Author: farrahfield

Mental toolkits are the color of brown paper bags 

I’ve never sued anyone! she said at the party

I’ve never pulled a tick off my dog’s butt!

I pulled one off my husband’s butt!

I squeezed into a dumbwaiter and got stuck!

Why do they stand around

passing out candy and screens to children

wondering what real power is

and why students can’t sit still

The saddest part about summer is summer

I could tell she lost empathy when she said she didn’t care

I know exactly the motivations of my son’s bully

Reaching for a balloon the same thing as reaching for oblivion

So charged by the new freshness we voted for it

This wet towel is so moldy it can speak

Poets define sameness generation after generation

Sometimes there’s little evidence you’ve been bitten by a bat

If you stare at a spreadsheet long enough 

it will come alive

and turn into colors that must be fed with yeast in little bowls

Picking her up by the corset is the same thing as licking my brain

He can’t change anyone but he still has no friends

Beep beep red warning with no one near me on the open road

Don’t get hit by a car is really good advice

A sleeping woman is only the color of her hair

Nothing showed up on the x-ray 

His real toe hovered around the bone

like a screen door to the afterlife

Why didn’t I write everything he said down

What would you do with all these tuition dollars

At a certain age freedom becomes a new kind of work 

lifting your heavy body on the rings at the playground

At least we’re not in seventh grade anymore

I only write so I can say nothing is finished

I’ll start typing and publishing books 

as soon as I’m done reading everything

Your own book is the only one you don’t read

I want to get lost in her life

all of her family’s lucky occurrences

She never touched the ground because she was carried

by her mother who sold her own shoes

Leave or die

Understand this one corner

could you the whole

Why should we care about the old country anyway

History only reveals resilience because of historical ambition

Love is don’t do to me what you did to her

The slow burn of a face

I always feel odd when having my picture taken

as though I never get captured

or am trapped

Cursing and swearing is the cool language of cake

and chinos with loafers and no socks

They left the centibillionaire’s island 

with hand-foot-and-mouth disease and a broken ankle

all of which he could afford

When it is my turn to speak I will say I should sell sneakers or Bibles or real estate

It’s laziness that prevents me from making real money

It won’t matter anyway

because soon we’ll be part of the centibillionaire’s soul

stuck in a prism like the bad guys in Superman 2

Where in your body do you think you laugh first

in your wealthiest part

The best kind of distraction is bodily distraction which is focus

There’s nothing better than a book that smells like a white bra

or a string of mustard

All of our books have wet or dry food on them

Why aren’t there dining tables with shelves

Did Proust change me or did time go by

I assume a rule

hard work will be rewarded

Why compulsory sports

not compulsory daily poetry writing

You can’t put a book down like that

it’ll hurt the spine or the dog will eat it

A coyote visits my yard because she likes my books

and is okay with loneliness and fear  

She underlines me with her eyes

If we’re all poets when we dream she says 

we’re all filmmakers when we daydream

What’s up

I hate it when you ask me that

What are you doing

Can’t you tell I’m reading 

What are you reading

A book about the history of books

What are you doing

Reading a book about bookstore owners

Does it include you

I haven’t found myself yet

I read today that we love art and art loves us

Is that what John said to David

Does art love us

No but art keeps it all together

Yes he does

Do you write before or after going to the gym

I don’t go to the gym I don’t want to workout in front of anyone

I don’t mind it I always end up reading anyway

You never go anywhere without ten books

Best to be prepared

It’s impossible to write before working out it’s like breathing without blood flow

