To further support Action Books’ growing community of writers and readers, we’ve decided to launch a new initiative on the Action Books Blog. Selected by our editorial staff, a recurring series called Action Fokus will highlight excerpts from 12+ radical manuscripts submitted by poets and translators during our 2022 Open Reading Period. Today we are featuring excerpts from Jared Joseph’s 36 Poems.
SHE THICC AS THE NIGHT IS NARROW
She is late at night but narrow.
The bird hanging in response
is there. These trees tall as fuc
king Midas’ touch brings you together.
Is it fun to be an evangelist? Sleep in your eyes
then. This sleep will not stop.
She thicc as the night is narrow.
This natty lite brite month i want to hear my thoughts.
She thicc as the night is narrow
the raven learns the true song, or instrument
& measure, but that’s what the lyrics are
a guide to when you lose, so that’s the day
devouring the earth, thirsting for the earth, but
we do not thirst for water either
teevee or Disney + might be better
subtract that, this entry
you become. She was thicc at night
before, the moon’s moon was gone, it had
a hernia, normal grass, normal Miley Cyrus had
a mild virus, but we are all complicated
we heard ears
and with additives, reduced it further
She is late at night
relieving memories
we steal our drunk father
‘s beer. i miss the body.
i’m a mental person. i miss him
later. i am lost in you
in the summer
She is late at night but narrow.
We waited for the daily intake.
The skin will burn but it will shiver.
The wind was harsh.
Smoke smoke and birds calling.
Every morning in your song Victory.
No one is in a coma like you
like a full moon for the duration of the night
The arrows spread through my face with their hips and ass
I am like a ghost.
Something unexpected happened.
In the night on the sidewalk a man about to intersect
my path (i own it) and i lease it to leave to the road
to give myself space for my aerosols (i own them)
(have a spirit) but he does not have such a spirit or distinction
like the dusty of a mighty wind, we are restored
and all natty sounds in a simple convo, with ears and nose
and dogs, ordinary dogs.
If i’m offending golden gold
free me.
It makes no sense to me
We are sick
like Mia Farrow.
But beauty is not wrong.
But Yves is a name among people. I organize
around a sentence, She thicc at night but narrow
as a slivering slow arrow of bent moon, as a
throb of eclipse, or priapus, or apple store, like a new microphone
My love for you is like a
Hot Pocket, She thicc
as the night slips. She thicc as two ships
passing in the night narrow.
The night has courage to endure the world and the world is nothing
but a type of me. The night is hips bucking
me to “Sure.” She died, she rested, and i
was alive. No gauge can describe the extent that
that language there repeats She thicc as the night
sparrows aren’t nocturnal. Idiot. But
i am a blasted tree. The boles the moles make key
holes through. The shattered wood on my soul
kindles expansively, and is teak which’s sold at
peak price, expensive, but ignites fires all the same
price: you can’t buy flames on ebay.
The night is as bright as night
our curtains came down
the reflection of the moon in the sea,
not the sea. Its versatility,
crazy. The day of the merger
you lie in the pool holding the white
wine in the mirror and your hand in my hope
to repair your electrocute, electroadorable brain
damage. Rude, i said to my friend,
not comrade. Some joke about picking Trotsky’s
brain reminds me: That scene in that movie that social worker
says “you’ve lately it seems had increasingly negative
thoughts” and that recipient of that insight says “
But all my thoughts are negative” made me cry
my Lexapro out. But i’m a Lexamateur. But
i’m a superhero
‘s normcorevillain.
She thicc as the night is narrow
but the flare of the hips burns my ungloved
palms to hold you rocking to Elvis
Costello. Anthony
Hawk: the cow ollied over the moo
n. I have learned some insights from the sun and learned
a terrible sight from my father and what eclipses feel
fails to conceal
too much
thiccness
and the wheels of the night were flying over the earth trying
my patience. And yet what if i’m
a flash of the entirely new? She thicc as the night
is narrow. Night filter on the moon
and so they worshiped.
In the high vaults behind the gates of heaven there is a seal
arp arp
All high notes fall
from.
All the stars are the same.
But not everything feels
like something else.
There are no miracles
scattered over the land
and across the earth
around the world
and around the world.
