MiPOesias Magazine

1543-6063



	from DEFIANCE, TWO LOVERS AND THE NYPD jealousy is neediness i came by myself for a headnod across a room a restraining order is a sign of affection i wrote your name on my resume a chicken cutlet for an eggroll what we need is a ripple effect we’ll call it meeting something new a nervous system or suffering recreationally in the garage i was using the clippers on my last rash when i peeked through the octagon holes of the fence a child on a fathers shoulders gave the day symmetry i saw the computer engineer try to chop down his tree with a machete balding men are shaving their heads in masses and shouting out “being called nice means you’re boorish!” at the point of silent giggle we stopped worrying i dreamt of a nude beach ceremony you in the car listening to the hiss of soda while i shook at the cheap headstone in the aisle of the library i thought about a lisp a silent 40 minute car ride, weeping in a mall the yellowed qtips on the nightstand the destroyed phone but the pavement unhinged a swordfight with umbrellas before the gay bar birthday a hole in the mezzanines wall my candle in your cotton dry mouth a letter that said “bruises only stain, hearts kill perfect” from DEFIANCE, TWO LOVERS AND THE NYPD the places i frequented became topless in their indecisions i forgot to fall asleep i lift the tub of bleach insert a fingertip then i drink milk i take the jump rope off your neck study the abrasion it left the stretchmarks on your hips pissing in the hostels sink while you snapped the hair tie on your wrist the transparency of my beg my misplaced toenail watching televisions in the emergency room a corridor reeking of lemon and ejaculations i only notice the tiles when my shoes squeak i’ll always drink water a toenail in the ashtray a woman next to me says shit she says shit the apartment doors look contaminated i walk the same pattern i walked yesterday the couples walk slow love makes them walk slow the graffiti artist scaling the scaffolding in a window a man lifts weights in front of a mirror i thought funeral parlor meant ice cream parlor when he died it took two months to stop thinking of him it helped with our self pity i didn’t understand what you meant by singular you meant the applause was synchronized you meant i will stop sighing when i hear your name from IN MEMORY OF NEW STRANGERS a lone horse standing parallel to a lone cow secretaries and carpenters pick cantaloupes one sits at the desk one fixes the desk i sit as long as the sit takes the horizon is a satellite dish a mound of photo albums filled with people you don’t recognize smile from the streets you hold then maybe get employed at a coffee house and meet a rebound that won’t get you over anything but will make you count the weeks that pass with your permanent markers and during your cigarette breaks you will practice facial expressions that make you look tired or peppy or tired on the verge of peppy a child swings a computer mouse onto the telephone wire the woman across the street has been in her lawn chair all day i live my life like i’m retired my skills are the astronaut’s desire the groundskeeper’s razorblade from IN MEMORY OF NEW STRANGERS can you gnash anything cried from teeth the difference between saliva and tears is emotion at the baggage claim things move but in such a sterile way the baggage claim is a metaphor for something like the billboard not letting you escape television someone once arrived here then left then returned i can smell it so many people have the same song stuck in their head and we lip the chorus words with our own agenda the cows in florida are meditating next to a building the president once ate and had his picture taken at i might have swallowed two spiders last night sleeping while i dreamt of women with thick waists wearing beige slacks and my children looked like the woman i wanted them to look like someone is deaf and someone is at the gas station two guys can’t love each other they can only be friends from IN MEMORY OF NEW STRANGERS someone just sneezed twice i spat on your yoga because i didn’t like the language the cardboardish streets and the stray lab who followed me to the train station and when i had to go down stairs it gave me a look of craving the day of cremation the bodies are rearranged and broken into it’s almost like falling in love but without the second guessing or arithmetic or the fainting outside some synagogue coming to to a janitor smelling of sperm and hallway taking the mouth to mouth because you’re feeling extra lonely a single carnation thrashing spasmodically i broke into the bedroom where i might have been conceived slept off missed opportunities and hangovers on striped sheets woke up disconcerted with a head cold we’re going on day trips and staying up all night for days ignoring complex rooms and constantly shaking new hands all in hope something beautiful will happen WHICH WAY DO I TAKE TO LEAVE giddiness appears when the awning reads i am doing well as i nestle over a pillow and watch a japanese chin dreaming her eyes roll in the back of her head but come forward to the sound of a car alarm i've never heard my heartbeat in my head but i assume it sounds like that the trees are all skinny there and my hands have imprints from grass every city seems to have something named after martin luther king countries secretly hate every other country but keep up with the group hug a woman comes in