smokedark vacuum
*
* *
* * *
in the void
a whole lot of floating
old old light
shimmering and shifting
hot gas and the ice tails
not a sound out [t]here
our little rock
on some sort of mission
or something [maybe?]
and our nearest non-sun lightballs are
a triple-star system
with videogameish names
in a neighborhood
on the far, far side of town
* * *
yaxkin says:
01111010 01110101 01101100 00100000 01101111
00100000 01110011 01100101 01100111 01110101
01101110 01100100 01100001 00100000 01110101
01110100 01101001 01101100 01101001 01100100
01100001 01100100 00100000 01100100 01100101
00100000 01110101 01101110 00100000 01101100
01101001 01100010 01110010 01101111
or
zul o segunda utilidad de un libro
or
thgil or second use for a book
or
01110100 01101000 01100111 01101001 01101100
00100000 01101111 01110010 00100000 01110011
01100101 01100011 01101111 01101110 01100100
00100000 01110101 01110011 01100101 00100000
01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01100001
00100000 01100010 01101111 01101111 01101011
* * *
and so we make books
to reflect back light
to mirrorize and constellate
[web]pages
with words and images
to situate ourselves
in the populated emptiness
scales
on a fish
in a snarled mesh
of gravitational
nets
hooked through the mouth by a trawl line
that’s mutually attractive
far reaching
universal
and the weakest known force in nature
but mostly
on the day-to-day
we’re earthlings
and there’s junk mail
and bar chords
and corner bars
and clinic wait times
and non-profit politics
and 6-foot-long worm-shaped birthday cards
hanging in the mesquite tree
and white chocolate [yuk]
and the white right [yuk yuk]
and glitter [in the ocean]
and soft serve ice cream
and comedy specials
and grandmas and cousins and schoolmates
who die
every day
and
we’re here on earth
and the baby-faced assassin
on juan wauters’ DF t-shirt
steals s. beckett’s words right from his mouth
to tell us
eye bloody
pupils flinty
so
hi there
neighbor
we’re alive
now
and I don’t know
why
we’re alive
now
and some days
I look at my mother
and I pull up my shirt
and I point to my innie
and say
“mom, this is how we used to talk”
and she looks at me
and wonders if the nurses
on the delivery floor
played a prank on her
and left her
all those years ago
with the only belly-buttoned alien on this earth
but
enough chitchat
the point is
[alien or not]
we’re here
here
on one of many possible planets
together
now
at one of many possible times
and it can feel so existential
and it can feel so junior-high profound
and it can also feel so “who cares”
and I already struggle to sleep
and the whole space thing is sometimes too cerebral
so instead I think of nikky finney
who talks about poetry as working with her hands
and I’ve felt that when I read her
I’ve felt that from jocelyn at the tj zine fest and from mary hope at the cartonera collective and from vida and chawa and lita and jeff and raji and miriam and marlyn and claudia and félix and claudina and maggie and giancarlo and yaxkin and j and elena and sean and lizzie and omar and emmett and jen and jd and naima and maricela and david and mick and clottee and noa/h and etc and .
and what i feel is
alive
we’re talking
alive
i.e. toward the source
pulsing with something that feels central
slime-mold primordial
not the scenecreds or the coolpoints
something binding
interdependable
breathe-in-able
alive
so when I say I don’t’ believe in god[s]
I don’t feel empty for it
I feel full of whatever this is
something to do with friendship
and writing
and sharing
and reaching
and finding
ourselves
alive together
spinning and rotating and breathing
each most recent breath
one moment closer to
a time when we won’t breathe
but still will be together
still
spinning and rotating
with everyone’s
dead, living, and soon-to-live
bits
floating
on a rock
this rock
in space
right now
forever [?]
* * *
* *
*