MANY POEMS by RYAN ALIAPOULIOS
devoted
through roaring water spot a fleck
of dried blood on the light switch yours
splattered polish? fingernail test says
blood reduced by thumb to powder
are you hungry like I am?
your voice (I consider tasting)
shut the light down, wipe my fingers
fan chopping the dark in circles
how many seeds does it take to make seed oil
60,000 ducks made of rubber in chicago
& in maine fish sweat in the hot car
rain hit the renovated farmhouse roof
& chimney’s white gull so many more times
storm fills up with nitrogen
& sign at the store says BIRTHDAY CARDS!
letter a game broke its brain
& AI glitched / came online
reader, imagine
you are [x] (among other things
anticipating words):
golden retriever: we okay?
at the farm outlined by night
window sees the cold dead moon
resolute while still moving
in bed swipe a bus crash loop:
5 miles, 10 miles, 20, 50
walking backwards in the yard
as we & all things keep approaching
self-checkout
it is mad max everywhere
and I exhaust list automatically
late stage defrostable dinners
free radical in grocery lanes
tired of polite pretending
“the future” is not on sale
run the bars on laser prism
I’m already sold (it’s who you ask)
check myself out relish chemtrails
captured on at least three cameras
walking home another car wreck
via flatscreen view my contract
on a small screen same as last year
flowering phenomena
recycle thumbnails dreaming big time
possessed
on the ferry curtain of rain & idea of rain
flirt with each other wanted one first
received two unfairly walking down
the street where she is striking wrists
with disposables her skin breaks easy
useless razors guttered lot where
pain gets present transitively
like a pair of Christmases inside the cafeteria
I pick you apart again
we sit with our shadow selves & these meatballs
with additives don’t know what
possesses me to start flinging chairs in the air
chefs swarm me like leukocytes
I am floored inside the showroom
eyes on byzantine sofa
many shoes & NO EXIT
lullaby is another genre
isn’t down here close enough
I hear screaming in my dreams
isn’t down here close enough
I hear screaming in my dreams
isn’t down here close enough to hear
screaming? in your dreams
down here isn’t close enough
I hear to hear the screaming dreams
down here isn’t close enough I hear
to hear the screaming
down here isn’t close enough
to hear the screaming in your dreams...
superposition
To begin to read map of body
ironically requires fingers—to ripple
over our fabric, wait for root
of thread to reveal itself, for glitch
in the usual to form a nervous state
from which a container might grow.
In green age with our hunger to grow
close to overwhelming body,
we do not think of our depth—position in state
like mirage over inner eye. A ripple
passes through us, self-sustaining glitch
we call a missing root.
To be radical means strike the root
from which can grow
new sprouts. Gathering like a glitch
in squares of open spaces, any body
poured of concrete—settled in organic ripple
in the synthetic brain of state.
No poet is poet who is zealot of the state
each a container of static to the very root
of being. Attention tuned to ripples issued
from the shadowed apparatus, growing
its unthinking amplitude and realigning body
to dark chakras: waves to interfere a glitch.
A mere debugger, scanning screen for glitches
in the secret self, streaming flow of solid-state
drive. Collective memory tethered to the body
of machine. Blessed by master with root
access with dark handshake not to grow
a weed, make even a ripple—
but everything can bend backward, even ripples
of the heart, each a quiver full of glitch
held taut to shoot the superstructure. To grow
requires the organic, a controlled state
that routes spirit’s electric root
back into the decaying body.
anza borrego
another superbloom in motion
I open my mind to the sun
that warm and ancient cup
that spills both light and shadow
I open: my mind to the sun
is just dim flickering
that spills both light and shadow
amidst the gathering bees
is just dim flickering
enough amid the desert lily?
amidst the gathering bees?
the sand verbena, ghosts of Spain?
enough—amid desert lily,
rye, and the expanse comes grace—one
sand verbena, ghosts of Spain
cannot even distract