and peddles dvds and cocaine a syringe is only a syringe but the pharmacist always has eyes like disappointment martin luther king was filled with disappoint and einstien never wore socks retention of home cooked meals and showing up at the right time of home cooked meals look out the window to change identification and cough up today until tomorrow worry about the tooth you thought was falling out then got over it then fell out until tomorrow this poem is making me feel like i have completely lost the identification of aluminum trees this poem and that i have been wearing sunglasses inside for days it’s line by line pill on pill for a scapegoat that looks like a mother with incurable cancer but you use her and then read a blog to learn about poetry my life might have lost power in a town that looks like this town except for the people who all look gay here to the people in the town next to this town the president is refusing explanation by talking about himself instead of the countries the president is a poet who talks about himself and hides his marks under thermal shirts the clouds are all chinky and ugly and i hear people talking about a lost set of keys i will have a beard in three weeks reading about newborn babies a newborn baby dies and his death will cost more then the crib and c section combined a man smelling like toothpaste will apologize for blocking the front entrance of an apartment building and a would be mother who will soon get cancer will cry about bills and a baby who will never be old my manipulation would be my greatest asset if it wasn't for my guilt we were all brought up in similar ways to complain before we eat then complain after we eat i feel sorry for styuvesant town because it calls itself a town instead of a neighborhood and it's ugly and filled with hospitals and people and dogs that want ham instead of dog food the love of my life once told me she ate maggots that were in her cup of yogurt at work and it made me love her more but she is now just a story a story that people relate to like sense of humor and cigarettes the dealers wear yankee hats to the side and tell you to sit next to them in silver cars then you do the sociological experiment and fall asleep by the park on the water on grand street and you wake up with such a throbbing memory and the skyline just looks like a postcard all the enormous structures that people have to scrub with bleach and sit in to use the internet and pay bills the skyline is a forest of money that is growing like trees in the forest then you go to hana food and steal a coffee and go and sit next to someone in a silver car this poem is moveable in the way anything is moveable the industrial revolution taught us this and then there were more towns toppled with florists even before silver cars there were silver cars there were people who couldn’t afford to shave but found a way to shave people who called themselves billy but looked like a pat i long every burger i had in texas with you that now i need a thermal shirt honeymoons are for people with finances and intelligible signatures every day has a narrative but it gets lost with the obsession of days it’s a calendar with barbed wire and cancer and bills and sex that never mattered soak the fashion plate in the bucket for the mop and let her forget about you too your uncle wasn’t van morrison but could’ve been after we listened to veedon fleece human nature is people talking about other people and then forgetting what they said unless it was about them then a truce begins but behavior works like plaid and no one learns unless it’s about them clearly then your future lies in prop comedy and you make money to pay bills and you’re always at the beach and not thinking about me a metallic sensation like pennies on your tongue from gas station coffee ambition is for the car wash going into a church to light a candle around easter and you’ll always leave the cup of coffee on the roof of you car as you high tail away the floors are filled with bobby pins and blood the soles of the sneakers are sticky from the one time today you ventured to the stoop we fight the sun with sun block and deodorant and hear people complain about the winter winter is too expensive and the purses are nailed to the wall to remind you of wardrobe my mother might be getting smaller and her mortgage rates look like an empty refrigerator my ears are getting hairy and my hairline smells like cigarettes on our way to graceland we stopped at a phone booth on martin luther king blvd. then squatted like cats by elvis’s old swimming pool wishing we didn’t do what we just did but found the courage to remember there were more silver cars and the sun was less bossy and a woman tells her friend she has one criteria “the dick must go past the belly” to think you might be talking right now and i’m not invited to be there makes me want silver cars rented horses under million dollar cowboys making million dollar pictures potential is birth and all would be parents should use condoms the cars headlights look like faces of authority figures solitude is the intellectuals way of saying “i’m lonely and don’t know what i’m doing with my life” the block party showers the town with noise and the dominicans keep eating their chicken and beans

	Bill Cassidy is from Albany, NY and lives in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. His poems have appeared in Fence, La Petite Zine, Octopus, and Saltgrass.