Best Poetry Award

CONJUCATIONS

wordswerve

so strategy fell behind the bed. behind the desk.
behind the window. i saw strategy through the glass
smiling into the storage closet. what was it thinking
about? in here i set out all the musical instruments
by size, took each mouthpiece apart. we began to
speak. we had a four hour window in which to do so, in
which no one could stop us, and we continued our song
as if strategy depended on it.

so when the song came to an end i fell, supine in a
stringbush of a failed piano. i thought about the
broken musicians with their mouths torn off. i was
helpless.

so it was that dream came into being. i first spotted
dream playing snide and meek in the broken organ
pipes. we finally looked each other in the mouth.

so my escape strategy: wordswerve. i used letters to
formulate an exit, to create a door that would creak
open with a "yes" composed only of vowels. from then
on i thought only of a new life, one in which i would
never have to close my mouth to utter a word. i
salivated. i let the "o"s drip out and roll around on
the floor like marbles, upsetting dream, transporting
dream, letting dream circle the periphery of the room,
toppling over reeds and strings. in short, i
reformulated strategy, or rather, lubricated the
passageways through which strategy would have to
squeeze.

so turning around, we faced the labyrinth. between it
and i were the spokes of letters, littered and jittery
as copper nails in the cave tunnel outside the door.

so a few marbles led the way. with the first spoke
clash they were impregnated and began to morph into
new letters, or rather, into old letters. when the
first one began crying "mother!" i had to turn back,
had to start disintegrating door into stone, had to
let other vowels defect to the glamour of metal, of
union, of danger.

so the instruments were welded with attention, hunger
driving search, connection, bond. strategy, as
expected, came out of its hiding place and sat beside
me on the band stand, fiddling with mutes. yesterday
it let out such a tortured silence that we all fell in
its void for hours, without moving even our teeth.

so we have a new music, without reeds, without mouth.
i've learned to contain dream wholly in room. the
dream's name is red and stenciled across her chest.

so it would suffice to say that each vowel has been
swallowed, eaten, digested. i have come to the
conclusion that magic can exist only in mouthshapes
and glottals. yes. it would suffice to say that the
sound of music is changed. every word exists only in
the silence of my voice.

erroars

but the birds stupor outside, drunk, hiccuping. the
cars on the road mimic each others' winds.

but i can't sit up. i'm tied down by dreams. i am
closing my eyes hoping eventions will pick up where i
left off. the train was just approaching. the door was
just opening. the body was just taking off its
clothes.

but i can't greet back in.

but now the roam is between two worlds, superimposed.
church bells. alarm. train. creak. skin. hair. sheet.

but everything is in its proper position. books
squatter. images drip.

but nothing exists. phone wrangles. a voice wants to
come over. it leaves a message asking where i am. "i
hope the latter," it says.

but i can't speak. i have no desire to poke myself up
and say hello.

but only the cloak sounds. tic. mirrors mute. days
click by. lights neither rise nor set. nothing moves
without my touch. every object is under my control.
all movement is desire.

but i am locked up in a room by myself. the drawer
remains bolted. the windows sit straightbacked, legs
crossed. the bed lays pristine.

but i am self-included.

but. this is not a cage.

twilips

and when success comes in the door i say welcome, have
a hot cake. i'll put one in the toaster for you.
success accepts grudgingly, chews me up, spits me out.
she pours the honey onto the floor and watches ants
collect. when she turns to leave i see she's gained
weight. she is bigger than i remembered, bigger than
the door she squeezes through like glue.

and after she leaves i leave the door open for a while
and wait for the vendors to come along with their
steaming carts. i get my money ready because woman
cannot live on rice alone. she must branch out and
have a taste of a little meat here, a little semen
there. no woman is an eye.

and some days i can't eat. my throat closes up. my
eyes widen. i run in place for a mile, three miles,
ten miles. i nap for an hour, three hours, ten hours.
i don't step out the house, out of cold, hunger.

and some days i can't stop eating. food piles up in my
stomach and i count by pounds, not by items or
calories. when it doesn't taste good it still feels
good, crushed up in my mouth, grating down my throat.
sometimes it only tastes good coming back up.

and behind my eyes i can see i have turned to rust. i
cannot move and i don't want to. i am stuck in a
forest of my own creation contemplating my creation
and seeing that my creation is good.

and coming in i'm afraid to leave the house again. the
night is dark, made of periods and end quotes. behind
the darkness is a subtext that i can't enter into,
that i'm already immersed in and can't get out of. i
am in trap, in freedom. i cannot begin.

