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[poetical-camaraderie]

ON VIOLENCE

(A found poem inspired by Vijay Prashad and Frantz Fanon)

A civilization

that tolerates high

levels of

hunger

among its people

is a violent

civilization.

A civilization

that tolerates high

levels of

unemployment

among its people

is a violent

civilization.

A civilization

that needs a police

force to stop

hungry people

from getting food

is a violent

civilization.

The violence comes

prior to looting.

Colonialism

was looting.

Capitalism

is looting.

How is it possible

that rich countries

have such high

levels of

hunger

when there is food

all around?

If you don’t have money,

you can’t have food.

That is an act of violence.

It is a violence

against humanity.

[poetical-camaraderie]

BILLIONS

Rihanna performs at a halftime show

pregnant with bi££ion$

while a vile plume blooms over 

Ohio. Don’t get upset. It’s just business.

  Mangled train cars kill us in our sleep

as metallic scents seep through poorly

insulated windows. Get the gas masks

after work. $7.50 an hour should cover it.

The term “nuclear family” takes on new meaning.

  How does one monetize a noxious cloud?

You don’t need an econ degree 

to understand #NukeTheWorkingClass is trending.

Calculate three parts per billion divided

  by capitalism’s voracious drive 

for greater 

and greater profit.

Like and subscribe @TheRailLobby

Vinyl chloride is live-streaming

through our veins.

  If you boil the water and steep your suspense

a shiny prism will rise in a malignant mug

like post-modern tea leaves

the omen reads :: 

dead on arrival.

  I’m thirsty, don’t bother me. I’m thirsty 

and waiting for the president to do 

something. If Obama can drink 

the water from Flint, so can you.

The EPA recommends pouring cream into your coffee,

it’ll offset the stench of

defeat. 

  Isn’t this the american dream?

A carton of eggs is $10

but Malthusianism is free.

  Isn’t this the dream of those who fled

imperialist wars where 

sugar cane crops were set ablaze

and children were maimed at point-blank range

where resources were stolen,

and bombs were dropped

to come to a country that kills 

its people in foreclosed homes?

  At least it’s not Chernobyl, they say.

At least the government will take care of us.

  Won’t they?

  The people are hungry for hotel vouchers

and accountability.

They’re starving for stock buybacks

and shareholder surplus.

 But they can’t taste anything.

  Airborne toxins permeate grass 

and groundwater in the heartland

as cows choke on their cud

and birds fall from the sky

and Wile E. Coyote holds a sign

that reads :: 

YIPES.

  Capital’s profit motive incentive comes at all costs,

but goddamn, america makes good content.

[poetical-camaraderie]

I am overcome by January. This morning I woke up shivering and haunted. Strange fanged wraiths hover above my window. Grieving tears of silver, melting like a slow moon, as thin as an aging crack in porcelain. If I am being honest, I feel afraid. The storm has ceased, but I still shiver. I am not talking about ghosts.

[poetical-camaraderie]

Night. All over his body. Lithium lingers on the tongue. Slow motion crawl into bed, nothing for dinner except sleep. His gaze. Colder than the chill of a refrigerator. He tells me he’d rather die than fuck me tonight. Melancholia is the beast that gnaws at his brain’s core. Grabbing the fat that clings under my chin, he tells me, “Once I learn to love myself, I promise I’ll love you next.”

Lacrimosa by Phoebe Seraphine

[poetical-camaraderie]

Hi. I'm looking for that special someone who will share  my passion for toast. White, wheat, rye, and bagels. I need a REAL man. Must like monster mud trucks.  Must love god. But not more than me. Lol. In 2015, I had an iffy pap smear and a drug-resistant staph infection. The IRS are questioning my taxes 10 months after they accepted them. I'm a catch. Smile emoticon. I won't mind if you brag about loving Bukowski even though you only made it 80 pages deep into Women. You should know I love petit-bourgeois intellectuals the most. Please no Maoists. Goatees only. Ready to move in anytime. Allergies to guinea pigs are a dealbreaker. I'm serious. My ears are pierced and I'm very edgy. I own my own adult book store with 25 cent peep shows. We should talk. Please put "coddle" in the subject line.

WFM: Goatees Only (Lines from Craigslist Personal Ads) by Phoebe Seraphine

[poetical-camaraderie]

Muriel, it’s been forty-four years and I still think about you everyday. I met you in the rain on the last day of 1972, the same day I resolved to kill myself. You were the porn store employee wearing a chartreuse shirt. I was, of course, the naked thirty-something with a few good teeth, unafflicted by any social diseases. You told me I had great veins.

For Muriel (Lines from Craigslist Personal Ads) by Phoebe Seraphine

[poetical-camaraderie]

because you sleep with your feet dangling off the mattress i’d like to take off my garden gloves and measure you approximately as you grow like a sativa bloom ingesting the sun

Tall Flower by Phoebe Seraphine

[poetical-camaraderie]

I’m hungry and I want you to murmur on the nape of my neck, hypnic words sticking like beads of honey. Your breath, so warm, I feel it fastened to my throat. I want to taste the roast of your hair, as it drips from French pressed lips, even if I don’t know how you take your coffee. Your insatiable mouth, I swear I can see the language of lust shining off your molars. I want you to peel away everything until     the skin              the skin Slowly, then all at once. Your hands will quill my curves, gathering groves that line my hips in vineyards. I want our bodies as citrus, the scent of our naked rind on dewy sheets. Sugared trophies, supple tangerines.

We Will Eat Fruit in Bed, Phoebe Seraphine

[poetical-camaraderie]

I am no longer afraid of animals who spit, my thick thighs, or making breakfast without you.

