1 poem & 2 excerpts
Chapter: Book, an excerpt from Booked
Now imagine a lifetime of books. Books of lives.
Maybe it wasn’t worth it, the book, not like that. No.
No more living by the book. In the bad books. What’s
a bookish boy to do? I booked it. Tried every trick in
the book. Called every name. Brought to book. Bet
the bookie. Played the books. Hit. Red the book.
Read for filth. Threw the book. Smarts to the street.
Turned the page to a new chapter. Became closed
book. Ran for cover. Judged a cover. Booked an
interview for a legal firm. Botched the interview.
Cooked books in a pizza in a pizza parlor as a pizza
maker. Balanced my books. Love that old smell. Put
my nose to it, pierced it. Thumbed. The books. Lived.
In an archive as an owl. Then I booked it. I booked it
so fast and so far. I booked new arrangements.
Booked a flight mile high. Booked gigs. Booked it
home. I booked it. Bye
the book. the face. defaced.
Chapter: [Book], an excerpt from Booked
] [A flight] [A room] [Inn] [Out] [Lost] [Unreturned]
[Shelved] [Worn] [Thrown out of anger and picked
up again to throw] [In the fire pit] [In the box]
[Trapped in the corridors of the psyche] [In the back
of the bus] [Wrapped in plastic] [Stamped] [Carded]
[Spelled] [Let] [End] [Nightstand] [Codex] [Recipe]
[Forgotten] [Tucked in the armpit] [Purchased with
cash at the thrift store] [Dream world]
[Encyclopedia] [Lingering in your nightmares] [In a
backpack on a plane] [Twisted into bad drafts]
[Drafty window sill prop] [Card] [Play] [Cased]
[Used] [Papyrus prescription] [Atlas] [Table] [Year]
[Field] [Worm] [Library] [Earth] [Unread] [Stacked]
[Holy] [
Farts Poetica
*
never underestimate a body / & sense it produces
attentiveness to body sprouts / a politic: personal is always
political, so the body. is always / poetic inherently / embodied politic
*
fruits / from all that is
ingested & digested
vibrating & shaking
me / a surprising
*
musical / distorting
a face / all emotions
ethereal / singing
*
Onomatopoeia
"‘formation of words or names by imitation of natural sounds; the naming of something by a reproduction of the sound made by it’ From Latin onomatopoeia, from Greek onomatopoiia ‘the making of a name or word’ from onoma ‘word, name’ + poiein ‘compose, make’ (see poet)”
*
Fart / Foist / Fizzle / Pssssst
Burp / Squeak / Trump
Poot / Parp / Pop / Toot
Cheese / Raspberry / Ramp
*
food for talk / consumers digest
lip dance / stutter
speech / from the gut / brain
*
the dream goes like this / breathing
the dream comes like this / brinking
*
Flatulent
“‘affected by digestive gas,’ from Latin flatus ‘a blowing, breathing, snorting; a breaking wind’”
*
oxygen is a waste / product accumulated / over millennia
wasting away / within carbon waste / within a century
*
the sublimation of humor & horror
the practice, then, is to lean into
*
Fart
“Old English feortan, ultimately from PIE *perd- (also of Old High German ferzan, Old Norse freta, Danish
fjerte, Sanskrit pard, Greek perdein, Lithuanian perdžiu, persti, Russian perdet)
of imitative origin”
*
to be broken / wind / to unwind
to become affected / by gas / blown
*
it’s too late / increasingly
human / flatulent draft
*
coming out of a brief
moment to emphasize: I
exist – in present tense
Aerik Francis is a Queer Black & Latinx poet and teaching artist based in Denver, Colorado, USA. They are a Canto Mundo poetry fellow and a Watering Hole fellow. They are also a poetry reader for Underblong poetry journal and an event coordinator for Slam Nuba. They have poetry published widely, links of which may be found at linktr.ee/Aerik or via their website phaentompoet.com. Find them on IG/TW @phaentompoet