VOICEMAIL POEMS

Our eyes meet on the rear-view mirror

Scorched earth passes by

Stretched by the mile, rolled windows for letting the poem breathe.

Tainted.

A light contour is drawn on your white tank top, above, fifty-three well-placed chest hairs are just enough.

God, this drink is awful.

Then why do you keep drinking it?

He says, as he maintains a firm grip on my thigh with one hand as he drives with the other. Hollow teeth and all.

I don't know

(I do)

I wanted to try something new,

Feel something, be someone.

We order Chinese takeout, you insist on paying and I let you grope my manhood, sheltered by a well fitting pair of washed Levi’s in return.

Me gusta la coquetería, me gustas tú.

Two solitary ice cubes cling, melting by the nightstand,

Long gone are the excuses obscured by curtains.

A card is drawn, our breaths equalize.

We watch Ripley on a screen fashioned with a rosary on one of its corners.

While he bounces, he looked at me with those blank eyes so enamoured,

So lost

At sea,

Like the body of Dickie Greenleaf deep inside the Amalfi coast.

His drowned gaze,

Somewhere in between

Lust

And midnight,

Penetrates me, to the point where I couldn’t distinguish who was penetrating who.

So I find myself here, while your head lays on my chest. I know what you want to hear, but for you, it doesn’t. You play with my pubes and I kiss your forehead. Sometimes

We laugh, comparing ourselves to the TV series that we barely acknowledge -

Good thing we don’t have a tragedy of our own nor bizarre love triangles - Right.

Inhale, exhale.

He kisses my neck, mi amor, mi vergoncito, mi Bocanegra.

I can’t say that I don’t feel the same,

Showing restraint is of no use upon wretched land.

Outside the Jacarandas bloom,

The sunset has punched its card. This is something I cannot give you.

Added weight forces my chest you arise even further, it knows where I am,

This body of mine,

For its going the extra mile,

So there’s no honor among thieves,

Fine, if you insist, I will go wherever you go, I will try the chicken tikka masala, I will reply to your “mi amores”, I will play your games, I will be the stud who steals you a kiss in public. I will love you the way you want to be loved.

Solo no me pidas la noche.

————————————–

Erick Flores Diaz called us from Morelia, Michoacán. México.

voicemailpoems.org/submit/

facebook.com/voicemailpoems

x.com/voicemailpoems

bsky.app/profile/voicemailpoems.bsky.social

instagram.com/voicemailpoems

The afternoon of my grandmother’s funeral,

my sisters, mom, nephew, and I

decide to paint with a Bob Ross episode, hoping

to dull our grief with bright colors, to soothe

our broken spirits with his bulbous brown hair,

his velvet voice and reassurances. The painting

seems simple enough: a cabin in the woods

in the light of the moon, a peaceful scene

easily accomplished in a half-hour episode.

Later, thirty minutes stretches into three hours

of pausing and painting, rewinding and repainting,

until falling away one by one we give up the ghost,

each departing the table with some distorted portrait

of our grief. My cabin in the woods looks like

an outhouse, my sky a lake upon the ground.

Soon only my mother sits alone, striving for perfection

on the day she’s buried her mother’s ashes, an interment

doubly done, an ending soon to be etched in stone.

I watch her paint and wonder what future afternoon

I’ll cue an eternal episode, pick up my brush,

and try to put pain to canvas, letting Bob

lull me into thinking

just for a moment

that even the trees could be happy that day.

————————————–

Trystan Popish called us from Denver, CO.

voicemailpoems.org/submit/

facebook.com/voicemailpoems

x.com/voicemailpoems

bsky.app/profile/voicemailpoems.bsky.social

instagram.com/voicemailpoems

Where were you when Jeff Hiller won his first Emmy?

Or when Taylor got engaged to Travis? Tell me, why hasn’t Ralph Fiennes

won an Oscar? Why did Adam Lambert lose to Kris Allen?

