Queer Pursuits, Lights the Moon to Spite the Sun, & Mood 48 Is A Gay One
Bradley David Waters
__________
You know that grumbling truck
The one with scowling headlights
and cow-catcher grill
You’ll never catch me I say
Pinned in its radiator
like a plaid blue dragonfly
•———• A flying blue dragon
Whip-tailed and tongue of fire
Eyes drawn to its alveoli
Scales enameled to its chest
A brooch to die for I say
Brakes sending me flying
Cowl spitting my dust
Sending up gems of snapdragons
___________
Lights the Moon to Spite the Sun
I’ve seen them,
the bastards.
Eyes with long families
& some sort of jesus
& some sort of limousine
& rainbows diced by powerlines.
Stop staring.
Stop publishing my t-shirt
while I’m still collectible.
My book would scale a window
if every last shop goes down.
We are nothing your
petrol can fix. Nothing for your
sharp policy rebukes,
or monocrop failures,
or corn syrup futures.
Your feral blue-eyed bees.
When will your business of
moon shots
& cloud control,
divine design
& selective testicles,
emerge from my pricy
pill cocktail of
impractical equilibrium?
I want natural juts of
ridiculous proportions.
Outside in, but inside-out.
Walls as waterfalls
as earplugs
as hearing aids.
Blackout peace vision goggles.
Pastel dam hammers.
This velvet house—
pale land & pale bread,
late to wildness but not late
to sainthood—
I want it born backwards.
Back to land & bread & birds.
Saintly birds so drunk on berries
they fall from wires & laugh at my cat.
I’ve seen them,
& I get them.
I get the purring allure of
antioxidants &
anti-occidentals.
I have a greenmail forcefield
named Monica. They’re-a-helluva
godddamn office manager.
They get what I want
when I need what I less.
They’re a queer kitten army
& rainbow tetra brigade.
They make kitty litter
of oil men & crochet fair
congressional districts.
Sow seed bombs disguised
as golden parachutes
& goodbye kisses.
My forcefield refines
petrol puddles into
whispers. Tells myself
help is not human
or new
or fairytale
or ephemeral. Whispers:
I’m on a mite,
on the back of an ant,
on a grain of rice,
in a sack of worlds,
on the back of an ant;
And I am a seed,
floating the wind,
landing rump to dirt,
chin to knees,
face to sun,
face to sun,
and still I’m fine.
___________
Mood 48 Is A Gay One
I must be bad
I must be so bad
I must be so damn bad
I must be so damn bad
Under blue leaves of veins pulsing between us
I am bad
Under blue glass flowing over our age gaps
I am bad
I am some bad
I am some bad in the fire-prone ignorance of leaf-clogged eaves
I am some bad greeting your some bad on some same bad day
I am some good greeting your some good on some same good day
Our some good must be some perfect
We must be some perfect
We must be some perfect greeting some perfect on some perfect daily infinite
We must be perfect
We must be infinite
We must be so damn perfect and infinite
We must be so damn perfect and infinite
We must be flowing through an infinite perfect feeling bad and good and perfect
We must be flowing
We must be feeling
We must be together
We must stay together
We must stay so damn together
We must be so damn bad together
We must be so damn bad
We don’t even know how bad
We must shake it and come back for the answer
__________
Bradley David Waters is a writer of poetry, fiction, hybrid, and essays. His writing and image-based work appears and is forthcoming in Denver Quarterly, The Los Angeles Review, Action, Spectacle, DIAGRAM and numerous other publications and anthologies. He has been nominated for the Puschcart and Best of the Net. He is also the blended-genre senior editor at jmww journal. Bradley was raised in Northern Michigan and now shares space in California with his husband, dog, adopted poultry, and apple trees. Publications, images, and video readings at bradley-david.com. Instagram @bradley_david_w; Bluesky @bradley-david.com
__________
To learn more about submitting your work to Boudin or applying to McNeese State University’s Creative Writing MFA program, please visit Submissions for details.