from Atrévetêmeants

Hedonist, but I’m she / they. I’m Leslie
Scalapino but heavy on the Les & pass on
the shellfish. I’m so allergic.
Oh, & I can actually say the n-word.
They say don’t meet your heroes,
how ‘bout don’t read them.
Not sure why I tried
to learn about poesy
from pederasts or wifebeaters
or rapists or white feminists,
damn terfs. Maybe poets aren’t lil gods

like Huidobro said. Some are fleas, ticks, lice,
termites, smegma ricotta, nits, oh fuck
why guss it up, they’re just humans,
rachitic in wilt, weissgilt brainworms in
maggot bellydancing their pap flash silt.
Wouldn’t touch them with chopsticks,
or walk their shitheel path
on stilts.
Not too much on Scallops though, cause I like her
& she rests. Can’t rehab zombies.
I nerfed my teacher because he wanted
much worse, what he alone deserved. I’m running out of
mercy next to the pilfered gum
from the Amant office in my purse.
Tongue in cheek, Aris tried to, once upon a time,
please everybody. Fuck this,
fuck that, fuck you.

Someone has to catch a stray
like ASPCA. Get Sarah MacLachlan
on the horn to sing Angel, eh?

for 50 cents a day, you too can have
an alphabet sans a K. Goofy troop ass a-hyuck
ass canuck. Might make that Princeton
terminal degree her last one. They call
me Fujiko, but now, bitch, I’m Roxanne,
I’ll pull a busty Glock out
my cleavage slit if I
unzip my body
suit just a bit.
& you can catch these hands at
the press of a button,
at the speed of thought like Ray-Man.
& unlike that Crooks kid,
I’ll make his cap really red.
Give me a month, I won’t muster
a mister, I won’t misses, put the apron
on, fold the divan, pick the kids up in
a van, pop an ativan,
preheat the oven, take
a facial-sculpting
wand from Taiwan,
& make his scalp hand-cut rigatoni.
Ring the damn bell
like the end of matrimony.
Oh my sister, Testify
Like Bubba Ray & D-Von.

See, see, see, look! I can make a good wife.
I’m messy, yes, but I cook, I clean,
I can make that detergent lysergic
& have the lines rinse out tye-dye,
opalescent & anodyne. Yeah, it’s that girl
who two-stepped in Maison Margielas at TV Eye.
Who napped upon her ass,
& still has the key to her apartment?
that’s I (facts). I press for 15% on the
barista kiosk in secret, when you don’t tip.
You should have.
Hey, I can say the r-word. No one get mad:
rambutan (ランブータン).
There’s edgy, then there’s
me. Less a brisket
slicing knife, lol at you thinking I’m straight, I’m
more the kris kind: in & out this quattuordecastitch
like the Weeknd, I’m; out of rhyme.

G. I know you’re like me,
you’re not trying to be a freak of the week,
I’m trying to be a freak for life. People talking
about being poly with me & we can’t even
render the first shape: the hydratic triangle
for an icosahedron in legion. How do you maintain?
How do you search? How do you find?
Whatsay the bio of your Hinge profile?

Listen, little idiot, for the sound of your desire:
whosoever disobeys her disrespects God.
Sexualize the universe. Go babe-hunting
in Prague & trade spit beneath the dull equestrian statuary.
We are all deeply overrated & sad. Don’t forget
that the moon is hollow,
Los Angeles is allegedly liveable
& the terror
excruciating.

My friend, the articles of eternity have a
glossy sheen lip cream give the finger to the precinct
(lovely dream urine stream if only I were wintering).
It’s honestly pretty fucking embarrassing: my pothole of a soul.
Oration on the Image of the Sun. Road into the open, a lyric poem—
otherwise known as Praising the Traitor. Sorry hun, no tombfuckery today.
Just another triple-tongued form of yesteryear
& I got wicked high on the balloonweight sphere.
The great enclosed ghost engraved on a bronze stela
or a shift in tense to blast that middle-class ass.

Another Tragic Tuesday, hooray. No love for me, only
windy thunders: birds flee horrified by that big fart.
Time to scratch a name in the flames.
Girl, I can tell that you can tell I’m not your typical fourteen year old.
I am the fleshly embodiment of The Entrepreneurial Mindset.
I have wielded the Sword of Islam & excised
the sliver of ice inside my heart. I have
music. I have tuned the human biofield successfully.
Telegrams of the Soul, or: Dream Telepathy.
Welcome to your first semester of Style Academy.
I was buried in your backyard secretly &
hastily. (This is my ill-omened penalty.)
Must I endure these endless fields of good Cali Kush being
violated so foully? But more than money I like women,
wine & the miserable music
that runs ever over everover everso truly
now or New Jersey.

Aristilde Kirby, in any configuration, is the Lisa “Left Eye” Lopez of the group. She is a poet & performance artist responsible for the book Daisy & Catherine² (Auric Press, 2022). She has performed at Basilica Soundscape, The Poetry Project, & the Volksbuhne, amongst others. Recent work can be found on Poets dot org, Ethics, We Are In The Shop vol.3, & soon enough with Spiral Editions & Creative Writing Department. You can call her Aris, like Paris without the P.

Garrett Phelps was born in Phoenix, Arizona in 1990. His work has been published by various outlets on- and offline, including BOMB, The Brooklyn Rail, Black Sun Lit, The Poetry Project Newsletter, Action Books, and Fence. He lives in New York City.