*published in the Columbia Review, 2021
A SKIFF NAMED VAGUE UNREST
i don’t know the hysterical flowers’ names
This is an example of dangerous pants
God’s wrath awaits
Dead friends crying for joy
nine trace faces behind wisteria
Travis sees a doctor every morning
– That’s what he said.
This does not apply to plants
They have different cell walls
There are no rings of power
on Saturn. Angels are like arrows or gods
Or words that describe the use and destruction of Good
St., City of Economics, Vision, TM
The dog is breathing
He understood the confusion
It is located on the planet Uranus
In a cell or in a call.
Katie is correct
and locked up in wisteria.
There is trembling and there is anger.
The dog is cold
I hate to walk. I’m a dog
There are several ways to collect data
But you can direct and see history
God foretold the future of this planet
“Go to heaven.” Pray for Wisteria
Lights and lanterns
That’s unnecessary
It does not matter
I have a balloon
e.g.
My passions and i
like this
detriment.
i don’t think that’s right.
The image of the birds is wrong
Lean
Kneel down and stretch
Is this not the best
The invisible images are different from the hidden images.
And why are we all so beautiful?
And why is it so far away from us?
i think the neighbors are blue
But i saw that the root was blue
Blood is the color of animals
Go there
There are many things in the body’s immune system
MONTHS
The epidermis is another way to get a tattoo
Giving up my vanity machine.
There is another way to get close to my heart.
We call it a proper “fire line”.
This book will kill then.
Michelin Star light
Michelin Star bright
The first Roman died
So I’m eating tonight.
The sun reached a deep end.
The relationship is dug into the water.
A fire speaks itself, spends
I have to spell it out for
you: I am weak from dreaming.
mint tea I drank I thought before bed
I drank my thought, this cup is
This cup is all my good. A purely
visual experience smiled. Dense of
verbiage, “need” is a strong word my friend.
Friend is a strong word, comrade.
In such a manner it is
shit, such harmonious simplicity
eternity, when we kissed we ashtrayed
we were smokers. Choose solitude against
I had dreams.
No I don’t know where
If a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it
was it ever published? Every day I die beautiful and occult
Guard absolute silence
that’s to say,
In sum: The other girl probably did not want
to be in love, but was in love My advice for
being in love is, to be in love, be in love.
Cry in front of laptop screens in public.
Kiss the hollow of your person’s chest
to fill it
you send shivers down
My spine
Long after the others had subsided.
Green How I Want You Green
in the river i will be well-hung
there by the sea will you wait for
my love i’ll be waiting there for
me.
you say my names comes up
like the conversation is the sea
and my name is a drowned
body
god sent his No OK no OK no
down to his followers couples
therapy, Now he does not love you
Now he twerks his love for another
She said his name is Now! she
is late at night but now
but how do you know
if it’s a poem or a song?
The thought has many
chambers of her and as many
chambers and some change
you see my name comes up in
conversation
I don’t know if the color of pain is itself the color of paint, all paint, the color of
description
itself, the madness of describing anything, a description of the maddening nature of
description
*The poem is called A Conversation. Maybe all poems should be called this. Con, with,
versare, to turn, and what’s a poem but the act of turning with, or turning into, a speaker turns
to the spoken-to, and both convert, both are changed. “you could turn to me” the speaker
says “to talk,” “and it might be easy in the picture.”
but how do you know
if it’s a poem or a song? if you can sing it it is
a poem if you can’t sing it
it is
lost, and i am, a soul talking
through a mask i am so lost in
conversation something comes up like
something always comes up
My shit has been canceled and
i am a dark drunk Now! he does
not love you for another god
sent us an hour OK now but
how do you know it’s a poem or
a song if you can sing it it is an
emergency
my throat and i have to go
on, But to speak something new
finally i sometimes have to go
back against the wall into the
names on the back of my
mouth finger ring it out and 12
at night the diaphragm the LED
lights in stock right because
they are localized focused
patient and i can try and make a
point on the different shade
colors of spending for
differentiated still because i’m
young i have eaten too many
but no, only purple blossoms no
hangnails no one else now i
point something in the back my
mouth and What do you speak something
to? Finally i sometimes have to
go back into the wall at the
back of my mouth and giving it
out and 12 paper dyads for a
melody what’s their localized
focus patient i can try to make
a point, to me, but now the
problem is no one else is there
with my mouth and i’m not that
OK now but how do you know
it’s a poem or song if you can
see it in my throat. And i have to
go now
And i would door dash 50 reubens,
And i would door dash 50 more,
Just to be the man who door / dashes 100 reubens
To dash their blood upon your door
What do you say to Finally?
