People tend to say their sadness
is sleeping in their spines,
but it seems that
mine is almost
always
awake
- - Kelley J
I hate reading “How To Be A Poet” stuff and seeing things that say “Read Like A Thief” or “Borrowing is Okay” because no, that isn’t okay and it isn’t poetry because poetry can make you feel your very own blood moving through your whole body and throw you into one good long shiver, and poetry is a pain-stakingly meticulous sort of work, and stealing is infinitely sloppy, and it’s very likely your poetry will just end up having a few bright shiny parts you’ve thieved that are way too good to be in your poetry in the first place which makes it v obvious that you’re just a phony so put a lil elbow grease into it instead ok
Selection from, “Mind-Blowing Sex: A Meditation on Interpersonal Communication”, by Kelley J.
it was fun at first k but now I’m getting irritated that I can’t get it sized or positioned exactly right ugh dumb technology
I figured out how to turn my word docs into jpeg’s, I am so thrilled by something so basic
And I’m never sure if it’s twelve or thirteen batches of batted eyelashes that have leavened me into a well-bread woman. Sometimes I’ll brush the powdered dusting from their box, let them flutter up towards me on wax-paper wings. I burned the first few dozens - buried their exoskeletons beneath the patios white chocolate panels - and I waited decades of weeks for the ginger haired man I kneaded, but I got you. Red-hot tempered, all spice atop cinna-tanned shoulders, I also waited for you to love me, but it turns out that’s how a man crumbles.
_______
Kelley J.
Why am I so much more honest with paper than I am with people?
Even Amidst Fierce Flames
Kelley J, Poetry II
And even springing from seven stories,
bodies by no means float –
– they give sick smacks, one
thwip-thack of a moment
excreting bones and flesh and freckles
against the sidewalk’s concrete contuse.
Swallowed in great gasps that gush like
shock-censored screams,
I
saw
you -
I saw a stranger, and
running to your cinnabar side,
courage clotting in my mouth,
heard your mother’s voice tell me
“Time to shine, lion-heart” when I
slid into a kneel knowing the color
was already leaving your sweater.
The symmetrics of
your appendages now curdled:
mountains and valleys, a forest
of alabaster branches blooming dahlias,
too tender to console or crimson save.
I’m grasping at all the wrong words
so I pry open your belly-button
to see where your soul stems from,
but all I can offer is a lion’s lament-
mouth ripped open in one requiem roar.
January 15th, 2013
Have you ever tasted a blood orange? I tried one for the first time today, slicing its skin into sections to reveal a sweet burgundy meat. Sliced fruits surprise me with memories of sister-shared mangoes, my mother’s Cuban food, loose teeth; I may not know you, but I know you understand the importance of found memories, and I also know you will understand it was the word “surprise” which bled so sweetly – not the orange.
On that day, you searched through the apple orchard -
when you found me we shared juicy salad sandwiches
on the cider house roof, despite its rules, and then
you kissed me
with your mouth like mulling spices
