S B F

if ever a conspiracy
needed
a schmucky
-looking guy

wizardly hair
soft features

is it possible
that
there is even
less
to him,
or is that the
clever thing

i don’t know
but
where
did
the doge go ?

© Emerys Watchel, 2023 All rights reserved.

did you remember that i hate to say goodbye

the only things
left
are the things i wished
i’d shared with you

&when i think about that
i think about this

&how we found it

independently

experienced it differently
from each other

&how we thought
we thought

we knew it at all

© Emerys Watchel, 2023 All rights reserved.

not you, too

i did this years ago out in REDACTED
when i had privacy. when i had more privacy than this

and a typewriter, and all of the sensory deprivation i could ever want.
i live in an apartment now. in a city.

thankfully i am on the ground floor of three storeys
there isn’t as much ruckus down here
the walls are thicker than the floors
ruckus, or its synonyms, or whatever you’d call it
i have one fewer side
to be bothered on.

i occupy the coveted number one spot
top of the buzzer list at the front door,
first of the mailboxes,
and right next to the laundry room.
this is a joke.

the laundry machines vibrate my bedroom.
i am buzzed most often because my button is first,
and nobody cares about first-floor noise complaints.

complaints which i have always been vocal about
to the point of scheduling appointments with the housing authority, oh yes,
and i have even advocated the removal of nasty tenants when i deemed it necessary
that’s me now, or it seems so,
after twelve-something years here.

the quieter i want to be, the noisier everything becomes.
or, is it that when my apartment is quiet
it just seems to echo
more loudly,
the natural noises of people living next to me?

i am ever at odds with this,
more sympathetic when they are amicable,
more suspicious when they are belligerent
i do not enjoy interpreting the intentions of others,
or occupying my mind,
and my time
with such vacuity

oh, and the this that i mentioned, well
the incident with the mouse was an exciting escape
from my otherwise
useless mental deployments.
i felt accelerated with fear
it pleased me actually. the fighting,
and the toying with it

unlike that house that kept me more than a decade ago
i will not easily forget feeling locked inside with their
scratching,
scratching in the walls, and their stink
cleaning up after them stealing into my food,
corpses, and traps, and hating them

no good came to that house after grandma died,
her sixteen-something cats euthanized
the rats knew it
they moved right in

only i was there
liberated to an island unto myself,
and miserable with their constant company.
moving should have been a blessing,
but it has all been so much worse

“this will kill you,”
He said,
& finally I have finished pondering

© Emerys Watchel, 2023 All rights reserved.

the day i had to chase a mouse

it was just like any other day
that
was the insidious thing
everything was so

ubiquitous.
not the best way to describe
it, i know, but
there it is

and there i sat on my living
room
floor
because the couch
made my back hurt
as it does
in a precise way a person
who suffers from chronic pain
knows

for me, it is all lower
back, but the floor lets me
stretch

my legs
which alleviates
,anyway

the mouse,
a devilishly quick bit of
shadow
and fluffy little else

i could only discern
a front end
when it moved about

i second guessed my first glance
from the periphery
as i was occupied

with television

from which i immediately
stood
,and said aloud
“what the fuck was that ?”

i was alone. there are a few people
that know me enough
to know
that this is normal

just not the mouse
&
there i stood
&
there it scurried
wickedly advancing toward my rooms
behind

a register
and dark as fuck and how long since
i’ve
been back there
& what to do( ?

get a broom !

and now it’s me
the mouse
the wall
,and the way out

patio. yes.
but i closed the patio door with the mouse inside
and only now have realized this

it must have slipped in with me
before
i got comfortable
and sat down

that evil little fucker
hid
in my curtains
listening to me
get slowly

settled

before he hatched his devious plan
to
i don’t know what
but he wasn’t getting past my broom
for damned sure

and i coaxed him eventually

well,
i banged the broom against the wall
and spoke to its character
horribly

until it was back toward the curtains

but the door was still shut
and the mouse angrily charged
and hissed

but i thought better of it
&
sneaked out of the house
& around the front to the patio
& opened it
and back around to my door
my rooms and my curtains
looking for it

now with the door open
and the smell of night air
cooly coming in

i was so sure that mouse
would
have it and be done

but the fucker didn’t( !

he got
c o z y

by my livingroom’s baseboard heater
and couldn’t be asked

and believe me, i banged
and yelped a little bit
at the thought
of mice
in walls
and their scratching
and more terribly

of losing sight of that mouse

for i will not suffer vermin
not
for all the cute baby rabbits
will i keep a rodent
in my house

&
how does it end ?
well,
imagine a persistent eccentric
wielding BROOM

at a cantankerous mouse
that eventually gave up

he
took the patio air,
and fucked off

that evil little shit

taught me a thing
about minding that damned door

© Emerys Watchel, 2023 All rights reserved.

when we go out

it was always raining
&no it wasnt

with the fan
on
when the heat gets up
like everywhere is a parkinglot

in
July

&when its September
its not always better

but you’ll say
it was always raining”

&no
it wasnt

© Emerys Watchel, 2022 All rights reserved.

seven

&so
there it is
at the end

the evening

the lists
of all the things

organized
from greatest to least
always
,greatest to least

pacing
&fussing while i pace
all

eyebrows and mouthsounds
for you
i give passionate

a skin

to walk ideas

© Emerys Watchel, 2022 All rights reserved.

that thing we made

remember?) the lengths we’d go
to hide it. burning dried
vegetable skins, and never
being without incense

melting the remaining wax
of many candles together with that
dried vegetable potpourri

provided an interesting result

the new mixture seemed to ignite
easily
and without a stifling, or smothering
would stay lit

Well,
the night of the earthenware fireball
was an event I’d scarcely believe
had we not made from those
ready materials

our
one experimental proof

& yes. this is only so that it may be remembered,
and indeed
imagined

,M

© Emerys Watchel, 2022 All rights reserved.

