the pure whistle of dissonant gods
in the wake of dissonant gods who left rubber
on the streets in bedrooms
unstoppable at least in theory like a jetliner
their chests glowed either red from sparring
or dead lifts of mars
those gods with chipped teeth how they littered the altar
and drank their worth in natural ice
of the gas station
crusade
before high tide before driving to jack in the box
to order two tacos for
99cents
those forgotten meals
on the side of highway 99
in the rain
and in the near
perfect lighting of march on a day
where the party broke off
the leash and poured into the neighbor’s backyard
on that night when the garage door collapsed
i saw what might be named a summoning
or a calling or a high note
hit perfect on the second to last crash of a
cymbal played in the theatre of a
collective feeling that we would live forever
just for a moment
that we could be this carefree and together
to the point our laughter
would barrel straight through the night
and rattle off into infinity
And The Dust Clouds
and I wrote into my body enough
to be destroyed but to survive and not to celebrate the fire
because the barley and the almost and the ongoing how do I
get through is not a ceremony is not honor or a party it is not
noble to survive as much as it is heartbreak in other words I am
puppet strung to the cloud’s mouth too often with short breath and beat to
the song of getting up why I plead to the ricochet and I kneel to the threshold
why I scream through the exit and kneel on the jagged line and I press
the needle threaded time on blisters as the exit swallows the emergency
by a fireside where three friends discuss exit wounds and what would
you do if the water ran out or if your back gave out or if the drugs
how they eat the emergency at a day job that swallows the exit
and where can I go when I need to I guess nowhere so I tattoo
into my arms the names of dead sunrise the names of dead
lovers bleeding on the sunrise in vegas where we ate mushroom
clouds in new york where I died to prove it where I moved on
because I had to like all of us dying hearts who have to go on
eating bombs in the morning eating dust clouds and the bullets
open lotus planted with hand cuffs by the pound lungs I wrote
into my skin illegibly about the ruins and how I stood
there how I felt the sea in my teeth pulling
and why I decided not to celebrate
what I endure but
rather endure and
hope that some
one else won’t
have to
Corbin Louis is a Seattle singer and poet. His work is an ode to survival. Through addiction and chronic pain, Corbin writes to rage on for the vulnerable. The artist is an MFA alumni of UWB and 2018 Jack Straw Writer’s Resident. His work has been featured in Best American Experimental Writing, Button Poetry and more. The author seeks to expand dialogues of disability and anti-capitalism. Ink becomes Molotov. War call and whisper. The poet lives.