THE SILHOUETTE CARDIGAN BRITTANY BAXTER
PLANT A DRIFTER BRITTANY BAXTER
In order to celebrate 50 years You have to make it through 38 There are signs pointing out the way to failure Pucker up and hold out your hand. Just try to get away Escape to Russia Write a novel idea When you grow up Plan to be a drifter Take the time to go way back. Rising to the top of the shitbowl Going to extremes to get that fake laugh
RISK ALL YOUR WORTH BRITTANY BAXTER
First “it is very important to know the cost of credit.” and “before you can be offered credit, you must be considered credit worthy.” and “lenders will ask basic questions about a person to judge whether a person is a good credit risk” i cut out their words and make them my own. “risk. a person and a person. can you judge the cost before you offer all you’re worth?”
FERAL DOGS DANCING NAKED BRITTANY BAXTER
Life, a constant blur of
black and white dream
people faces
Ripped up photographs
all in love with him one
and broken glass
way or another
distort the memories
easy manner, soft voice
Slow it all down
with the rumbling
A heartbeat
inflections
Separate secret hiding
They bring him soup
places.
And beds
Untouchable.
And blankets
He sings his little
And take his picture
untouchable song
He is kicking at rocks
“romantic lights for a
His fingers itch
seduction.
His body is a mess, in
Feral dogs have sex, but
tingles
I want to dance naked
He pleads for more time
with you.�
That time that felt like
Laughing for absolutely
eternity
no reason at all.
THE LOTTERY WINS BRITTANY BAXTER
We are like stones. But I can’t remember why. You stare at me, pleadingly brown eyes filling. you say all of the scripted things before making your exit. You kiss my hand twice and kiss my forehead in every dream that I have.
WE USED TO FIGHT BRITTANY BAXTER
everything is boring. all is courage. the mist proclaims the best of all fears. seek seeking sought life, wisdom, command. you need a clan. you need a tribe. you need a family. more or less a love affair. rejoice with the brilliant colours. without knowledge i cannot understand. without wander i cannot understand. i turn i turn. no such thing as whole. i will not be afraid to own this one life. what you are, road that leads to follow. something speaks so loudly that i cannot hear. It’s life. the bug. the windshield. in the end it’s not the end. say no. tell doubt truth. be mad. be able to read latin. running away is a disaster; a place for disbelief, who will help you? find it.
walk a mile in their shoes on the sides of your greener grass thirty six. thirty six. walk a mile to the greener lies. overwhelming strength to endure will be everything. and a hero to find the individual ordinary. find it. find it. in the end it’s not the end. rage in a pointed heart, look look look, point wish to be you. like lemons. like nonsense. a beanbag chair reshaped to personal prejudice. a telescope laugh, brain cells as an ingredient. count to twenty and take your shoes off. fantasy in living. the wrong end of life’s realities. the basis of your telescope laugh, complete in your shoes. compete on your toes. look look look. find it. find yourself on. and a hero to find the mile that wanders.
ACHING LIMBS REMEMBER WHEN WE USED TO BRITTANY BAXTER
Kidnapped from atop our
of secrets, life latent in so
trashing days, we ended
many silent objects. That
up here, where nothing
one lingering chance to
shall become of us again.
start again, washing ashore
Ours, the pursuit of total
on the bank of some
dematerialization, ten
fictional street, devoid of
paces from our last known
all lurking shadows. How
whereabouts. As we slowly
these limbs used to cling
migrate ever outward, the
to those limbs with such
heaving hands of colossal
desperation. My darlings.
machines gently till these
Shall we tramp through the
sacred burial grounds.
countryside, one last time?
The abandoned wind
We, the walled in virgins?
tugs at unfilled sockets.
We the perpetual forest
The only thing left to
haunts? Houses empty.
see: the palimpsest of
Land empty. Every tree
life, empty eye contact
cut down. A huge field of
with this stranger, that
stumps. Mouths opened
stranger. How they have
wide for the last hurrah,
searched so hungrily, so
but we don’t count on
haphazardly, for happiness,
being remembered. Oh our
so holy. Our cavities
aching limbs. Remember
contain endless amounts
when we used to.
