A New New Age - Pedro Neves Marques

1.

expose myself

with belly

and trust

eyes on the crystal

skin, tongue

on the crystal screen

saliva, swallow minerals

2.

worming, I open your eye

lobe on the screen, zoom in and kiss it

stroke my tongue hard like a clit suck

the cellphone whole in my mouth a

Korean heart, red light neon.

throat cancer is how much I miss you

thyroid deficiency is how much I miss you

nervous system disorder is how much I miss you

so much contact with the outside world.

I expose myself. You say you haven't been sleeping

well. These days

3.

my mind wanders

I read my memories out loud

for all I care my thumb keeps on scrolling

a picture of printed matter on a cellphone screen

centerfold slits my gut in two

my bellybutton is left pointless

on the left page

on the right page

my right hand is severed, still

it will not let that cellphone fall

on the wooden floor my

naked feet, big as usual

so many poems glitter.

4.

I read a story about how the Earth lost the Moon

it travels lonely lonely lonely

the universe is such a vast space

darkness falls out there

the Moon's glimmer fades

5.

I look back down to Earth

smallest things

I find my nails are pearl

but my blood remains red.

I guess that means I still feel some

emotion, something to write about

you have been so many people

now you are someone in particular.

fly to Singapore, fly to Schiphol, say you'll wait for me.

6.

flying in the cabin

I am impressed

and believe you in particular

are a creature from a future

Where astrology and cyberspace

have merged to console the pain

and inconstancy of young people

jobless, bodiless, loveless-

a new new age

is necessary.

7.

this is a circular story

I open an app

with 78 cards face down

every day I turn a card face up

and find some minor solace.

someone mistrusts the rite

says if the deck were real it would be meaningful

but not if it's in bits and code.

I tell you this story.

You say a cellphone is one's most personal of items

carried every day, every hour, everywhere.

You say a cellphone is a perfect conductor. Energies

flow between hand and metal.

You say a cellphone is only minerals,

it should be a better medium than a random paper deck.

8.

in the future you've come from

nothing is done without consulting the stars.

I hear you're writing about krill. The similitude is obvious.

9.

I still hold my cellphone throat deep in my mouth. Some

sort of genital inversion

gagging on toxins, drooling on the outskirts of microchips

you have an eye in me.

10.

my belly is doing the rounds.