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little loops

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gate(less) poetics

little loops

5/12/2023, I know you're just humoring me

Con/Jur/d
May 12, 2023
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Not his real name
Con/Jur/d, 5/12/2023

We used to eat so much 
we coulda rolled down the street
like a bowling ball, maybe a stone
things have changed now, although 
we did it just the other day and the 
day before that, funny the lies we tell
ourselves, about existence, I remember
the time in Alaska, Tim and I were drunk
of course, 18-hour workdays, sleeping in
a gravel pit after, tossing tons of fish into 
a basket, subsequently gutting, scraping
scales, filleting, all at a temperature, as 
close to freezing we could be and still
survive although every year someone
didn’t -- drink was the only reasonable
method of exiting consciousness --
and we decided to visit the two
Vietnam war vets who had
adopted us or we had 
adopted them

In Oscar’s van, sitting always in
shadowed profile, night and day
radiating cocaine rays, so when
you approached, you were always
a bit blinded, unsure how to get in
or how to get out, and being of a
particular flavor of youth we were
ranting about existentialism, while
Jack who watched Oscar, took care 
of him, held him close, leeched his
money and blood hovered protectively
nearby, until Oscar had heard 
enough

From 2 kids
said, “ Let me tell you about
existentialism, I was sent over there
as a UN agricultural aid, to help them to
learn modern farming, and I got to know the
people in my village, I got to know them!”

With an uncontrolled bang!

Half seen through the cigarette haze
a heavy hand slams the table disturbing
a tiny mirror, ashes, and cocaine contribute
to this fog of too-close breaths, the putrid
funk of salmon innards, providing a base
for whatever unholy revelation, “I heard
I heard, I heard the Viet Cong had
come, to our little village, and I
couldn’t, I couldn’t, could I?
tell them apart, and I knew
them man, but not well
enough, Enough, so
I had to, I had to
I had no other
I had no other 

Choice, and I killed them all

Tim and I fled, He started wailing 
Jack enfolded him, and the sound of
the van door closing was mechanical
and lifeless, but this isn’t what this is

Rather, you’ve heard this story before
we tell it again and again, changing
in small details, but always with horror
with a certain thrill, and why is it we are 
stuck in these loops of repetition, desperate
to please, to be heard, to be understood
even with our false names, our addiction
to oblivion, Why, why, why? Do we polish
again and again these small corners of truth?
SPIDER AFTER INgESTING SPRING
The sound poem the unseen creature made while I was eating a pickle pizza I got for free due to it being my birthday when it was too early for amphibians and lizards while the insects arising at this time of year shouldn’t have made a noise unknown and unknowable
Con/Jur/d, 5/12/2023

wirrrrrrrrrrrrrrirrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiic

Much love,

Con/Jur/d, 5/12/2023

Just humor me

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