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August 16, 2018 Poetry

Three Poems

Jon Ruseski

Three Poems photo

Almost Cut My Hair

Hey man
Comma
Please send me some weed
Said the poet
To the moment
I was less interested 
In the radiant wherewithal of pain
Than the weird formations
Lights on the dock
And the rockets red glare
It's that symmetry I’m talking about
I'm blanking on it too
How am I ever going to learn
Using this little head of mine?
My technique remains mostly luck
Blinds down
Kaleidoscope open
Whatever the future is
Tonight is long
My unsanctified cosmos
My maudlin darknesses
Kinder than necessary
I have water
I'm eating fruit
I'm not even drunk
But 
Yeah
Still figuring it out
I have lived
The way money prescribed
A film crew behind us
Then I turned around
There was nothing there
Don’t call it wasting time
If it makes something vulgar
An exact light
The fractal phantasmagoria
Where horizons talk
Those times you’re able
To fill space with
The pleasure of the text
That place where mystery pukes
And still prolonging
Because I can't apologize
For the conversation with silence
That guides this conspicuous consumption
Like oblivion’s brain on ketamine
It’s called the void 
Because it can’t be filled
Just some conversation
I've scrolled through
I have my own ideas
Light glinting off the window
There’s a certain aptitude
I’ll never get
 


Against Nature

Back on my bullshit
It comes in glimpses
Straight from the leaf
I just want this whole production of birds and flowers to stop already
Let’s see what else
Maybe it will be worse when I get out of work
That’s actually what I look forward to now
Greater disappointments
Thanks Nick
I didn’t know sadness
Could offer
Such refined ports
That’s cool
I’m a sponge
Commodity is my god
Gimme the merch
The rude customer email
Whatever
I can handle it
I am a red prince
I read that off a beer can
Poetry happens so quickly
Faster than an hourly wage
There are things
About my animal nature
That belie 
The sobering reality
Of reality
But you can turn anything into a question
For example
“Oh,
“I was thinking about getting that
“Roland Barthes
“picture framed?
It’s like
Get outta here
You’re just a warm body Ruseski
I know
I wanna make something true to the menagerie of the mind
I wanna touch it but you’re not supposed to do that with art
I learned that the hard way
You should see my data management skills
Triangles floating over all of it to cheat the filter
At this point everything feels symbolic
That’s a very capitalist idea
Though if it feels as if you’re getting more robocalls
You’re right

 

Still Life

seaside
with ringer 
on silent

framework
thrown
in my
face

yup

so
that’s

my life

right now

just

don’t 
know
 

image: Jon Ruseski


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