Kimberly Alidio

 
 

 

irrelevant illegible

 

 

A fist and a flag
are thought to
encapsulate the
dead’s discovery of
truth and meaning
especially any
dead interrogated by the
police and
recalled only in
law and census.
 
 
                                                          Refuge in the
                                                          traditional symbols of
                                                          our left
                                                          makes us powerfully
                                                          small
                                                          my enemies I no
                                                          longer assume are
                                                          yours transfixed by
                                                          private glories beyond
                                                          embarrassment.
 
 
My
own revolution this
morning
you quoted Artaud
all action is
cruel push the
limits to
be relevant to
day is to kill
words from the
stage.


                                                          At night
                                                          traumatized states of
                                                          alienation talk
                                                          radical slogans
                                                          time is now
                                                          no other to
                                                          aggregate visions
                                                          where what words are true
                                                          words not myself
                                                          own
                                                          antidote.
 
 
Recall private
language
nectar and blood-
stained sheets is
ethics of
attention to
our cruel hungers
eat their own
tails as a circle of
light.


                                                          At the cusp of
                                                          dawn a candle on
                                                          the mantle
                                                          most gorgeous searing
                                                          light on mgmt
                                                          strategies.
 
 
Reckless feeling
attends
a hummingbird before
solidarity fixes.
Which reds are
proper prey for
such a precise
machine.

                                                          Official verse
                                                          dive bombs informally
                                                          around us keepers of
                                                          new arcana.
 
 
If I’ve ever become a
book.
 
 
                                                          I’ve stopped being
                                                          afraid under
                                                          irrelevant and
                                                          illegible light.

 
 

why letter ellipses

 

 

days lunar eclipse sever lines silver dust
                                                         why letter ellipses

milky wool steady preference veil             down
the aggressive bed

anger sentiment
coy infant


              the antifascists beat the fascists in the second world war is that correct

              now for instance in the philippines the americans took over a filipino liberation front called

              say the huks to organize them as an antifascist guerrilla group now the minute the fascists

              the japanese were beaten then the antifascists reestablished the same

              kind of colonial policies in the philippines that the japanese would have put in anyway

              the same kind and in fact its worse because the filipinos are much less

              interested in having a white man tell them what to do than having a japanese

              tell them what to do much less oh there are probably all kinds of antifascists

              but what Im saying is that fascism has been made obsolete by america

              thats what I said before fascism theres no fascism its americanism

              america is the blight on the world


how people moved naked except women with props I crossed campbell slowed eye screeched
arm up to coffee lips savored crosswalk men are horses home to lost skyline

                                                                                     how americans steamed except

subsonic

let everything fall               already crawling
a sunday in new york        at the dutch        man
              flee rehearsed in
airbnbs               near the
I-10 and ludlow                  cleaning crews
knock    highfee low pay then        the real
thing      terror bedroom neighbor
frats
              know your homophobe    landlord          
I’m home            wish I could say

you must go

stars interspersed between god and angels everything glittering and gold
church was different from home it had a lofty effect on ones thoughts
levitating latin every trapping was very inspiring

                                                                     our holy
                                                                     human energy
                                                                     sustain our holy
                                                                     human lives

color mandala flesh no certainty no
what think happened
moral no national tradition
no trivia happened no
why what fools no adult


ages five to twenty I saw startling-looking figures with startling ideas
heads encased in long starched veils ursuline capes when it rained
looked like wraiths

                                                                     our holy
                                                                     human energy
                                                                     telling
                                                                     the necessary lies

Im not saying there is no fascism
but surely what I know and what Im seeing
at the moment will not inspire me

stream free in a university taught me about blossoming
in the form of nastassja kinski 
can’t prove harm & good at nothing
a regard kept mannered from life and writing and person

                                                                     by the very nature demonic
                                                                     because
                                                                     its goal is power

always running with great black umbrellas to kill bats literally hanging in the belfry

bewild privacy mistaken for being set free
fire sun rises crackle desire’s slate
empty text of singular purpose              
                                                                     very soothing

 

 


Dear Archon



I have been thirteen                 
frowned on           haunted for years
shadow spread myself
Cixous                   before or after

file my nails in poetry
she hangs in self-absorption
from her lovers     tend to edges
before they tear

unmanageable
palpebral fissure  what threat       
clitoris run-on   slows down
in Camomille’s mouth

plausible surfaces   new
when seen                fingernail
by the italics     higher order
subterranean            eager astride

 




















Dear Archon



displaced from situatedness
dispersed across several continents

there won’t be a gathering
finite form embodies the place

where one is now
by indeterminate accident

a desire to mother
a body gains transparency

landscape appears
in a body-framed portal

emplacement of displaced
migrants detained

alien landscape
reconstitutes alien body

what if one makes a new past
body mirror

landscape absorbs alterity
hot-tempered all night

mimetic linguistic
new facts of not-belonging

beyond geospatial mapping
I’m gonna look for my body yeah

I’ll be back like real soon






 

Kimberly Alidio is the author of why letter ellipses (selva oscura, 2020),
: once teeth bones coral : (Belladonna*, 2020), and After projects the
resound (Black Radish, 2016). Her most recent chapbook is a cell of falls
(Portable Press @ Yo-Yo Labs, 2019).




Note: “why letter ellipses” quotes Amiri Baraka’s talk at the Overseas
Press Club, February 17, 1965; Andrea Dworkin, Woman Hating (New
York: Plume, 1974); Furio Colombo’s interview with Pier Paolo Pasolini,
“We Are All in Danger,” November 1, 1975; and Susan Howe’s interview
of Bernadette Mayer, April 22, 1979, PennSound.