1         

dome

under

forms

“and love”

“my father isn’t around”

mekatooompalatanengbasoooo

Ill be around for you, boooboo

Ill be around for you, boooboo

foofoom poopswoot

whose meaning

belly ground mewling

make time for phloegm

outside youth churning 

carols for Lorax

family time for Brecht’s

            foundry

grey like Mozzer’s mouth

no pizza for you!

 

2          HOW ON EARTH DOES LIFE

turn back north
call forth Thoreau
used to feel pity
used to feel pity
yet somehow youth
appear happy
get to swim each day
on your property, V
cool river water

            problem
sent to myself no
to Trish well I could
deliver to Coco or is
it a message facility of
prisoners in low-security
gathering for the benefit

of Tito Sir
sorting through stuff belonging
to us, retrieval of old tool box
suddenly our office becalms
“austerity will do it”
I only keep to myself
in rainy county

high on the hill beside
friends who squat in a home
loaned to youth unseen, V—
it is astonishing what youth
penned last June, some
kind of manifesto 

                         “and love
                          and love
                          and love
                          and love”

3          GLOSSALLIARY

why insist I join Minna
demand I top 
before giving head
aerate later in the
                                    nude
by indoor pool

old friend from Manila days
re-introduce themselves
Vicente
offers new strain of lime

walks up huffing to admire
how certain fashion trends
twirl
to shin

come barreling down till
cloak fits our director of
photography

4          NOSE BLEED

in childhood home you can never return
happiness. However
enters empty closet
in greenhouse
where Mama runs the plow, rows
upon rosebush of budding produce
with sodden price tag Mama grunts
into velvet apron, onwards to the
newly-painted shed, goes to pray
over it
drawing phlegm

5          BUZZ ALDRIN

“I took my skateboard and rode the last
of the sky on that moon,” Aldrin tells
me, folding hands together

 as I look up at

stairs

 in space
 

“Put your tunnel on,” he admonishes
inside our shed, a calm Bohemian
in terry-cloth apartment. My penis at rest.

Later, when we re-visit the thrill of the
New World’s Stage, I admire hats
designed by Pablo Hidalgo

when the artist starts his fashion line
closeness between our music
images of a century where soldiers

wear such drift on their baby’s’ sleeve
airport handler loses luggage & you
have zero choice but to carry on kindly

like morning gasp of goodbye


A featured artist in Greater New York 2015 and in Queens International 2018: Volumes, Paolo Javier is the author of two recent books of poetry, including O.B.B. (Nightboat Books 2021) and True Account of Talking to the 7 in Sunnyside (Roof Books 2022). He lives with his family in Jackson Heights, NY.