in parentheses

Phillipe M. Chatelain is a poet from New York City with a Masters Degree in Poetry from The New School. He writes as someone in the tradition of the urban troubadour or the flaneur–wandering, taking notes. He believes that poetry of our generation has taken on a much more digital definition. Furthermore, it is important for New Modernist writers like those exhibited in In Parentheses Literary Magazine to assume the forms of media available in order to carry on the history of Sublime Art. His series taking shots alone was self-published in 2012-2015.

facets

unfold those broken items
stolen from the banquet next door.
the way they jab into your side
as you run along the street
is best described as winners remorse
and worst as guilt.

you make a left into an alley
and offload the bounty onto the curb.
the shards slide out of your hands onto the damp ground,
each piece spaced out in a neat pile.
there seems to be one left
at the bottom of your tote, unscathed.

you press your hand
through the contents of your bag
towards the pulsating ruby glow.
it is unfamiliar for just a second,
then becomes all you can see.
you grasp it, pulling it up out of the bag
toward the left side of your chest.

as it gleams for a moment,
you watch it penetrate first your jacket,
then your skin and slowly vanish into flesh.
the ember persists through the breastplate painlessly.
it conforms in your chest
as certain as the sky demands to rain.

a crack in the clouds toward the horizon
reveals the harvest moon glowing in unison
with the light in your chest,
before long their light fades like all else.

hit this matcha

i’m too high to riot, too stone-cold to go
broke in broken down harlem bandos.
you can’t move me–i’m too stubborn to lose faith,
too pretty to move weight, too home to go away.
it’s pathetic to say i’m too old to cry or die or lose my mind,
but then i turn around and whisper
into glass bottles of whiskeys or red wine.
i found out how to haunt myself
and i wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

i’m too high for flying and its about high noon.
i’m bleeding out all wounds.
i got way too many blues for any more bad news.
silence doubters through their wireless router,
keep these computers putin’–
find respite in the blue and orange hue of eyelids.

if pain is life then i’ll be a pot of brewing stew
slowly simmering; spice it twice as nice
and stir at endless but finite intervals.
the clock strikes midnight
on the same its-a-long-day mattress used for the short days.
hide behind a peace sign, eyes still closed
and blind to each time we stain the dirt with each other.
i’m most blind when i stain the dear earth
with my own damn mind.

but i stick to near orbit–i’m smiling–
i’m keen to stay focused on the peace of grey oceans.
listen to my mind for affection
the truth is obscured in my perception.
all these clouds never get old
i’m hoping thought bubbles work the same way–
watch me emulsify, watch me intoxicate
catch me a cab, cash me outside check cashing spot on one-two-five
and frederick douglass how bout dah?

let me explain

it takes three days to regret all i say
even though you barely understand me.
listen to me & let me explain:
don’t you know the feeling goes
just way too close
keep it all on a rapid coast
guilded, brown, and sweet–french toast.

do you know the direction from where i am
to truthful confession? this is just breakfast.
i think i learned my blessing
and fight all hell to accept that
what i obsess upon is rapidly wishing death upon me.

is it real
am i alive
can you feel what i provide
this is a part of real life
this is the art of real life
but i wonder what it feels like
in the world outside of real life

the girl that i understand
she is gone, i left her–
do we need each other or is it just one-way?
won’t find me rhyming about gunplay,
i’m tryna do a reading someday.
find me inside your favorite cafe
writing away though it’s friday.
half-full pints are more optimistic than
a hassle tap, skip class and laugh.
clap back to no one because no half-laugh
deserves to fall in a trap.
spend the next two days on the same page
thinking of the same damn saying
pastor used to pray.

find interest in the misery of wind and the purpose of wandering

who are you who sleep for miles at a time?
you who never arrived
your face catches flies like the grill of an 18-wheeler
that careens the railing of an icy road
in the middle of August

takes you a moment to realize your tears freezing
in Alaska
frozen on your slow pores starved in the still mountain air
which causes echoes to lose their sources
unless the words ring with vigor
and can travel in the daydark,
like a last minute whisper from the sun.

remain distracted, you who never arrived—
do you still sleep when the furthest tree falls?
only seen by the roaming eye of an overhead eagle,
piercing through a type of nothing shape the land takes
when the wind is left to its own fruition.

—

@uptownvoice
lostcosby.wordpress.com