Mary Kasimor



gossip

so many pieces overlapped, i watched from a wall little hands
and feet trying to get out. this is a quick lifetime and now
everyone is dying again. you dwell without yourself and give
holiness back to the deer walking by the window. the world
remains unexplored behind the fence, despite the vendetta.
only if you were used, bruising unexplained the horrors
of headless women. dogs gnawing on a horizon. the inflated
purpose of spectacle, landfills over there in faux view, maybe
a style of mirage. crows dominate the conversation. it is always
unplanned. it is all in an existential list of broken sex, the spillage
touches sores, the touch of pain torn apart. mother and baby
maybe found, eyes seeking family blood. reunions of assorted
skin then staring in horror, then removing the heart. blood
paintings on walls in subtle lines of bones breaking. and it
may not be true; it may be a stage. we may have gossiped.



monument salesman

five stars were all you left behind
creatures of motion
so then they walked away
then you left when you left again
having buried
the instructions
having left
the dentist’s office
having left behind
a bottle of bleach      a blurred mirror
you left yesterday’s newspaper
(nervously)
in the forest when you left again
aware of the dead body
and it was yours (as you became less you)
sold to a monument salesman
only men could lift the rivers
and granite steel in their heels
because some things had to happen
pushed it over the edge
falling was the
absence of certainty
how did you manage to fit it all into one box?
and today was barely sitting
so it continued
in a specific yearning for less

the shoe factory

                                  i
television thought 
what i need                
never mind 
the mind is an invention 
then we discuss the past with our bodies

                                  ii
whereas ideas never make rhythm 
but myths also feel better
uninhibited in ways that say we
self-consciously discovered ourselves 
i wanted to be the first to know 
always wanting my desire to know

                                   iii
and then it became etcetera etcetera
posted on the signs 
the people outside who glided past 

                                   iv
i thought about my grandfather 
i didn’t think about anything normal
except the factory that made perfect shoes

                                    v
we stood in line and sometimes 
the food was worth it 

                                    vi
but we disappeared one by one
i would lose not only my mind 
my fingers and toes when my paranoia
walked in front of me
so i ignored it 

                                     vii
there were no new choices and you sewed it up
the fabric was laden with advice

                                     viii
i never saw you again 
i heard you died in the way we were broken 
where is that place where we are denied entry?


                                        ix
i needed somewhere to sleep 
my body needed a space between words 
my body was clearly typed out in triplicate
there were fields filled with marching bodies 
and over there a rotting horizon 



self-edited

         baby’s skull is     a   first division Of word thought texture
                   (and)         becomes a fire BURNing the tongue 
             baby’s Mouth (is never full)
                                                 so we squandered her fire
                                         terrified WATER risk--s memory 
                sodden And without roads
                          picking up conversations           !say something
                                                  feet running in the twilight
              (the atmosphere IS melancholy) 
                      bones remodeled       body im)perfect in speech 
        no more Scenarios spin        ning cotton 
           caulking the house without windows       but with WINGs 
                         navigating to     nurture seeds
              with hats         and songs in t  hum  bs 
      a twit ter without a voice             vying    forAttention 
            Then we remained in the cellar         hidden in 
                 the dark hole of       golden     leaves beaten 
                                into Tin knives at  tracting the light 
       and  fine lines etched my hands     reversing nature 
                   as another                  spoken wheel riding without 
                                      direction careening through          out
        STARS and planets eat       the sun for memory
             there is no one       who can please the numbers (zero)
                    with its conceptual invention        it ex(ists with)Out
           a partner            A            blanket covers the bones 
                                    of (BAby chickens)    from TH Ecir   cular    
                            reasons    of logic

Mary Kasimor has been writing poetry for many years. Her recent poetry collections are The Landfill Dancers (BlazeVox Books 2014), Saint Pink (Moria Books 2015), The Prometheus Collage (Locofo Press 2017), and Nature Store (Dancing Girl Press 2017). She has also been a reviewer of many small press poetry collections.
 
 
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