by Daniel Bailey
One of Way Too Many
I am one of way too many
I shove my plastic into you
The echo informed by the act
Same same same
I am with myself
You are with yourself too
Licking the spewel from the echo
Trees flux the sunbeams into a clamoring
The souciant blame the insouciant
for the aftermath
or rather the math after the clamorers
have excavated their voices and tongues
placed them in the niches of their personalities
Spewel ignited once again
My tongue laps at it
It doesn’t add up
There is nothing to console the baby
suckling the wound
smoking its first cigarette
the vapor of pure thought
the unleashing of pure feeling
of the pure bro hitting
the incandescent note
ripping hot dogs
from the weather app
that only predicts
sun forever
and ever and ever
and peace be to
ever and ever
wounds to crumble
and wellness apps
to wounds to crumble
to miracles that wound
the spewel that ignites
upon touch
I am holy
I am patronizing the holy
I grab eternity by the donkey
The donkey drags me
through petrol
through petting my cat
and loving her so much
that I am a godless man
wanting nothing
of myself
or the ancient
want for nothing
I sit in silence
awaiting the moment
that God ceases to speak
through the wrong mouth
War Upon Snoozeville
I shoot you in the temple
and we all laugh
We laugh like hot dogs
skewered on a branch
tagged in a pink plastic scarf
for removal
Like two dogs
without a fight
Like a skeleton dressed
in a lover’s skin
Like burping a new beginning
over your shoulder
Like too much of a good thing
Like a pistol whip
of cream in your coffee
Your thoughts now unleashed
from your temple
do backflips
like a thousand fallen pines
onto fences that separate us all
from the idea of all of us
How this is not your life
You just live here for a bit
I smear trash across my forehead
and break my beak upon
the Christmas lights strewn carelessly
across the entire year
Birds that fly into windows
at a higher rate than others
are called “super colliders”
There are words
for what I’m doing now
None of them deserve much attention
Our words are bodies like kindling
We ignite bodies in the pyre of belief
We burn a light
for the super colliders
to draw them in
to return their bodies
to the leaf litter
in which they scrounge
to capture their songs
in a Pepsi can faded silver
to be made stronger
so we can stop wearing ear plugs
to say our own names
I beg the future to find me
like I find it: beautiful
enough
to self immolate
and delete the selfie
almost at once
I find it beautiful
to be made this perfect
To be imperfect
To be a person in this world
Loiter
I have learned to sometimes say nothing
whether or not I have learned a thing or two
I should inside a thing of two
ripen against my own image
rot with my love
shove a stick of me into the sun
find God’s doorstep
and just sit there and never knock
****
Daniel Bailey's work has appeared in Plague Circus, HAD, and New York Tyrant. He is the author of the poetry collection A Better Word for the World (Apocalypse Party). He lives in Athens, Georgia.