The architecture of possibility always-already compromised
The unconscious has been gentrified
Meme shocked and future lost
Mommy milkers on the final boss
A Most Deserved Anxiety: Four Poems by Joe Stapleton
A most deserved anxiety
The great pig of the North
Reeking, blood dripping from its snout
Glances warily about
For it heard the scream
Exit Interview
You needed me more than I needed you.
I retired Friday of Labor Day Weekend,
eight months after I told the boss off
for the first time, four days in a row,
my product manager told him to sit down.
Don't Get Lost In Heaven
AT 11.23PM on the 31st of October 2020 an unknown and unidentified aircraft appeared in airspace directly above London. The aircraft was and has remained motionless and uncontactable to date. On the same day an MP4 was discovered in the cloud archive of the Department of Metaphysics, Hillingdon Facility, apparently pertaining to the incident. This is a transcript of that file.
Read MoreI Am an Embryo
A collection of cells
and half-formed tissue.
I have no thoughts,
no will,
no urge to change the world.
Stink Ape Resurrection Primer
“YOUR FUCKING ocean is on fire.” The blob of glowing plasma pleaded in disbelief.
The panel of thirteen human representatives exchanged hushed glances. One of the humans spoke as the whispers subsided: “It strikes us as suspicious that you’re this concerned with our resources.”
Read MoreBlack Dime
REMEMBER WHEN you stung like a bee, leaving your ink all over the kitchen floor and the orchids in the kitchen window never seemed to notice how drab the sun had become over the years? It makes no sense. All languages die in the gap. So, don’t speak. There’s no reason to give voice to our discontents. We are driving and the bridge is a snake crossing the snaking water ways. I became possessed with your hand on the back of my neck. I know you by the smell of lavender and tea. Don’t blink. Never blink again. We have all the time there ever was.
Read MoreDisintegration: Three Poems by Leslie Lea
flashing neon signs:
DRIVE-UP EUTHANASIA
CREDIT CARD ONLY
OPEN 24 HOURS
past-life recall:
centipede exoskeletons
trace dark lines
of rigor mortis
150,000,000
In these United States
This Union
This US
Trammeled & trampled
& put aside
For later we will
For our country we will
For our cities
We will stan & star & stand & fight
Montage
YOU’RE IN a town square in Croatia with the greatest film of all time in your luggage. The arditi are coming and if your rescuer takes a few more minutes, you’ll have to hightail it out of Istria on foot. You check your pocket watch; it’s an hour before noon. Your right hand is in your greatcoat, gripping the firm, comforting wooden handle of your revolver.
Read MoreDead Worker
I was a worker or so it’s said
a worker that took too much
too many breaks
too many handouts
too many quiet moments alone in the shop bathroom
Views From a Laundromat
THE LOCAL laundromat: a perpetual cleansing spot for the city’s dirt and shame.
At night, the neon sign above the storefront glows half-enthusiastically, so much so that most of the letters are completely burnt to their end. The remaining ones spell out “Land rat” — a welcoming endorsement for a place where people come in to wash the crumbs off their pants.
Read MoreSwimming In Someone Else's Pool
STEVIE LOVED to swim. If there was one thing he loved more than swimming though it was swimming in someone else’s pool, some Russian guy he’d never heard of, on a beautiful morning, in a gated villa on one of the Canary Islands.
Midwinter: the water was cold, like the chill of the ocean, only a few hundred metres away, but Stevie was in his element. After a few brisk laps he pulled himself up to the side, smiled at his girlfriend who was sat, lounging and reading and fiddling with the shark-tooth necklace she’d found, looking beautiful.
Read MoreWeekly Planner
MONDAY
On Monday, the news anchor will mock me,
call me ugly and talentless.
She’ll laugh
her cruel laugh,
and provide unassailable proof:
You have lost loved ones,
which can only mean
that you
and your love
are disposable.
Stink Ape Resurrection Primer (Part Two)
GERGUS COMBED her fingers through the wavy hair on her stomach. She twirled the pencil in her other hand and looked up at the sky. She closed her eyes. The sun lit her eyelids partially shaded by her thick brow. After a few deep, measured breaths, the patches of pink light started to change color and shape.
Read MoreThe Dramatic Days of Lesser Socialism
(or, an unfortunate series of unrelated things)
or lesser evilism
spectres of want and tragedy
our rape of revered ghosts
our politics of melancholy and cigarette smoke
the distressed voter
the incurable and dying worker lashed to incurable and dying pay scale
The Robot's Love Song
Come file off the rust of my grommets.
I have been longing to blow smoke into your apertures.
You remember the frozen steel of that stiff winter night,
How gleaming oil coursed across the gouged surface
Of that thing I have
Giving Up
It isn’t just giving up one time
It’s choosing to give up every day
That’s what completes the circuit
There is no other way to stop the Death Machine
On Hearing the News That George Floyd's Murderer Was Convicted
In a year (and half)
of fire
we learn a list of items
equally quotidian
and flammable
All Statues Toppled In Time
We are the fisherfolks, the gentlefolks, we don’t
Crosstalk over top-hats, tailcoats. They come
Visit from the city, twice every month. They want
Our fishes, our dishes, our bread.