Poems by Jeffrey Side

I COULDN’T SEE IT COMING

He wanted to be in Montana,
like he read
in that philosophy book.

But it was impossible
for him to get
away from his doldrums.

Time and again, his fate
was to remain
here, with a few pleasures.

I was happy in the fields,
not thinking
about the present.

Sometimes, I hear her
calling me,
after I begged her to stay.


I’M COUNTING ON YOUR LICKING

You have chosen wisely
the wrong man.
Don’t count your chickens
he hasn’t.

He has married before,
and controlled
his birth.

No need for him
to change his goals.


SUN IN MY HAIR

I've got too much
sugar in my milk, and
the cathedral is moving in
front of the clouds.

And Venus
is coming close to me
and telling me of the
mansions in heaven.

I would tell her
that when I've got the sun
in my hair
I don't need her to
come around.

Others have told me
of the squeals they have lost
to unworthy competition.

They are learning
that when it's time you
save
you can never be a
slave.

But even in the sea
you can be thirsty.


I WANTED TO BE A PLANT

I loved you so I fell.
I hurt my pride.
You tempered me
while I attempted to swing you.

You sat behind paper all day.
You weren’t paid much.
You looked at times uptight.

You had a small room—
big in places.
And your plants sucked in
the air you breathed
out.

I wanted to be a plant.
You helped every one,
yet you gave nothing to me.

If I could find a mad girl
like you in every
bar and corner,
I’d be lucky.

We both knew it
back in Kathmandu.

Poems by Mark Young

THE PIPE FLOATING IN ITS IMAGISTIC HEAVEN

There are two pipes. Or,
rather, two drawings of
the same pipe which are
meant both to please others
& ourselves, & to make
others pleased with us.

Do not say there is no heart
in the work here—its basis is
the human heart. The sorcery
lies in an operation rendered
invisible by the simplicity
of its result—to make

the pipe new, but floating in
a natural silence where
attention to the small details
extends it more than
it illustrates it or fills the
void. To make it legend.


Sources:

This Is Not a Pipe, by Michel Foucault
The Ladies' Book of Etiquette (1860), by Florence Hartley


A PROCESS OF TRANSFER

I'm currently living in Austin, TX
where my boyfriend has a car &
a set of girl's confirmation dolls. He
doesn't let me drive his car, but I'll
play with the dolls until I can no
longer ignore his snide comments.
The weather out here, like any self-
assembly of living matter, is suggest-

ive of ecological city infography in
flat design &/or traditional &/or
cloud-based applications to eliminate
noise from any nearby optical field.
Traveling is portrayed as functionally
illiterate. It doesn't have to be that way.


FROM THE POUND CANTOS: CENTO XXXVII

Mr Webster, a man of straw, had no desire
that the interruption of social intercourse
shd. continue. So far, so good. But when the

time came to fire he merely lit a cigarette
& walked away. This is Mitteleuropa;
nothing good is recorded. The March folk

now go to Verona to buy cloth well colored
or, needing salt, make their peace with Venice.
"Can Portugal keep it up?" a lady asks me,

" now that the cannibals of Europe are eating
one another again." The cicadas continue
uninterrupted, borne into the tempest,

black cloud wrapping their wings. The
night hollow beneath them. Time is the evil.

Poems by Charlotte Hernandez

THE BREATH OF A DEITY 

Charge the negative
frequency photons
to cast your dark light.
From motion to matter,
I absorb it like fuller’s earth.
Claiming your dirt as my own,
I am unable to eradicate the damage.
Here, there is no undoing effect.


THE DEATH OF THE AETHER 

We attempt to measure
what doesn’t exist - 
the luminiferous aether.
We name a fifth element
and hold it close.
Denying its death,
we say
there is no such thing as empty space.