Friday, April 30, 2021

Seth Leeper - 5 poems

 


Seth Leeper is a queer poet. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Broadkill Review, The Summerset Review, White Wall Review, Coastal Shelf, otoliths, decomp journal, SCAB, and others. 

He holds an M.A. in Special Education from Pace University and B.A. in Creative Writing and Fashion Journalism from San Francisco State University. He lives and teaches in Brooklyn, NY.  

He tweets @sethwleeper.


***
1.

_____ ,  _____

don’t you dare
use that comma

against me 
kindly remove it

from between
my name

and the
previous article

thank you
so much


***
2. 
hard stop

i wish
i could trust
your silences

but i have
less time
to care

than when
i sat by
the phone

waiting for
my heart
to stop



***
3.
orbital valves

these
       drooping
   bulbs

suspended
from 
    chicken wire 
      dangling
               
              from unseen
    origins
         have eyes wide

                      and cloudy
                       like

           they hold
                     the fog
           of space
but no

neptune
 holds no
       surprises 
for us 

 we are
    orbiting
the veins
       in our
           hearts


***
4.
ficus

sounds like
a curse word

the way
schiessen
sounds like
a sneeze

we’ve long since
forgotten
how to say
whale penis
in that other language

but we can all
breathe easier
knowing

that’s one less
dick to deal with

we are haunted
by so many

words with legs
the lengths
of our own lives

perching on
stilts and pedestals
spitting out traps
we trip over

til we find
our way back to
smoky nights

speeding down
dirt roads
doing 90
around turns
signed for 25

daring death
to reach his
bony hand

out of his
tattered
sleeve

because

in youth
we had all
the answers

but death

leaves us with
unanswered
questions 


***
5.
slurp

we really
need to agree

it’s time
to reconcile our

disparate relationships
to the void

which is
another way

of saying
fuck you

in place of
electroshock therapy

which is just another
path back

to a monotone
kaleidoscope

spinning ever
downward

to resurrection
like we could

hold it
in our hands

a delicate
cup of fur

perhaps
a bird

perhaps
well
gerbil

like the one
you microwaved

or was that
just a meme

which is
just another

desperate cry
for attention

we really need to
talk about semantics

and how that tan
was not
a good idea

but you laid down
with the beam anyway

emerged crusty
around the edges

which is just another way
of saying get out

because we must be near
each other all the time

but it’s impossible
to take you with me

when i’m being sucked
into the void