Untitled (after Goya)

aquatint toothhunter lithograph squall      deaf
-ness slides from one to another ear another
human back, extricating the back from the body’s another and some man or some ghosts or
previsions of a crowd forming its occasion.     a squall

of grays generates and conceals the face the background
isn’t vacant as pieces align into what they are. tremor of the line

irregular, prone to avalanche.    neither moonlight
nor its lack but articles of disturbance that exist
physically. bodies squall-bound

muscled copse of a tree before the hill the background isn’t
vacant when a body is discernible. the blanket’s
body of limbs only, thrashing
together in one body smeared by the one
wet wind.     departure

of the background is rehearsal for the messianic event. behind
is a blank
wave grinding.     either way
this flickering.

Email Breath

all day these errors with my hands
all day I see their faces in concrete formica slate velour watercolor unriveting
time claps in literal indulgence
one breath one unmapped new wickedness
slow news slows down the day
wavers big like a building
I head to the roof to make illegible upward gestures
next recognition
an email with no text
no text in the body my mistake
what’s breath’s color after it’s cooled
I’m alright again
show me the future and if it’s for real I won’t look
I’ll swear I’m busy sitting as my hands charge with temperance
it hurts to provoke what’s coming anyways
not enough to stop it though
I wonder why no one’s here but me
it’s how I first know something’s wrong

Banned Flavors

The leaked report includes          California
Condor           Cauliflower Doubt
Housebound Necessity          Equinoctial
Moan          all these objects
could be your own in time
in her email Amy
describes the crash
how she skimmed over
the cognitive labeling that makes life
feel organized or volitional
as if life ever were those things
off with the landscape
off with its head
full of bogus etymologies
Mouth Water          Goth Architect
Humanalogue          Millennial
Croon         do I know that car
alive in the distance
how it orbits itself
cranes to see the back
of its own head
look now the center’s collapsed
a lung would too
that’s not right
I didn’t write it
I did but it was somebody else
hey operator of the aeolian drone
hey operator of the unfucked world
hey operator will you be awake
when the question comes
to rest on the shoulder
of its own insistence
it’s kindness but a jealous one
a mass of used ribbon
keeps me up at night
Mocked Budget            Austerity Bruise
Glottal Shock            Creative
Maximum            oh don’t worry
they’ll be back soon
you just have to wait
until the spinning stops

Peter Myers is a poet and writer based in New York. His poems have appeared in Conjunctions, Vestiges, DATABLEED, Boston Review, and elsewhere. He has an MFA in Poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.