The Other World | Quit Quoting Your Chapter and Verse

The Other World

I’m versed in insecurities I
cannot get used to
strung out behind a loneliness I
cannot change


the evening to come
I’ll picture wildest performances
I will rage against my injustice
with pencil in hand
crying for a sister


to be in this house of cards
to be constantly tired
a universe of a mad hell
shocked by barbarous disadvantages


pain is
a toxic disappointment
a callous torment
frowning at the unfinished poems
mired in the insane envy of it


the price of this day
refusing the magic
the other world
living on the edge

---

Quit Quoting Your Chapter and Verse

I stand at your side
  and watch you
  succumbing to a moment’s lunatic madness
     I see you’re arriving at these foul inconsistencies
  succeeding at fooling the world

           to be haunted by the past
  to have hurt someone
  nothing is working
            the sadness only gets worse

          everything was so meaningless again today
          I was playing with danger
           in a bleak place
           and you
you were thinking about what’s happened
      confirming unheard prayers

here there’s no more room for
the limits of the awkward philosophers down by the water
a confusion that’s withering away
walking in circles
in this messed-up situation

how it begins and ends
will endure
cataloging a single kiss
under a July sun

David M. Alper’s forthcoming poetry collection is Hush. His work appears in Variant Literature, Open: Journal of Arts & Letters, Oxford Magazine, and elsewhere. He is an educator in New York City.