4 by tracy dimond

image by Peter Cole Friedman

Cosmic Electric Time
 after Elisa Gabbert

What if the rainbows in my hair
found a path through the cosmos to you?
Will we move to the ocean for a love affair,
the sand castles home until the tide breaks?

Do you manifest destiny
through personal relationships?
Do you wonder if we displaced our hearts?
Anyway, what war are we still in?

Why do we still have daylight savings time— 
can’t we have double summertime?
When will poetry wear the tan of professional wrestling?
Maybe tans build bulk around the canon?

How will my mind stop chanting self unstable?
When will so close mean touching
on a rooftop, telling the stars they will never
be as human as our questions?

Search Terms
                                            
I’m conducting research
on single poets
conducting research.

Selfies are moderated
versions of the ego.
They treat a lifelong
condition: emotions.

The NSA wastes time on my terms.
This might be forward,
but the weekly newsletter calls
for transparent windows.

Today I’m going to U-turn
in the driveway
of the most beautiful house
in America.

Now, think about this weapon 
of mass destruction:
80% of students require remedial reading.

What's A Body
                                    
I started a war on billboards
but the resources in my emotional 
hedge fund need consultation.
Make me a road-block
on the George Washington Bridge.

Can’t talk now, this
21st annual New Home Sale
has me mouthing
Webster’s Dictionary online:
mechanical smiles.

Do straight-edge get more done
in the war on drugs?
Does anyone care about
this war on apathy?

Every morning is
a post-coffee morning
filled with breaking news about
the next maple-syrup apocalypse.

Nest in my data of human behavior.
I was afraid of being found out— 
until I realized 
everything is performance.

Future Asana

I wrote panic at the top
of my five year plan
animated with mothers
walking babies
in fermenting cages.

Flowers rot in my hair,
the rainbows I vomit are gray.
I watch pollen float as dust
while I collapse into corpse pose.

Brain folds don’t cushion
the thought that my body
will turn into soup
marinated in rainwater.

TRACY DIMOND co-curates Ink Press Productions. She is the author of Grind My Bones Into Glitter, Then Swim Through The Shimmer (NAP 2014) and Sorry I Wrote So Many Sad Poems Today (Ink Press 2013). Her work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Big Lucks, wu-wei fashion mag, Coconut, Everyday Genius, Hobart, and other places.