i sometimes have to go back into the
And how do you know if it is a
poem or a song, in the throat
something comes up and talks
your voice comes home as long as you
can see that it is in your voice
you can see it in your voice if
you can sing it and sell it if you
can’t, you say my name
comes up in conversation with
the sun or a swan in Brooklyn
and now it has been the truth
the truth always surfaces like a drowned
surface. And so it has always been
now how do you know if the
power is on int he throat there’s
a pen that comes up to talk to your
voice as little and as long as you
are and tall as you are but
what do you have to say about
Finally, the truth services like a
differentiated set of blossoms
piggybacking on the tree’s branches’
future cabin that’s its date of birth
like my name like the conversation
is the wooden chair i dropped onto
my name and drowned body
all angels are envelopes
working out in
gymnasiums to become bionic men.
My heart beats.
Her hand is on my stomach and it is good.
She takes my Old Fashioned and swigs from it a brief swig
which is what a swig is, brief, and i am allayed and terrified
and i am intoxicated, which is what a drink is, it is me
alloyed to it, she is intoxicated by drink, by me
intoxicated, and i wonder whether i have Covid now and
am human, bio being human, on the pattern of electronic.
The droning of your neighbors all around us,
the kingdoms that invoke the name have desolated home,
made home alone, made John Hughes sad, is this
art, is John Hughes an artist, i don’t know.
i am 34 and yes i am. Am i to move away from home
as befits your great strengths condemned to death.
Am i in your parents’ primetime lifetime movie.
You can’t have marked you make my heart beat like this.
Can you, can i, make emergency locations like this.
Is jared a big deal in the community asks Sarah.
Is jared a hot commodity downtown Sarah asks.
Phenomenal events combined with cognitive confusion.
i skated at church to see if i could ollie over god
i forgot god’s a hand of plasma everywhere
or like electons, each the same as each
a holly trillionity
so i ollied over lots of him, piles of god, often
but it was not enough and made me feel godstraphobic
Ali is not within my friend pod
But i went to her pad and picked her up
She is not very heavy, i make it look easy
she said
Ali saw Paige at the restaurant.
Paige is filled with hatred and with snow
i really miss now
Ali stuffed her nose with ketamine
Maddy’s nose senses nothing but the dead virus particles
That smell like burnt tar
She frantically sniffed armpits, wine in goblets, Ali’s breasts
They call each other Ilsa
There was a lot of sexual tension
i was chaste flotsam like god
We have a box of Special K on our communal fridge
Everyone i know does Normcore K
Ali and Schraeder discussed feelings and emotions
Schraeder said there’s first a feeling then an emotion then an idea
i had an idea
A feeling is without ideas, it is in the gut
An idea is an interpretation of the feeling, they couple and
outward borne is an emotion, which is always approximate
i felt tired and i emoted listlessness and anomie
i love the word anomie
god said to his followers Now!
there ain’t no oui without you and i in french
this is from the book of Jeremih
the book i took with other books by its cover says
please return together but, how do you know
if it’s a poem or a song? if you can sing it it is
a poem if you can’t sing it
*Based on “A Conversation” from Emily Hunt’s Dark Green
Muwashshaha N. 5
1
The moon
is ready to be beautiful,
expensive.
2
The moon
is ready to be beautiful
like people lie amid accumulated fire
but if the fire is so hot
you can turn it off, stock white
snow.
3
All eyes are books i kissed.
Age is looking for a helpless person
For it softens or it touches honey in my breast.
Between the mushrooms the sun is self-absorbed
One face is depressed.
One face is exudate
Too bad your eyes see me complain so much
4
If there is heat
If there is late September
If there is Holy, gentle camp
Then how fast is football
If when a people is coming from the fire
If the heat of fire
If you have a small moan
No action is required. One face is removed
The death of your lips is the honesty that comes out of nowhere
5
You look at the mushroom.
