Conspiracy Poem, I’m at the wick of my life which means light me on fire, &, Bird Tax by Tiia Kelly
Conspiracy Poem
i read my favourite conspiracy theory
it is the one about the organisation
that did a selection of things to make the world
a teensy bit
worse nothing on the scale
of a global humanitarian crisis
just some very modest emotional discomfort
i read it out loud to myself in the shower
hone it
like steam between two thighs
pull it up in a safari tab
embroider the conspiracy
into my underwear’s waistband
i think conspiracy theorists are romantics by trade
they believe in things based only on circumstance
which is the most romantic thing i’ve ever heard
i think every conspiracy theory in history has contained a romantic subplot
my favourite is a wormhole
of romantic subplots
that all lead to one another —
sixty lovers squeezed
into one coat but instead of a coat
it is my embroidered underwear
what i mean is i am alive with romantic conspiracies
what i mean is
i have assembled them down my pants
where they are easier to believe i mean
only that i must do the work of being romantic
which is a trait that rises steady from the groin
i’m so human i’m so slutty on belief
scrawling on loins in hot ink
joining apps
for people
to conspire forever it’s like
everyone i meet is a new piece
of evidence it’s like a race
to see whose theory will be proven first
and then………. subsequently disproven
it’s like
the conspiracy gets bigger
and harder to contain
it descends over fields of children
the shadow of a blimp in front of the sun
the kids
all sweaty with collusion
asking
do myth blimps have blimp stations
and when do they leave them???
me sobbing
never and always and maybe
once you’re thirty???
even now
i am tending to my conspiracies with great ceremony
laying wreaths at their feet going shhh
don’t speak we’re celebrating the conspiracies today
manifesting my conspiracies
pants and all
visualising one big phallic
shooting the sun out of the sky
I’m at the wick of my life which means light me on fire
can’t you tell i bought an aromatherapy candle
this is where i begin: imported materials mingling
with pine—
my blind faith rotating in my pelvis
my teeth starting up between the rocks—
i’m reclaiming something or other & i didn’t even
know it god! even thinking
about it makes me feel it
behind my knees
there are so many contradictions i don’t
know How not to die. a half-formed thing
can become oxidized & set off a chain reaction:
an unflinching notion on the back
of your neck, the creaking of decay
finding your way through death in an UberPool
it feels so grand
to claim light as the absence
of a thing. my complete equivalence
swept where nothing can
touch it. the healthiest kind of repression:
a piece of technology i can mine out of me
i’m so hot breath
these days, laid to rest
in the stomach. a consequence
hurrying back to life
Bird Tax
I imagine we’re walking
down a street that could be
any street given we are
on it & people
paid taxes for it. I imagine
birds but not
too many as though
fewer birds make things
more elegant &
to have more birds
would detract from
the very nice time
we are having. I imagine
you are commending me
on the very nice street I
have picked although
the street doesn’t matter & to
be anywhere with you
is like a semi-bird-filled
tax-street on the corner
of the very nice
time I’ve imagined.
There’s a point I imagine
to being hypothetically
with you when I can’t be
with you in an
un-hypothetical way. I imagine
it is something
to do with
two different people on two
separate couches alone
& contemplating bird quantities. I imagine
it is something
that when it’s over we’re commending
one another for
the very nice time we’ve
been spending separately
together.
The point here
I imagine is hypothetical
or at least that
to find it would require a
separate endeavour. I imagine
that to find the point &
hold on to it would
convince me of its
permanence or that
I could hold it
un-hypothetically. I imagine
if the point and I
were hypothetical we
would be on a street
with no birds.
I imagine a street
which is a street of
our own making probably
because of
the taxes we paid. I imagine
the point is
we paid them together.
Executive Producers
Karolina Ristevski
Elliot Cameron
Daniel Henson
Sue White
