The Brooklyn Rail

MAR 2014

All Issues
MAR 2014 Issue
Poetry

Three

 

Stop Me Before



The turnout is smaller and smaller
wanted charismatic leaders set in firms
if I kill again the jungle surrounds us no
consolation where record stores used to be
last fifty pages outlaw bible blank
watching squirrels is total magic
making posters in orange and pink on a Mac
we made these books by hand we stitched them
you are late for brunch I want to kill again
if our chairs were more comfortable if
servers on skates heaped popcorn stout
if an oak splits apart in laughter in that
splitting its sides it could feel emotion
you know what I give up if plants had feelings
they do not so shut up shut up shut up
I think I will walk home but take the train
every old man on the planet burns with lust
some tween wants me to see she hates her dad
how she tilts at me the diary rolling off her Bic
she could kill me with her pen in an electric chair
matrons in the midst of fantasy series too easy
try to dry my face in a towel full of yesterday
uncertain project man these texts I smoke on stage
I hate the word craft call me

 

 

 

 

 

I Will Not Be Expressed



I sense clean bones picked clean
flick noses at bars afterlife jazz
pipes and trombones come on in
this room is fine not near mint
throw the fight let the sea pull
under the waves your salt tears
taste seaweed rock you like waltzes
tinkle waste in a cup you’re so pregnant
clocks spin lesser ballerinas
tops different dervish yelps
the exotic another erotic bore
learning to make pastries and laugh softly
a little too heavy for your mom’s preference
walk away idle hours pool or no
did you know you knew ongoing siege
I need to make you tire into compromise
take you out and fuck with your dreams
the same but different I make an appearance
please please please let me let me let me
be insincere all night it’s all right
I don’t teach yoga haven’t seen the regatta
I work the register of birds alighting
down stained platforms statues and curbs
today I know I will never teach yoga
but lick your ass truly call me you are lost

 

 

 

 

 

Faggot Said the Guy in the Truck



I do not think I will ever suck
a poem as lovely as a dick
Loretta Buick said one night
taking me on her bike
down Lefferts Boulevard
I will ever remember
her Debbie Gibson T-shirt
fifty cities and towns
I’d only been to
the rain baby cocks driving cocks of rain
part dawn like Kirsten Dunst
part sunset like Virginie Ledoyen
rides no hands behind a tough
a woman more Arc than Joan
set me down on any curb
Sunset Park mutilated by gin
as in outer space no up no down
no number of dives
no number at all

 

 

Contributor

Chris Hosea

Chris Hosea was born in Princeton, New Jersey and educated at Harvard College and the University of Massachusetts Amherst MFA Program. John Ashbery gave Hosea the Walt Whitman Award for his first poetry collection, PUT YOUR HANDS IN (LSU Press 2014). Hosea’s work as art curator includes Ode to Street Hassle (BronxArtSpace 2012). He lives in Brooklyn.

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The Brooklyn Rail

MAR 2014

All Issues