my plan for marriage

My plan for marriagewas couragethe way a planelands by sinkingthen with a rush of strengthflexes to kiss the tarmacas an equal a drama soon forgottenas we wait to seewhose luggage is whoselooping round the lucky horseshoemagnet pull of what will emergeand what must be...

conversation

He tucks the $5 into his sockand looks up at my babysays When my son was a babyI used to sit up all nightto make sure he was breathing WHERE IS HE NOW?I am screamingin my headWHERE IS HE NOW?he is also screamingin his headmaybe With practice we canlisten past the...

the cha cha slide

the DJ wants us to do the cha cha slide.the DJ wants our claps our stomps our“cha cha real smooth”—the DJasks us to give breath to death andbreathe seething into laughter and standa couple feet apart on the laminatedance floor and turn our insides intoour outsides....

the world: part

This is how… We read the signs. We readthe gaps around the signsthat said STOP. We filled in forgiveness. We sawourselves inside the bottle. We splashedwater on our faces but the water was wineand our faces grapescrushed into bottlesin crates in lorriesin toddlers’...

at dawn, a woman

at dawn, a womandrags herself through cobbled alleyswailing, and then beginsover a plate of dry eggsto speak and from the doorway of a key shop, a manwith no teeth yells at a plazaof tables and chairs, and smokes so mucha rain-cloud forms over Los Angeles and the...

seagulls

Seagulls prefer to nest by open water, but they’ll make doif they must. This bathroom, sinking into the foundation aslittle green plants force their way through the grout, will do.It will do, even once we’ve outgrown & left it, the shivering husksof our shadows...

two poems

New Format paperback and needledisccherished media–bone dust and broken saucers Cavernous dentist cut by silvered glassancient mouth of rot;pulls the roots from memory Joseph M Gant is a New Jersey born open source software enthusiast, data hoarder, technical...

HOW TO MAKE MARTYRS

I’m listening to Gerry Raffertyand I’m thinking to myself,who the fuck is Gerry Rafferty,and what the fuck is “Right Down the Line?”’Cause I can’t tell who’s sore,and there’s no rippin’ off the bandaidwith the first big scene,you gotta drag it out...

APOLLYON

0b1. hey, I know you! you lolling Jell-o eyes, your eyelids are heavy you spit a billion more phrases, you’re summoning mandelbrot, your shed is a rube machine, it whirrs and molts, you don’t sleep through the...

Perspective

the wind from the oceanmakes the balcony lawn chairsdanceI lounge on a couchas gray daylight stretchesthrough the sliding glass door I want to sitout therehear the surftaste the windbut I can’t writein the rain the balcony parapetis four feet highfrom my seatit’s only...