Everyday Birthday
I’m a Boring Artist (and Critic)
Ah, the seagulls’ skirmish, punctual.
Their taunting laughter, aimed inward.
Ripples carve out ephemeral battlefields,
Where neither side grasps the game’s rule.
Why not return to the vast sea,
Don’t become a punctum of riverside artists (and critics).
Let cinnamon rolls, long steeped, sweeten this city to a cloy.
We’ve bored ourselves with our own tedium.
Awake, and spare the seagulls your critique.
I tilt my head back, waiting for raindrops to strike my face,
I spit from heights, watching it descend.
I piss and spit into the urinal, treating it as my lover.
I am my own love rival.
I declare my love for thousands of years,
I’ve just purchased eternity coupons from the funeral home.
(I sometimes take pride in my own crude jokes.)
I suggest another date with me as a token of gratitude.
A peacock, in gratitude, laid an egg at my doorstep – whose egg?
The peacock’s.
A tiger consumed the sheep at the fifth cave’s entrance – why?
Because it was pleased.
I say I too wish to eat a sheep, holding a gun, unloaded.
I ask myself what to do.
I give myself three minutes to solve this puzzle,
I say I won’t answer, for there’s no proctor anyway.
Memes
Glowing seaweed in the belly of a cut fish;
the universe as particle instability;
brain hemorrhages in mice on lab benches;
logical dogs making illogical humans cry;
magpies building nests in mops on windowsills;
cutting off the thorns of a cactus to consume won't stab you in the heart;
croissants with crescent moons printed on them;
visa isn't needed to go to the moon;
we're no more talented than cat memes.
Acknowledgments
I blush when the white people praise my intelligence.
Most days, I am thankful to be appreciated.
I smile when strangers come in for a hug and laugh
when their cheesy Chanel perfume rubs off on me.
I blush when the pretty boy smiles in my direction.
Thank you, white people, for your narcissistic admiration.
The man takes a photo, his leather shoe on mine, as if
he accidentally stepped on his collection, brushing off the dust,
staying silent–no problem, thank you for adopting me.
Thank you, woman clutching the hem of my T-shirt,
speaking only to other white friends until I turn to plaster.
Plaster dust falls, I crouch, awkwardly wiping it off
with the deformed edge of my T-shirt.
When the woman proudly brews matcha as green as herself,
it’s too late to stop smiling. The clinking bottles reassure me
it’s not tinnitus or the end of the world, thank you.
I adopt you, I adopt you, someone laughs, prints
his new girlfriend onto his T-shirt. It gives me a fake smile,
and I’m still lucky to be invited. An audience of smiling T-shirts
invites me, every face gets a rest,
everyone gets one. It’s a miracle, I think.
I thought I was just a slug but look, everyone wears
the T-shirts I designed. All hail the T-shirt king
as they demand more prints, I’m so grateful.
Even the floor bubbles.
There should be enough beer, but I’m still smiling,
smiling until my corroded teeth feel no pain,
until I am also printed on a T-shirt. Gosh.
I’m gnawing on rusted doorframes with corroded teeth.
I’m so grateful to be at the brewery.
Thank you for inviting me to this exhibition.
Thank you for pretending to look at me without crying.
Thank you for adopting me, please have me,
please, have me, again.
Disclaimer (after Laurel Nakadate)
Absence pervades here;
strangers circle, mimic intimacy.
And the calendar peels off –
An unknown birthday cake appears from
the gym; the curator’s plan, pierced by sudden
hail; a fish falls to earth.
Balloons and candles crowd in,
predicting:
The opening will be a carnival.
Today, I remember –
to be silent as pubic hair,
to float, a dandelion.
No one recognizes me,
and I no longer hesitate;
exhale, and am blown in myself.
Undeniably, cameras struggle
to catch each fleeting seed –
alright, yet the scene has not begun.
An illusion in the corridor: confined,
I remember my performance –
a sequence of laughter and sad glances.
Finishing the next act’s cake in the gym,
I return, perspective clear:
Insights vanish and reappear.
Maybe My Last Poem
I don’t have a brain for anything
that’s happening in the art world. I don’t
have a brain for the ones groveling for a nickel,
I’ve done an amazing job,
their polite facades, fighting each other
behind their backs until their heads exploded.
I’ve done an amazing job. They’re about to graduate
from the biggest scam MFA, still pure enough
to believe art can save a caterpillar’s life.
For a brighter future, I have no ideas.
It’s my misfortune to live in a time
where artists must preach morality,
killing with ethics, blood unseen.
Midnight, my inspiration
suffocated by too much oxygen.
Dawn, I curse in Chinese on the streets,
no one responds anyway.
I know I should be crushed by the weight
of my prayers, but here’s what I want:
to enjoy Zeus’s privilege
when my mind is blank; a winter vase.
O spring, O rebirth then death,
I’ve stepped on seven snails on the way.
So, I arrogantly conclude again:
I don’t want to be an artist, except for this:
endless emptiness; the shifting scenery of boredom;
also, laziness beyond measure.
For example, did I write this poem in ten minutes,
or ten days? If I write, there’s nothing to write,
it’s an indistinguishable fire,
the same that burns me alive.
To be a genius artist committing suicide again is so corny,
and yet.
We Cry in Embrace, For We Have No Money
If my greed makes me live a hard life, so be it.
I’ve hacked into the church’s bank account because you said
God was on my side. I can’t mention too much to you,
as God is having non-vegan hummus in Berlin tonight.
Sometimes he attends the gay pride parade to say dirty words;
if you love me, maybe next time we can meet him at BOILER.
But you won’t see him in the dark cruising mazes. He would say
let there be lights, and you wouldn’t want to stand under the light
facing other men. I don’t like hanging around there either, where
underage crocodiles dizzy themselves spinning with dead bodies
in their jaws. I’ve hidden the fossil of our love in corners he can’t find,
older than the day he was born, he he, do you know what’s inside
a crocodile’s belly? The best day in a security guard’s life is when
he gets to beat someone up severely. That day, I saw the neatly dressed
director pee without washing his hands afterwards. There are more secrets;
God and I share the secrets we spy on each other with our phones.
It’s illegal, but what can you do? Register another anonymous email with me.
Choose ‘C’ for all answers in the next exam, so our ranks are closer.
Go to the phone booth, find the number under Yellow Pages and call me.
You’ll make it if the phone is an odd number and I’m a Sagittarius.
Notes
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