when i was young and they sat me down the name of the game was mediation always done by men in suits wielding cathode rays bending radio waves rolling that lithograph into the night bringing us narratives about love false narratives for real people also crackpot terrors and myths by which it does suck to behave so abjectly hosting the reproduction of such pernicious virals wrapped in protein coats of pure comfort secret pathways open to the public having no choice but to navigate this thoughtscape this virtual ecosystem this chemical universe where clouds of stars are as nothing to our notions where words fly like bees bearing ideas from one brain to the next endlessly where none escape this colonization this mediation by which i lose my doubts the doubt of god not least
Author: wvsutra
W V Sutra was born in Africa and grew up in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, borne aloft on a lumpy pillow of soft power. His poetry seeks to undermine and destabilize listeners in a beautiful way.
and the magic
no surprise to be an esoteric better than arcane is recondite in a world full of secret knowledge comes the shaman now to bless the fire consolation lain on those afflicted our survival skills hard won by trial plants that kill and plants that heal discovered days of cold and hunger slowly turning songs we sang to try and trick the darkness mirror magic hopes to cheat the demons alas we know the curse of metal and glass how zones of power lingered round our stones our mystery cult propitiated death while ever the weather gloated overhead we ran the ridges hard when we were young inviting sacrifice inviting love
jimmy and the bookies
i could see the shapes of baseball bats on jimmys beaten back and that crack on the skull put him in the old mass general but sometimes a man just has to make a play so i sat by his bed to keep him company and if the bookies werent trouble enough jimmy had to drink a fifth of johnny every day to keep his hands from jumping off his arms so i used to bring him nips of booze from the packy on cambridge street you cant leave a man in bed with a thirst like that jojo told him bet with your head not your heart but jimmy couldnt lay off the boston teams who badly sucked in an ongoing way and all those guys who took his action were friends from the neighborhood but he owed so much they put the beatdown on him anyways his liver shut down in 95 and that was all she wrote i saw him in the box at his wake and they had covered up the yellow pretty good not a bad comeback from that night in the parking garage with the hungry bats
queen of the aliens
high riding queen she sits upon a silver throne sublime drops of saliva rolling down her chin i know the alien queen has got that special chromosome sometimes i wonder how she got that way kings and queens and time machines get me through my day psychobiologically they are here to stay teeth so sharp as driving screws in your neck of pain. a human man is full of fear she will help you see it dear rule a world so brave and new all her children own it too royalty for snacks like you all hail queen of the aliens guests from other galaxies they can represent proxy reproduction is so surely heaven sent all the money in the world is to her repaid slyly seeking ever keeping our coquette the queen sunlike plastic energy radiating chemically i see the way she looks at me long live queen of the aliens those who had the power to kill when the world was bright know that they possess it still in the fading light bonded for a term of days endlessly renewed if a man could see it clear it would make him want to pray fleas and ticks and chewing lice are no parasites pseudomaculate theory states they stand as acolytes and take their meals of blood in honor of their deadly queen puissant fecund high and mighty ruler of the aliens
in the levant with maxie
maxie and me were both sixteen just a couple of asshole punks wasting our time in sunny beirut so one saturday morning maxie walked in and woke my drunk ass up just walked on in like it wasnt shit thanks mom i said to myself hey man got any hash aw maxie what the fuck man just got back from miami man got any hash got any hash aw shit well hang on a sec i didnt have a clue but maybe my mattress on the floor in those days my pockets plenty in those days well thank you jesus would you look at that a marble sized chunk of black bizri wrapped in a silver coat maxie breaking nuggets off the chunk scrabbling with a blackened thumbnail filling a shitty old meerschaum pipe carved in a popeye face with a pierced tinfoil bed i like my hash rolled up with some tobacco but i was in his hands you see he fired it up with a big old zippo your gonna burn your nose off fuck you said happy maxie woofing at the hash with squeaking asthma lungs a pigeon chested mannequin he sat his ass down on my mattress you sleep naked he said what a pervert haha fuck you maxie lemme get some of that i had a big black and white poster of hendrix up on my wall i contemplated it while my buzz took hold i imagined jimi singing a song about hash wangin on that slick guitar i told myself someday i will write that song of course jimi was alive in those days wearing out the guitars and the women and the hash in mean old london town
the cardinal points
made a movie bout a biscuit so it had a david bowie who the fuck was andy warhol only took about a minute never think about the left in the right or for the south you can move along the north if your mama raised you good when your mind is thick and straight set your dancing feet alight no one had to teach you how to box around the compass rose spirit guide is best you say not sure what you mean by that empty out your sack of bones kiss the paintings on the walls move your hand a little north no i mean your west hand silly even in the deepest cave we can find our cardinal points join the dream our all in all sleeping in the dragon belly ribs a temple bowels are coals soon the world will be sliced open when our heroes come to die we will see the truth unshaken nothing is too real for us in proper orientation
sarasota county
and the victory roll over venice florida as the skywriter dollarsigns the heavens mansion lawns mown by clown college dropouts while the sheriff deputies visit their probation officers traffic reels in a slow elephantine ramble up 75 away from the weary gulf heavy laden check out my man in his cool boomer haven said he was in publishing now just another sucker watch that guy in the white suit got a heart of stone going downtown with a sack of cash to pay off the winners you can get away with most things here nothing you can do about money votes and power talking mvp baby seats on the county commission ride that flying tiger to a presidential pardon
beaming
we dream here as we are made to dream the flashes and pulsations of illuminated minds too subtle and opaque to charge with meaning but if the merchants are so clever why the lack of second dreaming repetition of the one that worked one night and met my needs so that i gladly would pay extra like i did the night before america the chemical patent holders dance for joy spraying on new smiles to all the reconditioned dolls oh look theres one like you is that a phallic symbol or a tasty cigarette sad to say there is no trust tell them what you like and they go are you sure it isnt this new momentary thing we think you like it even more your welcome dig the wonderful do us confidence be fulfillment
nightmare in the uk
riding sprightly scooter bikes licorice vespas pink lambrettas cavalcading in the rain down to brighton for a reckoning simon templar shiny hair choke him with his braided tie like it cis and like it white like it funny and like it tight clumsy artist is a creep devotee of self hypgnosis new perversions old excuses got a bag of dead man wigs swilling at the bacon house blackouts here are very dicey models meek have come to grief awoken bound to posing frames pining for an age of stretchings plates of metal blocks of wood done with all this painted canvas all conventions understood pleasant were the cups of tea brought to bedroom by my hostess hand the clouds of milk still swirling with the turning of the world
zagajewski
as a coincident traveler paperback writer in hand striking on details at random debris of the visible world visited ever by spirits waxing nostalgic just so remembering all the train stations where wandering thoughts are born the poet has his metier and pays himself in the coin of the blockchain of dreams bespoken and the swelling throat of the lark inviting the ghastly genius ashes haphazardly strewn stands the awaiting boatman nothing lost in translation