Author: taylor mardis katz

Barscene

space
There’s no need to buy me
a drink. I’m mad about neighbors
but the thought of you
relocating to the barstool on my right
makes me long to plug up
every hole I own
with chewing gum.

But here you are & so
I gab to fill the pinkspace
of the conversation.
Midnight catches me mid-
yawn and tra la la it’s time
for a visit to the bathroom:
that timeworn pretense

granted to women
from the plucky goddesses
of fuck-that-dude.
I feel you watching
what my bluejeans cover
as I tootle towards
the toilet’s gumstained walls.

The sass detained
in half my ass
could crash your hard drive, boy.
Don’t waste
your hard-earned dollars
on goods I won’t imbibe.
When it comes to chitchat,

love & beverages,
the truth stings: we diverge.

katzenjammer (noun)

a. A hangover, or a symptom of one.

b. transf. and fig. An unpleasant aftermath or reaction; depression, ‘blues’; clamour, uproar.

c. Katzenjammer Kids (or Children), mischievous, naughty children; enfants terribles. So called from the title of a comic strip, first drawn by Rudolph Dirks in 1897 for the New York Journal, featuring Hans and Fritz, two incorrigible children. Also attrib.

**Watch our for us Katzes. We come with aftermath.

(definition culled from the wide & glorious Oxford English Dictionary)

Brooklyn Heat

Thinking back to that June afternoon,
the medals of coolness rise

to the top of memory like cream:
the park’s recipe of shade & breeze,

the surprise of watermelon,
& the celestial spray of the fountain

we stood close to.
I kept stretching my arms wide,

pushing my belly, hot as everything else,
into the mist. Underneath the separate

sprays was Poseidon, his beard
like twelve ropes conversing.

Looking at my companions,
I could not say with conviction

whom I loved most.
The library stood nearby & lampooned

me with a gleaming
of columned creatures in gold

that bared a deep and stately knowledge
unknowable to any of us

sweaty, splattering humans.
Therefore I, neither Greek nor godlike,

exhaled as my dream self jumped
into the arctic spume of the fountain

and there, unbodied & wild,
I showered down beside Poseidon, a rainbow of cool.

I miss my sister.

This is a new blog
that has twirled into life
not by my doing nor
by my complaining.

I hope you enjoy
what crawls on this page––
It’s been written for you
and the hummingbirds too.

(All my thanks to Misha

Marston, who carved

this space of internet

for me.)