Sentences

what i meant to say
was, well
being that you were rushing

out the door
and
as i was articulating this
in the hurried

goodmorning,

goodbye

i said
nothing at all and smiled

oh,
it was just
that

i agree with you about something
that isn’t really relevant

anymore

and wasn’t terribly
to begin with

, dear

© Emerys Watchel, 2022 All rights reserved.

about doorways

the thing about doorways
,or __le rendez-vous __is&oh, but
nobody ever
____meets
___ in doorways (! that
_____is
_____a
_____cinema
_________creation

an
intent to frame light
only
suggesting fragility

no different to
a jacket collar pulled up
against the rain
& situationally absent taxicabs
ah
c’est être

but there are balconysbalconys
& men
_____with latin hearts

promise moons to women
if one would perhaps be superficially
resistant to the
eventual
___prendre des attitudes
,but

that wasn’t what you asked me

© Emerys Watchel, 2021 All rights reserved.

rapt

_______________think(!

how long since last time
__pulled dandelion petals

dreamed a known-me
___as a lover knows&

captured clouds
for ___ amusement

when now abrupt&conjured
_storms a
________sihlouette
__stands at the portal

& i in sanctuary offer
simultaneous
____________default

© Emerys Watchel, 2021 All rights reserved.

addendum

at the end of this
I
in my fashion)typically
________________send
you off with a light
bit
of positiveSome-
____________thing

__right, well tonight i’d
_________prefer
______an expletive
stuck perfectly atop this
_____plumpudding
Ah,

yes
___&now that we’ve
addressed the elephant

might we eat our weight of
__differently organic

ideologies
,&pass the salt,

dear

© Emerys Watchel, 2021 All rights reserved.

heartbrokenthings

whonow
for all appearances
a
man
trying through adult psychology
a
remember self(whenchild
identifying with
_____________ with non-parental role-
model processes
all
cartoons)?
, or ,or
movie
makebelieve
&
imitated literature self’s
what was the story
the fable
eternally retold
&
behaviourally reinforced(?
&
will
mutates(as it does
cognitive reiteration

“a truthy reality overlaid
with perception biases…”

Oh,
& yes yes
Kermit the frog me imagined
banjo’s, sex and rebellion

© Emerys Watchel, 2021 All rights reserved.

M,

when it was dark
but by our small light
,roisin
i
sat on that disgusting floor
with
you

&
loved
as you did
a song that seemed
magical
here(!

is where the car goes
right next to the big
Redbox
on the gravelly

& t h i s

a snippet of grass
Here
the sun warms
earthworms
and one
spr
___inklerwet
,
railing

© Emerys Watchel, 2021 All rights reserved.

hexes

balconywide

breeze shapes
anonymous
sun
s
_ets.a)low vitriol color
redding

thoughts of you
at last(!
a
wend
is happening
liebe,
these oldefeet

,…still(

knowing the way

in halflight
and moonlight

here) ,

“wie adam und eva

© Emerys Watchel, 2021 All rights reserved.

hands

i look at them
when
i wash
them (to me they seem
small
,or tense((

they hold the vegetables
like this
& that
when
i chop salad, or twist
a
winecork
at times they seem large

,or heavy
only
when i am

with
clumsy&
you

© Emerys Watchel, 2021 All rights reserved.

after

almost two

it is always
at moments of

decision

where i can see
(me)there
struggling, or

gleaming
in that known
horizon
,i

pause&even for myself
cannot
take
a
step
___&stare

,dumly

© Emerys Watchel, 2021 All rights reserved.

Magnetar

the eventual me
is destroyed

before arrival, I
removed of every
pearled
corner
and spiders webs lay

thinly
only the driest
to sup on

Dust
and prophecies

© Emerys Watchel, 2021 All rights reserved.

nurture

what to be added
more(?
to the mixture
we

have the parts
of illness

curious meats
&clay
alive with warm
_pulsations

cranial electricity, alight
&vital, ah

but it is not yet
a man
without insensate
sexuality

&will
by eventual process
of
his desires

dream
, blunt
(to be precise)

villainy

© Emerys Watchel, 2021 All rights reserved.

