Copyright © 2025 Otis Nebula Press. All rights reserved.
veil, quilt, sleep, but, stones, apple, grenadine, fuzzy, polka, bioglitter, burst, filament
i want to renovate myself, to shed my veil
of skin & replace my body quilt with skeleton flowers
that become translucent when I sleep in the rain.
i want to be abundance: all the light a black hole steals, but
i will settle for the smell of wet stones
or the symbolism of an apple. i want to be dank & sweet
& for the earth to drink me like my heart pumps grenadine.
if you listen closely to the fuzzy inside of me you will hear me
become my own polka, a sympathetic tragedy.
i swallow fog & prisms & turn my inside parts to bioglitter.
i am patient. i wait for the right time. & then i burst:
an explosion of human light & color surrounding the filament i once was.
shed, flowers, when, hole, will, sweet, drink, listen, my, parts, patient, light
to shed a second skin in the game,
or rather the way flowers fracture--
epitomizing when the vase hits the floor.
(before i go, my hole, eaten by the seraph,
his will solely to pleasure the flesh)
it is a sweet way to leave the plane dancing.
i no longer drink–the swallows are more
gulps these days. it is hard to listen over
my throat's musicality. the muscles hurt.
so many parts become irreconcilable.
so much time to learn patient waiting.
we cannot drop light as wisdom; honesty is always vantablack.
skin, rather, hits, seraph, pleasure, plane, swallows, hard, muscles, become, time, drop
I thought Maybe that's skin cancer
but the Teladoc said Rather, age spots
the hits just keep coming, small hits
but I cover my eyes like a seraph
is there pleasure without fire
what is that in the sky is it a plane
or swallows eating as they fly
it's hard to know if I'm seeing right
my eyeballs are shrinking, muscles
unspooled become tide pools where predators
convene to feast on stars and time
until the pool melts down to a drop
maybe, age, coming, cover, without, sky, eating, right, eyeballs, pools, convene, melts
Maybe
it is age
coming,
under cover. It comes
without
footstep or sky writing,
eating with its many slim beaks,
right from my hand,
rolling its tiny eyeballs,
those dank pools
of time that convene all my
fears. Maybe time melts them to little mirrors of myself in its eyes.
is, under, it, without, writing, slim, hand, rolling, pools, that, my, them, mirrors, of (note: Otis did not catch that 14 instead of 12 new words were given until it was too late but fortunately the next otis simply doubled-up on words for two lines. Three cheers for otis!)
Over is the boiling.
Under it, the elsewhere.
Without water the pressure
swallows the writing at its base.
Dear Slim,
A postcard by my hand
details the rolling, the reeling,
the pools where you find your rocks.
Sincerely, That question my mother asked me.
Lemons mailed off. Hands that carry them
are mirrors of the warmup exercise,
with notes of great circularity in each.
over, elsewhere, water, swallows, dear, postcard, reeling, rocks, question, carry, exercise, notes
I once leapt over the edge
into elsewhere,
moved by the water of ten thousand tears.
There were golden swallows
in that beyond, dear men with forearms flexed in song.
I'll send you a postcard
about reeling through the veil, into
the rocks of anthem, into
the question of death, its infinity.
I'll carry your scars
as an exercise in patience,
as notes on how to more deeply belong.
edge, into, thousand, golden, forearms, send, veil, anthem, infinity, scars, patience, belong
When we stood at the volcano's edge,
gazing into that roiling glow, its roar,
it was difficult not to feel the thousand
centuries behind us, difficult not to see the golden
forearms laboring down there, working
to send some missive for our world, a token
to pierce the veil between us and those others,
an anthem to our solidarity crossing
our transience and whatever infinity
they inhabit. If there are scars, we'll live
the scars. If patience is required, it is ours.
Our inhabitation exceeds where we belong.
stood, roiling, difficult, centuries, laboring, missive, pierce, solidarity, transience, inhabit, patience, exceeds
Below 10,000 feet of grey the black trees stood
Abyssal in their smallness under the roiling
Blank that was the antonym of space. Difficult
Choices are made on hills the centuries
Wear away under their weather’s laboring.
