Dragonfly in an Unventilated Cabin
(of course, it turns out it was a female mosquito that I was thinking of. the surprising intersections of entomology and etymology continue. here’s a poem).
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It does not fly well.
It falls in swoops at walls
at arms
at eyes.
It goes forward
and comes back again
and never stops falling.
Same old
My name is Max Cohen and I am a one note guy. Enjoy.
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The Penguin Anthology of 20th Century Poetry
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I am reading a book of all the great poets
that ever sold a word
back when 2000 anything
was a dream of the future.
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Each poet is introduced with flowing italics
so that their works may stick out plain,
unvarnished. They were born in a certain year,
and some of them have died.
Most of them have died.
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William Williams died in Rutherford, New Jersey.
Larry Levis had a heart attack in Richmond, Virginia.
Anne Sexton committed suicide
in Weston, Massachusetts.
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I read their words, beautiful words,
love and sex and death and all the things
that mean nothing alone,
that poetry makes beautiful,
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and all I can think about
is where they had to die.
Perspective
A cavalcade of riches! At least for me, and I’m what matters here, let’s be frank. I had what feels like a stylistic breakthrough and I just need to post it while I’m still high from all the creativity fumes, before I crash and realize that all is shit. Somewhat inspired by flipping through the new penguin anthology on 20th century poetry, which is also a treasure.
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When Gwendolyn lifts up her shirt in the morning
she sees god, a god of her very own
sleeping perfect behind the scar
where she was carved into existence.
She never looks into her own eyes
and the birds chirp outside.
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Terrible things have happened in this bed,
wonderful things have happened in this bed-
sweat stains, all. Rorschach has no idea!
The stories these blotches tell are infinite
but I know the truth, I feel the truth
shiver under the ceiling fan at night.
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Justice will be served, and I don’t care.
I will pay no mind to their crimes-
their violence longs to live on in scars like these,
but I do not break for them.
I cut into the air like a prow:
the world breaks around me.
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I am hard. I am angles that jut out
and assert my form with painstaking precision.
I am money and sweat, poured into marble
quarries for love and profit. I am sobbing
into my ashtray, alone and undefeated.
I am alone, will you help me?Video with 1 note
Not a poem, I know. I’m just incurably obsessed with this band and I don’t know why they aren’t beloved by all thinking feeling creatures.
Post with 1 note
Write Through This
Writer’s block defeated! And now for something vaguely different, inspired by 8 black teas, grey skies, and the british.
We Love Life
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Shauna dreams of 70s goldenrod,
of moss on collegiate walls
and seven days of winter.
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Perry wanders blind among the thistles
counting pockmarks on freshmen
like rings on a tree.
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Nieve kicked the bucket three times since June
to get Shauna to notice
her shirt was on fire.
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Becca fought crowds of daughters
for her place on Perry’s mantle
by the football trophies.
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“Acknowledged Participant 2002”
One for each year he’s away, she says.
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Laura reflexively covers the coffee stains
on her bra, as she shifts her weight
by the radiator.
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John feels for moisture on her cotton scraps
and kisses her neck, high on the scent
of ladybug perfume and dryer sheets.
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Elizabeth buries her nails in the garden
gilded with condom wrappers
that glow in the black light.
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Reid keeps Elizabeth in the corner of his eye
carving trails through her lawn
on his grandfather’s bike.
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There’s a party at Nieve’s place when the traffic lights blink
Goodbye to the future, there’s less than you think.
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Goodbye to the nerves that bind us as friends
We all fell apart, and that’s where the story ends.
When it’s summer and the skies are glass
If Drunk Poets Society is anything now, it’s an amorphous excuse to keep writing, so fuck keeping a collective identity. I give in, tumblr. I’ll make it a vanity blog. We’re all artists here anyway. I’ll keep posting poems as I finish them, but I’ll probably also use this as a sort of nexus for my other projects, so expect Pop Martyrs demos, lyrics, sketches, pictures, etc. to accompany them. Outside of these intros, I’ll do my best to keep this on the right side of Livejournal. But enough of this verse-less dribble, let’s get to the good shit!
Not Hunting for Meaning
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Drowned in the sickening warmth
of familiar faces on foreign bodies,
I seek comfort in the bitter tonic
they put on ice just for me.
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I imitate strangers from the corner of my eye
and feel better about being alone.
All in a row, we put on our jackets
and uncross our legs
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I catch a girl in my line of sight.
Inside her jacket are rows of mirrors:
an infinite body hides in the dark
when she zips it up.
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Pawing at the glass, trying to feel rain
a creature keeps cold in the corner
while I try to recognize that the weather’s changed.
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something sweet from the morning
is creeping back up my throat.
I remember moments that were beautiful
at the time, and start to choke:
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greyer-than-white sweaters
loose shrouds like the clouds
we’d reflect in our smoke.