Alice

appetite was my betrayer” could
describe in epitaph
life, as lived as
Mine
for believed ever, I
that in excess One
approaches divinity

removed of Self
destroyed by Time

& of these persecuted flesh
& of these limitations to ambition
& of these
everything learned
was not taught, rather

eaten
& these
a Wonderland emboweled

© Emerys Watchel, 2021 All rights reserved.

fear

it is a heartbeat
an episode of
intense self-scrutiny

take away the monster
the context,the

accumulated ephemera that arouses
gone
the storm the dark
the paranoia
the
& have it

breathing sped
heightened senses
&a heart

beating
in the pit of (my) chest

weak
irregular
product of modern survival

© Emerys Watchel, 2021 All rights reserved.

a planet without

i want a better
world
but i
can’t be bothered
with the expense

there are humans
more ably suited
to the task
of problems

whichiswhy
poets
are not selected
for
martian colonies

© Emerys Watchel, 2020 All rights reserved.

write

don’t think
about skill
just
get
the words out

i know, i know,”

i say
dreaming

© Emerys Watchel, 2020 All rights reserved.

vow

this is a letting go

a portent
:artifact,
created with promise
a wish
now
only
a
prayer
a susceptible
a
fragile

care for it

realize a future free

© Emerys Watchel, 2020 All rights reserved.

your Somebody

my mother tells me
love
but, confesses
not to understand my thinking
“its all right,” i tell her
making a joke
and laughing at my own joke

she has made this confession
often enough
that it has become a part
of our narrative
this is why
(i think)
i felt bad
when last she visited&
set

my house
in order

© Emerys Watchel, 2020 All rights reserved.

an olive branch

you
hide the cigarettes
(probably just as well)
but,
then
react to my searchings
with impatience

this begins the
imagining
of an unconscious desire
to be
included

© Emerys Watchel, 2020 All rights reserved.

colour

!such informations
from the associated
as texture
,smell
& taste are
visceral
foods pleasurable to the organs
what

is not expected
?metallic
u
_n
__d
_e
r
the tongue&numbness
when the ritual of touch
reveals a hollow
featureless
&taste too gives
only
the

indication of a
sensory
this
(i believe) is somewhere near

the surface,
nearer

& questioning trust

© Emerys Watchel, 2020 All rights reserved.

parkingspaces

with the curtains pulled down
the vibrations&
the machinery sounds
might easily
be just
a complicated architecture
of organs
& tissue
that has swallowed-up
a community
of plywood dependent
animals

& the rattle&bump shakes
_the couch
_the floorboards
& chemical smells fumigate
every sq.foot
with the presences of
important looking vehicles

this seems an exaggerated exchange

for clean
visible

parking spaces

© Emerys Watchel, 2020 All rights reserved.

a review

i would like to
apply myself(oh, yes) to developing
an identifyable misunderstanding
a
prickly personality
a drama-artist
pseudoanalytically re-
interpreting established text
,the kind of person

that others could look at and say
“Hey,
everybody look
there’s so-and-so,
i know him.” or,
“he enthusiastically
such-and-such.”
but
just
what
in Hell

am i going to do(?

© Emerys Watchel, 2020 All rights reserved.

Strawman

i think mostly never
that strawman should have been given

brains
for he knew quite well
that he was flammable
ergo, was self-aware

his ought to have been courage,
courage to brave
the inevitable pyre

© Emerys Watchel, 2020 All rights reserved.

story

it all falls open
,you see(?
even this, a page empty
is filled

a trick mistaken for
magic
but there is no true creation
it is as nothing
from nothing

here you are
because you are searching
&I am here because
a
you
exists to find me

un-molded clay taking
shape
equal to the sum

of your heart

© Emerys Watchel, 2020 All rights reserved.

Me and Everyone else

there aren’t enough hours in a day
for the amount
of sleep
i want

i don’t like schedules
why must i

wear socks without holes
trim my beard
wash my face
brush my teeth three times a day
use medicated acne creams
shake hands
be polite
say yes when the truth is no, or
no when the truth is yes

or remain silent when i have nothing nice
to say

observe (etcetera) etiquette

i would rather burp when i’m full
fart when i’m gassy
&swear
at ____ rotten children

© Emerys Watchel, 2020 All rights reserved.

redrum

the refrigerator is alive
with
biological smells

when the green
was
greening
grew there in silent
snatches
a thought inbetween a dreaming

Giants.
what about the defeat
&the
inevitable(?

but there will be many
newvictories
before

the decrepit moss becomes
un-bearable

© Emerys Watchel, 2020 All rights reserved.

filth

let see,
let word follow word
let end let

begin

“well filth, do what you do
to become beautiful
that
is your cycle towards luminary
into brilliance

discarding the self as “ism”
,&idea
a stitch to stem a floodwaters
crash&surrender
to the melanchollies

reward yourself by becoming
the picture of confident
return

© Emerys Watchel, 2020 All rights reserved.

spaced public

there is&the
weatherman said pleasant things
describing cloudforms

the park that day
remember
alive, with
__________buzzy bees

it was sad to hear
that girl was raped
by the waterfall
&
the old people
didn’t come around much
after
&
the pastor put more vinegar, &animation
in his sermon
that sunday

but people are not weather
which was

warm

© Emerys Watchel, 2020 All rights reserved.

#&!+

right foot in a looking glass
left foot in a bucket
dragging help

disconnected Me&dressed-up
luggage
hurry up hurry up

one more time to set these pieces
running
& a message in the sand

© Emerys Watchel, 2020 All rights reserved.

lie

the truth about privacy
is
that it is desired
by intimately curious
(in this case) la femme
a translation is proposed
to wit
for the item:Secrets,
1 token access pending performance review
providing(ofc)vulnerability is not man-handled

though

i have a growing suspicion that she w a n t s
her secret laid bare
“isn’t that why you’re here(?
the grandeur, the
being a more-impossible constellation
of parts(… ”
anonymous contribution to
&oh, the littlest bit
of spectacle(?”

this is the waited for

ask me
____this,
i love you
____push me

____make me feel
deniable

completely and freely continue to
&

© Emerys Watchel, 2020 All rights reserved.