Phoebe Seraphine

[poetical-camaraderie]

November's ending. I can hear the trees behind our house. They are learning a new language. They are speaking in tongues; pale spires stimulating the throat of the sky. This is the time of year to memorize the maps inside their mouths, to converse like a piano slipping out of tune. I had a dream and the dream was November. It sounded like little deaths.

Mort de L’arbe by Phoebe Seraphine

[poetical-camaraderie]

spit into my mouth then masturbate brush my hair for hours date me don’t fuck buy me Chinese for under $10 move in the next day name a planet after me call me Venus listen to bebop and splatter paint between every crevice trip acid puke then dream of my face he never walks in a straight line his essence like ripe leather oil paints and the faint metallic scent of cocaine

King of the Scene by Phoebe Seraphine

[poetical-camaraderie]

I am fascinated how paper towels drink water

It's Such a Beautiful Day

[poetical-camaraderie]

We lay corpse pose in a cave, listening to rocks wilting under a perpetual ping! of water. And stalagmites don’t split, their shoots drip, stones remain gasping upward. Locked in lime, never to have its tune turned. Honestly, all I had was the lie—something did happen here, between us, pot, and some stalactites in the muk. Emerging, I went with my gut and picked honeysuckles before they slipped through my high fingers. We heard the confessions of wind chimes belling through our ears, leaves bustling against each other, their green flesh uttering mysteries humans only hope to hear. The bedrock is where our tenoned pinnacles will be.

Grooving in a Cave, Phoebe Seraphine

[poetical-camaraderie]

truly, madly, deeply missing Spain.

[poetical-camaraderie]

I collect words that I see or hear day to day. Some have sonic allure, others are too beautiful not to write down. A brief collection: Aquarelle: a style of watercolor painting Bagheera: black panther from The Jungle Book Circlet: open crown Chevelure: (French) a head of hair Cockle: mollusk with a ribbed shell Coquette: a woman who flirts Cytherean: relating to the planet Venus Deliquesce: to become a liquid from solid Eloquent/eloquence: fluent or persuasive in writing Empyreal/empyrean: belong or deriving from heaven Enamel: opaque coating  Heliotrope: purple representation of the flower Gossamer: filmy substance spun by spiders Hacienda: land estates Ingénue: an innocent young woman Isosceles: having two sides of equal length Jacqueminot: a variety of red rose  Kaleidoscope: optical item that utilizes mirrors to create interior symmetrical visions Labial: relating to the lips Lissome: thin, supple, graceful Marcescent: withering but not falling off (as a plant) Marmoreal: made of marble Menagerie: a collection of wild animals kept in captivity for exhibition Milieu: a person’s social environment Minutiae: small, precise details Mystique: an aura of mystery Nebulae: an interstellar cloud of dust Nymph: spirit of nature  Ocelot: wild cat, small leopard Odalisque: a concubine in a Turkish harem Oeillade: an amorous glance Oleander: evergreen shrub, toxic flower Paramour: a lover  Peninsula: land almost surrounded by water  Periphery: the outer limits  Pizzicato: technique of plucking strings on an instrument Philtrum: vertical groove above the upper lip Pirouette: ballet pose Palimpsest: a document where old writing has been erased but one can still see the etches of what once was Reverie: a daydream Sarcophagus: a stone coffin Seersucker: a thin, puckered fabric Sienna: an earth pigment Susurrus: whispering, murmuring  Svelte: (Yiddish) slim Tenuous: very weak Tremulous: quivering, slightly Tryst: a private, romantic rendezvous Vespertine: relating to the evening Vignette: a brief, evocative description or illustration

Beautiful word list by Phoebe Seraphine

[poetical-camaraderie]

I’m entranced by the romance of motherhood. It’s charming to think about a child resting in my arms while I serenely sniff her head, inhaling baby aroma. An enchanting scent, that’s sweet and milky. Soothing and silky. An earthy accompaniment to vanillic delicacy. Delicious. I’ve wanted a girl since I realized how dynamic we are. Vital and versatile. I open an aged book of baby names and thumb through its musty pages. This is one of my favorite activities.   I add names to a list of previously written prospects, imagining who my daughter will be.   Persephone. Delicate, she changes with the seasons. Rosemarie. Gentle, she’s sustained by sweet sea breezes. Mirabelle. Fruitful, she’s a French plum. C’est belle, non? Elodie. Poetess, she blossoms like a melodic marsh flower. Petra. Visionary, she’s the rock that forms the island. There’s something about the X chromosome that I’m meant to nurture. There’s something grand and powerful about us. Not everyone knows this. Not everyone teaches female positivity. My daughter will grow up in a way I couldn’t. She won’t take bullets from opinions of any man. She won’t smile at catcalls. She won’t be nice. She will speak her mind. I’ll be open about her sexuality. She’ll love herself, not ashamed to masturbate, because she deserves to know how wonderful her body is. She will be strong. Never seeking validation from the minds of men, patriarchal fuzz. All I want for her is to be satisfied with the lot she’s got. And if she’s depressed about the death of Lou Reed instead of an idealized size of her breasts, then that’s history, too.

Motherhood by Phoebe Seraphine

[poetical-camaraderie]

My brother is ripping  up carpet. He finds fault lines, cracks in the foundation of our home. An imminent sinkhole. I imagine the night  as I’m sleeping  when the earth gasps  beneath me. The chalky aroma of limestone covers my breath as my bed slips into the swallowing loam. I am grasping  for something, anything  to hold on to– a bedpost only to remember  I was too cheap to buy one. Now, I am free  falling into the Mother’s mouth,  under the crust, suffocating  gypsum in my cheeks while  molten mantle singes limbs  until I am infinite nothingness  in neither hell nor here.  My brother found cracks  beneath the carpet. I sleep on the couch.

Phoebe Seraphine, “Lines, Cracks”