#Jess Liebelt

[jessliebeltpoetry]

begin with a point   in the centre of the page

no colour or line   just a dot

stare at that dot   let your eyes relax

now   turn the dot green

focus on the greenness   the deep coolness of the forest

dampness of the wood   that burnt out stump

let the green encompass you   find yourself walking that trail

in the forest compulsively   alone and silent

#NAPOWRIMO Day 2 by Jessica Liebelt via @jessliebeltpoetry

[beachgothgay]

On gender reveal parties

Gender reveal party but when you cut the cake it is pie. It looks like a custard pie, but when you taste it, you clearly taste a meat gravy. Cutting further reveals chunks of meat. You ask what kind of meat it is, but everyone around you remains silent. They're grinning. Too wide. You're cutting in to a gender reveal pie, but it's actually pie. What kind of pie is it? It's cake pie. You cut in to the cake, and find a note. The note reads: You cut in to a gender reveal cake, and the knife you were holding is gone, revealing instead a large sharp fish. It wriggles out of your hand and flops on to the cake, which bursts it's pie filling everywhere. Everyone is applauding sarcastically. You wake up and cut in to the gender reveal fish, it asks you to mind that you don't get it's bones in your throat or you'll be in real trouble.You're walking down the street in New York. Now you're in Paris. Now you're on City-5 on Mars. Now you hold your child. They ask you why their genitals should decide their gender. You're almost ready to beat the gender reveal clown with the spiked bat when you notice that the clown is a mime. You feel betrayed but you don't know by who. You friends and family are in dark robes, and as the room darkens they produce candles. 'What colour be the flames?' you say. They remove their hoods to reveal that they are all clowns. You push the plunger on the gender reveal dynamite. As it blows the side off your house you wonder how this was meant to inform anyone of the baby's gender. 'Congratulations! It's a beautiful baby Ḿ̷̸̶̡É͢͝A̢͏̶̷͝Ţ̴͏'. You're holding a baby and they reveal their gender to you. It shines brightly, cycling many colours blues and greens, then purplish oranges, greenish reds. You're holding a baby. You're sure you're holding a baby. What else could it possibly be? You're revealing your own gender. No one accepts it. They turn you away from any kind of support, you're fired from your job, your wife leaves you, your mother and father stop talking to you, everyone you've ever known questions and critiques you endlessly about the gender you've revealed to them. You're at a gender reveal party and you've never felt more alone. You're at a gender reveal party and you just want to leave. You've been at this gender reveal party for so long now and it seems to follow you wherever you go. You're at a gender reveal party and you can never leave.

[jessliebeltpoetry]

lay in the room pit     knee deep in piss       staring forward                      forward                            forward            mold covered wall  beaming out noise i am contained

#NAPOWRIMO Day 1 by Jessica Liebelt via @jessliebeltpoetry

[jessliebeltpoetry]

that familiar rickety stage  dust through the spotlight       spilled whiskey          wine              spit    floorboards sticky and loose and creaking      nails pinning her wings down     a pink boa wrapped around her neck    choking her slightly fading reminders dancing across her skin

a voice through the PA roars      ladies and germs        the mule faced woman          the ugliest woman in the world       and you know her   and you recognise the scars the drawn features      the warmth in her smile         the thick eyebrows            the dark moustache         she’s a mirror            she’s you

she’s riding the train at 10 pm     a man pressing up against her   she pushes him away and hides behind her bag and a man screams from across the street     ‘hey beautiful’           she ignores him        ‘ugly bitch’ he says  she’s all grace and pride she’s all beauty until she’s unavailable

that same voice roars from the PA   ladies and germs          the mule faced woman              the ugliest woman in the world       and now you’re on stage   a nail holding you in place        a pink boa constricting your neck            tighter and tighter and she’s in the audience      hiding her face       seeing her reflection in you     and you love her and her dry hair her rough hands

you go home together     you and the mule faced woman you rough each other up   find your insides           the desperate prodding passion       the tattooed past in your collective skins

and you fall in love with the mule faced woman   take turns sinking to the bottom of the pool     filling your lungs   fishing each other out

and soon she’s in your coats and jackets         your smaller shirts      your jars of peanut paste        soon she’s back on the train    soon she’s gone the marks on the bedroom wall and    your missing jumper the only evidence of her existence

you see her sometimes      on that stage          in that mirror        pulling her pink boa tighter each time

Falling in love with the mule faced woman by Jessica Liebelt (via @jessliebeltpoetry)

[jessliebeltpoetry]

the summer we broke our lease   was a boiled egg

a weird smell in the kitchen   a good smell in our

neighbours garden   its flowers, its friendly dog

its sea crashing   lapping at our door

we opened our drawers   and found a spider parade

dancing in light peppered with   bug spray particles

pieces of silverware   piercing detergent bottles

political in a way that   was lost on us

our shitty purple rug   shed on us

we laid down and   came up purple

we used it to roll up   the dead men in our life

fathers and brothers   rolled in the carpet

chucked off the deep end of   Brighton jetty

the summer we broke our lease we went to the beach the people had bodies and we                   had none our bodies were lost somewhere buried or half buried in the sand a little bruised from the glaring

our carpet soon rolled back to shore   filled with dead men   and burst through our door so we had to leave

the summer we broke our lease dead men were waiting outside our unit so we didn’t go back so it’s crashing on   a shit couch   its springs jabbing us      its lumps ruining our backs so it’s sneaking in to the uni practice rooms and playing songs and sleeping and when we get thrown out by chubb security we break our lease on the concrete of north terrace

