dead phillip society
dread mutations melt the ur-conscience
tableau skedaddling do not go grendel
on that good coconut my demons
overcrowd the foot locker audition
for space beside my toughest grenades
the local mall’s games are impounded
a thousand shelves collapsed upon
a gravitational pulse what of the salesboy
who more than once talked me out of evil
within i’ll never guess his trade-in value
sliming a path back through organic gardena
touch toes to the count of an off clock
never met a sexual lexicon he didn’t dislike
chastity tube slung over a shoulder
we should get down to bass tracks
find this slippy fish i never looked
good on this world they’ll say i said
brooch on a bikini model scarlet anaconda
for a sleeve here lies the failed decoder
they’ll scat before my tomb he lived life
as a subreddit but in death remains a meme
soliloquy in the siege of sevastopol
when one is sure of being followed
pleasure incises veins of fear
the moth in flight somehow stomped
intention lurks in ramification’s thresher
styrofoam plate beside spillway moon
prides itself on being the better moon
where threaded ducks juke in threnody
with a zipper stuck these taut summer nights
i work snoring through revisionist tasks
to self-actualize with verve my most vivid
nightmare nothing to be done with beasts
who bite skin sisyphean fools not to finish
such nocturnal projects the pigeon in flight
still thrown below truck chassis fiberglass
forces a better climax than forged fantasies
too drawn out and dour to avoid boredom
of chore screen door can’t stop a blade
determined i pray my vacant ribcage might
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Based in Southern California, AJ Urquidi is an ace poet and editor whose writing has been featured in Dream Pop Press, Faultline, Posit, convergence, and DUM DUM Zine. A past winner of the Gerald Locklin Writing Prize, AJ co-founded the experimental online journal indicia and edits copy for LA Review of Books and EMBER.