|
Details |
Ashlea Senft Poem
all governments
are corrupted in some way,
exploiting the delivery of storks
that baby-boomers like to think are
precious gifts, but we are dropped bombs
to make this s***-hole new, paint it blue, not
for boys, but for our united sorrow, yet we
will still not give this stolen land that toiled
name like you do. we will paint it pink, not for
girls, but for the faded fire, bright and not
upon a spectrum, because we will not
put stickers on specks in an infinite
cycle, because we are just dots
of destined waste, longing
to get along
Copyright © Ashlea Senft | Year Posted 2017
|
Details |
Ashlea Senft Poem
you're so hidden
you're so afraid
i caught you staring at me
are you ready to downgrade?
you laughed and rolled your eyes back
as an accolade
have you used your fingers to tear apart
my accidental blockade?
boy, you didn't have to
there's a window just for you
a string with two cans
stuck under the shut glass
the window is locked, but the string's still there
tell me about your messed up hair
'cause you know i know it's fine
it's so fine, damn
you made a witty joke
what a handsome scam
deprive me of my thoughts
drain my blood, don't let it clot
is it gaslighting if you know i'm gone?
if you know it's right, is it wrong?
if you heard it, were there really words?
is it conversation if no one talks first?
is it sci-fi if i've done it mentally?
is it not if there's unreal chemistry?
baby, you have to choose
but i already know your choice
i saw it when you came
when you looked at me in your fantasies
you didn't say it
but i know what you said
without the words, you told me
we're users of telepathy
Copyright © Ashlea Senft | Year Posted 2017
|
Details |
Ashlea Senft Poem
The doctor left me.
He left the tools on the desk,
right beside my bed.
I'll perform my own
surgery, man. What do you say?
I'll take out my brain!
Rip the IV out,
right out of my dark green veins—
or are they maroon?
I can't tell, but I
don't care, I'll excise them too!
I'll remove it all!
The ghost in the room
is my best friend. He is here
when my rate goes flat.
Got him for comfort
like a stuffed animal. I
shouldn't talk but I
have gone insane, and
everything has a voice now—
even I can speak!
Without fear; still alone;
Doctor left; door is erased;
Sharp tools on the desk!
When my heart rate is
flat, maybe I'll fit through the
crack under the wall.
I'm okay, man, it's fine!
I'm rather excited to make
an incision in me!
Reach out; is that mine?
My arm stretching out from this?
I cannot feel it!
You can hide but you
cannot run, can't run, can't run
away from yourself!
Scalpel; the blade is so
shiny, beautiful; watch it go
right through my body!
My wrist feels like it
is being squeezed; I can't breathe!
It is killing me!
It drops from my hand
and hits the floor. I can't hear.
I see two blue eyes...
My rate is not flat;
It is a sphere like the earth!
I've become something!
I am floating high!
I am gravity! I am life!
Then, I feel a hand—
A hand on my back
holds me. I open my eyes;
I'm being carried...
"She's alive! alive!
I spoke; she opened her eyes
and I picked her up."
Ha! I took much more
than just a scalpel; you think
the people in me
would die that easy?
I hold stitches in my hand
to sew up his mouth!
Stay a mystery.
You can hide, but you can't run.
I want you to hide!
Never speak again!
One, two, three, four, five stitches
through your pretty lips.
Fall down to the floor!
Yeah, thanks so much, man, but I've
got a ghost friend here.
Oh no! I did this?
Why the hell did I do this?
I see the maroon
all over the floor.
Comfort possessed me again,
like an animal...
an animal cage...
I thought I taped their mouths shut...
I would have been fixed...
"Ruin everything,
Just like you know yourself for
killing all the pests."
"It will always be
like this—be hard, be a war.
Every voice is sharp."
Copyright © Ashlea Senft | Year Posted 2017
|
Details |
Ashlea Senft Poem
1. You have the illness you have always been fearful of. The cause is your fear. You will never sleep, and tea and yoga are only placebos. Welcome to hell.
