, a great piazza in Milan.

My bladder of shredded glass, a dreidel;

unsung surveyor's compass, a stencil;

glistening thyroid, hyper, and a prescription

pamphlet. Are the lungs welling with water? Scrape

walls, let waste sink. It's light now.

Still a witch, I will never float.

imitative exercise - (O'Hara, "On Rachmaninoff's Birthday" from Lunch Poems) 

[pozem]

interview with Mark Harris

Image: ​’I too am America’ by Mark Harris

[pozem]

Black art is silenced as America, in its efforts to be apolitical, is quite political. 

[naturalhairqueens]

they are all so BEAUTIFUL

[pozem]

ok if i ever said SQUAD GOALS before the moment i saw this picture

it was a lie

[pozem]

sincerely yours

every line is a lie. lithe, i loathe your least loving breaths. slink out of one skin, sink into a second, pulled slick with sound from my cerebellum. memento yori, yuri, yuliya all the yous and yours you've yelled up at, clacking out curses, misdirected, turetted gorgeous gobs of curses that stem from a family that sees faces in trees and swam across the ocean to forgettem 

but dead ends salty as Dead Sea erode roads into masks of asp that clasp old epistemologies behind Nazareth theologies. i curse you now in the name of Nkrumah, Rawlings, and Mahama sincerely yours adoley ammah