ON DEVOTION TO CHANGE ❋ Jeremy Boyd

it is hardly morning
but the air is full of life
walking out of the parking garage into the halfway rain
to the closed library

you may have thought boredom wasn’t hard work
until you tried to stick to it

mark baumer died
walking across america
I read what he didn’t know would be his last poem
at home on my couch
barefoot

there is a watering can on my kitchen counter and I don’t know why
there is a pine tree in the living room
I don’t know why
well, I know why, but not why

walked with the dog yesterday
to end of the cul de sac
there was a whole mess of jeeps
parked out front
of a trump sign
in my neighborhood
angry white people on atv’s
and I was just holding
a bag of dog poop

yesterday ellen asked ‘are we?’
and of course, we are

the secret is out
my voice
is written
and if you don’t want to know
what I have to say
it wouldn’t have stopped me
from saying it

we are sharing breakfast
during the woman’s march
I’m thinking she’s the right one

my idea of poetry

is much different from anyone else’s
including my institutions’

I went to school and they told me
to put a poetry app on my phone
like I didn’t have a notes app
and a life already

fuck inspirational suffering
how am I supposed to know if an artist is good

i think as an artist and a citizen
it’s okay to lie down

i think we should all be rebels
make a list of all the ppl who deserve
a kick in the balls – line em up
& get to kicking

then we pay the goddamn reparations
tear down & rebuild our country’s infrastructure
using the money we free up from defunding the military
maybe build some hospitals, legalize weed
might have to forcibly make people stop
eating fast food & driving cars that
don’t run on electricity
then finally we sit down and call
to thank our many mothers

we must surprise god
who relies on our helplessness

there is
the one thing more
for all one things

have you taken
seen and agreed
with the image
as it stood
, or annexed?

a farthest point
cannot be imagined
by someone with
no intention
of setting foot
beyond it.

come thru my door, it is my standard

my hand is here
not tied to sense making
I feel the joy of its doings

as logic dictates
its own deterioration
readers will necessitate
an algorithm
, however algorithms
only solve
for one function
they cannot attend to manifold

notice how I say
what I mean
and not always
what you expect

what conclusion is precise
being never complete

we grow around
what we want to know

my grey brown bedroom
becomes a temple
of simple words
of the stacked books
upon every surface
filled with arranged ideas
some upon the pages
a collection of findings
answers for when I
go away as you like
(to apply any learning
requires leaving), well clothed or not

how strong are the stitches
the period of distress fades out
as jeans are reconstructed
society follows

rearranged the position of my bed
dragging in an old leather couch
belonging to some anonymous past tense person
realizing the mirror I bought for my room is too big
attempting to hang the whiteboard,
couldn’t find nails
I’m too chill to hammer
so whiteboard and laundry
cover the couch
there’s ants in the poptart box
I’m trapped in here now
my idea of what my living space should look like
why would I leave
a constructed idea of comfort

dad says we should go to a protest
on a saturday
i’m curious why we are revolting just to
return to comfort
instead of trying to undo harmful systems
and establish greater
and more peaceful ones
for the future
but maybe i’m making the same case –
a better future = a comfortable future
2017 is orange, a disruptive color
, an anomaly say the theorists
we are each facing
a moment inside ourselves
where we are swaddled
by our own fears
i’m wearing a t-shirt
with a paint strip on it
all shades of orange – some
hard to imagine but
you can see them on my shirt
people ask me what it means
i think about the popularity of the near-infinite shades of blue
the commonness and comfort i feel when i see the color of my eyes
everywhere

we expect others to tend
to our problems while we discuss
reruns

should we politicize or depoliticize our twitter followers?

there are consequences to being
fake nice for too long

I pause my resistance
only to accept new ideas
strengthen my plan
and quickly resume

