house, response, work ETC

house 1

we are slow with our loneliness
so slow that god
thinks in twos

the snow comes for other snow

a spoon 
prays
to a mirror

no one can watch

and the snow
gets away

house 2

nothing is beautiful to God

do your parents
have private
food

house 3

whose childhood
was the longest
there is always
one friend
with a nosebleed

house 4

loneliness is the only type of loneliness that nobody talks about

let's say it's the day I don't always learn to bathe a mouth

a whole family chooses not to eat 
all the food 

the channel 
the one 
with one 
car accident

ghost goes from jesus to scarecrow and back
can't decide

is something still written on the inside 
of how I view 
my hand

house 5

I read my writer and you read yours

a third
can switch the order 
of god and death

house 6

I live in the loss of my non-existence, 

a noise has no birthday, 

and sleep is perfectly made

house 7

the grape heavier for inventing an invisible drop of blood

the mirror
that carried
wind

~~~~~

(response poems for Benjamin Niespodziany


i

My sibling's white noise machine reminds angels that they've no young. 

There are three light switches per rooster. They are

The overlooked church of the eel

Frog's empty life

God sees an image 
that's been moved 
by me

ii

Everything being done
is done
outside 
of a horse

Your mother's hearing loss keeps my voice from changing

Lightning dreams itself into a cat thrown from a moving car

A lit match 
enters a flashlight

iii

dear Ohio the ocean is worried about a trapdoor

also about the ocean I want you to think about the number of limbs remembered by a bitemark 

and then our little satan using the same bowl for his food 
that he does 
for his water

iv

Body language being kept alive in a ghost town.

Wind's missing child 
can't get sick.

v

Loss sees its mother in its mother. Not all of us die. 

-

In hell, one forgets

hell's naked 
birds

-

Empty says it has a twin. 
Far says nothing.

vi

The movie feels more alone than the movie it isn’t. One of us has been kissed on the stomach. Going outside confuses god.

vii

Those years, two or three of them, where every shortstop went missing. That cop who turned his siren on and couldn't get it off. Each unrecognizable baby. The god we looked at to remember god. The graves, we'd joke. Left out in the rain.

viii

mother father and their backward sunburns. movies that ache for moon. a dog no closer to the stick that we shared while in the stomach of a heartbroken horse. food poisoning as remembered by god. one of every three fish praying first for stone and then for bird. the unmarked math of your remade mouth. a cigarette in love with a nail.

~~~~~

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