Jake Syersak

Apocalyptese: Yes, in this tongue I am fluid, floral, fluent.

I look over the rose garden at the roses and see flamethrower roses see the language

better than I

Voilà, it’s fire season again, and again I find myself thistlelistening for a little rain,

for what reprieve could be perceived as:

Infelt in the Unfield, dovetailing into meadowwarp, I arrive at the scorched-earth Ameriverse,
spiraling into, endless into

—wondering,

what Black Romanticism have I swallowed; or, has swallowed me, wondering

what if we kissed by the light of the Tesla fire that never goes out, the leaky Tiki-cocktail vomit of its
California dreaming.

I want these lines to move like worms, more than anything;

an uneasy feeling this way comes,

emerging from the mist, through the darkroom chemicals, like one of Monet’s grey-gargled
cathedrals, opening into an eye,   

opening into “there seems something in the eyes that is lacking

in cathedrals.”

Maybe it’s the desire to fall into one’s own eyes, unmoored,

Ameriversed, mad;

and maybe there is no bottom anymore, just this falling, foreverlessly, through the floor