“The summer we broke our lease” by Jessica Liebelt (via @jessliebeltpoetry)

[jessliebeltpoetry]

it sparkles and sizzles as  you lower yourself in    the heat rising through your bones      slowly cooking you

the colours in the water  the glitter the particles    the smudge of mould hovering    in the corner by the fan      suspicious and lurking                 over the tub

i watch for a minute as  you relax like i’m not there  close your eyes    let yourself submerge      i leave before you surface

sounds of splashing  sounds of struggle    sounds of drowning      ring through my head

you dropped a book in the bath  its wet pages run with pink glitter    warm water turning black with words      i am thirsty and you        are quenching

Napowrimo Day 3 (via @jessliebeltpoetry)

[jessliebeltpoetry]

i want to be in a miyazaki film;    leaving home    a loaf of bread    a wedge of cheese    a bicycle and a sense    of mission or journey    a sense of going,

but i am a girl on a rainy beach   more tarkovsky or bergman      cold and sad and not      really alone.   i have no reason for feeling lonely.

i sit on the loose sand    of Brighton beach,    the firm sand of Seaford,    the blackened rocks    of Hallet Cove.    i let the water swallow me    like a shell smooth and sharp full of sand

full of the sound of  the sea i sit and wait for   the sun to dry me

“i saw a child digging a hole” by Jessica Liebelt (via @jessliebeltpoetry)

[jessliebeltpoetry]

woopsiedoodle

 it came from the old country            she said this sense of danger   wonder fighting across her face       an ancient, old world battle          the romans, the greeks             alexander the great                 right fuckin in                      the smile                         she fought

a cup of ivory  thin and delicate, an old lady    bone white      which is to say it looked              like shit                                                  an elephant                                                  fucking died for this                                                                       dipshit it clattered to the ground completely on its own                   (not my fault) and smashed on the concrete floor of the adelaide museum

                                                                                                           oops

napowrimo day 11 (via @jessliebeltpoetry)

[jessliebeltpoetry]

Haiku for old fashioned lemonade

a tall beading glass

 sip it on a summer’s day

  you lemonade snob

Napowrimo day 10 (via @jessliebeltpoetry)

[jessliebeltpoetry]

Seaford beach in winter

slurry of rough sea

we sink under crashing waves

swallow salt water

Napowrimo day 6 (via @jessliebeltpoetry)

[jessliebeltpoetry]

winterberry shakes

 you shake and squirm  steam rising from us    swimming in the sweat of                     our efforts       a clammy winter night           the heat from your skin                the taste of you

it coats my upper lip       i wipe it with the back               of my hand                 streak of ochre we collapse together     and laugh as i spread the colour         on your soft belly

napowrimo day 13 (via @jessliebeltpoetry)

[jessliebeltpoetry]

he put a pasta on

 theres a rise and fall to it    your chest i mean    the playground bellows with children    you walk by and take no notice

theres a rise and fall to it    the anger and frustration on a bad day    the poor kids are stuck to the ground    the well off ones kick them in the ribs        (their fathers are engineers             their fathers are lawyers)

theres a rise and fall to it    the tide that cannot about the kid roar    the tide that is coming in    you lay down in its path       let it sweep you up       let it take you away

theres a rise and fall to it    the boat on the water    the man with the net and beard       he takes you in the boat       he takes you home and puts       a meal inside you          and i am just another          sad dyke on brighton beach

NAPOWRIMO Day 2 (via @jessliebeltpoetry)

[jessliebeltpoetry]

we remember the sound of the rain

 we feel that we haven’t            been awake for some time.

we feel that we need to rise,            the ocean containing us is heavy

on our backs, a blanket to put            a child to sleep on a restless

night. we are abject, born of            filth and waste of nuclear nothing.

we remember the sound            of footsteps on our roofs,

dancing and hungry and            full of redness and trains.

once we were apart and now            we are one.

we sink for a time.            allow us to sleep for now.

napowrimo day 14 (via @jessliebeltpoetry)

[jessliebeltpoetry]

virgilia to coriolanus on his love for godzilla

 you cannot fight your feelings for too long.  a monster waits for you upon the bridge.

a hero, they will sing of you in song;  they cannot suffer monstrous ones to live.

sweet soldier, born and raised and bred for war:  you bend on knee and pray your love endure

the sadness felt when scaly flesh you torch.  you burn yourself and let you turn to dust;

but you who fell in love with tooth and claw  will suffer for your love forever more.

napowrimo day 15 (via @jessliebeltpoetry) with apologies for my undying obsession with this nonsensical ship that i made up for reasons i no longer recall.

[jessliebeltpoetry]

tuck shop politics

 dim light from the sign above the counter   loud and gay tropical colours     of the 50c  lolly  bags       confetti coloured        cellophane

how much candy did 50c really buy   i leaned on the chest freezer     the advertising chanting      the counter too high       a sunnyboy for        5c kind of         kid

her clothes were dirty and torn her   eyes were far away on mars     or the moon did all      the kids get 50c       of lollies for       20c

maybe her moon money was no good   maybe the tuck shop was too     close to the TAB where      her dad would       drop by to        waste       500000c

Napowrimo day 5 (via @jessliebeltpoetry)

[jessliebeltpoetry]

crimes of all our fathers

we walk haunted grounds the wind whistles with spirits that we cannot own

napowrimo day 12 (via @jessliebeltpoetry)