and i'm coming to the realization that i don't have
time for this - for company, for memory, for food. i
receive only success and am content crushed under her
words, her weight.

and in fact i am success. i live in silence. i live in
sleep.

dollnic

yet beyond this day another bares teeth, full of
clouds and monotheism. it rears its head, rising to
move its tongue.

yet when i reach you, you love only my letters. you:
tahoma. me: verdana. i substitute numbers and make
adjustments.

yet i have not succeeded. in the mirror are swollen
eyes, swollen plastic. 90 of my clusters are bad and
cannot be used. the wrong numbers move. 144,566 have
been examined. now 92 are ruined. 101.

yet another white flower has opened during the night
and spews its scent across the room. i think: wither.
age. old.

yet if i let you in, you'll start talking. i like to
play with objects. i am not looking for connection.

yet i am without images, without sound. now that i've
broken through my plateau i think i will sink back
into the abyss, the bottomless pit of eating and
digestion, drinking water and sweating it back out.

yet outside nothing blooms. i am computing burns and
weeks and gains. nothing has changed since the day
before. nothing will change.

yet plastics are friendly, rigid, easily manipulated
by an open flame. i open the windows. foreign winds
gush in. they are rotten fetid winds from my
childhood. they are burning themselves into my nose.
if a doll's hair is cut, it sometimes grows back. i
on the other hand am looking for disappearance.

yet. i dispose. i have made myself disposable.

liquivation

or if you like we can stay inside this conversation.
unstressed. undressed. just us. just is.

or specifically: i came into the room and took my
shoes off, scrubbed the cheeses and chocolates off my
face, sunk my head under water. i fell asleep in the
bathtub and woke up bloated, bleached, shivering. the
water was green with mildew and algae, and we emptied
out the fishbowl in it, a little vacation for the
scaly ones.

or not. we can form a contradiction. you are you. i am
other. auther. author. coordinating conjunction
introducing an alternative.

or allow me to introduce the second of two
possibilities. beer or wine? white or red? you or me?
you can see the second options are more favorable
here, as a clue to the choices you will be making when
you finally step outside of this room, this dream,
this conversation.

or we could take things a step further. we are sitting
in bed together talking in mime. you are pointing to
yourself. you want the room for yourself. you want the
page for yourself. you are tired of leading me out of
thick green waters. you are tired of fishing the
critters out of the bathtub. in short, you would like
to be the one in the bath once in a while, toying with
the faucets, controlling the temperature of this
conversation.

or we could just stop talking.

or let me introduce to you any of the possibilities in
a series. yes, no, or not yet. apples, pomegranates,
or plums. they are all red, you say. you say i am not
giving you a choice at all. that is true. no
possibilities exist outside myself. you do not exist.

or at this point, late in the story, try to think of
me as a person that does. bathe(or). write(or).
create(or).

or get in and join me in liquivation. we can bloat up
and fill the tub, unable to get up. no water will
remain. we will lay there, green flesh on green flesh.

or actually, i am only a condition. ardor. armor.
labor. take over. you are forgetting the door, to open
it. get out.

bloodesire

for regardless, this is: we, now, slice of light.

for you wear a red sheath and lay on my bed. you are
playing blood. you don't scare me. you want me to lift
this sheath but i don't care what lies underneath. you
may not be underneath it.

for i couldn't invite you here today because i
couldn't get up. i couldn't borrow from my dreams.
when i woke, desire left me. i can seek it only on
this page.

for a sky with red clouds is what you really, really
want. i cannot give you that. my clouds are little
white fish with all the blue blood drained out of
them, floating perfectly still and naked, upside down.

for i am not an encyclopedia, just a linguistic
arpeggio. i exist only in words. words do not need to
be spoken to. i will not speak.

for you have not opened your mouth in a long time. not
since this page began.

for you take up this space inside me and call it your
own. you are healthy because you exist. when i was
thirsty, you gave me blood. you beat in the veins. you
write these words.

for even under this pressure, i refuse to tell your
story. we did not come into this room together. we did
not fill it with leprosy. all of this i created before
you came in. you disappeared when this page began. you
were never born.

for you cannot stand here with me because i am lying
down.

for a rock has hit the glass and four lines spread
from the point of impact like appendages. i am this
stick person. once we face up to that fact we can
begin to move out of this room. we can walk together,
hand in hand, to my place or your place, your highway
or mine.