Poems by Alex Bleecker in Shampoo Issue 25

the page is random. patterns
of repetition. recorded distortion. I listen
to the record over & over

on shuffle, change the same old
restless landscape
just to prove it. a coin’s cadence

dropping down hollow wooden stairs.
how glass works. mirrors
of the everglades. in a dream

I pluck orchid petals & eat them
with my grandma. each one a tile
of time itself, a piece of the fertile

gray middle. she and I hunt the flower
for its revealing nature
where there is light & dryness,

moist darkness, cool warmth.
we inspect for pureness of line,
color, balance, how much

it looks like butterflies. every time
you push a word off a cliff
you make a sylph. a fragment

of purelessness. we will not let her
blow it down. we spot a double-stem
for the price of one, then

we spot another. a family of four.
it is the impression a scent leaves
in the soft of my unconscious. I touch myself daily

with the beauty of a coincidence. apocryphal
how the past was predicted, the future
a fabricable chaos.

Oxherding Theory

the eye is where
a root & a nerve
negate imagination

& not where one is.
so much depends upon
the company they keep

having depth, being deep
& not where they are.
a vulnerable moment: the middle

of the night. thirty
fingers moaning loudly,
the clock strikes.

the moon swims
out of a cloud a bird
flies into a mirror: imagine:

once space has collapsed
no obstacles will remain.
implosion making equal(s)

(of dice & donkeys.) man’s piecemeal saviors.
can a snowflake survive
inside a burning flame?

a sea of sun. an ultraviolet undertow.
knowing edges, a process proven
impossible.

Untitled

after the math
developers will construct
with fantastic machines.

fell the walls
awash with secrets
scrawled green with the facts:

at risk. fixated on income,
driven priests empower the landscape
into real states

they can tax. déjà vu chess match
on a brooklyn corner where
I’d trapped one of my rooks

with the other. jets go up,
jets come down. a heron
the only bird capable

of swooping in, scarring,
& swindling me out of my senses.
with debris precision

she makes a nest of my intestines.
it’s not random & it’s not sloppy
on that canvas:

a square black outline
against a white background is
a cakewhite chalkline

on a blacktop backdrop.
soon the pavement will
be checkered. meanwhile,

homeless soldiers
hold private sessions
preach theories in a coded tongue, unseen

save by the muslin moon.
with a single drop
of poisoned pig’s blood

they preempt. a superatomic razor
slices into the eye
of the fabric.