I was looking for years to help me
Under the sun when you open the structure of fungus
up
I was lying under sun-reducing mushrooms
Combining breasts with honey.
If you have problems
(Holy, gentle camp)
This is it
6
There are goo words and there are bah words.
He died inside the arms of love.
The scientist is not me.
They are mushrooms.
Come on
7
He saw her.
As a result, the stupid driver lost his way home.
Watering
Mushrooms
takes a little time.
Wait a little
If there is heat
September,
Holy, gentle camp
then
8
No action required. The red eye exploded. This mouth.
9
Brush your teeth and reset your nose
If your eyes complain too badly
The death of his lips the honey out of the New
As a result, employees of a sudden wander from their homes.
I am looking for someone who can help me for years.
No action is required. One face is removed.
If you have a small moan
If when a people is coming from the fire
If the heat of fire
10
The death of your lips is the honestness that comes from nowhere
11
The death of your lips is honey from another place
12
Homes exist in every country, and Hope, when it is infinite, usually.
13
ordinary trot
the ordinary trot the
forefoot.
expression
00000should be simple
00000quarters should flow
00000downward
00000arch his back.
00000let him take the bit over
00000often more difficult to carry this out
00000requires a lot of
00000rhapsody.
14
Throw your back over the wall, jump
after it.
The growing
point
and this jumping
jumping
canter jump
jumping.
extends himself and arches his back,
horses are frightened of his obstacle.
This fear can be removed by way of
injuries.
15
Readyplanted i sensed
the sea pronounced glass
gorgeously:
sensual as
etaljplate
16
It is true, kind, slack, null and structured
the tongue run along basalt, the grave grieving
too, the forbidden limb and coursing out of ground
in altered town and glib wind; the embers will grow on it
a beholder droops, though loosely, time’s drachma, and her
little things shift in the nest.
17
When rain is rare he sets himself to bring about rainfall.
18
Noah’s unnamed wife
Felipe, I’m leaving tomorrow
And in the summer I saw a bright red bird.
Here is another one, the sun.
It illuminates the birds as they go
With faith I destroyed my memory.
My ankles, <3 ankles, this post
I was immersed in the sunlight
I have already used the ice cream on flights.
It is a shy bird, but it is red with green leaves.
The air inside the body is dry.
The sky will be dry I know
But the funny thing is, I’m used to it.
In the eyes of the audience, am I a red bird?
the bag flew out
Those loving caws can fly.
I believe in the sun through the mail.
I will not be injured today.
Wear sports pants wear dry clothes
Cry all
difficult-to-fly
on-the-wings-of-birds
moving-on
red birds
– I wore some clothes last night. – Last night there was no rain.
Tits are everything
Elsewhere in a world where there are no gods
– One plain
It is difficult to fly a helicopter.
The bike guy said that the new bikes give you a whole new perspective.
I’m not going to talk about a new day
The Tour de France continues in other rooms in French.
But I am in another room
The bookseller said I was time traveling and I liked it.
Poems as I know them
for no man knoweth the end thereof
The poems are masked and written around his neck.
I have a book to return to you.
It isn’t time travel it is just two years.
You can collect books but you can’t gain experience.
I’m not a collector because I don’t have a plan.
Do not believe in Dharma
and in a billion dollars
I want to live with you in New York
if i happen to survive.
if I fear not God
I was not put here, but the door is open.
I wonder if she will love me?
I still need to be ready
Anger came over me and it made me angry.
O Aguira! Klaus Kinski’s sharp face
One is always thinking and looking at it.
Hendrick! This crazy face is crazy.
I love the first show
I will say I love this song, but I hate the first one.
but I like the first song
When love is focused on experience
Compare your focus to people
We went to Bar and Dunkins™
I said it would get better today.
– There it is. We have a real light. People bother you.
And you hit people’s hearts with a movie.
Dad ordered the green pepper
chicken sausage meatball and pepperoni pile
pizza, that’s so many different farm animals
The distributor said the crust was thin and should not hold.
I was told that the foundations were deteriorating.
Dad didn’t go to the temple, and it was fine.
He killed half of the area with his thought
A red bird flying backwards.
Jared Joseph is boring.