2. You cannot evade exactly anything you ever experience.
3. I. Zombies are only an abstract concept.
II. So is your entire life.
4. You impulsively set your clothing on fire with the post-justification that it is an archaic craving and without fire, we'd all be dead.
5. We don't live on different planets in a communicative solar system because some of us don't handle diversity very well, and a human-sized crater is large enough.
6. The universe does end, and outside of the edges, there is only pure whiteness that goes on forever. I know, I've been there.
7. I. There are villages inside the carpet.
II. There are worlds inside the molecules that make up the villages in the carpet.
III. There are kingdoms inside of electrons and protons. They want each other's land.
8. You have a hard time choosing between the four of spades and the seven of hearts. But no matter what you choose, they're both just cards.
9. Any moment that is filled with emotion will feel like it will be the like that for the rest of your life. It will not be.
10. You deride them but you have no idea you're in the same thrall.
11. I. You remember engraved metal spoons hanging on a kitchen wall. Yes, you do.
II. You remember the song that played during the car ride on the highway when you passed the
aircraft warning light in the distance.
III. You remember the green atmosphere when you were a kid in a swimsuit licking ice cream
outside of your neighbor's house.
IV. You remember there being a small blue swimming pool.
V. You remember looking through the lace curtains of your living room window and seeing snow
and holiday lights on the suburban houses across the street.
VI. None of this ever happened.
12. The main reason you can't fall asleep is because you were told to.
13. You have dark circles under your eyes that only some can see.
Copyright © Ashlea Senft | Year Posted 2017
|
Details |
Ashlea Senft Poem
i'm a scarecrow in a viridescent field
i observe ideas, yet can't exploit them to yield
unable to move, allocating inattention
i'm filled with concepts and hypothetical intentions
i watch as the dead grass falls from my arms
wildfires don't scare me, but crows trigger my alarm
the crows, they think they are worthy of maize
they live in the clouds, but don't see the haze
they're all the same and they're never afraid
so i watch the field, wishing it was ablaze
i'm a scarecrow in a viridescent field
it's pretty and fertile and sometimes i feel
a flower at my foot, but i realize it's a dream
'cause the air is poison and the crows always scream
i watch the rows form a complicated maze
i'm so lost and confused, but i've never even raised
a foot to walk; i've rarely ever moved
and now the crows are here, so again i'll lose
i see this mystifying place, through this expanding haze
it's pretty, but it would look better in flames
and so would i, 'cause then maybe i'd make
the crows afraid
finally afraid
Copyright © Ashlea Senft | Year Posted 2017
|
Details |
Ashlea Senft Poem
14. You live in a laboratory; you can only create what can't survive in this air.
15. If your blood was pixelated and green, you'd probably be dead already.
16. They know you by your talents of making art and sometimes talking. You know you by your talents of sleepwalking and coughing up blood into the sink.
17. If you do something everyday for a long time and then stop, you will have dreams about it on the nights you don't do it. It is your brain's way of making sure you still feel it happening.
18. No one understands why horror films sadden you. You reiterate that poltergeists are nothing to avoid; they've kept you alive.
19. I. As a compulsive liar and a pyromaniac, you know a lot about hell.
II. Reality is hell, and heaven is being set on fire.
20. You have bloodshot eyes from the way she looked at you.
21. This doesn't feel right.
22. The orange of the burning house is the most comforting color you've seen in years.
23. I. As a ghost, your nose only bleeds once a year on the day you died from the… wait, there was
never an accident, and your nose has bled everyday.
II. As a ghost, everything you hold masquerades with you in the astral plane until you let it go,
leaving it somewhere else.
24. They call you oblivious, and you must agree, telling them that, yes, you do live in oblivion. You utilize it and receive it.
25. You told your family and friends that you've swallowed arsenic, and that it's fine, and that you're going to be okay. Little do they know, you called from the afterlife.
