Remiss In Our ClowningBy MLA Chernoff
The meantimes take their light, again,
take me as such, such as you deign in our dealings in & over noon & today & tomorrow—today, but later, still. Close your eyes: feel how its stature imposes its drive— where life is not! A prayer! A joke! They whisper truly, they: to whom the shade is given. Wham-slid, the coffee seeping through the c r a c k of an old breakfast compatriot (half-mast, half-past a wakeup call). How can a moment rely so heavily on the footweighed sidesteps carried by lag & whisper? Cross the street with me. Crisper than winterbreath, more succinct than the breather— avoidance need not ask forgiveness. You slide into remission. A balloon-shaped you pops a final salutation: we tried. Six feet, an open question: under or away? Didactic, cheery, gay. Adhoc AusterityBy MLA Chernoff
Suddenness, so ambulatory—purple and even.
Outside of rest, after the streams are squared, outside of rent where the good liars are kept under-slept, not there, but some which where—infinitude, a word who smells like song, it was there I heard you, Pauline in melody, being-here in felony, protection from encroaching perfection. The ground rung above the roadshow,
the crow rung below the pain. What is not in infinitude, what is vowelled—a me, poor in noun & verb, angiosperm, a never-not goaded by desire for the gun. I waive the uncolour
speaking phrases once nonced—a No-Thing was not-not lost to loss. In fortunes, the spleen is a time slowed by decreation—mirror images of journal entries regarding nights that won’t happen. Yes: soon will grow the space, empty upon the seat:
Soon there, later clothed by the harshness of shade, please stay. With me. Down, are you down? To withhold touch on the elevator? Thicker I fall, more vulgar, a little headier. Yes: a finger through which you distance the stars from their spilt w/a/y/s: to sink up, more, more above not here, but there, where you feel it litter: on heaps of shit, the particulates of wondering worlds. Author photo by Raquel Simões
MLA Chernoff is a Toronto-based poet, performance artist, meme enthusiast, and recovering academic. Their debut full-length poetry collection, [SQUELCH PROCEDURES], was released by Gordon Hill Press in 2021. MLA is also the author of several chapbooks, including delet this (Bad Books, 2018), TERSE THIRSTY (Gap Riot Press, 2019), I'M LIKE THE GREAT GRANDCHILD OF MARX & COCA-COLA (BUT NON-BINEY) (845 Press, 2022), and ESTRO FLUNKY (above/ground press, 2023).
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