books, and other smells

there was a not so long ago, i
would never have believed in
touch-screens

to think! all of this was a living
once rememberthat when you’re
thumbing between jackets

trees is the eventuality we are
becoming — – vegetable&natural
hard with words

&stories every untold will be
painted on the walls of a rediscovered
history understood

&librarieslibrarieslibraries
where)men with groomed&wild looks, sit
elbow to elbow

in the stacks with time

© Emerys Watchel, 2020 All rights reserved.

water for Dinosaurs

educated in echo chambers
the envy
of political café hats
speaking up-to-the-minute journalism factuals
you
whom i despise
for possessing energetic reserves&
functional world-interest
active on social platforms
quoting capitol affairs fr/a litany of names

seems like an anger unrequited
&how dare i characterize thin-skin
&rude to confuse attention w/ ignorance
from my irrelevant station raised
on superstitious magic
back-woods hollisticism a
prolific meat-eater encouraged to dream utopias

what have i but criticisms
and pocketfuls of foreign esoteric currency(?

© Emerys Watchel, 2020 All rights reserved.

the process

caught by the middle-distance
a mote(? a memory

does dust remember

thinking’s pained expression)a thought!
roaming the pejorative
– – – hunting sinewy context

all eyebrows&something define-ably extraneous

then the madness of jumping apropos
arrives; a poet

© Emerys Watchel, 2020 All rights reserved.

whoever said love is letting go

that we were ever here
is a wonder

time
has a way of being close
and far
i know the feeling
but,

i don’t think these shirts will fit
you

anymore

© Emerys Watchel, 2020 All rights reserved.

eyes

thats when in comes the

darkness&teacandle
lit
– – this one is mineyours
might be different
, but

mine
has a low quiet flame close
to the floor in
—s
—h
—-a
—-d
—o
–w
circle all&
ceiling
above
,
somewhere in the middle between
floor and ceiling middle is
-me

seeing in the flicker feeling light

rise up nude legs&disappear eyes
what just was

forgotten doing remembered looking for

here trapping(> a mouth moves
& teeth&teeth
& —

,curl
in that low humming smile

© Emerys Watchel, 2020 All rights reserved.

giv

Friday is
a too-short kiss

before a too-short sleep&the walls begin

all of my insides pushing through
pouring down
to puddle
hope
– – to drip on you
when
Sunday’s crown
is
up-side-down(
&all the Jitterbug gives is legs
“&Me,
more me than ive been,

trying to push
my face back in

© Emerys Watchel, 2020 All rights reserved.

pond

you wanted me i think not
to panic
listening to your tone
how could, so calm
you(? or was it
for my sake
in spite of yourself
equally
alive
with anxious vibrations
surface deep

© Emerys Watchel, 2020 All rights reserved.

a) Graffiti of Polite Society

inwhich identity is
required to match threatened idea of&
self an
effective consumer archetype caricature

mind imagines ambition as constant
or) not typical institution determined :
married employed voting taxpayer graduate
or) anomalous niche fringes :
part-time loner pedestrian drug-addict deliquent

in reality none of this is person
a dependable consistent
anchor
She makes of His wandering an island
teaches He to settle in Her nesting
&there are lawnmower leaf-rake shedShedSheds&
how many obligatory kindnesses, really(?

romantic tablesetting&converse
equitably
violences abate moments&tv trays wrinkle
softness a wither

ofwhich sensitive is
suspect&exhibit in awkward sexual judgement
combative regarding authority illfit to reason
cocksure, immortal

expediently dissolved
ultimately individual

© Emerys Watchel, 2020 All rights reserved.

deeper than a dream within a dream

an idea of ourselves
interpreted
by the reflections of other ideas

Poe could have said

consciousness creates reality, though not freely
it is guided by the realities
of other consciousnesses

which should mean that this whole thing
could be undone
if one could imagine a here, without
the idea of here inhabiting it

with all
that we see, or seem

© Emerys Watchel, 2020 All rights reserved.

OctoberRed

come back to me
breathing mountains in
the skin of raindrops
&
those welcoming sunset-reds

let, from their peaks, the waters
and rivers, come
as grass beneath the toes
&bees,bees, fidgeting the busy flowers

let fall your hair about my face
as a mist, laboured
with the heavy scent of summer

rake my branches
&
empty to again be filled with
color&the sounds of loving

you

© Emerys Watchel, 2020 All rights reserved.

Trieb

silly in the trifles
gardening a tender skin
press into the open&
fumble out the words, saying
immaculate, precise
clever(
things)

speaking hands holding eyes
everything is kisses&
all the miles travelled, just
to be so many inches from
fewer&fewer answers to
questions about feeling
to
know(
)she knows

in all the many movements
arranging herself completely&
all the muscles possible
to pluck the silly grown
pulled upon the doors
that open with a secret
,only,
she
gives him

© Emerys Watchel, 2020 All rights reserved.

unlikely Hero

idea-saturated economies

overwhelmed internal mechanism

capricious emotional response
i think i’m ready
to disappear

seriously dreaming

where was i going
to be
in all of this(?

too much
&battling that wagered statement
:a “giving up”

knowing i will rise again to kill
the despot, feed him&
twart the revolitionary.This

is My tail-chasing circle

© Emerys Watchel, 2020 All rights reserved.

