by Max Gilman '25 on November 4, 2023
Portfolio Co-Editor
Portfolio
concrete my.
mornings of smog sun and litter air,
my name concrete.
like sitting still with liver pigeons on lakes of tar,
the sun is no pretty,
anymore a scar, fire is sweat dripping to the chest.
concrete eyes and a mug of unibrow judgment,
there is no return to a time of label,
highways have eaten the trotter rotten now,
the foot enters a spear, then a root, then the last.
Time melts with any liquid left on your sole,
but whenever the wind whistles a cadence
like the last thing it was called before sundial days,
it turns the shoulder like a dog,
it’s leash was scandal letters and fifteen numbers,
now the cage is all it regrets, all it regrets to distance from.
A fur coat and blood. A turnpike and bodies. Solids sold for saint water and urban planning. Will god become a chapel again or remain a cross and pews? Is Judas all we grow now?
nonetheless, concrete dries.
Nonetheless, my eyes are concrete.
dried spittle on dried concrete, a large thumb on a long road, a satellite city with pikes of stellar buildings burning points to a spot in the sky,
a silent room to remember no-one.
mirrored presence is a mirrored morality convening with putrid violence,
the kind that rubs you right,
the kind with collars and deep gouges,
skin burning for euphoric murder,
self with ink in a dark room is madness.
concrete without reason is a city without nature. a name without reason is a word without syllables. violence as an ozone layer is the future. concrete will be all. when our efforts no longer have plans. when the concrete of our eyes dry and we blind ourselves by our fifteen numbers,
delete a name and plant your legs,
concrete my,
my name concrete,
and I’ll die in my own building.