Three Poems From Wylde J. Parsley
To My Student Who Dropped Out Three Weeks After the Incident
It’s a directive: empathize empathize empathizeempathizeempathize scrawled in my green
notebook with its TALK TO PLANTS, NOT COPS sticker on the cover. I runneth
over with trying. Run
myself over with it, ink run and run dry as I write it write it below lists of students I need
to reach out to, above
promises to that kid who called the cops on herself. who told me. told me
to call the cops on her.
I did. I called them. I did. I sat with her, them for hours I sat while obligatory how-to-
write-a-thesis
lessons slipped by, discrete emails cancelling class get outlook for iphone
under the table, notebook in bag, principles lying in wait. I can’t tell you what she said,
but after,
everything happened as if nothing happened:
theses, promises, emails, promises. Mostly, I’m afraid
there’s no safe place to keep the words that aren’t yours
Eve Learns About Lesbian Sex
when the world was old I was an ancient child I carried moss-covered hills on my back,
bearing some [other] unnamed weight, walking up [and away] loyal
animal, treacherous man—mysterious-like. I am not playing. I must become. stick tapping
shoulder, left right knighted-secret-garden-skeleton key, brassy-brass doorknob. LOCK IT.
this is Eden & I AM ADAM (o, & Eve & Snake & God) I am the God who
walked with Adam as a man and the one who didn’t I am the God who made animals as
companions before I made Eve I am the Adam of Yaldabaoth Creator and me in a tumbling
sea of silk I am Lilith and her Children even the saw-whet owl’s obnoxious little sext four
a.m. become I am become [& become & become] each transformation takes me further AWAY
FROM THE GARDEN. I never liked home, anyway, but that’s a story for another story.
Acta Deos Numquam Mortalia Fallunt
curled up with her on a stain glass floor nesting like vestigial
virgin quotation
marks cultic I chant
thank you for having a body thank you for
having a body thank you for my first
clear memory fire
and the creek behind
the bar where the wet cardboard created smoke like delphic
scrolls of ticker tape announcing a hurricane after the fact:
Mortal Actions Never Deceive Gods
well. there was Odysseus and Prometheus and
(demoted to tropical storm)
Sisyphus—
update: Mortal Actions Could in Theory Deceive Gods?
I suppose Prometheus got it in the end what with the birds intestines rock etc
& poor Sisyphus…
well. yes. poor Sisyphus. all his sins
mosaic-ed out in the flat glass of a religion he’s never heard of
update: Mortal Actions Sometimes Temporarily Deceive Gods
and what about half-gods
—Achilles Orpheus Perseus Helen yes Helen—
were the gods only half-
deceived, like my mom, who looks at me through
nineteenth-century glass, warped
and bubbled, while I plead sanity?
she accepts the lie,
but a lie it be. Odysseus
won. Odysseus returned. Odysseus wakes up screaming
and flailing in Penelope’s arms his gaze turns
her pupils to glass to sand to salt these are all the same thing—
I’ve just remembered—Prometheus
was a god, not a man. but you understand
my confusion he loved man more than god,
& fire more than man which would be true
of us all if we could just get some bodies but
flame & intestines are as close to being
as any of us are gonna get.
update: Divine Actions Sometimes Deceive Gods
I don’t want her
to think I’m crazy so let’s
workshop this: thank you for your warmth? thank you for your
skin? thank you for the pimples on your back and the gun
in your mouth we could share it your mouth and the gun
six o’clock news:
DIVINE FLASH FLOOD ACTUALLY JUST PISSED OLD MAN IN MASK – MORTALS
DISCOVER PRONOUNS AGAIN – GODS LAUGH –
A DOG TAG
HANGING –
IN THE MIRROR –
GLINTS IN ITS OWN –
REFLECTION –
ONE
FOR THE PAPERWORK
ONE
FOR THE BODY
EMERGENCY UPDATE:
Divine Actions Sometimes Deceive Gods in the Sense That All Action is Divine Action and in
the Sense That Some Moths Look Like Bark – More On This Soon
