a poem by tom trudgeon and james meetze

potatoes- jayinee

Where does that bottle end and my hand begin
Shapes fuse.
That is why I
Drink.

You in my maroon flannel shirt turn into a boat
I sink my head
In your cupped
Hands, you drink.

Me in your ripped dress shirt leaning over the ledge
To feel the purple
Of the beveled hills
Touch my cheek.

I do not sense you standing there, fingering a pack
Why are you
So bright
It hurts to look.

Before we speak to anyone they are layered objects
Everyone is beautiful
I shake my head no
Don’t say that.

We can never find a real painting to live happily for
Just eat this cold
Dinner of cherry soda
And fingerling potatoes.

Constriction Poems

Notes on the Rules of Time Travel as Put Forth by Emmy Lennevald
By Jayinee Basu


Causality

Gloss the gangster, seconds don’t spiral
Keep the glossy gangster, not the spiraling seconds
The glossy seconds drip into the gangster-lined spiral
Gloss the second spiral, ye gangster!
Glosses drip spiral, seconds till the gangster
Glosses the spiral gangsters second.

Gangsters who gloss while the seconds spiral
Through gangster-lined glossy spiraling seconds
Gangsters count seconds while the glossy lines spiral
Gangsters throw seconds into the spiraling gloss.
The lone gangster spirals, glossing the seconds
The lone gangster spirals towards a second gloss.

Seconds spin spiraling, a glossy gangster weeps
Seconds spiral weeping toward a gangster of gloss
Second the gangster, who spiraling glossy
Seconds the gangster whose glosses spiral.
Seconds gloss toward a deep gangster spiral
Seconds gloss toward a spiraling gangster.

Spiral the glossy gangster in seconds
Spiral the glossy second-gangster dream
Spiral the gangster whose glossy dream seconds
The spiral of gangster-lined seconds. (g)loss
Spiral the second glossy gangster
Spiral the second gangster of gloss.


And Then

After a storm comes, so shall you reap.
Better die with honor: he begins to die.
Blood is thicker but who loves a lover,
Crime is the better part of valor.

Don’t cut off your nose, wear out your welcome
Early experience is the mother.
Fear of death where angels fear to tread,
Love while the sun shines.

He plants posterity
He hesitates policy
He doubts nothing
He is better than beauty.

Laughter is a sleeping dog,
Laughter is a bowl of cherries.
Like mother, like medicine.
Like father, like a tango.

The female of the species skins a cat,
The grass is more deadly than the male.
Marriages: death and taxes.
Remember to look after everything.


Gangster Summer: An Epithalamium
(for Sebastian Mouse and January Winterson,
married under the burning Brazilian sun)

I.

To be a sin
Bastian, a ban on best
So be a mat
So be a sabot
To mast a nasty bus.

A tousled mess
A man? A beast?
Nab a motion
To a sea.

Mist tiny stems
It sees tin meat
Nations seem about sin.

O Sebastian Mouse!
My sun-baste man!



II.

Not just any winter
Tinny new jitters
To a weary January.

Written in June, nay
Terse wry nose
A sonnet in rose.

Winston, see ‘er son?
Rye so winsome
A new Jenny ewe.

A note rain-taint
Rest now Janey
You are not a saint.

III.

Witty mousy January
Must be a bait
Bees swarm rainy
To a Bastian mate.

Arouse my reason
Winterous treason
In misty jabs
At sea a man waits.

Stain ye rosy beam
Wean yer awesome teen
Nest our timorous boat
In a sinuous moat.

See Sebastian
Sway sweet
In January sweat.