joy the gravity
L.K.

rock paper scissors
skin flushes, glitters
canned and delivered
pickled stars, dittos

there is a poem that can end all wars
we just haven’t written it yet
there is a way to learn every language
we just have been lazy
and if we stay up all night
we can tell even more jokes in the morning

yet whenever i get a fever
everything’s excess is daunting on me
i then fantasize of a world devoid of colors
but i couldn’t live without blue
so instead i pray for each image’s destruction

in no one’s likeness
sentience will reform
ad infinitum
but i see no use in latin

we were gonna be so good
yet sometimes
one is born on the wrong side of the border
then one must thank the inconvenience
for the privilege of reflecting on it

and now this is the point where poetry
seems to have an inflated value
although it’s really a matter of heart
rather than word play
______________
August 2024

13 WAYS TO APPROACH A THREE-HEADED DOG

I.

Those who tell you

to carry raw meat

have never met me.

Bones are better,

they last longer,

but if there’s

no bones to be had

bring peanut butter.

II.

In this analogy

I am always Cerberus.

My beloved is inside,

changing.

When he wants me

to sleep in his bed

he comes to me

shaped as a body

like yours.

III.

I grew old here.

Compliment the quartz

mouth of my cave,

my heavy collars,

the bronze of my bark.

Tell me I sound

familiar.

IIIa.

I live to be recognized.

IIIb.

My hearing is spent.

Your language

is a red fruit

everyone loves

to chew.

If we lock eyes

I’ll stand.

V.

I wouldn’t call

human souls

delicious

or even tempting.

I swallow

what I must.

Dogs escape

all the time,

cats too, crows

and wolves.

I let wolves pass

because they sit

a while before

they go,

they don’t trust

this river any more

than I do.

We watch it twist

around itself together.

VII.

What would I buy

with your money?

Lie down. Stay.

VIIa.

I do not know what a changed mind

feels like. Grass? Maybe sun?

VIII.

In this analogy

you are convinced

you are sui generis.

You will be the one

with quick feet.

In this analogy

the ferryman drops

your fare into a sack

with everyone else’s.

Bring water.

I’m not saying

it will buy you

time

but I am thirsty.

In this analogy

you are the one

who thinks you saw

the city shimmer

before it split.

You’re not wrong.

XI.

My beloved

has built a city

where all the bread

is free.

XIa.

His garden

is free of spiders,

nothing

that can be crushed

is sent there.

XII.

Show me what

a sleeping dog

looks like.

XIII.

Are you the moon?

If you are,

make me know it.

I keep a song

in my throat

for you.

#еббі_мюррей

Bradley grad class
______________
June 2024, accidental poetry out of class notes

my trees the cedar

you always know it before you can say it
one lacks the words for it and has to
spend their entire life learning
recounting
we’ve never lacked sounds
the whole just hasn’t been weighted
one keeps remembering
that is the nature of being
and asking
that is the nature of coming
will the circle be unbroken
by and by lord
by and by

sequoia comparing my trees
evergreen
are the cedar
in lush and by shade
unspeakably full
you’re hidden from it
just falls off the bone
my being in transit
asks questions that no one is
there to answer as time
has already taken its toll

annihilation like weeds
is invasive
makes it hard to see past it
silt-filled are the waters
where it walks
not much has been given
the body still bears the taking
i remember
my path of return
______________
May 2024

Simon J. Ortiz, 2002

the poem from which I took an epigraph ???

I’m always thinking about Sarra L. who died in Berlin in 1910 but was buried back home in Barguzin ?

O day say me night

“We are measured
by vastness beyond ourselves.”
– Simon J. Ortiz

by the blemished pillowcase
or by the oil-stained sheets, i had no choice
the cold cuts right through your skin
leaving red spots, the whole of my mouth
is a mess, my knees trembling
radio silent. what of do poets write
you are reading epics
of how im faced with a choice
and of how i always get both
both the red and the green one
less than ideal and nearly comfortable
just enough to humble your stomach
never enough for the eye

im dancing and im bad at it
the music makes all the difference
fries-soaked paper bag smell
a pebble stuck in the sole of my shoe
leaving irreversible damage as i walk
not attuned, scratches on the record
literal glass shards in my skin
ice cubes crackling in sparkling water
arrhythmic melody of raindrops
repetitive and tense movement

i sparkle and swallow my crystals whole
there’s no place like home
there’s no place like home
have you seen thirty million hectares of forest
what good does a number or a name do
there is about a vial sized bottle of sand
from there that still sits in my suitcase
i will not have come to mean any other
i say that im a boy of the night appearing
exclusively under certain conditions
specified longitude and latitude
fucked over and over again by realms
of something so politically uninspiring
and it takes years of practice to adjust to seeing
the day at the point of junction between
the matrilineally rooted and the reemerging
______________
February 2024