FROM STARVING IS THE ENERGY

my priors
my poems

attempts of a court
jester to ride a wild pig
tempting an omnivorous
accident

a pact to eat each other’s
feet

muddy trudge
to the chickens
where I sang
hungry chicken

the 26th member
of the chorus

a pact to eat each other’s
thighs

one cat emerged
from the woodpile
and said she loved me
before throwing herself
at the chicken fence

a pact to eat each other’s
eyes

yonder bend to the
loafing shed where a cow
lowered her head and
flicked her horns

a pact to eat each other’s
guts

*

now successor
now sovereign
and free to call home

my floating DNA

from war torn regions
and wombs

now death
enters my room
per hour
is incidental
secret of secrets
by god through
the old pipes

to conjugate in scummy
familiarity

*

in the dream
I said “never
before in all
of my dreams”
and there I was
having just purchased
a house on the avenue
with a Turkish runner
up the staircase
which I ran to
jarred awake
mid-running

the house was
near the church
where I sloughed
off some quiddity

spiraled blood
into the toilet
mesmerized
creation of
breaks–faux breaks

midriff so nipped then
in an anabolic state

millions of follicles now
inside and upon the scalp
spiraling tumble bunnies

and I see phantom blood
on single ply tissue
before a perfectly transparent
gel is revealed

*

numb
thumb

numbthumb

dum dum

maybe it’s just a num thum

connected to a wrecked neck

intermittent trouble
in small confines
eased

with pleasure compresses
such as reading
by a mimetic stove
athrob–athrob
we burned up hours
together unterrified
by the menace
of our future enjoinment
making educated guesses
re Barbellion’s trick
how to not boner-kill yourself

*

starving is the energy
that brings me to this bounty

another work-around
for now we know
God doth extract day-labor

assume the position
supine

night
yacht

crumbs of meat pie on my chest
caloric storage

here
after

a desk is no place for me

the rooms in the house
morphed into otherworld pillowy
shapes for form to function

numb thumb
thumbs pocket heater
shrouded device
sleight of hand
donor driven
sorry it’s so cold

*

tenderly toward
numb thumb

envisioned as my infant
you will always be my baby
fake it till you make it
start with mine thumb

in the move from usable to less usable
perhaps the more powerful thing
to get in the way
is my baby love

the physician turned from her
laptop and pointed God did not
send his son to us so we
could suffer every cell
is being called to protect

we babies as the work of babies
is to live

*

the call was interrupted
by the sound of an acetylene torch
the thrill of winter
equipment breakdown

the coldest day of the year
new calf preferred to have
his head scratched
brushed five of the herd
releasing fur and dry dung
the grand dame
who tilts her ears back and
Nebula next to her
who doesn’t give a fuck

this touch says I am the plummeting
schema of a woman-adjacent being

this touch says I am the light
burning sensation
an arthritis aglow
resting on your back

this touch says I am a human
standing beside you

Szymaszek is the author of seven books of poetry, most recently The Pasolini Book (2022), and Famous Hermits (2023). They have three titles forthcoming: Essay (Krupskaya Books, 2025) Starving Is the Energy (Antiphony, 2025), and About the House (Cleveland State University, 2026). They are the recipient o a 2019 Foundation for Contemporary Arts grant in poetry, and a 2024 MacDowell Fellow. They regularly mentor young poets in a variety of contexts, including for the “ESB” Fellowship program they founded at The Poetry Project in 2013 and Queer Art Mentorship. They reside in New York's Hudson Valley region.

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