A Bump for an Old Beast
by Arley Sakai
Sticks, stones, suspension hooks, pupmasks.
–If I am infinitely configurable, what does that do to me?
said screwed-up lovely 32.
In New York City, I have no control over the room
temperature—stuffy.
(It's the Year of Andrew.) Apes make us go bananas.
These days, you can't trust anyone not to come out as
an IDF sniper himbo. I scroll thru the news for ECT, a good snort.
The Los Angeles Revue of Books sits in a fresh mud pit.
Boards and their director tiptoe around the slaughter.
Michelle ball-gags Gaza like a gimp
but is more subordinated, i.e., doesn't even get off.
Richard is all mumbo-jumbo.
I only know one of his songs
& have read just one novel, recently reissued.
A rewriting of the conditions that evoked Rimbaud
and his seasonal decline from another man's mind:
Hell's. Cela, c'est passé....
Arley Sakai (b. 2002) is a writer and artist living in Brooklyn. Arley co-organizes Not for Leisure, an interdisciplinary reading series for emergent artists in New York City. More writing can be found in BOMB, the Poetry Project Newsletter, The Margins, Buckman Journal, and on Substack at Crude Material.