The Toga Party

One morning James

awoke to find

his bed in the middle

of the street.

An appropriately formal

letter pinned to his head

said he'd been evicted.

Suddenly he saw

some problems with sleeping

in the nude.

Fashioning a toga

from a tired bedsheet,

he recalled a party

to which he'd once worn

something similar

under his clothes.

The night had taken

an awkward turn

when he forgot to remove

a layer and went home

with a psychology major.

James could not explain

his choice of underwear.

He hoped his landlord

would show more sympathy.

A relief, then,

that the man

answered his door in attire

revealing a proclivity

for roman trash culture.

James got his room back

at a discounted rate.

In it he discovered

a vat of grapes

and a rack of new garments,

and he never slept

naked again.

-the ambassador

Graffiti Animation

This is a short film called MUTO by a Latin American artist called Blu. I was shown this earlier this year by a friend, but had forgotten about it before tonight. Graphic media like nothing I've never seen. Enjoy.

untitled

You are

all creatures I do

not recognize,

and still I climb,

hands tied, up

a worn rope

to gaze inside a gut.

All I see

is aflame.

I have written

down my name

many times, each

memory is more

scrambled

and strange to me.

So we take

photographs of mirrors

and move in reverse.

Someone here is

powerless precisely

because we do not believe.

This is how it goes.

A god dies

every day.

I would dream

another but

I could not cause it

to behave.

I am

only a will,

a network I can't

create. An inactive

appetite

has brought me here

weakly, I make no

appointments or promises.

A voice inhabits us.

-the ambassador

Here I Lay It Out

Unable to say I am

a victim of circumstance,

I burnt my house down.

It was made of cards

anyhow. This is why

we balance a job

and a hobby so precariously.

I am invariably

wrong.

Watch the news

tonight. Wasn't that home

beautiful on fire? A location

primed for crime

and romance, just

don't ask how many

have lived there.

A story still does. I am

evidence incarnate. Heat has

licked me clean, though I do

resonate with memory. Here

I lay it out.

-the ambassador

Fright & Comfort

It has been years. At

slim twenty-two I have

known only so many. I

cannot cover a catastrophe

much. We will sing it again.

She bays her way into

a home, a refuge for

a recluse, or some. This

winter I will write a poem.

The edges have been lopped

off. I held the note up under

a light and trimmed it. An

unnecessary maneuver, but

the degree was such I'd sooner

scrape my fingertips than watch

the moon go down.

We will sing it again.

There is no consequence.

We will sing it again.

-the ambassador

Disassociative

He was looking

for complex answers

in all the wrong

places.

There are simple bodies

in the skies,

white harbingers

of a darker disguise:

a day to bring solace.

He brought his person

under bright lights, and I

looked on unharmed.

They are two people talking

at all times. A third, the

self, decides

on the sound.

There are complex bodies

underground.

-the ambassador

Progeny Song, Dreamt

I & my brood blaspheme.

A hungry son and I

wandered, a sundry toll was

kept apace by matheme.

He did not warn of wagging,

nor lagging of the soul;

a mind of time behind.

He should have kept it

simple. The genetic toil

to an end. For me, he is

still gliding; I must believe

it. In every instance

the eyes will be questioned,

subjects of a cruel & quiet

prince (a mind of time behind).

In this we see a structure, unnatural.

A constructed bending

of the beams of light.

In this we see a structure.

-the ambassador