Luis Neer

THE POET APPROACHES LIGHT SPEED

with my hands i make a sculpture of your voice
sometimes i tie it to pigeons sometimes i set it on fire
my face held taut with clothespins i stare at the ceiling until it moves and my mouth makes whining noises
i am standing in my grandmother’s house flushing a poem down the toilet
your postcard is in my eyes where you scribble over everything
i grab my hair i spin the broken wheel

i sing to a therapist about you
when he says your name it sounds naked and dead on a beach like an unknown creature
i title twelve dead poems ‘the poet approaches light speed’ but i never collide with a wall
now i approach light speed it all comes together i spin the broken wheel
submerged in swimming pools of i don’t realize i don’t mean i don’t intend
holding a dozen roses as they become funhouse mirrors
holding a dozen roses that look like broken pencils
gripping ten thousand roses as tightly as possible

LEARN TO LOVE YOUR LONELINESS

On several occasions I have been told that I
Underestimate the emotions of others

I know it’s true
I don’t give people credit they deserve

I have also been reminded
That everyone feels the way I do

Now and then
Everyone feels the way I do now

I know this is not true
I know not everyone feels this way

I feel this way
I feel this

There is no now and then
There is only then and now—

Then
I would lie on the floor
And watch the ceiling swirl

Now
I will not lie on the floor
My body thinks it’s a centipede

Like the centipede that scurried out
From under my books

In French class last Friday
I thought it mean something

The walls have gone dark again
They are blacker then they have ever been

I won’t see anyone
I don’t think I can see anyone

I drink this loneliness
My brain calls it nectar

In this place
Past underground

This place
Past shadows

This monochrome
Shrill black silent wilderness

Feeds me
Feeds on me

I give it every memory
Photographs songs poems

Old words and happy things
Gone to dust

It’s an agreement
I think

An agreement to try
To believe the promise of new sunlight

In the presence
Of swollen darkness

I try
I try to imagine stars on this ceiling

I know
I know not everyone feels this way
Not everyone feels like this

If everyone felt like this
The world would always be quiet

LUIS NEER IS A SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD POET FROM WEST VIRGINIA WHOSE WORK APPEARS OR IS FORTHCOMING IN MAUDLIN HOUSE; LITERARY ORPHANS; ALIEN MOUTH; THE RAIN, PARTY & DISASTER SOCIETY AND ELSEWHERE. HE TWEETS @LUISNEER.

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