Five Poems

a selection from Song of My Selfie

I am BOUNTIFUL and SPRINGY
I JUMP and BUMP
into the bosom of AMERICA
FIRST CLASS and NICE ASS
BIG BEARD and FEELIN WEIRD
INSTANT GLORY A PRIORI

AMERICA! Where the RATCHETS
dance with HATCHETS
where OREGON TRAILS receive E-MAILS
where the FIRE blows our BUSHES
until THEY SPEAK of PEAKS
like the fine TREMOLO of EXCEPTIONALISM
in the SMILE of a TRADER JOE’S CASHIER

I am agitating for a RAISE like LAZARUS
but instead I will go to the BEACH
and RELISH A TACO with LESBIAN HEDONISM
while a STRONG BREEZE parts the hair
of a TENDER PRAIRIE FIELD

RADICAL SELF ESTEEM
is the NEW TRANSCENDENTALISM

TODAY is the DAY
I begin CHEATING on MYSELF
with a BETTER VERSION of MYSELF

selections from Towards a Liberation of Radical Sugar

The Alphabet of Tasty

There is only one rule
in the alphabet of tasty:

you dream with Aphonia.
You let her know where else

your mouth has been arrested.
Evidence accepted is where your lips

have prints. Take her downwards
to the station where you did that job.

Procedurals may murmur on the lumber knobs,
but lead her ampersands to hands

that are focal and neck-tender.
Clang with fever in the trance

of a Rolodex. Do your math on the arms
where you slip her songs.

Graduate your lips around
a hot diphthong.

Unwrap each node
of the brass-glown throbs.

The Ruse of the Gulls

a sea was in love with a cliff
from which natives had reported
strange things.

one summer, as urgent foam hands
paved memory into the grey beds,
a girl jumped from above,
having bound her ankles
and swallowed thirty-seven eels
in hopes of becoming
a mermaid.

the blind tailor was the only one
who saw her milk-white dress
burst into seagulls
and devour all
but her spleen

which landed gently
in the womb
of a conch shell.

[]

your body
drinks honeyed sun

and the sun drinks
shepherds’ sweat
strewn and glistening
from a storm

roaring fluroscent tulips
begin to open
orange temple doors

we multiply words
in gardens
of curled pink drums

Optimism While in Line at Starbucks

In the future, sex will be like now and a half.

Vibrators will not need batteries.
Streets will come paved with erogenous zones;
corners lined with don’t stop signs.

In the future, cunnilingus will be recognized
as an official language of Canada.

Orgasms will progress to inundate
electrical grids with diaphragmic vibrations,
causing gentle booms after each world war
and cafe wifi speeds to surpass the speed of light.

Knowing will be done by feeling:
Ahh! Ooo! Mm-mmm
mm-mm
ahhh!

—
Yanyi is a writer and critic based in Brooklyn, New York. He currently serves as a senior editor at Nat. Brut and curatorial assistant at The Poetry Project. His poems and criticism have appeared in Model View Culture, The Shade Journal, and The Cortland Review, among others.