THE SILHOUETTE CARDIGAN PROJECT JUMBLE POETRY / / MITCH BAXTER
Her perceptions of fascist
male should know. On my
leather and old cardigan
own, I made the apartment
especially worried me.
where I lived something
Always a terrible choice
great. Projects on paper
when worn together. As
that weren’t happening
an example of historically
were now squeezed out.
destructive behaviour, it
With a bar fitted in the
had me recoiling. That she
kitchen, I, being overly
screamed at my approach
strict, would prepare
wasn’t helping. Even
a snack of seaweed
my silhouette, always a
and other fruit, cooked
mainstay, was not pretty.
however, and eating,
Because she threw me,
toss a look at the self left
seat and waist, from the
hanging on. I jumped to
farm, my thoughts turned
new lengths of thinking,
to getting home and
yet knowing that the result
putting this boyfriend
wasn’t a second coming.
to sleep. I thought that
Have a seat - and you may
humming, not talking as
well ask of me, “if that isn’t
such, would happily soften
over, what else is new?”
the pressure, a fact any
SPAMUNICATIONS JUMBLE POETRY / / BRITTANY BAXTER
I don’t suppose we shall ever know. I don’t like the daily dispatch, you: a Manchester newspaper profess to be willing to do anything. But whom have we met already? Such military things are going on. with your pal and your matching hair. The time that I begged nothing and everything to encircle us in a perpetual compression of time. I was singing to the wrong. we shrug at the flames, And we ignore our early cremations Building little clearings in the forest. How old are we my dear? Not old enough. Too old. True, there was a time when I was very fond of you. But now I shudder while you shrug Who professes to be like flames in the forest?
CAME OUT WRONG BRITTANY BAXTER
trying to eat with cutlery That is much too big Is a problem that not enough people have addressed with enough thought. oh lost moments! oh darkness. These ears that listen so hard will never hear in quite the same way again. “You keep me caged in here 48 hours a day!” “Gina, Shut up.” peripheral vision In the end he will rise and stand above the dust. But for now I am molasses. eaten for dessert by little prairie girls and boys. And you are still within me, viral. My biggest regret is this: It all came out wrong. too silly, too meaningful, things weren’t actually silly or meaningful at all. This gets so itchy scratch at it with a hairbrush. Why do you do all my baking in one yellow mitt?
GETTING TO THE APART BRITTANY BAXTER
Epic destinies are discovered, hacked through this circular maze, labyrinthine. He says, “We are going to make it.” it feels so good to believe in something. but the hideous fake art was just an attempt to hide floor to ceiling cracks. face up The fairy gathered me into her arms to whisper “yes. We have time to grow old, but the air is full of our cries.” I repeat to myself that age old mantra: “if the knees do not stop bending you fall flat on your face.” we gave birth to big plans and ideas tearing knots out with broken fingers. what it came down to was this I made envelopes while he, with furrowed brow and breaking heart, Watched our love fall apart and die in the silence. now the stampedes of poets without motorcycles Are haunting my shadow.
MISCOLLECTION #3 BRITTANY BAXTER
I miss catching the cat that tried to escape every time a door was opened. I miss the rainbow of crates, stacked in your closet mine too borrowed from closed up sushi restaurants. scraps of paper strewn about in careful chaos our romance: candlelit dinners with wine in plastic cups walking on top of the barriers that separated us from them the highest heights that we climbed to caught in each others arms. I miss your hot breath on the back of my neck as we slept, so restlessly, this way that the golf course star theatre The bikes we chained up together The unfinished condos we baptized The clothes we shared, we tore The way I forgot about being poor and the world for just a little while But I don’t miss you at all.
HOLD YOU TIGHT HEAVY NIGHT BRITTANY BAXTER
While I was sleeping in the back of a van Covered in a blanket You chanted magic words over my fetal form to help me believe in myself again After you took me home that night, After you had held my convulsing body tight enough until I slept again, You went back to the party and, later, left with a boy Walking across a field your panties in one hand, his warm hand in your other, life, its beautiful desperation i will learn your secrets, so familiar Our wracking sobs Our aching groans. Our sleepless nights. Our unanswered questions. Today, pregnant with separate sighs
MISCOLLECTION #1 BRITTANY BAXTER
Lists of things to do Blowing off borrowed kitchen tables Every time he comes over He stares at the same fridge magnet and repeat She wants to hold him impossibly close, inside her ribs, But she is so afraid of needing Cigarettes, she says, I always want to want them I never want to need them. After much consideration, The flaws do not surface So she holds his hand for longer than usual and lets out The breath Expecting nothing but open anyway.
