Poetry by Jordan Anthony
Rubber Disco
“Last dance for romance,” tonight. Tonight is an afterthought
unanswered. A question once more.
Old, not collected, vinyl remains rotating
to banish the dead air. Randomize motion
in the arc. BPM oscillates as afterthought.
Hear the same four count, once more.
Converse? And say,
“Tonight? I wanna dance with somebody!” Unheard.
Sound system cry loud and underhearing, the beat an afterthought.
Vibration pass and motion uncarried, Donna Summer sings true once more.
Masc for Mask
Two magazines, a cloth
to aid in the remembering of other life
and nothing forgotten on a table.
Two magazines, a cloth
barrier. Remember the on-going
nothing. Not another,
empty of vis.
Two branches in half-bloom
and nothing. Forgotten on a table,
two. Magazines, clothing
the cover. Model affect
in effect,
Paper thin and still-life.
Smile
and nothing. On a table:
glossy paper, haze-lit
under smoke at sunrise. In all:
two magazines, a cloth,
and nothing forgotten on a table.
untitled [03.25.23.17.40.]
This year alone I’ve lost eight different pull containers,
contents included. In the losing, my health
at risk. Others’, less so. I don’t fuck as much as I used to,
when there was fucking urgency and a virus to spread
like lips, or ass thrown out without regard
or recipient. A courtesy never given, no complaint heard.
Thirty days sticker price: three thousand MSRP.
Useless. Inert pharmacologies denied to the desperate, cost
unattainable for the targeted populations. Join the program!
Sign your pharmacy card! Discounted safety,
safely out of reach. We ought know better.
Never prepared. Impossible to surrender
a dead past to our living. I keep thinking AIDS
and mean HIV. The clinical kind.
No intimate passage, mother or child,
needle not granted in earnest.
More toxic than pollution, our smallest lives
enumerated in a viral load count, T-cell
numerologies read aloud in an act
of banishment. Be now cured, AIDS
is dead! Vials of medical necessity
encased in blood to determine
deserving poor from unlucky gift.
Ask your doctor about AZT today.
No Quarter
Sudden the jukebox changes
tone: digital collection of algorithmic making
by record deals and licensing contracts.
At his fingertips, a phone:
the app to decide.
Looking. Seeing
no one in sight on the box
nor jockey on the stand,
approach and search
pockets. Loose
change impossible to dig out.
a dime, lucky penny,
or quarter not necessary;
know the trick.
One note and the park is melting
in the rain. Men and their daddies
turn, leather squeaking like rubber
on the road.
Gruesome, the sight
of the lonely one
proud in solitude.