Two poems from manuel arturo abreu

Open the serpent

Avoiding death is
losing the game of exile
My scent is decay
all the empty milkbottles reflect
in my surface

The map was planned out,
the black flag cries
and all books are cooked up

Think of a number
and divide it by me
something results to nothing
and nothing is nothing

An exalted destiny
approaches me hostile
I’d like to deny the inevitable
and experience the impossible
There has never been a number
and I break in diamond shapes

Only because contradictions
come true with every tread & change
Only because affairs
rise up by the dead & escape in new rules
the barrier will resist, if desired again,
the veneered exo-skeleton
Responses become, if received,
the winnows of my frozen pilgrimage

I can open the serpent now
and burn my lied out face
can glazing over wear down
thinking of the number
and not of the answer

You said, I wasn’t a tunafish
wrapped in tinfoil
For all watches are silent right away
and I am much too big
to jump over the burning water

The table is gone
I’m going down
going down

My paypal

The messaianic communist and his tender lies
When he flicks his hair it’s like smelling coffee
He may be woke but u stuck around for the D(eontology)
Lovingly calling Sartre the first neoliberal
Eventually his smile starts to look like Golgotha
U feel urself choking on his shadow
Something (how can it be) both soft and sharp
He keeps saying “we’re already in communism, look harder”
All you see is the blood-soaked clearing
No, he’s not done killing her
You understand now
For him this is both sacrifice and apotheosis
For him, this “was” not is
Teleology is meant as tautology
He becomes no different for u than people who watch film credits
U tell him “when it’s over it’s over”
Smack his nape hard like grade school
As he reels u say “my PayPal is garageresidency at gmail dot com”




manuel arturo abreu (b. 1991, Santo Domingo) is a poet and artist from the Bronx. They work in text, ephemeral sculpture, and photography. They are the author of List of Consonants (Bottlecap Press, 2015) and transtrender (out soon from Quimérica Books). Recent and forthcoming work is included in Apogee Journal, the Offing, Rhizome, Gauss PDF, the Institute for New Connotative Action, and elsewhere. Find manuel at twigtech.tumblr.com.

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