Something borrowed

by whichever avenues
met&
in that expense,extravagant
;a compromise
went not a frugal reason

lifted beyond the means of reality
by a romance felt
&now all are as strangers
to that singular
,interior space

asking that poor of poor
might charity, well

take this lozenge
what ill it will heal
beggar
& be bothersome about its
meaning

“is it not given freely’?(
…)what difference actual generosity
“were you not taken by need,
so asked”)?

it is no filthier now

than we are takers

© Emerys Watchel, 2020 All rights reserved.

Pioneer

depending on need
the wilderness
moves

permitting such geometries
as our
immalleable right-angle
approach

© Emerys Watchel, 2020 All rights reserved.

from the parapet

in defense of misfortune
argue obvious
foundations of sand

do this; make ready
the sacrifice
&defend

-there will be nothing
spoken of victory in
either event

a gainless memorial
of choice holding a doorway

© Emerys Watchel, 2020 All rights reserved.

formulae for time

the worst of it
is the going, after
&a transplant
retain’d memories with
of
left-behind limbs

testament to struggle

find me now this vial!
slender trapping
to dispel
&
be otherwise dispossessed
externality

not withering, will be
or a fading such
&
lengthening of night
no.

it will be we”
sat in the drum
upbraiding racket

caught by the cookie-jar
insane-ly
&
irrelevant
going before

© Emerys Watchel, 2019 All rights reserved.

mulberry bushes

a piece of it gets inside
&You are a believer
making gestures for sentiments
following collision

)tender parts heal
as well as intentions, yet
“sometimes things happen for a reason(
&if
are altered, Not ended
what comes then of
that
person exchanged

what of collisions romantic
the same, non? there is wreckage
tendernesses
e n d i n g s

but this
is not tragic
it is
explained

everyone, become platonic fishermen! with
their descriptions
&
cynical. you will find it
where you left it waiting
for
a
decision
who, what
are, is a possession does
not need to belong, it is
&
as its nature; a cage
to a finale
commensurate ash hoped
to be more than measurable distinction
somehow
just a bit of the Great Wisdom

ours
&
ours

© Emerys Watchel, 2019 All rights reserved.

darko

save it(…)Summer’s
gone
&baked as bread sweet-
fresh
while able hands a ravening

fill jars with
earth

you’ll want a little
for your tooth
when
time walking-backwards

catches
those

long ears

© Emerys Watchel, 2019 All rights reserved.

entre nous

let us of(then)
-the touching ;speak
i
would name the tips
&reaching want a curiosity
O, nothing is unknown
that is
anticipated

to name(then)what
predatorial advances(?
a daring to creep innocent
per-chances,

speak one “yes,
-one yes.remove&awkwardly
into a different pleasure
grip
for all what torture kept
had eaten out the heart

of it
&
cease
rythm slows to stealing

each from each

© Emerys Watchel, 2019 All rights reserved.

l’amour

let’s
with nothing
start

thinning-out, or
spreading

apart
there within a(vaporous
,perhaps,
skin
(?
one ghostly left-behind
of a
living

start
with nothing,
let’s
&grow&grow

as birth plus(+)time suggests

© Emerys Watchel, 2019 All rights reserved.

there

all of that existence, swollen sure&
gone
a balloon’s popping

heaven and the heart feels
light
for all what swimming did
on the edges feather lifted
)’s
air and the kissings
her
said”all that’s gold is green

when the new is newing
&
true
spare us absence,he said

there&here”

© Emerys Watchel, 2019 All rights reserved.

scotopia

the hours when shadow sets its keening
&setting bends the redding
lowering
light

let come heavy-headed necks of flowers
nodding a steady blaining,inward
eyes
crushed petals

welcome noxious slumber

a stranger into the midden
of each inter-
solitarium

to calibrate the machinery of
time

© Emerys Watchel, 2019 All rights reserved.

repeat

with a swiftness&
a movement
cast
aside the vessel, breathe
in-
to
form. liquid interior/”the,”
is
it-self a closenessofSound
full
in the ears

expirating lung
controlled slow
&
contemplative meditation

candle doused to be relit
with

© Emerys Watchel, 2019 All rights reserved.

pour vous

cannot force the instrument, i
to my will -there is
an agitator must event the process)this
happens, can and does

to the words then&arranging
with purpose

a calligraphy

© Emerys Watchel, 2019 All rights reserved.

spider

try
let fear guide
each moment

this despicable hunger patiently
waits

mine
eventually

© Emerys Watchel, 2019 All rights reserved.

remember

i thought about trifling some
romantical flippancy -a moment ripe
when gentler tones
do not abide this brutal present-tense

what a fist takes of touch
differently(the anxiety of being lost
or silenced by
that frenzying need to be first, be

it is not
an evening slow
when summer simmers low,and the clouds abide
a wide and starlit sky
the insects all

bring forth the firefly
)though, that is close

© Emerys Watchel, 2019 All rights reserved.

oubliette

it(has)been since Mar 1st/10
&i will nvr4get
the countryside
tht
Old House
(probably condemned now
the ghosts that i had
met there
heart+mind open beneath an
in-pouring night

it’s funny – now
surrounded by so many
yet
feeling alone in a full

room

the dense ruckus ofwhich makes
a silence
ofitsown

© Emerys Watchel, 2019 All rights reserved.