26. When you isolated yourself, the spiders came out from hiding and ate you alive, even though you've only ever been nothing but nice to them.
27. This number is very special to you.
Copyright © Ashlea Senft | Year Posted 2017
|
Details |
Ashlea Senft Poem
in the basement is your first color television
known for its recurring static and bent antenna
and broken VCR
extraterrestrials climb in through the high window
that doesn't open
but they've been here for thousands of years
they were the storks that delivered humans
during the time there was a gap in hominids
between neanderthals and us
they know why the antimatter and matter
don't cancel each other out
they're responsible for the Easter Island rock statues
for the hieroglyphs of machines and aircraft
and suddenly
your color television jolts on
to live news of 1939
Copyright © Ashlea Senft | Year Posted 2017
|
Details |
Ashlea Senft Poem
we love the world, so we make it our own
but nothing about the way the people live
leaves the creatures alone
we live so bold
"Dig around here for gold!"
it used to be so cold
"Preserve the bad; kill the old!"
hey, what's really good here?
we say we love it, but it disappears
Venus and Mars scold the smoke
that they see rising from the atmosphere
hey, i heard the voice of the bird
she said her children never lived to see
the way the trees turn into streets of homes
the way the ice turns into water catacombs
the pesticides spray out her sad silent cries
with oil blood and chemical tears
an act of genocide
the skyscrapers are really scraping the sky
leaving wounds in her pure outer skin
and soon she'll bleed out and die
hey, what's really good here?
we want to thrive, but will we even survive?
rats and foxes are now biohazards
the pulled-out roots are bloodshot veins in her eyes
hey, i heard the voice of the bird
she said her children were trapped in plastic like chains
it cut their throats; they could no longer sing songs
destroyed art isn't art when it's gone
Copyright © Ashlea Senft | Year Posted 2017
|
Details |
Ashlea Senft Poem
i will probably die before you know the truth
before something original ever passes through my lips
about how you’re a ripple in the space-time continuum
a montage of things that isn’t supposed to exist together
a bismuth crystal wrapped in tattered bags
you’re kitsch to me
is it selfish to say that how i see you
is the only sight of you that is true?
you are something unexpected
i entered the dark mine that’s been too feared for years
and discovered that there is something about how crystals are beautiful
that passes through the general atmosphere, unseen
they reflect the light of what is around them
and they bend it
wrapping around necks and wrists
and fingers
and even the rocks that surround them
you’re the reason the antimatter and matter doesn’t cancel out
because you are the embodiment of it
and i will live in you, discovering you, and creating with you
like you’re the Earth
but we will not stay here; we will find our home
somewhere out there
and shoot off this place
like a rocket; like a gun
and put a crater on a land that is as big as you matter to me
you are the sun like a filter over my view
but that’s okay, because you are the view
and you have layers to dissect and analyze
and you will shine bright, nurturing me
the only one who will do so
the only one of your kind in this system
because i’m a distant, dusty mask on a shelf
it is very rare for me to speak to someone and mean it
to float away and stop possessing that mask
and become the ghost that i’ve been
and say I love you
for the first time after my death
for the first time in this distant shape-shifting spying game
it’s not a game any longer
now pull out the tarot cards and let’s create our own
because we are real
and real is something i haven’t been in a while
Copyright © Ashlea Senft | Year Posted 2017
|
Details |
Ashlea Senft Poem
multiple universes, i'm a paradox
the minds of the villagers thrive in paradise
fecund ground grows poisonous weeds
we, deeper than skin, are divergent breeds
the sun is bright, no black holes, but i
see the sky as an abyss, i see this
little pixel game with red sand and an all-seeing eye
floating heads, stars like crosses, spaceships
i've never known the alphabet, but i can read what i can see
i can fathom the hieroglyphs, five thousand fathoms deep
the surface displays the false colors that
the current's never seen
you must enter every planet's sea
to see our ocean bleed
Copyright © Ashlea Senft | Year Posted 2017
|
|