True Values
How to crack down transgress empty space
………corn, so much storage or the flood plain
how to worship this quiet, this time.
………Something comes out of the comfort of trains
when you put all your poison into one place
……….and run to the river.
I wish it were colder I wish musk hunker-downer
………for this tartan couch
red phone on the wall transitional
……….for this special sequence.
Everyone says she needs a retreat mostly just to touch
………mostly just to come in call it a den
so she fucks the taxidermist sterile as a dead dad
……………each extinct chicken stuffed, an achievement
when he gets tired enough he’ll rip his feeding tubes out
say this is my house but there’s a dumbwaiter
……………………….and my skin will hang off my skull.
Here’s where we put the eyes
………here’s where we put the cellophane we make into the lake.
My sweater is jacquard with your phone number
……….dive-bombing beetles in the witch tense.
……………….The door is a guard
……….strappy shoes and someday I’ll let the ghosts come to me
strappy shoes and someday I’ll remember it gladly
……….no screens on the windows
and on the flood plain how many trains
……….the language of flowers or the more profane language of stones.
Take Me Naked If It Makes Me Real Again
No frigate like a book unread and not the energy
…………..to open a bottle of pills. Everything’s triggering
lifting my hair for the vestige of old-timey stardom
……………off with safety scissors I chop my own bangs.
Heat makes waking hell and I dwell on eyesockets
………and every morning pay the pine trees.
……………………………….It all comes down to money and bloodstains.
A needle and a pearled shawl took the children away.
……………….Drink the vodka. Fill the bottle with water.
.……We mythologize and he says the witch hunt
is most interesting and the difference between
………us and the animals is they can’t look for meaning.
………………………………..Little songs come fast and I find the letter
by not looking back or it’s somewhere else
……….and it poisons my shade
……….or I empty out the pantry to rid myself of him
self-sabotage in heart-shaped sunglasses
……..or a more intimate god.
Take me naked. I just told the truth.
……….The brass heart in the bedroom turned my past over.
I got through bad moments black bows
………changed my name. I solved my own crime
with a made-up boyfriend and a fake cock
………or I solved the crime during my period
wearing your cast-offs
……………………….or I solved the crime as I heard a bell ring
……………………….and the truth is
……………………….your carnage is general knowledge.
Note: “No frigate like a book” is a phrase from poem #1286 by Emily Dickinson.
Jessie Janeshek’s third full-length book of poems MADCAP is forthcoming from Stalking Horse Press in 2019. Her first two books are The Shaky Phase (Stalking Horse Press, 2017) and Invisible Mink (Iris Press, 2010). Her chapbooks include Spanish Donkey/Pear of Anguish (Grey Book Press, 2016), Rah-Rah Nostalgia (dancing girl press, 2016), Supernoir (Grey Book Press, 2017), Auto-Harlow (Shirt Pocket Press, 2018), Hardscape (Reality Beach, forthcoming), and Channel U (Grey Book Press, forthcoming). Read more at jessiejaneshek.net.
Photo: ål nik
South Broadway Ghost Society 