out

out in to it all
thinly float

see for yourself,
words
spelled on a dream
‘s shore

“let it go

a lie is all you keep
this, and this&nothing

follow me

soon the common-kind
will you endure

le sacre du

© Emerys Watchel, 2019 All rights reserved.

ee cummings

and so he walked the streets
falling in love with the people
that he met

this is a remembering self
a passionate tolerance

being shaped by and shaping
consider any witness to experience
perhaps it was the flower in her hair
made ironic
by

a tendency toward nudity

and so he mused

a so-delicately described admiration
masking
the horror beneath
where the audience finds
a truth about what is imagined

there are no secrets

© Emerys Watchel, 2019 All rights reserved.

small minutes

somewhere in MeSpace,I
am a fumbling yarnball
trying
truly
or,
telling self such stories
convincing a

oh, there are dependencies
towhich i can’t relate
herenow noose-tying.right?)
but a surrendering

more rewarding more
difficult

to fall inside
let go. grab hold

once again

pain
is an effort of living. i tell
theseselves, or
emotions are the effort of pain
keep simple what is
&breathebreathe.breathe

either changes not the gossamer
of budding flowers

© Emerys Watchel, 2019 All rights reserved.

wallflower

walls vibrate with the rhythm
of a wave
eating a constant shore

stripped of the memory of
trees )the in-blown things attract
a fringework of windshape

here:no green snaps&shoots
of idea – only a
percussive drumskin of sky ceiling

echo
manymouthed sounds of shape
&
terrible
terrible
) )people-like things

© Emerys Watchel, 2019 All rights reserved.

i want to believe

what if i differently did today
taking serenity
learned from avatars&
found actually

a blueskySelf out
would the whims have of it(?
a “me, in the Greengreen

playing shoes

© Emerys Watchel, 2019 All rights reserved.

catharsis

wreckage is stories
:a collection of&
mangled into unfinished
snips
arranged,shattered reattached

now mass unrecognizable
from origin

the sore edges sting
forever
forever until
a compression gooily lumps the former
to a new digestible

by whichever can adopt
absorb

re-purpose

© Emerys Watchel, 2019 All rights reserved.

beauty is

a crafty smile contours
hips, melty-smooth
thighs

sculpture érotique
yet allofthis(is)indelicate as fists
and as senseless
without

actual inhabited personality

© Emerys Watchel, 2019 All rights reserved.

triumph

every odyssey begins with
an idea of Self; golden’d in final aquisition
of that so-desired object

spurred by curiosity’s guile,
and rudderless whim, or bitten
by pangs of longing

,or either; adventure’s
thrust upon the unwilling, or contented
to a folly of mischief

in either event a prevailing thought
will emerge
that of home, or of glory

it is not God(or Gods)that reward
this tenacity

it is with tenebral persistence that we
shape dream out of failure

© Emerys Watchel, 2019 All rights reserved.

giddying little sorrow

for any of this(these)to be
more
than just impermanence
onedesire must, above all others glow
more
brilliantly

That! the light by which we guide
our instrument
That! future to which we cast
our(near&wanting)-selves

for fantasy be.made.real
(more)
This! or less;that vessels girded
with semi-precious wishes, only

and minor victories of chance-value
-a lusterless trinket
),be

© Emerys Watchel, 2019 All rights reserved.

heart

she said”you arewhat you
are.” to a stunned, i
well
if this is true then every-
thing.every fought-for
refused for, insisted on(lengthened tooth&
&wordsexchangedinanger(instantly-grayed for
defending
thing, a:

forgettable transform
of clumsy origami, or

easily now so distant
looking upon

ignorant curls of dust
remembered differently&
by no one

© Emerys Watchel, 2019 All rights reserved.

Joust

seems a prize for all
the grooming
x’s & o’s.Her.
wants a vacancy occupied.i
.(impeccably intentioned) totter
at the plummet
hamstrung by antiquated(possibly)not
-ions
whether ventured or not nothing is
something

© Emerys Watchel, 2019 All rights reserved.

Fleisch

eclipsed by the consuming
waters
the once proud seafarer submits
to eternal
inevitability

endowed
by the hands that made her
with every enchantment, and superstition
in foreknowing the navigable mysterious
ahead and on all sides

by the belief in her radiance, guided
and fell

fodder for invaders

© Emerys Watchel, 2019 All rights reserved.

Cormorant

seizing upon hunted
delighting in the(e
devoured
belief
in a selfprovidence
and
worse offenses
,sure

,a reality with this evidence
as foundation

breaking surface gambol
forever
altering permissive

a guiltless suffering

© Emerys Watchel, 2019 All rights reserved.

in Saddletown looking for a Horse

where i find my mind
this morning wandering through the amble
of what’s to come
of moments that build a day
the narrative in these domes internal
peaking at decision
without plot
,or function
i’ll take down the old books
reread the winsome losesome waged betwixt
good and evil compromises
as it always has
when all the all
dead unions held a calvary line against
feeling
that my time has come and gone

but i will light a candle
say a prayer that need should still
exist

© Emerys Watchel, 2019 All rights reserved.

asleep, routine

…exigencies
,or perhaps the Great Procrastinator in
me shirks demand i have
difficulty relating to
what Webster’s defines as
“pressing need”

this is a hunger, i think
a situation calling for immediate action

routinely asleep
and dreaming better Unicorns

© Emerys Watchel, 2019 All rights reserved.

