Andrew Levy

The Criminals You Agree With

Have settled into ash, into an anthill trampling their own.
Drilled tunnels older than us, ceaselessly resurrect what stands above them.
Empty for an instant the unlimited, unknown void of your choice.
Delete in emptiness an absolute absence, a dialectic in the small garden,
An uninhabitable island you’ll never forget, the blue recommended.
A consumer report by the sepia & correspondences skimmed.
The life between the supernumerary & the epiphany, it’s just too much.
The rainbow hides and hums in another sky, all the music
On a branch of impregnated like they can’t
Make war. Can’t deny paternity, don’t visit their nightmares.
Extenuating circumstances denying allegations.
Disorder awaits around the corner, disclaiming it. Disclaiming
Concern over an extra syllable shot and killed with complexities.
Respiratory arrest flickers in the sky. A mayday.

Your Safety is a Hellhole

Look, I’m heartbroken. It is not happening
The way one thinks it is.

Fire the bus tour. The unconscious part of our mind
Is conscious of the face of a pig. Five of them!

Throwing a handful of coarse salt into the salinity of the inland sea.

The breathable cocoon of the ancestor sponge is a gift. It
Continues to get worse, someone has died.

Contrition in traditional Western morality. The immemorial – all burnt.

Its gender, its class.

Feeding the white wolf at the expense of the black wolf.

Reading a few pages in an impeccable formal French garden.
The sorrow of all men and women.

Devotions upon emergent occasions.
A good time.

Selected Scripts & Fragments

Something must have happened.

You and I together comprise the poem. Day after day, our contemporaries
Turn their attention to sausages.

As for friends, the pleasurable illusion of their company, these silly beer-glass moments
Appear to busy themselves with an occupation denominated by eating grass.

Thoroughly consigned to oblivion, our poems are exoplanets. Beings
Of metamorphosis.

It’s not for everybody.

What comprises this collection of poems? What does a quest for national
Re-birth linked to “palingenetic ultra-nationalism,” mean?

Dehumanization? Chronic “Us and Them” scapegoating?
Demonized Others?

The spatial round of the poem closes in a time loop. The dead
Fish’s tail emerges discreetly on the surface.

My Hostage Enterprise

I’m trying to get readers of poetry detained. But not

Enough. Whenever I am intrigued by experts

In their miserable lives something moves in my heart.

My wrongful detention “was necessary” in the social

Division, in the borrowed then broken urn. Attorney

Client privilege, conceived by mere men, is gas

In the mind. Truth? Best of luck. Split-screen images

Have flown off before the setting of fire in Gaza.

A nice conversation with purely nothing. The court

Of public opinion is blood in the ears, the limit 

Of a long cadence. Lies for the mob boss. The robots

Shine in the sun. Smoke wavers in the atmosphere,

The face of an earth that’s been kissed goodbye.

A continuous shelling on the receiving end.

To Screw the Poor (after JANUS)

It may be that people do not know, speak from there. Screw the poor.

And perfect comedy an iridescent chaos, key, pitch. The slime touched with

Holy mystery translated dollars during curfew how the blind see stock prices implanted

A micro-eye with quarters plus polite miscomprehension download requests.

Economic, class, and ethical specks loved in delightful opacity –

Multi-spatial dust blown out by cosmic wind…  

Drinks and dancing, private-public barbecue, late night trophies,

Incendiary peaches, burns, aches. The emancipation of dereferentialization.

A fundamentally poor society ridiculously outmoded and obsolete

Might take offense at its sheer ubiquity made up of soft, spoiled, gullible criminals.

Primarily among young people. Particularly among boomers, catalyst on top of everything local,

The politics of luxury seems tepid. The poor being lazy, shiftless do-nothings.

Absolute smears across the surface of an antiquated fantasy:

This is the moment the capitalists most enjoy. After a long period of motionlessness, 

Everybody gets it except intelligence agencies. Delivery was scheduled

Between 10am to 12pm today. It has not arrived. Scientists drift on stage

Chatting amiably. The very water seethes; cooked in cream, our eyelids part

To receive the moon upside down, in a definite gap, a drop in the air.

A chance appearance of exhausted refugees

In the formation of memories. When a scaffold plank

Slipped out of place. Worshippers close their eyes. Departed prophets

Buy Starbucks. Nix the medium of variations, feel more comfortable in the arena,

Assure underlings that they will blend in much better with them at the helm

Of personal enrichment. People disappear into the past and future, gods and goddesses.

It’s a problem. The organic fitting of functions in

The whole movement of poetry as perception, thought,

And communication. In recollecting that everyone is dead.

Underfoot on every roadway in the nation. I tiptoe toward

The spot where I think it will come from.

Slowly erasing the image, an imperceptible breeze wafts

The scent of privet hedges blooming on distant estates. Free speech

Serves many ends. To screw the poor, I’ll take care

Of the cooking. I’ll take care of the salads.