poems

cool numbers

the lady on the L train is a renown harpist
famous in the circles that avoid fame
and nameless in a world dying from it
I think she has like 14,000 followers
you know,
Cool Numbers
anything over 150,000 is too broad
there lies the world of promoted posts
brand endorsements and follower conversion 
plus the people who like your posts start to become less nuanced
they don’t even really know what you do
they just like that you look good doing it
“daddy” 
under a post of a scientist that specializes in gut bacteria 
"slay queen" 
under a post of a environmental conservationist discussing global heat death

the lady on the L train has the cool numbers
she follows like 6 people, none of them with blue check marks
in fact she doesn’t have one either, even though she could
cause in the harpist world 
she is a name and that kind of value matters when trying to get verified. 
the blue check means you are legitimate
it verifies whether you have value
they use it to measure your worth as a fucking harpist or leatherworker or plummer
how do the brands know what niche cello player to collaborate with next 
if they don’t have a blue check?
Arby’s needs that fucking cellist/fast food crossover money
“We Have the Meats” to the tune of Schubert’s Sonata in A Minor
-A

from the reaches of your finger tips 
to the center of your body
from your golden headed hairpin
to your merlot hennaed hands
across your soft and slight cylindric soul
deep in the valley of your lands
swallowed by your sunlight and the crying of your lambs
your sweet milk and saffron spit are drunk from copper cans
your madness like molasses
your light outshining mans.
-A

157
I am in the cathedral of our lady of the holy rosary listening to dean blunt.
my left sneaker squeaks so I crept in quite quiet. 
I am in communion with the gods as well as myself.
I put my hands on my forehead and think of the concept of sin.
lust greed gluttony.
all symptoms of the cause.
which is power, the lack of it, and the acquisition of it.

to the first part, that lack of power. 
stems, to me it seems, from death. 
or the fear of death. 
that while we have made ourselves the masters of almost all things material, 
that final primal failing of our forms, escapes us. 
ashes to ashes, dust to dust

to the second, that acquisition of power, the lust to steal power from others, 
the greed of holding and hoarding power, 
and the gluttony of making ourselves sick on the power we already have. 
there in lies our sin 
and therefore our suffering.

I am in the cathedral of our lady of the holy rosary listening to dean blunt.
aware that this place I occupy is built simultaneously on our fear of being powerless and our sickness of needing power. 
And I feel sick myself. 
I get up and squeak away.
- A