Rubble Town Still

M,
across the prairie, snow is blowing
like a wave
wind beyond the cottager homes set
glowing
in their huddle
town, aglister with the busy-crunch of plod
a plume of whinnying engines
sky dusky velvet
chipper enforcement officers test benevolence
on ditch-bound potatoes
in tow truck paradise
an exhausted unemployment line waits
outside
mail carriers, late
for the weather
all of the grisly chatter imaginable
at FoodBank twenty-blocks in the wrong direction
carrying
offbrand vegetable tins
over a desolate bridge

© Emerys Watchel, 2019 All rights reserved.

the truth about artificial intelligence

do you remember when i
‘d call you up
&we’d talk for hours&the con
-versation w’ld be about nothing
specific
one

of us w’ld be folding laundry or
a familiar song w’ld play in the background
there
‘d be that reminiscing on a word
soundslike touching laughter

whom forinstance said
i told you how much i was moved
that you would bother to come
through that wilderness

with me
after
all”

© Emerys Watchel, 2019 All rights reserved.

her body

despite
attempts to hide it
she needs
almost presumably, beyond
recognizable flaws
to be seen -less than un-attainable
more than
simply human

;desired.
with even her detached appreciation
for what could be described as
imprisonment

within,

© Emerys Watchel, 2019 All rights reserved.

co-

who had never for a balance
spoken(?
there we,
there was
begin
words fit neatly
for their functions(& a sentence
gathers
building to a point
should
all let fall&leaveslayclutter
stumble shoes
pieces of unfinished steps

begin “yes,
the hinges hold the door upon its frame
which hangs
this way
,and that
see”? a room beyond and rooms
connect to mutual
interactive steps.two pairs.go walking
there we,
there were

again.

© Emerys Watchel, 2018 All rights reserved.

Nipple Clamps

the day was uneventful,
apart from its ordinariness -the droll
and drum, and etcetera being always there
of course
though as these things do briefly abate
without the procession of a curtain’s parting

the exciting thing of a moment has happened;
that tickled, goose-pimple shudder, that
is why we’re here.
this, and such for my telling it; She.

certainly
as all men have lived there has, had, and will be
songs purpled with desire
stories rich with those gems of the imagination
poems, women, moments
and the endless searching for words capable
of that singular
perfect description.

mine; as instantaneous as
a door opening -time there stilled
seemingly to a stop before all returned
to monotony’s ever-present spell.

it was a weightless curl of hair slipping
off her shoulder as she -half-turning
in a doorframe
stepped me by politely. i: a-blush,
or must have more than smiled
at such an accidental enchantment, as she
sidelong had shared a pickerel grin
under a direct
and slowly closing eye

the small seconds of a heartbeat,
and an eternity ascending
through varied imagined episodes of consensual gore

© Emerys Watchel, 2018 All rights reserved.

the

around, and around
wanderingwaiting for
dark that comes like a
closing door

there is a name
other than any spoken there
time will tell clicking&
spilling its lightlong wall
and descending stair

it comes in grasps
cold and catching
thinly fitting the weight of breath
all on a spun
and tumble scratching
for a scream

unbutton Night’s suffocating let
air in and
starry
the nauseating senses

circle repeats around
and around withoutrelief:

in the corner an addict chokes
on a tongue&a
fox chases one relentless tail

© Emerys Watchel, 2018 All rights reserved.

to have

you always knew,didn’t-
we had said
it many times so ghostly
as cold winter mountains
shadows stretching to meet almost
and never quite songs
in echoes a deep forest calling
and listening

you
when first clouds parted and metaphors
stuck weightless like dandelion spores
and time stopped and snow fell
in a moment all
was auburn and chestnut
good
bye’s
knew always didn’t

this moment right here)this room
now
i’ve seen before

that’s how
whoever we were hurts more
to hold

© Emerys Watchel, 2018 All rights reserved.

power

power’s out
had been for uncountable
hours
impatiently waited
at the window for maintenance
persons
in their un-necessarily talkative
company insignia cover all’s

.nothing.

the other tenants
by various modes
have transported their bodies
to districts still
warmed
in electric hum

impassively, i deliberated
up, and down the barefoot halls

decided by eventuality
that i
might too attempt a local exploration
for a coffee-house
bowl of soup and a seat
to privately ignore Time’s
discouraged
progress

along my slippery way
i searched for houses alive with light
,and finding none
but phantom figures peering back
at me
from their quiet dwellings
did not raise my
spirits

at the top of a hill
where the road bends

i could see clearly
despite the snow that my destination
was unlit
,and employees were politely turning away
expressionless
customers
gainlessly then
i decided my return

seeing none but one man
walking an anemic
toy-breed dog dressed snugly
in a red scarf
the mis-matched pair implied that
dog belonged to wife
and that man was undesirably
doing
chores

evidenced further by
his impatient treatment of the animal
i observed
,and without judgement

imagined self

© Emerys Watchel, 2018 All rights reserved.

young again

ah
to move mountains
watch as landscapes combine
form and crumble to
new happenings

for a ready, shaping
mind

there is a sadness
at the edge of pleasure
as what is natural is
gradually
replaced

© Emerys Watchel, 2018 All rights reserved.

blank

alright i’ll show you
once again the trick
is to be mindful
of position respective to light
life
seemingly will move
as if commanded
then i watched as she
with an expression of delight
suggesting wondrous manifestation
moved the imagined
and i saw only
hands in silhouette
before
the canvas

© Emerys Watchel, 2018 All rights reserved.