I NEVER MEANT TO BE MEAN BRITTANY BAXTER
“I want to be the person that you call At any hour, at five in the morning.”
This is not the first time that she has heard this line She almost takes him up on his offer, Just the once But for both of their sakes She calls her sister instead. It’s his singing that puts her off And the way he licks his lips Dying of thirst under the burning glare Of her frown
MISCOLLECTION #2 BRITTANY BAXTER
I am trying to hold so many things inside my head because feelings are meant to be felt not spared. Ours is the age of desperate love Clinging to each other through Apocalyptic tears Reading out loud from our Here and Now Storybooks And praying to every god we can think of. All the while, unborn are skipping all about Starting forest fires in our ashes. the plot Children will bury their parents Parents will bury their children And we’ll all die of broken hearts
JUST WATCH ME GO BRITTANY BAXTER
Within this golden hideout Eating food fit for the gods. What is it that is killing us, The silences or the tiredness? numb. You are better than all the other suitors because you don’t even try to hang on. You just let me go.
OUT THE DOOR BRITTANY BAXTER
out the door The plague follows me and I follow the plague. Down through the claustrophobic tunnel Part the zombies that tear at our delicate skin Thumbs typing messages that widowed queens should rail against Headlight blinking a lightshow off and on reveal the shadows of all the one armed men cowering behind stumps. wind chimes sing and for a moment we can all believe But hush. No one is calm tonight. No one slumbers naked without fear.
PACE YOURSELF BRITTANY BAXTER
Hindsight, a cruel lover, the impressions left on our skins From pillows I am not certain whether I was lying when I said not you. me. But for sure, i can feel it all slipping away now I have been eighteen and in love bravely holding back The inevitable But the passing of years brings a reluctance to put one’s self Through all that shit again I have been proposed to at least four times by now Cynicism, laughing, this phlegm choked sob we tear apart all that we built together, Our fragile and temporary cardboard castle, all we do is done. And yes, we the champions “you are my girl”, It was us who bowed to the pressures of this thing we tried to fight
SINCE I WAS A KID BRITTANY BAXTER
I’m tired of preaching now this worn out soap box No one can listen anyway ears mutated by the times I’m tired of trying to figure shit out It cannot be done. From my futon I speak now, Chain smoking cigarettes and trying not to feel loneliness and its aching cold In a mad panic, in a furious storm My brain generates solutions to the problem Conversations with ex-boyfriends tell me what I already knew. Baby, this is a time for family. I hope that a rich drunk will ask me to marry him tonight we can elope and he can hold my hand through all this how I still have no problem seeing myself as some kind of helpless victim when it suits ever since I was a kid i’ve known this is all just a dream that I am going to wake up from weeping.
SPITTING ON THE NAKED BRITTANY BAXTER
“and I’ll break all our babies before they happen, before they were”
a little in the dark and i’m wearing all black. i can break your heart so easily just you wait and see we will let the phone ring so that we can hear you’ve reached the beginning of the end so cinematically strange, this experience, i am hidden i am sleeping alone in my soul if i say to you it’s more of an artistic thing than a love thing no one else will know the depths of this cruelty i am a bad. a very slim. i come in a small size, i fit in your pocket i wrap around your neck wherever you go you will always feel me even though I will never touch you again letters sent anonymously
getting off on imagining the convulsing reactions you think this is so big, stop. pretend this is something at all. we are so wrong, so dark. Carefully slamming doors these eyes have encouraged new stereotypes everything is steeped in perpetual experience who tells me these things there is no until. there is no next time. there is no we will try again. mediocrity is as devastating as hell this box contains a flamingo. that box contains a bomb. it would appear that the choice is yours to make drinking wine all day and reading. you will never understand that life happens in a pocket of darkness and soundlessness. you want to devise meaning in this but you can’t i haven’t slept alone in years i haven’t forgiven anyone
how fun it is to remember the snapping of jaws around the jugular on the televisions we play old commercials we peacefully stare into the mirrors and applaud our empty souls. you are a tree growing on top you try to write me poetry Brushing your hair on the living room chair Looking out the south facing windows Counting the cherubs and the cherubim And this is it. All the days and the nights in between the bad ones. are those your socks. you mustn’t forget them. i sewed up the toe. just to make you keep them. how good it feels to be in love when. i have already forgotten that then.
