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Two Poems by Seneca Basoalto

October 9, 2022 Grimoire Magazine
a collage of contributor selfies

ANAHEIM & HONEY

 

Don’t tell me I know how to walk
with the weight of a hoard,            take my
                                                           self(ie)
                                           insist it does not
                                           expose—
every man I’ve ever known will tell you                                                
           “oh, that girl
                      is never satisfied”
                        center stage on the strip
west side via sunny side up (this means I lay flat on my belly
                                                           nude &
                                                           inciting speculation)
tell Walt Disney
      Whitman
I said anyone who quotes the white man’s word as
pathology
will probably tell you their favorite movie is Fight Club
, I want to be paid for this, for being 

            beautiful, being abstract &
listening to them circle the wrong tree, age old art of
figuring out how to crystallize the cultures of men
who pretend to study my favorite foods          but still
have the nerve to call me honey                         this 

is when the vocal chords grow in gaudy            & a
body learns what it means to truly starve
after they have all lost their dynamite in
flavor of the flavor of my baby blue morphine film 

I know how to time travel, so I
sat in the same seat on the same roller coaster
where I met Robin Williams when I was just
                    a girl waving around her sapphire wand
                                                  with a Warhol wish
                                                  back when I did not
know what karma was or how capable it could
be at finding you wherever you are             I
                                                                     am
without kinesis now, I don’t even have to peel off my dress
to be seen           ,not when men have eyes, which—!
                   they don’t even need
when the lions have learned how to find their food
by fragrance alone


SENECA BASOALTO
(a study in kinesis)

my name has been changed six times, as a start
—consider it performative, being baptized again
whenever a mood talks of acquiring new shapes
                  I am
                  once more talking about the soul
as it relates to the same pair of boots taking
loud steps into several places
that it has both been before &
yet never at all until this hour

everything I have done & will ever do
is exactly the same as pouring Coca-Cola
from a dirty glass into a clean glass, then
constantly using a new glass - irrelevant
of whether the next glass I fill is clean  

don't you get it?
there was no need to pass me around
—I've been dirty since the beginning

 


Seneca Basoalto is a bisexual Iberian-Sicilian poet with degrees in creative writing and psychology. Her unusual childhood and uncommon encounters have helped shape her experiences into highly personal candid narratives that expose the gritty complexities of tempestuous love, womanhood, and our own chaotic perception of self.

Her publications include NAILED Magazine, Indicia Lit, Nude Bruce Review, Santa Fe Literary Review, California State University, bloodmoon POETRY, samfiftyfour, Terror House Magazine, Voice of Eve, Honeyfire Lit, and many others. She was also a finalist with Tupelo Press for their Poetry in the Pandemic series.

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Grimoire Magazine, 2016

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