Some Softer Mood

Ami Xherro and Khashayar “Kess” Mohammadi

SILENCE, like a tree that’s swallowed a garden
SILENCE, like a mouth that’s swallowed a hand

/

Look! End-of-summer swans in March.
Still as a shape’s gift
To motion. 

/

Sloom and sloom away

Loaming slow to waters edge 

Jaundiced with flame

/
dusty murals the whole length of the boulevard.
some later time some considerable distance away.
so uniquely qualified to enjoy new hyphens
alone in excursion.

a cup of pork and sinew
under the slow curl of the poem’s date and time

/

DEAR DIARY

Today I 
Had beef 
Had head 
Then slept. 

/

Late March in winter’s uncomfortable patois
will you help me out? grab a spoon and scoop?
will you help out?
first this, then that
it could’ve been obvious
a bedroom: now a museum of motion

/

CAN WE KNOW THE WORLD OR WILL I HAVE TO DIE IN IT FIRST?

Lastingness: the work of transfixion
Of laying bare the organs: first the breasts from which
 to drink, then the thighs from which to eat 
 The ear to work 
Eyes just for me

The fatigue of a standing figure 
The cough 
The labour of an eyelash 
measured by the wristwatch 
counting forth—

/

answers, seduced out of me
dad speaks with unintended precision
on discursive battlefronts

every application of this disappearance
worries like a seed
by way of jazz keys

eyes aren’t windows
bridges no longer burn
like they used to

/ 

I’ll help you but only in cursive
I’ll help you recover the pen
I’ll help you retrieve the poem from this meeting
From the stubborn lipstick on the envelope
I’ll help you in this simile 
like a spoon for confusion
Call me redundant
There exists a place
Where beautiful works
Are daughters of their forms
And nothing more
Now here is the lake
See this rose shoulder up  

/

The lake the lake 
floorboards
Drawers
cracks

/

Some softer “mood”
Your lake and now my lake
In the sharp detour of mysticism

/

slippery pathways
wrought iron
the muck
and field-dressed kill

dirty moons in the puddle that I resemble so clearly

/

Never tiring 
Being only ever tired
Like the moon baits cowboys 
Into its glow
One cowboy 
Two cowboy
What to do with all these cowboys
Flying in the wind
Presto fresh
Getting there with fireball 
And a bathroom quickie
Those were the days 
The moon dirty
But only with ash
Fingerprints 
Footfalls to 
Oopsie
And later
Again
And
again

/ 

Ocean rind
negotiable aesthetic
i took initiative for rhythm
membrane bent in metaphor 
it is possible to sit with a small thermos of coffee
in the public of some withheld pleasure
every day at 7 pm… counting
nothing ever comes of this

all this water ends up somewhere
i’m good at this.
i’m good with my hands.

/

WHO’S YOUR BOSS?

I wash dishes polish glasses
For no watermark Massimo

I observe management
I disrobe endives

My name sounds right from the lips of a single co-worker:
In this Age of Trying Hard, Nonchalance is God

I work the conversation for 5000 years
I said all about it for the bag

I wear my name on my chest
I write the firmament dumb

One Tuesday
at my other job
a girl sang Leonard Cohen’s
Hallellujah

I cried timpani
coin

/

listening for the ping of my station
the streetcar became neutral
raspberry bliss in sunny pasture
two word bricks carry the half-boat through lakes
phobic of red-dawn scenery

rocks turn up to supplement our sadness
we leave our best ideas on the bedside table
nothing comes of this
and beautiful works elsewhere too
a phone receiver to cry to

should i?

/ 

The stars invite infinitely
What the clouds disprove 

The future too is exploitable
But love doesn’t tire of us

Let poets lie to you
Just for tonight

/

welcome! 
attuned with soda and lime

a shoulder’s notice of an “US”
deep in the river’s eyes

I don’t think i’ve ever read
a single book in my life

/

blue
and so much
more

/

To never be touched again, blue or elsewhere
Diane says this line has a sound.
Shh listen
To never be touched again
To never be touched again
You can revivify with repetition
But you can’t invent a touch
They say,
When he pleases to touch them
He ravishes them 

/

Writing is a slow untethering of the life unto death
We are reflecting on our craft
But really it’s just admiration 
How you admire someone who has vowed
To never be touched again
To be divided by metaphor
Cucked by a comma
Forgive my sexual metaphors
I rove the field with daughterly exuberance
I transmogrify loneliness into wife-shaped ambition
I confess failure with my metaphors
You just listen
From a box of handwritten letters. 

/

I write my sentence ransomly
How you leave the door open
And a floor below is just what we imagine
The lead pipe to carry sound to

If tether is a primer for metaphor
Then what are my teeth
In this apple
What is my broom to the rainy gloom
Pooled at the crinkled gum wrapper

Eyes arent windows but i dont doubt windows either
How it holds the sun for the lone philosopher

I waited for you.
You were early.

/

Silent in a tray of Baklava
Eyes confound in glamour

A stress on the pillar
Not so much an appearance

Come to my Occult tropicalia
Im an interrupted ordinary

Exact in our sameness
A trivia of “other beds”

Only if splintering

\ 

I saw you tonight
I heard you amid the empty clamor of the pub
You told me your eldest daughter doesn’t speak to you
The younger one likes andy warhol
And the velvet underground
BUT NOT valerie solanas
She is easy to hate
Because her hat, her hair, fashion baby
Fashion doesn’t like dads
Fashion is for daughters for whom absence is style
Style is a fashioning of space
Poor dress is just reality exceeding itself

/ 

this is us again
Another 8:14 pm
Where i leave
And u recount nextdoor vowels

Whipping high peaks on a budget
Lukewarm for egg whites
Cold for cream
Dont forget to warm up the knife
To comfortably cut through meringue 

This exchange has become
Just the color of our coats 

/

If the girl you like says she needs some time to herself …

If your partner’s absence brings you peace…

She expects conversation 
to fill her waiting
You dont know whats in it
You dont wanna know
That cindy would have hated
Time and living in it
Like a bus that’s always 
And irredeemably 
on time 

But that’s besides the point
When she steps onto the street
With her coat flung wide
To Life 
Or another unfinished start

/

your dream of gold and yellow
free coffee stamp aubade
behind the fish market 

we’re built into the furniture
with baby guilts
of baby summers
in our baby quilts puffed leopard 

learning takes time
she says
but only in the Persian
“simple” is a wide space

small details for
small measures
and something else
just to contain it

I’M WAITING

insert your voice
into the 10th strike of
a grandfather clock
behind the unopened door

i’m still washing dishes