I ALMOST WHIMPERED BRITTANY BAXTER
i almost whimpered when you left me this morning but then i remembered that we both like it best when i’m on top. so throw on your sweatpants and toss me a kiss your clothes, your room your hands, your heart. your breath, your heat, your smiles, your sighs you throw on your sweatpants and toss me a kiss when you leave for good its not me that you miss greasy hair, dead flowers remember me with shopping for panties. i am forgiveness no. not done anything wrong ask for for for direction ask for for for compulsion the thing.
when i am dancing very close to another imagine their confusion corpses are so very hard to hold up fluttering open with the worms exposed i extract myself this is the xxx. the thing. this is the long simultaneous wretchedness and euphoria without comfort turn into a phantom doubt to question to cry to lose beauty is not real. is not possible. is gone. replaced by these shivers may we believe in our if only. i deny. speaks logic with cruelty there is forever in nothing i cannot see forever in anything.
WE ARE CONFUSED BRITTANY BAXTER
we are confused by the juxtaposition of blue sunny skies and lovely chirping birds next to the gaping potholes trillions of freshly uncovered cigarette butts and so we bleed. Bled, mostly, more specifically so many near utopias out there full of the decisions we could have made. this fall, i forgot everything important and could only see the future. i scared the scary people we are the sleepyheads resonating in each other’s souls over and over and over again do you think we could at the end, hold hands peacefully, oh yes oh yes, and watch our lives played out as silent films? as possible as it sounds perhaps there is for a we streetlamps illuminating unadulterated white streets, socks with holes
a curved tree, an impossibly wrinkled man on a bed, on a couch with sisterly bodies pressed up against me we can never be close enough what’s wrong with loving rocks? they did and we died during the silences waiting in the wings with the agony of pure pleasure pulsing faithfully at our sides, waiting for the penultimate chorus, for the next to last refrain, and for the almost final Amen we are the snapping of a plastic bag caught in the highest branches of the tallest tree butterflies spray painted in bathroom stalls why do we put up such huge fences? everyone will be a passive participant in our conversation in the winter of my unconsciousness, I saw three enormous black trucks lined up behind them came a black hummer do you think this means something? For myself, i am sure they are the four horsemen
over there beyond the mountains where everything whispers late night rhymes just imagine the traffic jams that I cause why. why not. why do you ask. why do i need a reason. i do not need a good one. i have a good one. i am so thirsty for the random acts of playing i want fucking to run around with my arms and legs, moving so fast palavers with ghosts what a world...what a world. who would have thought that such a good girl would destroy my beautiful wickedness “what do we do?” she will ask. And he will look at her and with a sad smile say, “enjoy it” you can only bang your head against the wall so many times before you pass out
terms of emotional salvation too much. too much sleepy. too much lonely. too much anxious. too much of this terrible beautiful missing of you. spring is hateful here . i long for cherry blossoms and warm winds. i long for sunny mornings, the pitterpatter of rain. all indications of life only brown yellow straw. everything: tired and dried out. remains of what was wrung from hands tightly clasped the city is getting bigger, therefore dirtier. the dirtiness and grime watches us i fell once. try forgetting about it. i have felt the goosebumps on your arms the whispering murmurs of insane nothings
now the days are endless in that bittersweet summer kind of way all the boys and girls are weepy to explore. with you. these days. and always make out hair is plaited off to one side. barefoot brewing yogurt in the kitchen. guilty for all the fuck and all the zen, but that is holy. and this is holy raging like some kind of gorgeous prairie fire, a garbage pit consumed by spontaneous combustion. we read to each other and we have tears me: i have grey hair i am not particularly sure of anything. and this: especially not.
