NEXT-DOOR LIPSTICK VIDEOGAME GIRLFRIEND.
by Shannon Baker
at the sixteenth birthday party
there was
lacrosse, cheesecake
treehouse, beach-hat
and lots of board game rhetoric
nothing conversational
had yet been type-set.
implanted
was more like it.
then
fourteen in the restaurant
a bad word choice surfaced
in the icecream dish
first-time …

LIFT THE BEGGAR’S SALARY.
by Shannon Baker
two steel baseball batteries
i hid your lust bubbles
inside the canyon mother’s
chord progression
and all the broken thunder
knocked three times
on the backdoor of your
vision.  no one answered.
nothing except
girl-mammal cry-throb
you noticed nothing
(nothing but …

ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS FIRM.
by shannon baker
volume lights your vowels
to learning
shapeless under tame.
he lost his darkness-glasses somewhere
between 43 and 50
and pissed in the handbag.
and flared
drilling bliss-stones.
cheapness in the weather
had her basking dirty
full of
mismatched bathing
suit of flowers
nothing …

PRETENTION MOVES TO NEEDLES IN THE BARN WITHOUT PERMISSION.
by shannon baker
some bats flew from under your bandaid
you finally got the jungle
you sat on pictures books and wished for.
but we were equal at the movies
if during …

RUSTED WEAPONS AND THE SOUND MACHINE.
by shannon baker
greasy replacement wounded with flavor
being not in the way
of my hating only his
contagious unneed
brought wandered rude
into focus.
banging
i put away the canned goods
making
smoke for cat to chase.
trees mount hallucination
and …

HALF-HEARTED CANDLESTICK BLACKBIRD CADENZA.
by shannon baker
a kid could get greedy
smashing eyes like that around
the walls and hearts of everyroom.
i prayed for extra paper
in the fluorescent bed
where we shed smells like
lawyers tossing bath towels.
i never thought …

flyfires, nontree.
by shannon baker
fibersongs foam with hysteria.
thousands seek personal freedom in agriculture.
but (not
here of course, someplace
else perhaps)
if you happen to fertilize, wellthen (and you
do
happen to)
an impossible collection will result.
if needed see
how there’s the long kid
gets …

boatpaper.
by shannon baker
every
“why i am not someone else”
lifts restlessly unwanted ribs.
the rest are forced to listen.
this
lip of matter
troubles
an expected knot
of spine. fog reflection, greenish
was your father’s eye such is
certain.
bright, the budding fishfarm
neon bathtub in …

sugar-secrets line the groping wheel.
by shannon baker
by the last days
our sailing battery
would have saved him.
but all that wind between us
crippled lightly, locked the cage.
& the green car that lived
at the edge of my lightbulb fingertip …

legless doom.
by shannon baker
there is a way of discovering.
(the animal surgeon cuts apart
while
the rest only
cut open.)
by
&by
the glitter-hands of other people will
pollute your mainline and this
will inspire
a caravan of hopeless
needle-trees with wide open cavities they want
to …

jerking the heartattack string.
by Shannon Baker
in the wetness of unstuffing
the chest cell
she woke,
stirred beside her fleshheap,
and realized
she had failed him.
having not asked or wanted
caused her singing to come out
backward
and
it took
one fastdream
to explain this
to her brainclock.
still …

hovering allegiance, blanket seed.
by shannon baker
the icy olive of her smooth eye (and certainly the thieving gleam of slender tooth-row) persuaded, with slack & narrow discourse, his temper toward a single curve and, leaning all …

the stray cat’s orgasm.
by shannon baker
maybe the vaginal prayer net
or the egg of realism burried in the engine
in the engine
of his pregnant gas car.
football game soda scam
your sister holding a can opener
getting old like you …