Yes, there are things that may not make sense, there are things

that may not seem fair. Why did some of the vaccinated

sicken, some of the anti-vaxxers not? It isn’t right that you lost

your husband, Job. Or your ten-year-old twin girls.

Or your Ramsey-earned investments. Or your health to Long COVID.

There is no answer I can give you. This isn’t Family Feud.

I am no Steve Harvey; I am just God. Even so, I can stay with you.

Like a viral video, I can linger. But if you want to ghost me,

feel free to. If you want to block me, go ahead. Give yourself

permission. Do not apologize. As Demi says, “Sorry Not Sorry.”

Grieve how you want to. Though you’ll have another family,

it won’t replace the one you lost. It won’t undo your parents’

rejection. However loving, a chosen family isn’t quite the same.

Remember Carl Winslow? Remember Philip Banks? Each a father

that yours wasn’t. Each a father you wish you had. Each a father that was there

for you. Unlike Blockbuster and Redbox, I, too, am here. And I’m watching

you rebuild. Even though you can’t rewind, you can make another life worth watching

to the credits. And I love you.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

————————————–

Jonathan Fletcher called us from San Antonio, TX.

voicemailpoems.org/submit/

facebook.com/voicemailpoems

x.com/voicemailpoems

bsky.app/profile/voicemailpoems.bsky.social

instagram.com/voicemailpoems

Rolled in gold

leaf, cocooned in

shreddings of ancient

text. His words, a pathetic

stream slurring

out between pulls,

Prophets lust but I beg

you, beg. Lick the good

soil off your lover’s

hand. Taste what the tree

roots know, Bend your

back at lightning snaps.

Submit to the murmurs

of rabbit children.

And God and I smoked until

the vapors chased

the heavens and nothing

dared open the sky.

————————————–

Oisín Rowe called us from Boston, MA.

voicemailpoems.org/submit/

facebook.com/voicemailpoems

x.com/voicemailpoems

bsky.app/profile/voicemailpoems.bsky.social

instagram.com/voicemailpoems

BATEMAN

God... I guess... I was probably returning videotapes.

American Psycho (2000), Mary Harron & Guinevere Turner and Bret Easton Ellis

i never admitted fault / at confession either / the priest would / say whatever & i’d look down on / varnished rot-vein floorboards or / lie that i lied about / something i did not lie about what / did i have to be / sorry for everything / that happened happened / to me / i wasn’t penitent / i just felt / bad confession / i choke up every time / Boyz II Men surprises Will / for little Nicky’s christening / & memorized every way / they have to say i’m / sorry confession / when i was 11 / i downloaded torrents & a / trojan confession / at 25 i danced in the shower / to MJ’s performance of “Man / in the Mirror” & was / surprised when I slipped / as Michael’s palms swept the / stage confession / when i was 19 / a virus / wiped my computer / again confession / i think i’m the plum / my friend bit at 14 / beautiful skin & flies in the pit / bodies in the spit he / wretched confession / i had so many / secrets i thought i was / happy confession / i was never found / by a woman / to be what i am / i told her & left her / lonely confession / sure it was more but always / i made sure / i was / clean confession / my boy told me hey / but you’re still a good / dude confession / the devil speaks / to you in your own / voice he’s no / ventriloquist confession / at 27 i tore down drywall / strapped on a mask / & stripped out lath / i sawed wall studs & pocketed dust / sat fetal on the piled curb / & a guy said come on / man don’t do / that / i said thanks & went on / sobbing on / concrete between two cans boiling over with my / trash confession / i wiped my face i felt / better i did not / change

————————————–

Tim Lynch called us from Wilmington, DE.

voicemailpoems.org/submit/

facebook.com/voicemailpoems

x.com/voicemailpoems

bsky.app/profile/voicemailpoems.bsky.social

instagram.com/voicemailpoems

The human brain generates 20 watts of electricity.

Or so the AI Overview tells me unprompted

when I search how much a thought costs me,

how much energy each flex of my fingers

are required to press each of these keys.