ODDLY GARBED, UNCONVENTIONALLY SHORN BRITTANY BAXTER
“The real something: undead To beget a son You aim, you take a soul Just like that and somewhere in the middle of all of this Susanne and alex got married”
You’re sitting next to these people you Thought were gods And you’re sitting next to them Eating grapes Do you feel that Emotional connectivity The hurse driving off a cliff While you smile and remember not too much the life and death our hope, love and existence old man wakes up and looks around bleary eyes crying behind the scene teardown characters all talking and taking their cigarette breaks pieces of the happy sad moments
a piano track in reverse all the ways that one can say this: I love you Just once To mean it Somewhere someone is crossing exisentialism off of a list of things to do Sunset, church? Three people yelling, standing on the edge of a tall building The collector, head down thinks single-minded commands at feet “I’m coming for those bottles.” Spliced with confusion a rage of directions Oddly garbed and unconventionally shorn Short poetic stories About the finest bowel movements ever experienced by man
THE CHOSEN FLAVOUR BRITTANY BAXTER
game of correspondence
Loving each other but
The shifting and
Still cannot curl up inside
absences created
of it
in a shared space
This historic site is a
holes left and filled by
garbage dump
you then me
The trash on these banks
This movement taking
Punctuating the
the mystery from the
perforation with a loud
world To my skull: but
Flat, nasal scream
this is only Circadian
Entertaining antiquated
Finding and fashioning
etiquette
the work
Unsettled wigs, portly
The work itself, saved
white men chortling
from various
A single fan churns the
States of discord and
sultry air
discard
Cardboard and candy as
the tearing down
you remark
and discarding once
About the weather
more
This is the chosen flavour
a mask you choose to
The constancy found in
wear
meticulous destruction
Fear of eternal loneliness
I GET IT IN MY CHEST BRITTANY BAXTER
Some people remember to call I won’t You said you would wait with me for the good to come Willingness Willingness in this situation to cry People doing it in the bedroom Watching me watching you in the mirror The movements of beautiful Drifting gracefully to the next pile What remains of all the passed over collection plates Afraid of the closeness and the coldness What these things mean when they are present And when they are not I know. Heavy. I get it in my chest He wraps me up inside with him And I keep thinking that these days will end But maybe instead they won’t
NOW NOW COME COME BRITTANY BAXTER
Can I do you now sir Your hands are grimy And all we want are the facts Give us a twirl are you married Are you sitting comfortably Are you going to pardon me As if I care I’ve supped alone tonight Doesn’t that make you want to spit Concentrated cacophony Is this the place Are you the man A funny thing happened to me on the way Was there something Hello. Its me Here’s to the next time We are again Hush. Keep it dark I can hear you I don’t wish to know that I forget my own name
I’m looking for someone to love, I’m not afraid to, I’ll read that again I had the whole country saying things like that Take my coat off I’m not stopping Let’s get on with it Light the blue torch paper Now, now, come, come Nobody tells nobody nothing Old ones, new ones, loved ones Neglected ones, you are awful She’s past it. She’ll have to go Roses grow on you smile please There’ll never be another. There’ll never be You were clever enough to spot my deliberate mistake Wake up, you at the back Where’ve you been, who’ve you been with What’ve you been doing and why You can hardly see the join, so use a stronger elastic
AN UNTITLED WORK BRITTANY BAXTER
Disturbed
Custom mirrors
Captured
Enveloped in gray
A sense of tranquility
A feel
White leather
So empty
Wool carpet
So full
Hanging onto the wall
Rectangles illuminating
A backdrop
Nearly colour-free scene
A sphere
All the things
An untitled work
that the others are
At the rear
treasuring
Circa 1960 porcelain vase
omit
Soft pillow
rare consistency
Sliding open
such sparseness
Reaching up
end table
From the moment you
canopy fabrics
arrive
tucked away
My body language
challenged
shifts and changes
cut
The simplicity Of virtually nothing Is everything Blend into one
QUICK SEAR SLOW SIMMER BRITTANY BAXTER
Velvet, at right
expansion and lust
Pleasure seeking lanterns
panting and thrusting in
A shared legacy
second hand paperback
A quick sear
bras
A slow simmer
take the handsomeness
The grand hotel
set it aside
Apothecary chests
the moments are
Leave intact
stripped
Watch now, my
making out seamless
chattering teeth
pants
counting blessings;
fitted. flexed.
