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Baffler Archives: Poems

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Spock’s Brain
is lost somewhere in the galaxy, stolen by the terrible androids of Omicron 9. Space aliens, dangerous sirens, libidinal and lust-crazy with weaponized utility bracelets.    (Screenplays of the 60s.)    Bugs Bunny—aka the Masked Marauder—doesn’t live in ...

Adriatic
1. What we mean is always on the other side. Aeneas to Italy, Diocletian to Dalmatia, endless ferrying, wine, wanderers, words.   2. It is like that in our town, trees lacey with new snow, the sun waiting. The book lies open on the table, poem, painted cover, body leaping ...

Be More
1. “Dead and gone,” you might think. But it’s not that simple.   Now the dead get jobs answering FAQs, like   “Is someone here?” and “Is anybody there?”   2. “Be more recognizable!” tweets Surveillance Inc.,   like we were all slightly out ...

Strategies
Governments vie on black markets for zero-day exploits.   Teen models rub brown lipstick under their eyes to achieve sleep-deprivation chic.   “Every so often people go through something where they get sick of beauty.”   *   Even thrill seekers are ...

Shake Test
Small rockets crash every day, at science fairs, in parking lots, at White Sands Missile Range where a grad student launches her own nervous breakdown. Scientists cry all the time. They cry in the clean room and the tears wet their masks, and they can’t blow their ...

Poem, Polemic
all like me not writing back to nobody. Pa say anybody, no mind who, address you with less than respect, you not to privilege with neither attention nor reply. same like I not speaking for those who have no voice. is not suppose we suppose to be telling story from God make Adam ...

Shakuntala
Maybe it come in the blood.   Poet child or Eastern labourer in me love magic names appellations to start spirits abracadabras open sesames.   I know I know this Shakuntala. But is wait I wait till memory serve her genius up conjurer with numbers miracle accuracies to ...

Husbands
My house, my bed, my husbands —Savages   O dream   I live in which I dream Whose dreams   I have and failing tried Not harming them to live inside Too often making   like a pet dog sudden- ly unfamiliar killing a wild rabbit en- raged for no reason ...

Poems for the Unemployed: ad1.doc
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Poems for the Unemployed: ap1.doc
[  ] blood runs green and the [     ] one i will let let me / i will let it run me good and green into its pockets until i don’t run at all / i will simply fall in / i am a whole entire [   ] but i can be yours for a small monthly fee [  ] it could all ...

At Lookout
February 28, 2022
Men’s knees convulse as if buckling  from the weight of music. This is not the Pegasus. This is San Francisco. The tenderness of evening  is lost in the afternoon. It’s Sunday, but still, those knees bend and buck like a crush  of newborn deer freshly dropped from the ...