Jonathon Todd
Xylophone
I roll a Greek coin over the stairs
insufferable stop lights
call it survival sickness.
The rosary of
being seen by concrete.
You work with plastic and things found.
Steps full of salt
eyes rolling like the clack of sheet pans,
a gold handle, and a mouth full of wax.
The radio's faint panting
the exclusion of being seen in fragments
removing clothes and adjusting the light.
I reach for water & the electric bill
static and change, two nails and
the frailty of an appetite.
An ideology of change
I wash the dishes and speak with a blinking light
write letters and cough.
It's the closest I get to carving clocks
the little water, christ and
a xylophone repeating the same dull tone.
Acceptance of losing sound in pieces
drip of hallelujah
gum on the bottom of my shoe.
Tarot Poem #5 (3 Cards)
Draw: 1. 10 of Cups upside down
2. Page of Cups
3. 2 of Swords
Something about futures
outskirts of the city bloom
I hide the news to sell myself
Feels like getting up for the
Same shift.
Fuck
2 weeks of passing light
And squatting for meaning
You crept off and laid around
Saving scraps in your cheek
Quiet enough for a great nothing
As an old watch.
The joy of a motor is just movement.
Swords don’t speak to me
Habits get the better of me
I cracked a coffee pot earlier.
I’ve applied to four places
I’m astonished to be doing this again.
We laid in bed twice
But dualism bores me
Let’s call it 1 and ½ somewhere
Between things.
My cup runneth over
All the wood is covered in water
I can’t remember how to have a conversation
So I guess that’s it.
The freedom to change the numerator
After the Revolution of Everyday Life
All the voice gives is time /cracking open seeds and junk packages.
Water and light, curved walls washed with thin paint.
10,000 yawns great brick plates /covered in questionnaires
this one for early pin-pricks on my leg / this one for claims held against time,
"The freedom to change the numerator"
without work I burn sinew wrapped in pardons /affiliated oxygen gas lamps and damp rags.
It's noon, I drag myself across the pavement / for silver spoons, slip wax into
broken glass. /A day can not occupy space, only time &
both get seized by the state. /I run inside to tape the windows shut /and drop oak blemishes along
the way.
My lighter is covered in cassette tapes,
long lines of blue noise trail slogans
in narrative form, in light of nothing to do
I lay in space sleepy and chewing
time, acid, and old pay stubs.
I cover the eyes in coins, rip holes in these /sheets what they call parting curtains is
just a series of burning incense.
Hanging lights click on, slip notes between
the sheets.
People claim the earth by movement / while finding ways to be occupied.
Textures of stars stuck to the roof of / my mouth, collecting fragments
to be dispensed and
walking is the only way to piece them together.
Jonathon Todd is a poet and musician, living in South Philadelphia. He is fairly certain this is all an illusion. His chapbook Over/time was released from Moonstone Press (2019).