POETRY
“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.”
Part of being a good sad person
is always painting the shadows
in the right direction and knowing
what sorrow to art with.
you know that
baby swallows make silver ripples
in wild rivers to court reeds?
Dylan Krieger’s poetry is unflinching, grotesque, and beautiful. Her work tackles trauma, wrestles authority, and is a decadent sonic feast.
I imagine that undressing a color, though, would be so much like peeling a memory away from the grey and the white matter of your brain.
I would always rather be happy than
dignified. Rather held than held
in awe.
I like to think I’m also sprung,
released from the furnace knocks,
done with the heavy meat stews
and salty soups.
Even from this distance I could go out
the door it would bang shut and crumble
Ghosts for hire, whispers in her mouth,
cysts to feel, the symmetry of a gift.
we drove on through
the blue seal of morning as the turbines
turned and winked out their hearts
Mostly he ate what was put on his plate
snuck coffee grounds or dirt for a snack
Once a zipper Unzipped
Do not say anything anybody else has said ever. Things are not “bleached by sun.”
Try not to see your own predicament in every fucking thing.
Should have found a job by now; should have slept in the night;
should have boiled old coffee before noon.
I slumped in front of a massive desk, a passive patient corroded with failure and dread.