Do you know how much energy

is wasted by the AI Overview being generated?

I ask. It hesitates. I find an answer

under the links to buy a novelty brain mug.

Oh, just 6 bottles of water to cool the servers

every ten seconds. And they promise to be eco-friendly.

Did you know almost all their water filters

are falsely advertising their efficiency?

Yeah, there is no reliable way to remove

all the shit to make it drinkable again. All

the bacteria, the chemicals, the forever

plastics dancing in your cells.

Dear search, how much energy does plastic consume

inside the body? The AI has no answer because

we have no answer. Like a game of snake

an ouroboros on an old Nokia. Those invincible

bricks, where did they go? Other than swallowed

up deep inside, of course. Bit by micro-bit.

Did you know the human brain with a thought

could light a small bulb? 40 Joules in 2 seconds.

AI Overview pick-pocketed that info for me

because it doesn’t actually think anything or know that

the human brain is so efficient in ways we don’t

even understand. Or maybe I’m too harsh.

After all, we still don’t know what an appendix does,

but we still carve it out when we need to.

We know we can live without it if removed

before it explodes on a random Tuesday.

Well, depending on if your shit boss doesn’t

hesitate to call the ambulance.

And did you know that on the stretcher to the ER

as you clutch your side and bile of bits and brick

scratch your throat, you might use your last moments

the 2 second spark of the brain electrified and dancing

to ask the question through sweat and pain:

“Do you know how much this will cost me?”

————————————–

Carmen Barefield called us from Salem, MA.

voicemailpoems.org/submit/

facebook.com/voicemailpoems

x.com/voicemailpoems

bsky.app/profile/voicemailpoems.bsky.social

instagram.com/voicemailpoems

Christmas Day at a dive bar

& God has blessed us all

with holy days & spirits poured over

this small glimpse at eternity

blurring bright against

the near-silent night

naive nativities of promised tomorrows

fester & foster today's futilities

yet here we arrive

from memories of

everywhere we've ever been

before now & suddenly this

maybe in another world,

all our dreams come true

& every prayer is answered

& all considered is well

with peace & joy, et cetera

but if this world is not that

if heaven is hidden from sight

do this as often as you do this

in remembrance of...

the warm embrace of another

despite the nearness of life without

————————————–

Mikey Franz called us from Philadelphia, PA.

voicemailpoems.org/submit/

facebook.com/voicemailpoems

x.com/voicemailpoems

bsky.app/profile/voicemailpoems.bsky.social

instagram.com/voicemailpoems

my wife’s coworkers ask about my poetry

and I tell them oh,

it’s slice-of-life kind of stuff.

Bird on a wire kind of stuff. They ask

but what are they about? and I tell them so,

they say that the only philosophical question

worth asking is whether or not to commit suicide.

I guess my poems are all questions

that don’t have answers yet.

and I made things awkward again.

One of them asks if I’m active

at the university poetry center and I say no,

but I know a few local poets.

We don’t really like each other much

and everyone laughs.

I tell them that all the modern poets

have cut marks on their thighs.

I tell them to look for the scars.

That maybe the old ones had them too

and it’s the skirts that got shorter.

That the ones who survive today get tattoos

over their wrists to hide the failure,

how no one’s proud of their scars anymore.

I tell them that an old poet friend once said

that every artist is either overcooked or under-easy

and that I always forget to turn the oven off.

That I used to give my poetry books to all the girls

I wanted to touch, like a preface for my hands,

and when I first met the girl

who’s now the woman I’m married to

I gave her my poems and she came to my apartment

and found me playing PlayStation,

chainsmoking drunk, and she said I really thought

you’d be more in touch with nature, then how

I took her hand and dragged her fingers

across the scars on my biggest organ and said

do you think I got these hugging a tree? just in time

before dinner arrived.

