Red Giant Phase: A Collaboration

for elizabeth

his toes reach almost the wind or else they direct the eye toward the woman he loves. she wears green when she feels radiant and wants him to know. his tag is exposed but he doesn’t concern himself with matters like shirts or money or trauma or death when she is the distance of one arm out. their toes mingle, tingle into after noon, flirt with the sand because he is in the most shocking love that one can find on a beach. later he uses a stick to carve her initials in the sand and she sends out light because she has waited for him for 4.57 billion years. this kind of far away love that directs climate even when naysayers think it won’t. this kind of love that supports almost all life below the toes and electrifies the body in a way that seems dangerous to the weak. to the smarmy. she tosses her hair and flares when he insists on capturing the picture but he does it anyway. he sets it as background on her phone to prioritize the moment. to discover that as long as their feet are touching then nothing else matters. and she glimmers because that’s what she does around him.

photo: Bob Nardi
text: mel kozakiewicz

better a butch than a man

she and me
we drunk stumble to the rental room.
i pass out dizzy one foot anchor the floor.
she mounts me and grinds,
dirty t-shirt uncovered thighs.
butch emulating a masculinity better left behind.
how often women wake with squirm on limp bodies.
better a butch than a man. no
poke poke puuussssshhh.
familiar fluids flip with women.
on top and inside.
disgust disguised
smirking fiesty.
HORNY because she came
WHILE I SLEPT so
she don't need a wake pussy.

Lonely like This

as lonely as six. hours. of tele.vision. a worm. in an apple.
baby. in an incubator. born early. wilted. lettuce. or rust.
under the drip. as lonely as mountains: miles of mountains.
or snoring. walk. in a restaurant. force yourself. say "party
of one." or "just me." uncalculated. air. one shoe. one
earring. one twin. one parent. one lung. lonely. like writing
poems. in the nude. crying. in coffee. first thing in the
morning. like divorce. surgery. wake up to a mirror in
which your swollen face is the only reflection. or marry a
pilot. speak. only to the babies. you made together. haven't
had an adult. conversation. in months. like alcohol. or
bar.tenders. or choose not to. bathe. lonely. like this. like
this. like this.

Field the Movement

I run in the street
bangin music and beats
slammin speakers and knees
mary j and jay z
poppin rockets for me

and i run

sneakers over concrete
cars cruise and beep
new york city to keep

space while I run

gained weight or lost love
I decided to run through
advisement from dawn
I smash down my feet
in appropriate streets
sweat and sing -- sweet
failure of song

while I run

men holler but I don't bother
an offer of eyes or flex
up my thighs cuz at once
in too long
comfort fumbles toward
responsible :: impossible
perhaps even :: powerful

and I run

toward leaps into energy
saved for sadderdays strong
like mary, the magic, mary, the music
propels anger into shivers of
awwwwww shit

so I run

Terrorists

Terror as in:

summer pudding, filmy.
wooden knives,
Staten Island.

bed liners:
moth cycles:
joke wareshouses (teeth and all.)

american pick up trucks and thunking metal chains.
doing it wrong -- traveling
alone or with salesmen.

birthing virtual babies in public places,
pap smear campaigns.

massive bobcats attack
bloody pirates (gaping and dirty).

letters shrinking & suicide
captured on camera.
squacking birds in clouded skies.
and winded good-byes.





or perhaps:

what happens to men
after they soak us?
establish the seed and leave
us now with impossible trees?

then what happens?

Without Coffee Without Song

Her silent desire:
these seeds, ground up & us
occupied in apologies,

polite urging of harmonies,
pleasing vibrations that travel
into and around our most sensitive organs.

Let us operate and control the road,
chew and swallow the sky,
participate in violent struggle

in rare instances because
divergent hostility
is better than loneliness.

The Woman in the Moon

The Woman in the Moon

Still Chang'e lives, a spinster mostly, on the moon, dances in silk.

Legend says she swallowed the entire immortality elixir

which she had fully intended to share with Yi

(whose do-gooding got them banished

from the highest court of heaven).

Perhaps she wanted a divorce or

maybe it was a fancy mistake.

Either way, notice how

companionless

she sways.

7/14/08