PHIL SPOTSWOOD

Tulle is the only fabric I know by sight

Hello hello welcome to the stage, my compact ruckus;   here’s
the trapdoor I’m calling Swamp of Sadness lol                 it’s a loose axis
                                                                                       halogen lights beaming wild       
                                                                                                     up through mumble mumble             slow cud ruminants
Every tree is a penis & I’m sick
of it, their painted swag                     how they hunch to be noticed,
                                                                spoken        

at the end of a script & beginning of a next           corkscrew 
                                                                                                       root

maybe  I’m not                                      even here                  the scarecrow day
                                                                               grown over
                                                                               props untangling
                                                                               calling mom on the phone

Anyway there’s no tarot spread for the future, it’s all vertigo 
& frog shrill is nauseous                       onset of an evening

& everything is on the edge when you think about birds too long  says
my offstage peripherals                                                                                     via
                                                                                                                                    Joan Crawford
                                                                                                                                    via
                                                                                                                                    Faye Dunaway via

the jammed moment, too perfect 
a flourish of light schematics

I’m looking
for things to do besides run
& swallow gerunds
but statuary is persistent
if anything, &
the pragmatics of circuitry is a body
of salt water, easy to float, except when it’s not &
you sink            link every       possible outcome  &
drop
                           mountain melodrama
                           my my mildew 
                           cursory modal moping

*

In a recent film, a mother works in miniatures
to recreate & handle grief, a legacy of illness;
the camera never pans to
the basement, attic, or interior
insulation, though – desire
mucking the plumbing up invisible 

So on the advise of a friend
I’ve been coaxing small lies
as they emerge, usually about the weather
strangers in bulk
who wander off into audience
& I wish them paint thinner clarity
a gnaw & anonymous wind

Meanwhile I shout into a megaphone
pointed at the swamp  enunciating
through my lopsided gait; voice
as thoroughfare & clustered buzz:

hellohellohello full stop!           / just joking /  the trees are lovely green today

In defense of melodrama

Between my past crossing
presently, a cheap scrim
to diffuse the arid light
into flattering figure, pockmark
filled to the gelatin brim; 

I’m a sticky mess
pasting together
bits of paper, shards of wood
& photorealistic blood
towards a home altar
that doubles as bright vanity 

What else is there to do;
with the light;
blasted monolith of worship 
St. Joseph and his lilies

Here,                roses heaped
on roses, a mountain
red dawning
for you, in case
the lights go out

Without our stage makeup
we’d slip further into cool disdain
a refusal to exchange blows;
but I’m not done with you &
am in a hairy-chested mood &
you’ve been fluffed for ages;
give me porn fuzz
give me camera moan

I can’t bare a blinding reveal
the scene gone tepid, my frame 
my own   form never yours

Take me agag & awash in gold gilt Renaissance swarm
bodies w/o resolution – a scream
to savor & be caught up in
undone & shored up in
alternating hues

Who would I recognize w/o a rose
of blood, what’s a self-séance w/o
a trick trick trick
of the light

I know, one day, our mesmer will dust;
I’m only hoping, by then, I’ll have a hole
freshly dug & ready to rot for you

Wellspring tar & glitch

The interstate yowls
a wet echo           sonars
a receding room – 
figure within smacking dull
against a dark corner

             fumble
                                           out

                            a rot socket

             St. Joseph         pinned

          upside down & forgotten – 
the market decay rate             rises
into paper pulp                         thought flushed;

I won’t miss the red home      distant in pines
have already sealed over the pool & fist
in every doorway

              but rooted prayers are viral;
              in a nearby field
an immaculate heart lurches
toward fuse
              &
                          I’m hitching up a hill
              with subterfuge grottos
                                         careening my direction                           
                                         upending grace & earnest bark

Shrug the splintered silver loose 
but don’t bury it; amass its forged miracle                 to capitalize into burst 

                                                                                                           He says he wants
                                                                                                           a tender mouth

                         I give him nothing
                         but a constant stream
                         of inconsistencies – 

gardenia    barbed wire        head glut   honey honey      honey

I sway out of frame & into further arms

Phil Spotswood is a poet from Alabama, and a PhD Creative Writing student at Illinois State University. His most recent work can be found in BAEST, Burning House Press, and The Wanderer. He is the recipient of the 2018 Robert Penn Warren MFA Poetry Thesis Award judged by Tonya Foster, and the 2017 William Jay Smith MFA Poetry Award judged by Daniel Borzutzky. He tweets @biometrash.