————————————–

Joshua Lillie called us from Tucson, AZ.

voicemailpoems.org/submit/

facebook.com/voicemailpoems

x.com/voicemailpoems

bsky.app/profile/voicemailpoems.bsky.social

instagram.com/voicemailpoems

"A Tooth of Mary Magdalene"

suspended in rock crystal. So much we didn’t see, the last time. Some say she crossed the ocean to France in 33 AD and mourned him. Even there, he found and called to her disguised as a winged creature. Cupid’s bowl of spilled pleasure — we didn’t see it, or this dove, this gilded eucharistic dove with a hinged door in its back, a vacancy we didn’t see. We didn’t see this silver arm, reliquary for a part of Saint Valentine, or this erotic mithuna sculpted in thirteenth-century India, an aroused couple about to be one body. Here’s a pink-and-white dress for a baby girl from 1956. The last time the soldier’s mistress wore this byzantine gold chain, wet with blue gems, was in the year 1,000. We didn’t see it, or the housekeeper who became Rembrandt’s common-law bride. She never had such opulent jewels. In 1650 he painted her, a hearty archetype of wife, holding her robe closed. Can I ever be so placid, so sturdy in relationship? In the museum I think, Yes. But back out in the city I’m this purple orchid opening easily in the florist’s hand, humid with tears when the man in the bodega speaks to me sweetly, calls me honey. The last time I lived in tenderness was 2019, with you whose body was shelter and scent, who sang, knelt, took your time, and fed. Is the whole world just one crumb in the belly of that dove? I turn because he calls to me, this pigeon flecked as the firmament in storm. In 2025 he leads me to a statue of a naked girl outside an apartment, an angelic adolescent chained like Andromeda to the iron gate. Her last time was long ago. Such a sense of being behind glass when I look into her eyes. There was so much we didn’t see, but it saw us. We shone for it. The past recognizes its imminent relatives.

It warms as it watches

you and me becoming

artifacts of love.

————————————–

Rose DeMaris called us from Belgrade, MT.

voicemailpoems.org/submit/

facebook.com/voicemailpoems

x.com/voicemailpoems

bsky.app/profile/voicemailpoems.bsky.social

instagram.com/voicemailpoems

When I Try to Verify Why They Carpet Driveways After the Rain, Google Keeps Feeding Me Distressingly Hot Factoids About Hermaphroditic Earthworm Sex

Until I thought to check, I thought I knew:

worms emerge from dirt to tar

on the run from drowning. Actually no one understands

their reasons. Maybe

worms emerge from dirt to tar

when vibrations ape a predator. Or are

their reasons maybe

traveling fast on slicked slab? Reproducing?

When vibrations ape a predator, or are

mock applause when I drop a glass

traveling fast on slicked slab, reproducing

language is beyond me. My speech breaks with static snow,

mock applause, when I drop a glass

knife voice. Sticking to the surface

language is beyond me. My speech breaks with static snow,

turns trail. Trail: proof and proof of absence. Here’s my opened-by-a-

knife voice sticking to the surface

of the steel. Spill

turns trail. Trail: proof and proof of absence. Here’s my opened-by-a-

mouth mouth. I say

of the steel spill

that I can be allowed to want. I’m saying

mouth: Mouth. I say

all

that I can be allowed to want. I’m saying

I’m

all

mouth,

I’m

just open

mouth,

and I’m

just-open.

I feed

and I’m

equalizing pressure.

I feed

like falling and I fuck like falling,

equalizing pressure,

meant to shed a wreck of men

like falling, and I fuck like falling

was becoming of the nymph stage. I claim I was

meant to shed a wreck of men,

their aims. I knew what needy grubs, what writhing life I’d swallowed clean,

was becoming. Of the nymph stage, I claim I was

on the run from drowning. Actually no one understands

their aims. I knew what needy grubs, what writhing life I’d swallowed clean

until I thought to check. I thought I knew.

————————————–

Callie Jennings called us from Boston, MA.

voicemailpoems.org/submit/

facebook.com/voicemailpoems

x.com/voicemailpoems

bsky.app/profile/voicemailpoems.bsky.social

instagram.com/voicemailpoems