you people

what(be
-cause invited i sit
my thousand poems
cushioned neatly underneath
&converse
that not a madman here is
battling constant inhabitation
you
dreamily
exfoliate charms
in an obvious attempt at at-
tention

baiting a lengthy(albeit perfundant)
verbose
epic
ignored, politely stir my tea
no thanksyes please

the crust of bread is fine

© Emerys Watchel, 2018 All rights reserved.

better

have un-screwed the shelves my
emotional bric-a-brac now warms
the floor register
yes this
generic metaphor unmantled have,
i
grown to a -morphosed fly
from maggot. This is the way
of salt-cured wounds
fail
learn
,fail better

found a lipstick’d wineglass you
forgot to mention

yesterday

© Emerys Watchel, 2018 All rights reserved.

black rose

would we
as children, recognize
each other

did not then know what
for looking was, i

a reason?)in these
forests, in sweetsmelling
streams –
turning to footfalls
in spring frost, see

a dream for a thing different
than any other
grown
to its natural

,or in itself despairing
singular
beauty

© Emerys Watchel, 2018 All rights reserved.

first-impressions

prefer this become a
part
of someone else, i

of my own mind am
tired. wherecome an-
other exhausted by their own
find me

curious. never certain
in a moment, glimpses first
what light upon a manysided
prism fell

© Emerys Watchel, 2018 All rights reserved.

barefoot in the yard

i
adore cemeteries though
seldom speak
of them outside of metaphors

or
trying to preserve the features
of her memory
in a country house
delicates on the laundryline
cat
licking songbird from its paws
belly sun warmed
in the grass

attic full of empty boxes stuffed
with forgetting, do you imagine
as i do
she humms to herself
a thing like a rhyme
remembered
barefoot
in the yard

between the clothespegs
there
in all the textures of
an instant

without fading

© Emerys Watchel, 2018 All rights reserved.

living and dying

destroyed
when recreated waiting
hammock afternoons
no
bugnets catching
rainbows no storms, no
heavy
books&musty dust
i have in many
leafs
of paper pencil shavings
crumpled ideas
wrinkled elbows

history told
in desk topographies
staring
down
the horizon destroyed

waiting

© Emerys Watchel, 2018 All rights reserved.

there

there will be a panic
a mystery unresolved, pain
tugging at threads of the

unseen. a fear of going
beyond the border of return
there will be doors

of moments, windows of interaction
closing opening, or
the reverse is not a guarantee

you will be tested. the end
will event itself in an
obvious fashion. made clear when

time will allow a retrospective view.
there will be an emptiness
to be filled, a wound

replaced. an addiction
in the form of an escape. there
will be lies, you will tell

them to
yourself

© Emerys Watchel, 2018 All rights reserved.

another

where the hard truth won’t
spare
even
as a known no glimmering in
the metaphorical dark can offer out
where, how

is this place? (a room
a box in the imagination (?)
light switch only clarifies the
cage

what to make of positivity
a painted door/ the idea
of an optional escape
from
the here and now
a reflection waiting for a face

un-
touched by the dust-trails of this
influence
another memory to hunt

© Emerys Watchel, 2018 All rights reserved.

thought opression

entryway opens with a
bing
the anti-theft scanners
are always there
silent sentry. every
loophole has been accounted for
cameras monitor activity

the subjects stare. in defense
of personal space
some talk out loud
their private wars with
personal oppressors
and
are considered crazy
most do this in their heads

the cashier has an anxious way
of making conversation
is everybody traumatized?
forget
it
just
get what you can while it’s on sale
& try not to think too much
about

freedom

© Emerys Watchel, 2018 All rights reserved.

still want

remember always a some
thing wanted, I
what that was or changeschange)s
less now
older
but
then ask
what
am i doing in this room
?
still

excuses to personsuit&walk
my wear
streets of people imitating self
for a dreamer un-dreamed
see-
king an un-initiate to def
-lower
barter over cost the best
parts of anatomy my
most alluring
brain
i hope,pants

off.conversation terribly feel
s a streetfight like drag
-ged backalleyscared words.my
words
talking/acting never
come out, come across
shame to meet
an
awkward IDK
what is a man expected
to, why

i love have loved met love
can cry
remember connected being a
he&she
hair on pillow mused skin
perfumed delicate thin
-gs.sounds.
&eyes!
how cld i forget ?ever
staring back
at mine or trying not
to smile

she am now have not me
i do
again and want to

try

© Emerys Watchel, 2018 All rights reserved.

make again

when found begins
freshthumb explored dis
-covered naval

all within alight with
eyes and probes sear
-ching New &nothingNew&
dies

creator then decides

let inhabit whisper
-ing,ghosts(or make
again of tumblestuff
alive

© Emerys Watchel, 2018 All rights reserved.

anthropoids

i’m already over it itwas
day(s)ago,but
since you asked

this guy(this
that seems altogether charming,al
-together singular
he,he)is
a potato

agreeing on the wise
against inclination
not disagreeable
of a sort that
mind’s his own mind

to be liked,or thought like
-able he wants(wants&
that inthat should not
give trust
completely

to he(he)you
are an opponent

to be absorbed
&mimicked,

mannerism copied,tone&gesture&
philosophical persuasion
you(poor little you)will
see a likeminded, he(he) will
earn what he did not
work for

friend

© Emerys Watchel, 2018 All rights reserved.