I plan to join the ACLU
and read poems in public

a woman yells at her child at jerry’s
someone asked me why muslims
are so crazy
saw propaganda against a solar farm
at the intersection across from a sheetz in hagerstown

my friend is moving out of an apartment he shared with his gf
we cautiously walk down a flight of stairs with a glass tv stand
loading up the car, leaving the trunk open
before walking upstairs to gather more things
suspicious someone is waiting for the car to be fully packed
before driving off with it
and all my friends belongings

a man stumbles out of jerry’s after asking
for a water cup
and filling it with
every soda flavor
I confess to an in-school officer that I overheard a life threat
my girlfriend gets followed and run off the highway regularly
on her way to see me
the lady smacks her child
the jerry’s goes silent
i carefully fold a leftover container and place my sandwich inside it
then walk outside and throw it away
while my friends evolve their Pokemon

I was upset over a $38
paycheck
but a short while later
find $40 on the floor
of a gas station bathroom
“shit”
I take it out to someone
at the registers, saying
to return it
if anyone asks
they can’t believe
how naïve I am

…I suppose you aren’t surprised I’m naïve though
after all, this is a poem

furiously expressing my opinions online about
paul mitchell shampoo
feeling like radioactive waste
, how it seems obvious
fidget spinners are too much for us
to handle &
turkey pepperoni being pretty okay
letting everyone know
that for my birthday
I’m getting dried fruit
instead of going to new orleans
for mardi gras and
that my favorite part of reply chug
is never doing it

I showed up in my life

at the time I had been embarrassed
(I blush too easily)
that someone might look closely at my eyes
when I was stoned on the couch
living in my grandmother’s house
observing fran mock my grandmother whenever she (my grandmother) would request fran’s servitude
(which was often)
before eventually fulfilling the request

I absorbed this psychology
the framework of love
in a vague form
as I would distractedly read novels
poetry & essays
planning something I would never
have time
to explain

once I was very sick
(food poisoning)
and my grandmother
just gave me
hot jello

I’m wondering
if the next human evolution
will breed out
whatever living mechanism
causes us to hurt others
so deeply
that you’re forced
to watch the other cry
knowing
you’re not good enough
to console them

it occurred to me that artist sex
is likely much different than
…whatever other sex
that artist sex is probably its own thing
probably more than one or two
standard deviations
away from acceptable
sexual perversion
just a little more bold or free
an interest in an interest piqued
maybe artist sex
is just family
where trust and encouragement
actually exist

now that we are threatened
with an end
I can write about everything
I left out before
, if I wanted to

I once wanted to tell you
I could feel the winds change
but I didn’t want to wake you

I was running my fingers through my hair –
when I pulled very slowly
it sounded // to me
like a plane descending and landing
I looked down at the sheet
across my lap
and saw blood stains
held my breath, took a picture with my phone
and studied them

my fantasies have placed me
among the free porn archives
of the internet, we exploit
a ser[v(i)ce], an image of our desire

we bring it to light and film
though we are distant from it
not used up by it
, not moved and filled
to us it is “method acting” –
pleasure between
the fantasizer
and fantasized
one big oiled orchestra
concluding in about ten
to fifteen minutes

do my desires beg for my hands
to remember them
do they wish they could feel
could know
their touch
or be a center of my body
a thing that grows
even without itself

will the flirting and protests
continue
as a silent game
or finally develop into
love // with a closed mouth
to money
though I will give you mine
and write about it
(without embarrassment)
or rather, hand it over

I’m not sure what I heard

I have been stirred to deep thought
by insignificant sounds

I put new things in my mouth
hoping to become the flavors
(the taste of me)
even when disgusted by them
I try to swallow
I try not to breathe while I chew
when I don’t want the flavor
I’m thinking I’m changed
but the same desperate gasping words come out

what’s the point of changing
when you like yourself
, but not the world?
feel resistant to
a new thing
even the things I wanted

it takes time to digest
it’s unclear to me
what I’m meaning to absorb
what do I need?
am I even getting it?

it takes even longer
to shit out the new things
and look at the change! (it’s so ugly)
oh no…
did I make the new thing into…
me? (flush me away)

my friends are doing fake cocaine
and burning a shirt with
Hilary Clinton’s face on it
I’ve never felt so far away

I’m at a red light with my window cracked
It is 7:53 and the hot air balloons are out
I have eaten banana peppers
three days in a row

my ideologies are layered and littered
with contradictions
, which are disguises
as well as things
I later become