wanting more
you can learn things
the thing. Because of
figured out
selfish. Because of greed
not figured out but
because of need
promised and broken
poets millionaires
you can learn to watch
revolutionaries
people and think
all posture and pose
detached
penning memories
what happened was. not
in the thickets and
now.
tangles of
come again,
well manicured lawns
Even slower
FACING ACCUSATIONS BRITTANY BAXTER
Build Eerie silence interrupting Slumber Wakened by total silence Seemingly knows pretty Seemingly knows plenty of time Camp robbing friends Snugly installed Huddled in the morning chill Wooden tables in washable ink Holy man begs alms for food Facing accusations
A BEAR IS CHASING YOU BRITTANY BAXTER
they didn’t come today
Seeping up through the
there’s nothing more for
arrows on the floor
us to do. Weakened Chase the pain
We left carefully placed
blood caught tight in jars
monuments
staring into visions
Had solemn burials for
red ink bills of health
the fallen leaves
We now are in the shit You screech Its me its me
And we wept
its me its me its me
Openly unabashedly
Ill give you twelve more seconds the ending comes the car accident Up ahead brakes slammed bodies fall violently nothing is funny any more It all comes rushing back The betrayal All that blood
DISHEVELED AND ON HOLD BRITTANY BAXTER
Disheveled and on hold The little effort it takes someone too much these days swept into place and pinned against the wall you are an accessory to cinematic beauty defy smoking makes you look tougher the scarring turning shades of grey with the trauma
CUNNING LINGUIST BRITTANY BAXTER
“for goodness sakes, don’t
fact. faked.
be so impolite”
epilogue fuck you
he was not a cunning linguist when we dated he was nice and everything he made plenty of speeches but, um, well fuck. why isn’t it sexy to insert a tampon he went down on me just the once at the end of our relationship when it was already too late say nothing talk behind my back criticize cling harder than ever
YOU MAKE ME SICK BRITTANY BAXTER
go home you big crybaby
your fucking mommy just
just go home to mommy
go home and fucking cry
just kill yourself you have
about it you sick puke
no friends no one loves
you fucking pile of shit
you just go home and cry
you are alone you are all
about it cry alone just go
fucking alone you have
home you wimp you ugly
no friends and no one
little crybaby why dont
likes you because you are
you just go home to your
a sick little shit a fucking
mommy just die why are
maggot you fucking
you alive go home and
shitface im going to beat
die crybaby god youre
the crap out of your
such a crybaby such
stupid fucking ugly face
a goddamn crybaby
im going to make you
you make me sick you
fucking scream does that
make me so goddamn
hurt you little crybaby
sick you little shit you
just go home and
little motherfucking
mommy will fucking kiss
shit crybaby crybaby
it all better you goddamn
does that hurt does that
little fuckshit you ugly
fucking hurt why dont
piece of fucking nothing
you go cry about it to
you make me sick.
BOILED BONES, NOISY GRINDING BRITTANY BAXTER
the holy the sanctified,
life is the silence
demanding again the
unfinished projects
blood sacrifice
half-done tasks
needles that sometimes
a crisis is.
glitter our daughters gave their lives I tried to. I was so tired but so help me god i couldn’t quit obligingly read like a shuffled deck of worn out cards terrible pain, hard to breathe mumble of thunder, darkness erases the land reach the dumps cavernous shed bursting boiled bones, noisy machinery grinding we confess we confess
GOOD AT WAITING STILL AS STONE BRITTANY BAXTER
Piece of string around his neck Tales under his arm For a long time he said nothing, Still as a stone And then, in a voice trembling with emotion, “Haven’t begun to try yet? That’s all I ever do. I would call you a sick freak, but you would take it as a compliment.” You wait because your parents taught you to wait, and you’re good at waiting, and you like to wait. Only when the whispering begins, does that smile slowly creep up onto your face. “You have hands. You do things like a man. And I am the darkness. I don’t need any light to look for a man.”
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