talking about Boston // his grapefruit // mulls he liked // his dead father’s carbon // Buddhism
// his melancholic growth that met at 3pm on Sundays // The chanting // The tramp // He
turned over so he could feel her bold on the frown of him // she crawled over his mashed sadness
into his think-tanks // his calves // his footmarks // She saw a buccaneer dream drowned under
his big toil narcissus // On his back she could lifeline his chief // use her handguns // kiwi the
lisps between beatnik and hardness // She listened over him // a Xerox madwoman memorizing
skirmish // hairstyle // eyesore // the innkeeper’s stubble // the wine label // the thread to tie it
all together // the bipartisan // the bold partitions tapered into other bold partitions // in bed.




item #7831
title: After (Part I) (or adding “in bed”)
index: jennifer macbain-stephens
note for the curator:
The text uses the N+7 procedure, invented by Jean Lescure of Oulipo, and involves replacing each noun in a text with the seventh one following it in a dictionary.


The Red Dwarf
Mars/a face/the red planet/

Shapes drift        fully developed   body language
                                                   particles

unstone yourself          unhinge first finger digit to       reach the rose
the cracks in the hand: roads,

                                                               the slivers of light: the tendons

dusk explodes into a catalyst alpha          a mammal takes a forest bath

an apple ripens from a sanguine dreamscape / claret color drips

down a mercury basin of flight

petals float           evolve into flame
lightning attacks our blush, our facial maps

russet bridge from placenta to dirt
extend this too explosive oxygen                                                  touch two horizons

onebrow                                        oneankle

the sand filled tornadoes

titian breath suffocates    no dill weed   no greenery

beauty
in outer space

the veins in the palm spread : we never glimpse the inner  reds
                          blood through clay desert
the storm cover

I see in your future:

some modicum of safety

you struggle, flushed.




item #7832
title: Solar System Tarot (Fire System)
index: jennifer macbain-stephens
note for the curator:
Found text from a 2015 NASA calendar, using the months of April and June, published by NASA.

Jennifer MacBain-Stephens is the author of three full length poetry collections, most recently The Messenger is Already Dead (Stalking Horse Press, 2017). Recent work can be seen at or is forthcoming from Prelude, Kestrel, Yalobusha Review, decomP, and inter/rupture. WEB
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