Like This

Like this my pose of isolation is
Being perfected
With the gesture of an octopus rubbing its bald head in agony
Concealing
The fact that what fills my empty noggin
Is pulpy entrails
Concealing
The fact that what hangs from my crotch are my real eyes
My toothed tongue
Concealing the fact that what I must endure
With the gesture of an octopus enduring
Loneliness by gnawing its own leg
Is not loneliness but hunger
A spineless octopus
From a spineless family
I suck and lick and bite
Myself
Acting like I’m not an octopus
That unknowingly got trapped in a jar
Like I’m no ordinary
Octopus Like I’m grinding
Like I’m whittling my bones
A mass of bubbles without a single
Bone splinter to whittle
Concealing the ever-widening pores of horror
Pores that gape like craters    Concealing
Blindness
Scanning keenly with
Blind eyes

◆

An Organism 6 Minutes Before

an organism that gnaws and swallows itself / an organism that gnaws and swallows until its
throat rips open / an organism 6 minutes before

a shift change / an organism with eyelids closing like steel shutters / an organism 6 minutes
before / with urine pooling up to its eyeballs / an organism that puts up

with itself when nothing else can / an organism that puts up by scratching its crotch until it
bleeds / an organism unlike anything you’ve seen before / an organism that’s crunchcrunching
the back of its own head

whenever it comes to its senses / an organism that’s asked why a fucker like you exists / with only
the hide left over from carving out its heart / snickering below

the eaves of a pork rind spot / an organism that laughs its ass off / when there’s no need to laugh
that hard / an organism that blocks one hole with another / an organism that blocks

one cock with another / how does food still go down your throat / an organism that swallows / an
organism that doesn’t give two shits about you / an organism that’s utterly invisible

while alive / an organism that simply couldn’t have been here / an organism visible to you only
after death / an organism that forms

a face only after death / an organism that must suffocate first / to call
out to somebody

◆

Endless Jazz 8

—i never thought i’d ever need a conscience like some handy bulletproof vest to rip on and off

—stepping forward is hard even in front of a toilet isn’t it?

—behind the door a black dog sits in darkness on its balls like a cushion its head wedged against
the ceiling

—you think people die just once yeah right no one dies just once i know because i’ve died before

—midcoital loathing oh hatred that pure is mined only in marriage

—gluttony the only thing viewers eat up now the glutton’s mantra everything is mukbang
mukbang beats porn

—you can’t know someone you haven’t fucked can you without knowing their holes and poles

—the only thing nastier than god is the public toilet flush lever

—every rocket is a red rocket nuclear-tipped or not a red rocket flashing with cutting-edge
materials

—swallow vomit or swallow violence either way even acquired traits get passed down which
fucking sucks

—why am i here after crossing the jordan river and passing through the eye of a needle

—we are each gods unto ourselves a holy trinity known as me myself and i nothing can touch us i
pray for myself to myself

—those chickenshit tears don’t fool me i know you’re laughing right now which hole are you
laughing through

—some cocks are worn outside clothes some cocks draped boldly around necks

—we all hide parts of ourselves truths tucked like genitals

—what’s wrong with cancer not everyone gets to zipline into hell at least i can see the end an end
not even god possesses

—look we’re animals a species growing filthier and filthier from birth to death

—hong sang-soo was right . . . nothing is real!

◆

Yet Another Loneliness

Loneliness like a goat in a salt pit, loneliness that grew more speechless the more it spoke,
loneliness with the white salt mountain shining deep in its throat, loneliness that masturbated
with its neck hung on the doorknob, loneliness that couldn’t even get off, without being choked,
toss damn poetry to the dogs, wearing a wig that doesn’t match its hair, this isn’t NC-17, it’s Not
Suitable for Humans, eighteen years to read, eighteen years to forget, loneliness that snickered
loneliness blessed by the Holy Spirit’s dove repeatedly showering it with shit, loneliness that
mock-fucked in the blood-red light of day, and shared some famous mock-funeral food,
loneliness that didn’t know that’d be its last fuck, loneliness that texted in the middle of the
night, most men are land mines, aren’t they?, loneliness that turned its back in fog thick as meat
broth, instead of closing its eyes, because of what it saw behind closed eyes, loneliness that
dissolved into fog without outline or shape, loneliness glimpsed in a dream, loneliness that held
its skull by its side like a broken flower pot, GG* even before it died, loneliness that broke the
news of its own death in two syllables, loneliness that had no choice but to reach what might
have been unreachable**, loneliness that opened its mouth wide like an envelope to swallow a
50,000 won bill in condolence, loneliness that’s now settled accounts with me,

* Good Game: A phrase used to admit defeat

** Pascal Quignard