Three Poems

Rockets

I’m so out of this world I’m so totally yes. Another helix of anger only set me back a square foot. With tears and hunger for human touch comes. And the eggs fly out, it’s alright, they say. Picture an image of a gun with a barrel like a mountain range. So the bullet has to peak before it pops. That’s the new religion in California. They’re rehabilitating weapons of mass destruction. They’re giving them lessons on generosity and teaching them yoga. This’ll be good. This drone just said its first prayer. This rifle just said, I love you.

What’s the point of love if you can’t love hypocrisy? I’m not a metaphor but my concerns are the same as a metaphor. I’m not a machine gun but my concerns are the same as a machine gun. The pope said that, I think.

Attention sharpens to a point. This happens in silence. No, my rage isn’t righteous. Today, love is not stronger than pride. Today, I didn’t make myself nothing so god could pass his love through me unchanged. Fools make themselves at the division between was and is. I never let anything go. I’m a scorpio. Every state of mind is temporary anyway. Every belief is a horse on a carousel. The only incorruptible thing is a child’s cheek. Until there’s no child left small enough to carry, or no child left whole enough to hold.

To love without wanting something in return. I can’t teach you that. What I can tell you is this: the cat is back from the alleyway, with something in its mouth.

Horses

two days ago I had
a lover
I had
I had
the first refers
to possession
the second to passage

Obliteration

The car wheeling
jammed
so to soothe your nerves
the spotlight cried out

everything’s possible
in the first century!

If I could make a brand new
world and give you
the first song
the first
history of a song—

You shake out bump
to burrowed brow

I mean I could do it if not for
all these questions

I use traffic to tell my time
I lay your name(s) back and
besides, you know that I live from
intersection to intercision

I make a move and you
grip the static so—

and anyway, who the hell
came up with all this?

Laughing up a green
Well, you know how it is,
we get only three chances

____

Vivien Adamian is an artist and writer from California. Her work has appeared in Discount Guillotine and Imposter Review.