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…
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Caffeine creeps into the eyes of
delirious minds shocked into prayer:
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Oh angel of quiet ends,
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Lift me up by my neckerchief
and carry me to sea.
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Somewhere there are caverns
and that’s enough for me.
it’s cold outside and the sun is shining
Lordy, how long has it been since I posted a poem about miserable people having sex? Far too long, is the answer here.
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Islands
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Him-
I feel a voice, an automatic grunt,
drip from my throat. It’s all I hear.
My mind dwells on the sickly
sweat slick that stings
cuts I never noticed before.
I slide on her belly
and it’s cold, no fever.
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I haven’t seen her eyes
in awhile.
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I wonder if they’re dilated
or shut.
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Her-
The raw backache of sedentary living
creeps beneath my spine
into that place where thoughts
are traded in for simpler reactions.
He grabs my breast, and shallow gulps
sink deeper, tastes of home
grazing my diaphragm.
I feel him press against me,
breathing heavy.
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I wonder what the air tastes like
to him.
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Us-
no one suspects the porn hidden
beneath pedestrian bed sheets,
even though part of us knows
to expect perversion behind any
human face:
that part of us that hums
when it sees itself in others.
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She lies down for the tenth time today,
feels for the wet spot, dreaming
of water.
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His eyes go slack as he hangs over the toilet,
hands propped on the tile,
praying for rain.
desperate times
A rough draft I worked out today. No title yet, but I like where it’s taking me, and I’m just compelled to put it somewhere.
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I used to hear you sing sometimes
-slithery, breath bound sounds-
whenever you sensed a silence
heaving into view.
You say I never knew you then
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that much is true.
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You orbit ever forward,
admiring debris,
gathering momentum
for the day you break away.
I’ve seen it done before.
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I won’t today.
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I fell in love with colored lights
the kind you painted on your face
that night we met, before recall,
before our eyes could focus right.
You said the end would find you breathless
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and you were right.
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You kiss me indirectly,
a sideways glance
of reflexive affection.
It tastes the same.
I wonder which will leave me first
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your taste or name.
keep on keepin’ on
Well, drunk poets may or may not be dead, but I’m still here, kickin out the word jams, and I’ll still try to get in other peoples works as I convince them to share. I’ve been working on this one for awhile, let’s see if I’m done
it’s not so much the heat as the humidity
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sipping the air as she admires
the rust cleaving through a fencepost
or a trail of ants that emerge from the still light
in a summer mirage,
I pretend not to notice.
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The ground is alive
and creaks underfoot,
too polite to say “leave me alone.”
The air burns in our throats like ether,
like the whiskey we thought was made
for moments like this.
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This whiskey was made for porch screens,
and we don’t belong here.
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This is steeple country;
maidens of the dust bowl still linger on the fringes,
and if you can listen through the cicadas
you’ll hear a million recipes for water.
That may be an exaggeration,
I stopped counting when the wind dried.
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Sometimes a soul takes form
from the bare, sight-sloped hills:
irregular figures
on goldenrod domes
flattened by the sky.
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“That man was born a grandfather,” you say.
“He sharpened his teeth
on dime store cigs
and aluminum siding
before decades of gazing westward
eroded barren rivers through his skin.”
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not a sigh passes between us.
we’ll never admit
that we long for this nostalgia
to prove ourselves fit for settling.
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we lie on the porch and feel the wood creak,
groaning like the earth we left behind.
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-I dream of a long dress of flowers
sewn up with wheat stalks
and glazed the color of eyelids
shut casually at the sun,
of threadbare curtains hung
lazily from your breasts
to billow round sunless calves
that evaporate in the light-
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-I dream of you
young in yellowing frames
cut for the dry spells
and waiting to weather-
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sticky and soft in uncomfortable skins
surrendered to sweat
we seep through our clothes;
we smother these thoughts
and gorge on the air.
.
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max cohen
Remembering Colder Weather
And now, to celebrate the winding down of the drunk poet’s society, as well as recently playing host to a fellow boston refugee, here’s the first time I’ve posted one of my own poems since I decided to stop being a solipsist. This one goes out to every bleak existence I’ve ever loved. Enjoy!
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putting books back on the shelf
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your voice echoed off the tile
wherever we went
ephemeral sounds i could feel through the walls
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it trembled my fingers everytime
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locked in a box so high that the ground became a myth
we kept warm with pilfered liquor
and piles of permanent laundry.
reclined by the window ,
the sky-scraper beacon
would carve shapes in your skin,
your body refracted into vague constellations.
beatific abstraction coalesced in a daze,
as we waited on the snow.
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as we waited to end.
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that image is etched so deep in my mind
that I can’t even see it anymore,
but I can feel it with my fingers
whenever your voice shakes them into shape.
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