FRIENDS POEM
My dearest friends,
I need more click in my boots.
I need more shirts with buttons for their rolled up sleeves.
I need more vests and black ties so that
when you go crazy
either by drug or immaturity
and you go on and on and on about the universe
or yoga
or Zen Buddhism
or you start banging on the walls of a perfectly strange place
or when everybody that you know
starts to say that you’ve been possessed by something nasty
and that they don’t really want to be around you anymore
because every time you go out it’s a spectacle,
then at least I can still have my fashion.
Some new shirt in the mail
or a new pair of pants that say that
everything is gonna be alright
you’re gonna do great
you’re gonna be successful
there’s nothing to worry about
except for the fact that it’s 3 in the morning
and you just took even more magic mushrooms
and I can hear you yelling at the top of your lungs on the street
about when we were naked together
and you planted the words, “I’ll kill you” in between
two kisses, that pushed me across the bed
and to the floor, as far away from you as I could possibly get.
I just want the entire collection of Levi’s 510 super skinny jeans,
So that when all of you are gone, and I am gone,
I can make a whole other group of friends that wear
Levi’s 510 super skinny jeans.
*****
GABRIELLA
for Morteza Khakshoor
I picture you as a Jenny Saville painting
bloodied up in your brush strokes, your eyes are off
at a distance. I can make everything out
from a distance.
where your skin flushes red
and where your lips form highlights
in white paint. your face is worried.
your clothes are everywhere, the bed is everywhere
a fluorescent light bulb without a lampshade is casting
ugly shadows on everything,
everywhere
and as all of me is standing there in all of it
searching for your shirt, I am elated.
I see you, lying there on the bed,
still and unmoving,
referencing all tradition of painting the nude
*****
HOW TO WRITE A POEM
FIRST, WAKE UP
THEN, STAY UP LATE
WATCH FRENCH FILMS
PHOTOGRAPH CHURCHES
AND DRAW ANYTHING
DO IT YOURSELF, IN A NON D.I.Y. SENSE
STEP INTO THE SHOWER WITH ALL YR CLOTHES ON
MASTURBATE IN YR FRIEND’S BATHROOM,
WHILE EVERYONE ELSE IS IN THE OTHER
ROOM, TOGETHER
ORDER CHINESE FOOD
CALL OUT THE WINDOW
SIT DOWN AND HAVE A CUP OF COFFEE WITH
THE APOSTLES
GO TO SHITTY HOUSE PARTIES AND LOSE ALL NOSTALGIA
TRY TO WRITE A NOVEL
GIVE UP ON FICTION, WRITE POETRY
BUY A LOT OF WHISKEY ON A SUNDAY NIGHT
WRITE A LETTER TO YR FRIEND IN NEW YORK
FIGHT SOMEONE, JUST SO YOU’LL KNOW HOW TO FIGHT
AND WAIT TIL THE LAST POSSIBLE SECOND TO GET UP
AND GO TO THE BATHROOM, UNTIL THE
URGE TAKES YOU OVER
WRITE YOUR NAME ON A WALL,
JUST NOT YR OWN HOUSE
READ IN MY HEART I AM ALREADY GONE
BY JUSTIN TAYLOR
BUY NEW NOTEBOOKS, BUT NEVER FILL THEM UP
WRITE TYPEWRITER SOLOS
CROSS OUT A LINE
CROSS OUT EVERY LINE
NEVER GET DRUNK OUTSIDE YR OWN HOUSE
BUT IF YOU DO, ALWAYS BRING A PEN
RIDE PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION, JUST FOR THE STORIES
GO AS MUCH AS YOU CAN
AND ALWAYS GO ON YR NERVE
NEVER GET DRUNK THE NIGHT BEFORE YOU READ POETRY
BUT WHEN YOU DO FIGHT THE HANGOVER
DRAIN ALL BODILY FLUIDS
DIG DEEP HOLES
ROLL UP YR SLEEVES
POUR OUT EXCESS GASOLINE
STRIKE A MATCH,
WRECK YOURSELF
QUIT READNG THE BIBLE
QUIT READING THE BUDDHA
QUIT READING ENTIRELY,
EVEN POETRY
PUT DOWN YOUR BOOKS AND TAKE OFF SOMEONE’S CLOTHES
*****
ALEXANDER GIEHL is a sophomore at the Art Academy of Cincinnati.
