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Poetry

Some Brooklyn Northside Calaveritas

Suppose
pondering the cultural flock
some high noon

mock sacrificial
metallurgic offering—

to recuse
himself
arrivismo?

subjective
transference

“chosen”

Into a pit

pleasant paranoia
peaceful

feeling—

A break from
prolet-kampf
agonistics?

Blows up
in a materialite-speckled
face

Hungering
resist
two specialties

Content and its

porns

History not as something
you can live to tell your children

whispering

a tin heart—
a silver stomach—
(a steel-tempered—
into a chrome-plated—)

get youself
with someone else alloy
and forge

a borg-like
transference

a real estate
shake out
snatch up

a Lazarus come back from
graduate studies

sarcasmic
mock ecstatic

“please!”
(in polish)
prosz_

Acclimate?

frightening how fast
rousted

from The Southside
Boriquas

“fuckin’ bummed out, dude, just—”

chasing the creamer?

Silicon pilgrims conferring
(as ever)

On the runway
Bedford L-stop
prima donut
silver
diablo
vivora

adjective
blizzard

live / wack (off)
space conversion

beezulhubbub “nifty”guy
goofbar—

$4.50
a pint!

Kurva!

americanium
[that’s a real element by the way]
americanium
-plated
buns!

carbo’s—
into super
buggery insulin-spiking

conversion

a Iago-like
“wacky wit”
follows

an art-fart
come out
the mouth
poesy

an anarcho
-what-have-you-ist
slides into
dapper doubt—

after Nader

*

titanium birds chirping

(makes this an installation thing)

*

static

from the vibrant

lebensraum

lofts

*

we are chosen

*

transference

*

recused?

yes!

I am not of

said subcults of weird

displaced

(offset)

politics

*

(or am I?)

*

stress like that

*

squeezing out
alu-mi-ni-um
doodad
happiness

*

Trotsky: how’d you get here?

Me: how’d you get here?

Rodrigo Toscano’s three books include Partisans (O Books), The Disparities (Green Integer) and Platform (Atelos). His poetry has recently appeared in Cross Cultural Poetics, Kenning Audio Editions, and Cities of Chance: An Anthology of New Poetry from The United States and Brazil (Rattapallax). His work has been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, and German. Toscano lives in Brooklyn, and can be reached at RT5LE9@aol.com.

Contributor

Rodrigo Toscano

Rodrigo Toscano's newest book is Collapsible Poetics Theater.

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The Brooklyn Rail

AUTUMN 2002

All Issues