I kiss her stomach and god sets a seashell on fire.
Angels fake amnesia.
I want to drink and cook.
I want to watch movies and not drink.
I want my invisible teeth
abused
by color.
I want my doctors to say seashell
scrotum
syndrome.
I want these meds to sadden drones.
I want fatigue. Hell’s rubber mirror.
I want my children to be so exhausted that they pray
to a ghost
that’s praying
to them.
I want your poems
your shorter
poems
to drive
death mad.
I want to crucify my tongue.
I want a wasp to crucify my tongue.
I want shape
to burn faster
than form. Nudes
to zoo
nakedness.
A fed raccoon.
Or a dog that believes.
Please check out all previous readings of the 'I Think I Can't Speak For Everyone Here' series HERE
They include:
4/21/24 Benjamin Niespodziany and NC Smock
4/28/24 Tom Snarsky and Darren C Demaree
5/18/24 Jay Besemer and Nadia Arioli
5/19/24 Pamela Kesling and Bee Morris
5/26/24 Alina Stefanescu and Dylan Krieger
7/7/24 Devan Murphy and William Erickson
7/13/24 Saba Keramati and Zaynab Iliyasu Bobi
7/14/24 Melissa Eleftherion and Kaylee Young-Eun Jeong
7/26/24 Kristopher Biernat
8/3/24 Crystal Stone and Lorcán Black
8/25/24 Adedayo Agarau
9/7/24 Medha Singh
9/8/24 Clara Burghelea and Kristyn Garza
9/15/24 Eliot Cardinaux and Jane Stephens Rosenthal
And please be on the lookout for our upcoming readings:
9/21 Saturday, 3pm EST: Brian Dawson and Julián Martinez
9/22 Sunday, 3pm EST: Aditi Machado
10/12 Saturday, 12pm EST: Réka Nyitrai
10/19 Saturday, 3pm EST: Tim Tim Cheng
11/3 Sunday, 4pm EST: Darren C. Demaree, interview and coverage of his new book So Much More (Small Harbor Editions, Nov 2024)
Email bluejawedsnake@gmail.com with inquiries, to request info, to sign up for the open mic.
Please join us for the 15th installment of the 'I Think I Can't Speak For Everyone Here' reading series, on Saturday 9/21, at 3pm EST, with featured readers Brian Dawson and Julián Martinez.
Email bluejawedsnake@gmail.com for the Zoom link info and to sign-up for the open mic.
Brian Dawson hates biographical paragraphs. When he isn't battling imposter syndrome... he is working on learning to take off the mask he wears for neurotypical people. He would like you to know that Barry Bonds was the greatest baseball player to play the game. Let's go Giants!
Julián Martinez is the son of Mexican and Cuban immigrants. His work has appeared or is forthcoming HAD, Hooligan Mag, Little Engines, The Sonora Review and elsewhere. His debut chapbook, This Place is Covered Head To Toe In Shit, is available now with Ghost City Press. Find him online @martinezfjulian or martinezfjulian.com, or IRL in Chicago.
Of my four children, only none want to kill me.
The perfect loneliness of a baby.
How it comes out of nowhere.
How it surprises god.
Gets
not quickly
old
The last
beast
I wish
we knew
the order
There’s a crow
crying shape
under my fingernail
that looks
if you look at it
like a map
Angels make little dares
beneath god’s blood
angels
make little dares
Please join us on Sunday 9/22 at 3pm EST for the 'I Think I Can't Speak For Everyone Here' reading series, with featured reader Aditi Machado.
Message bluejawedsnake@gmail.com for the zoom info and/or to sign-up for the open mic.
Aditi Machado’s books of poetry are Material Witness (2024), Emporium (2020), and Some Beheadings (2017), all from Nightboat. Other works include an essay pamphlet from Ugly Duckling called The End, several poetry chapbooks, and a translation of Farid Tali’s novel Prosopopoeia. She serves as an advisory poetry editor for The Paris Review and teaches at University of Cincinnati.
if you don't
go to sleep
they'll see god
seven times
A movie died and I wanted to write better.
You put a lake in a lake.
Whole childhoods
of an angel
went nowhere.
I binged
for my brother
body horror
from an invisibly
watched
loneliness.
Mom
gave us mom.
kingsoftrain 