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Baffler Archives: Poems

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Poem
September 02, 2025
Light burns the books of light. They hang a black wreath on the page, a door snowed shut.   Stars spaced like cries at night, the words of wind in fire’s ink, fill up the lungs’ black skies.   Eyes in the words shine back. The voice in letters like light in an ...

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September 02, 2025
“My body I give to my dear friend Doctor Southwood Smith to be disposed of in a manner hereinafter mentioned . . .” —from the will of Jeremy Bentham, 30th of May, 1832 Sam, I am in a box watching the centuries pass. There’s a round object on the floor between my ...

Mouse Song
September 02, 2025
After the dream of a white bed topped with a pool of water, where in that dream I took photos of the white bed & the water, look at the crushed flowers afloat in the water . . . that same night I dreamt I was a child again, I threw a fit, I rolled on the carpet of the ...

Fatigue Performance
September 02, 2025
Music held the middle part of summer   as she jump-roped the rain out of the sky.   We watched from the car, windows all the way down,   the clouds serious, maybe even a bit severe.   The air may be a risk for some people, the radio repeated.   The air ...

From Opera Fever
September 02, 2025
Darling, it was a single, unsmashed fish tank..   Well, it had the same effect as a lip scar..   Anyway, his voice was like four brandies in the tropics   I was on my best behavior that autumn…   A poem was pawing at the door..

Take a Picture It’ll Last Longer
The old world is dying and the new world is actually also concurrently dying; it’s not a good time. I heard they were able to laser off your tattoo of a ten-point spread; was there any discussion of keeping it and lasering you off instead? I’m just checking. I’m just ...

Loose Exegesis
  And how the pros sparkled! I thought I’d play this game best when playing my betters. Up close to the net, pivotless, I felt myself most alive when being slaughtered. Everyone saw the shame, how swiftly it came to its descendant. Dark heirs then cookies in a star tin. I ...

Dolphins
Princes, unready to rule France or anywhere else.   No, they are glossy, all-too-human marine mammals, unable to communicate with their captors, till the intrepid children set them free at the climax of the film.   Some wish they were whales, able to find their ...

From The Streamers
Let me be clear: As a matter of principle, we offer Bundle deals and console cross-play As if words had ever been so beautiful Lapping at the transpersonal dream The procedurally generated magnolias Encourage pollination by means of Your mind’s interpretive function A rich ...

Denzel
my mind is a barking dog named Denzel by a woman that has never cooked in her life but always has something to say about the stew to tomato paste ratio it’s always too much paste never enough stew, but alas, she always finishes the too much tomato paste stew only leaves a ...

Go Jump in a Snake Pit
March 31, 2025
You dirty sick pervert. Don’t you dare Eat my sherbet. Could you be less observant? I’d rather drink detergent. End all my estrangements! Make it rain antidepressants. You watch me like a television set. You tourniquet, hold on far too hard. Your bed is wet. Your logic is ...