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Poetry

from Autobiography of Michael Nicoloff

 

 

and tell us your feelings

 

place in an envelope and mail to home

 

girding yourself in pre-dental society

 

tray 7 is not out of paper

 

tray 5 is essentially a billy club

 

and when my boss just asked someone

 

"how's your wad today?"

 

and it's like a giant nap in my cheeks, I said

 

with awareness of what horrors came next

 

traveling by sea beast from this time onward

 

exercise routines and trimming the tree

 

songs recorded off the radio, all that

 

what’d I say? I said shit just take me to the death hug

 

that kind of bummer staving off

 

a lifetime of passive income

 

it would’ve been, like, that easy, but no

 

today I'm across town, thinking

 

about flags and anthems

 

clapping that mini cooper

 

eating a meat sky off in the distance

 

agriculture might have been a mistake

 

kind of the all-purpose verb

 

they huffed in public in a sister city

 

but when I need the yeti's mobile number

 

a self-addressed stamped envelope

 

a pretty important part of my childhood

 

well, where are they?

 

uh-huh, cleaning your body with lighter fluid

 

and an article of clothing called a crumple

 

saying "to jeff" should be an action verb

 

and the assistant pharaoh

 

pulls my hair into really long packets

 

and I’m not going to request a door prize or anything, but

 

what I thought was sunlight was a flying insect in clamps

 

so, you know...

 

time to “dowse for ore”

 

“claim the radish”

 

need some better diagrams

 

astronaut pee and the great barracuda

 

keeping out of the nutrient broth

 

its helmet had a mustache

 

zip ties for large earthquakes and fires

 

sand-and-air-filled animal skin pouches

 

identified by Petco staff as regulars

 

you need a nervous system

 

in cat eye goggles

 

choking citizens in court

 

the child was identified as the parent

 

the dream involved a trumpet and writers

 

an overstuffed car leaving Belfast

 

water poured on the pick-up artists

 

feed them after midnight

 

pretend you shot the ram and serve

 

the grossest thing you've ever done at work

 

I would like to read your annual report

 

wrapped in all the subtle emotions

 

involved in watching a human

 

be replaced by a machine in real time

 

and the irreparability of small tooth chips

 

but I’ll need someone to remove my neck first

 

with an easy hand agape at her labors

 

it affects you in the paw

 

and the fruit base with cramps

 

will adorn my rye

 

some kind of sweet brace

 

tops my cookie with a little bit of eye

 

let’s drink tap water

 

eat the infographic

 

I don't know how to go about

 

communing with the snakes and bees

 

but I have this exercise for jowls

 

some good opportunities to be jerks to strangers

 

in on a mule / out on a gurney

 

meet me at the dumpster

 

starching the world

 

I'm starting to question

 

my knowledge of the alphabet

 

a bathtub full of extra paychecks

 

spitting on cold bricks

 

go get some burlap / see for yourself

 

book the sheepdogs

 

hear a turkey gobble

 

I want standalone wool sleeves

 

to know the joy of standard liquids

 

harassed by the interface on the chipping floor

 

a blue-clawed crab using leaves as currency

 

with the sudden urge to visit the Dakotas

 

cuss words printed on a baseball bat

 

indicating a possible future

 

where my dragons’ names are Bud and Sandra

 

functionally a meat locker

 

 

 

 

Contributor

Michael Nicoloff

Michael Nicoloff is the author of the chapbooks "Punks", Mixed Grill (Monologue Version), and I Hope You Die, as well as the CD "Punkses" (After Ketjak). With Alli Warren, he wrote Bruised Dick and Eunoia. Formerly a curator of the (New) Reading Series at 21 Grand and Artifact, he presently serves on the board of Small Press Traffic and is an organizer with the Bay Area Public School.

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