You will find no smoke rising, no missive
Sent out by the desperate party to pierce
The distance brokered by the rain. Solidarity
Was a thing in Poland, once. In the transience
Of the mutable world, even the trees inhabit
No ecology as sure as streams. The patience
Of the living is the last measure grief exceeds.
below, abyssal, blank, choices, wear, riding, party, distance, once, trees, streams, measure
Below decks, you don’t hear voices, only anxious sounds
(like bright blue markings on a dark abyssal canvas)
spilling from someone’s face blank with lost gaze.
There are two choices on this ship to Hell: to eat
the fish that’s eating us or wear indifference to life’s end,
riding the rig-mystery and salt-spray with a care-free hold.
One person’s surrender is another’s party. Congrats, you say,
while calculating the nautical distance to Whale Island
where you imagine whales at once turning-to port.
This much I know: banyan trees grow upside-down
like orchids, and streams rhymes with dreams, and which
measure depends on the wave—its gather, its release.
voices, canvas, spilling, eat, indifference, salt, surrender, island, whales, grow, orchids, release
Consider the voices we don't consider voices: noisy wind, rip of paper, squeaky
wood. A shivering canvas sail, the smack of ropes. (Someone who knows
boats calls that clacking "haylard slap.") What's spilling into your ear?
Your eyes eat everything. Your eyes eat hard light, blink up light like a cat lapping
butter. Indifference suffocates the rest. You forget the flavors of water, jet of
fountain water clapping as it hits asphalt. Forget how salt is squeaky, jagged
diamonds bitching as they rub together. You surrender the music, your head
congested with colors and shapes feeding the optic nerve. El Ojo Island.
Mirror clutter. Where does your head save sine waves or songs of whales?
You grow a rosebush. Underground, salt snaps together ions and grows itself.
Hush, rosebush. Salt squeaks. Wild orchids synch roots to water crackling
through tree pith. Sap creep. Ant patter. Release of pollen, a million quivering commas.
noisy, someone, clacking, blink, flavors, asphalt, music, optic, head, underground, stays, tree
No one thinks the forest is noisy, but it is — an incantation
filled with a million creatures someone else already named —
clacking birds, small squeaking animals avoiding capture
one blink and you could be in the branches with the raptors
inhale the scents and aerial flavors of loamy rot, a beacon
away from crumbling asphalt parking lot, you keep walking
toward the music of light playing on water, little streams sparkling
sunbeams playing hide and seek with your optic nerve, a glamour,
as you head deeper into the woods, to foxes, to deer
almost underground and you conjure yourself a little hut with a bobcat guard
where you decide who stays and who is allowed to leave
because you are the witch in the oldest tree in the forest of self
else, capture, crumbling, little, nerve, deeper, yourself, decide, witch, keep, thinks, leave
Who else has experienced that gentle toppling over
onto a bed of ferns or snowbank, a soft, scatheless capture
by something in the crumbling world you thought
indifferent to little old you with your secret
unexpressed belligerence, your very last nerve glinting?
Is any comfort deeper than the thought of nature saving us
for a change? You yourself
can’t decide what to do with the knowledge that “seraph” means “serpent”
but the witch in you knows the earth
will keep rebirthing itself as it always has, that no catastrophe
or mass extinction event is permanent until the sun explodes, thinks:
if only they would leave me alone, I’d go down singing.
gentle, snowbank, world, secret, glinting, nature, you, serpent, knows, extinction, sun, singing
What follows is a poetic form known as “otis” created by
the contributors to issue #19 using the following rules:
RULES of OTIS
1.Start with twelve words, called “seed words.” Create twelve lines, using one of the twelve seed words in each line.
2.Seed words must be used in the order in which they are given.
3.The word may appear anywhere in the line but the form of the word cannot be altered.
4.Select twelve new seed words from the completed otis, for the next otis to work from. Don’t change the form of the word when doing this and do not use the same seed words that you were given in this new list.
Feel free to continue the otis using the twelve words at the end of this thread. Invited your friends to do the same. Send us the results!