Syd Westley


Trance Notebook

after Wayne Koestenbaum

microplastic
malaise at target
looking for a new
pot

/

poetry about ideas
makes me feel
stupid ugly man
says

/

it took two years
to find a good dj
in st louis but i
finally did it

/

her name is
sydney and
she’s trans

coincidence?

/

jojo siwa
becoming
a huge cultural
signifier

unsure
what this means
for lesbians

/

students seem to be
curiously less nihilistic
than me

/

in pursuit of more
life or more death
d and i argue
about sadomasochism

/

how dark is ur
sex on a scale of 1-10

/

how much money
do u spend on
skincare per month

are you using retinol

/

it has to do with
longevity (roth ira)

/

predicting a big
oasis revival in next
three years

/

predicting the fall
of pitchfork

/

no ugly man
is immortal

/

goodbye!

/

think i’m taking
astrology too
seriously

/

stuck my head
in the washing
machine

/

o distortion
my heart

/

pleasure to burn

advertisement
by the cigarette
dispenser

/

pleasure to burn
my lungs

brian eno says
smoking is fabulous

/

the deniable
plausability
of union

/

st louis fashion
unabashedly
straight out of
2010’s

/

i would like
to be just a little
fabulous

/

turned on learning
about shakespeare’s
eunuchs at age sixteen

/

castration
still very
sexy

/

lecturer boldly
says do not listen
to your mind listen to
your body

/

she’s clearly never
been in my body

instrumental no. 2

for d.s.

i think i understand
maybe partly
why you died
there are holes
in the walls
of the room i built
people look in thru them
at me naked they can see
the clit at my center
sometimes i forget
about the holes
then someone
reaches in and touches
me


next author >>>


Syd Westley is a poet and artist living in Oakland, California. Holding an MFA in poetry from Washington University in St. Louis, their work has been supported and/or published by Lambda Literary, the Adroit Journal, Berkeley Poetry Review, and others. They also write music reviews at https://sydboyxxxmusic.blogspot.com