To lift weights gets you going then

No it’s like a physical purge

With kettle bells

Sometimes

There’s no screenplay 

practice practice film stunt

The gag equation is physicality plus danger equals possible storyline

Quiet Mouse never burned her fingers editing film 

because she was a studied pianist

In fact all the editors since 1928 had to study Czerny

Did the song come before the film

Did the explosions come before the song

What will he do when it all burns down

and a house falls on his head

Now he can really drink

All the drinking before was just practice drinking

They would show up in my dressing room 

he said and we were supposed to finish the sentence 

to believe he was rendered helpless

alone with a woman

Do you know why a stone is hard

because everything else shapes it

It has to be brilliant composed and hold on

Using a wooden bowl is the same as eating off the floor

From here I can tell everyone steps in the same place 

when they step down from the stairs

Fair is foul and foul is Farrah

The lower right side of your check shows remaining sick days

If you have any

Do they carry over

We only invite the prophet once a year

elastic seam that crumbles and creaks when stretched

I’m not convinced they are or were or are a prophet

Is it true that someone can be ahead of her time

or do I misunderstand time

do i misunderstand their time

Quarter sleeves don’t do it for me

I need monster sleeves and a shave between paws

Can you guess our family rule for gifts on birthdays

Rules provide discretion and discretion protects sadness

From the yellow kitchen my grandmother 

couldn’t distinguish the left from the right radicals

where they slept and what they ate 

I’m not mad just a little hard-of hearing

Are you stuck in an open pavilion

in a what should I do with my life sort of way

Were you asking that question last year

You didn’t forget to feed the birds you simply didn’t do it

Where are they did they change their flight patterns

Are they dead

It’s all your fault

why you were even born

What is a bird’s flight plan

Is it reported anywhere

The child saw the snake first

and you waited on the edge of the blanket incredulous

I wish I could paint you on a pen box everyday but I don’t know how to paint

Relax now it’s Friday

Relax it’s Sunday

Thursday is the new Friday

We don’t have to look nice

Monday is my home day

You are my home day

Resources are their problem

All nations want to need them

Too bad this planet is boring

So full of air

A seagull named Ruth says humans can’t handle their own desires

or energy sources

Are you a widow if you’re married to a dead guy

Try to solve an eastern problem in a western way

Snow we left behind

An invisible hug of mustard

I chased the spots in my eyes in a being is becoming kind of way

Answer yes to impossibility

as though I am in the Army of Making Things Happen

Yes we can do the fifteen minute version at the Met

What do you know about fifteen minutes

an entire family can come apart in fifteen minutes

For fifteen minutes you can wear and photograph yourself 

in Michael Jackson’s Napoleonic coat and glove

for fifteen hundred dollars

There is always an interloper in the folklands

someone who cut the jumprope 

Listen here kids everyone is first in line

Does it matter if your car is shiny

Are you sure you want to become a martyr

sucking on jerky

Pull the vines down even if you showered today

The only way to prove your truth is by dying

The cloud coverage will not last long 

Did you know the future was yesterday

Enter the time of popcorn and fulfillment centers

Your backside ages too although you can’t see it

until you see it

Do you remember when you told third period

you weren’t going to say a word

You painted with gouache 

and showed them how to layer

wait to dry then layer

All students painted the same person

Feathered hair is supposed to invoke labia

Everything on a woman’s face in effect designs from that below

A watch-scratched ride with your brother 

and conservative contortion smirk glued in the rear view

Am I clear could I be more clear

Remember driving stick

cranking the windows down

saying I’m not having this debate with you

It looks like a dildo not a penis

Do you remember when we were young

We left the atmosphere in a swing set

We passed all our friends waiting for the bus

in a little bit of rain wearing jeans jackets

You don’t bother me because I’ve considered working for free

during this budget downfall

Never would I allow myself fifth gear

I would never drive reckless

I never meant to hit him I was trying to shoot the man

who shot my sister

It never occurred to me I could walk into a room

and not care for everyone

I could cut to couch

sling my whole body like a big fat dick

When you said your mind is the setting for a carnival

I lit the sound stage

I tossed the red pepper yellow pepper

I didn’t believe you

I held my papers tighter

apologized for sitting on the bench

which I was only testing for safety

Is this my treat or a piece of tape

Two minutes late is not considered late

but two months

better wear roped pearls back to the machine

for the puppet show starring a nervous radiologist

who never said once don’t worry many are called back

they come here they sit pretty

they tulip around like a doggie after a bath

Somber is not the same thing as sober

I can have fun

For example I didn’t know how rebellious I was until I was caught

Even when I was drinking

I was always sort of sober

Squeeze a pair of tits hard enough 

something comes out

like a mousy laugh moan 

or milk sort of always there 

like back of the fridge milk

dinosaur milk

a memory of calcium

or a lecture about Raphael

and woman squishiness emanating from color

I have a body designed for compression

and a mind designed for apology 

I’m sorry to cause so much trouble

Pretty much you’re terrible she said

Put your arm down 

She touched me right on my somber nothingness

The only other way to detect cancer is to give it to you

She was the one they meant

when they said too many mouths

and she ate elsewhere in the garden during a lightning storm

so they wouldn’t know they fed her

That’s why it’s called a salad 

she said with proud low teacher voice

because it’s a little bit of everything

everything being the discarded scraps 

Who here is the real puppy

What’s it like in that nose hole

Does it smell like the land

or the flag of the land waving like a skin flap

What’s it like to be here

What’s it like to be her adenoid

that crawls out covered in sunscreen strokes her hair

and says if you cover your face a little more 

no one will know how old you are

Her whole fruit market no ribbons or price gouges

crawls on all fours

actually on elbows so crawls on sixes 

Go where the finger points to the good grass and right pop

down to the original wood

a place where they say circle for an eight count

Dress without weather in mind only femininity 

Most women are associated with a color but not her

A white bra? Pat the air

If she gets lonely she can host a press conference

Do you walk with confidence or do you walk plain

into the challenge of never laughing

Once a billionaire you can’t be anything else 

Shockingly thrifty or your origin story doesn’t matter

Laughter at the expense

Casual decisions make someone else die a little

You are a traitor to creation

less secret on the wooden floor

Trash separated and sorted

A bright sunny day means endless meetings

you’ll be tan anyway

The rat race is over

You won 

It’s more like a please and thank you pile

in which the rats discuss the confusing nature of assets 

with you as the love object

I like rats but I have never been one

Will the bank mow the lawns of the empty houses

The moral of folktales is to desire wealth

to love scarcity which is actual love

to leave in a carriage with a prince 

who can’t tell the difference between a girl and bird

and wonder if we’re all one soul or isolated