Jester's Coterie

Cage by Rigoberto Gonzalez

Wed, 13 May 2026 20:50:16 -0700

In his poem, “Cage,” Rigoberto González masterfully captures a uniquely haunting perspective on the widespread incarceration of immigrant children and separation of them from their families. It captures the insidious rhetoric used by its perpetrators and proponents in a way that feels concrete and grounded. He most effectively accomplishes this through his fresh and clever use of the speaker in the poem.

The speaker of “Cage” isn’t one of the many children separated from their families and thrown in the cages, it isn’t a parent of an incarcerated child, it isn’t an ICE agent, and it isn’t even an observer. Rigoberto establishes one of the cages itself as the speaker of the poem. This is an inspired way to deliver both a compelling perspective and a chilling sample of the way this crisis is so often discussed. This works especially well as the cage claims that it is “like a holster, / or sheath, all function / and no fury.” (González, lines 13-15). This mirrors the way people attempt to deflect from the atrocity of mass child internment by reframing it as containing and protecting threats, in this case by comparing the cages to two containers designed specifically for lethal weapons.

Poets often neglect the analogy for its more hip siblings, metaphor and simile, but González’s cage establishes multiple analogies that seem harmless at face value but become chillingly grotesque upon deeper consideration, such as “no one despises / the shepherd for / collecting his flock.” (González, lines 6-8). When the reader considers that herding sheep is being compared to ripping children away from their families to throw them in cages, it invokes anger and outrage.

These emotions and reactions the poem invokes are supported by González’s expertly crafted imagery and diction choice. Images such as “those / ulcers in my gut / are only windows, / the stoma punched / in my throat is just / a keyhole.” (González, lines 17-22) set an unsettling mood and rattles of aching hearts, broken wings, and brittle bones woven into seemingly loving promises run with it. It leaves the reader in the perfect state of mind to absorb the unique horrors of the crisis it illustrates.

Every component of the poem comes together to illustrate that crisis, and they do so excellently. The comparisons the cage makes to justify the atrocities perpetrated against these children deeply anger and disturb, and Gonzalez’s well-selected and expertly crafted imagery, as well as elements of the structure and shape of the poem establish the perfect mood, but the most effective device is the perspective. The speaker of the poem being one of the cages could easily just be a novelty, but in “Cage,” it works. It allows the poet to explore the sickly-sweet mind games used to distract from the grim reality of the situation, it pulls the reader one step closer to facing this horror themselves, and it turns sweet, loving promises sour with the undertones of mass child imprisonment.

-# “Cage” and all other referenced works are the property of their respective owners. This critique is for educational purposes under fair use.

Lavender Tongue

Wed, 13 May 2026 20:52:49 -0700

Historically, part of the oppression of vulnerable groups has been the erasure of their language. Oppressive power structures declare the existence of certain people criminal and attempt to control the narrative of these groups. This leaves little option but to hide in the shadows and try desperately to preserve their culture in secret. For queer communities, this has necessitated subtle ways of communicating without drawing the eye of outsiders.

This led to the birth of secret passphrases like “friend of Dorothy,” entire English pidgins such as Swardspeak with Tagalog, Gayle with Afrikaans, and Polari with romance languages (primarily Italian), and even some linguistic features that survive to this day such as referring to homosexual men with she/her pronouns. These features that have survived to a modern context are still defining aspects of queer culture and relevant to queer populations. Being queer, nonbinary, and asexual in the modern world of queer language has bred a fascination in me with the historical context of queer linguistics, and the importance of its cultural preservation, further research, and public awareness.

Perhaps the bulk of the research in this field has been conducted on what is often colloquially referred to as the “gay accent.” This refers to unique qualities of speech among homosexual, North American, anglophonic men and has been the focus of much sociolinguistic research over the course of the last few decades. Many factors contribute to this manner of speech, and the extent to which it can be attributed to stereotype or to subconscious signalling is hotly debated.

Arguably the most recognizable feature of speech patterns associated with gay men is the “gay lisp.” Experts suggest this feature is not in fact a lisp at all because the /s/ phoneme is hyper-articulated as opposed to mis-articulated (Mack and Munson 200), but they also find the feature to be heavily associated with homosexuality in male speakers, summarizing that “listeners rated men as gayer sounding when dental and frontal tokens of /s/ […] were combined with vowel–consonant sequences” (Mack and Munson 209). While the research does show a higher frequency of this speech pattern in gay men than other groups (42.3% of homosexual men as opposed to 18% of heterosexual men and 20% of heterosexual women), each individual is different and speech alone is not a reliable predictor of sexual orientation (Prevalence of Lisping, 102).

Though the research is less extensive and the recorded distinctions even subtler, a similar phenomenon has been noted in women as well, colloquially referred to as the “lesbian accent.” Linguistic features associated with lesbian speakers include lower pitch, excessively-backed back vowels, and what’s colloquially referred to as “creaky voice” or “vocal fry.” Most notable due to its association with the stereotype that homosexual women exhibit masculine speech patterns is their tendency towards lower pitch and decreased pitch variation (Pitch and Pitch Variation, par. 5). While this quality is associated primarily with male speakers, it is not universally exhibited by all homosexual women nor by all men and does not serve as an accurate method for determining the gender or sexuality of any individual. It is simply a subconscious method of subtly connecting along shared cultural lines. Research has also shown “lesbian/bisexual women producing more-back variants of /u/ and /ɑ/” (Munson et al., par. 12) and “vocal fry” (Barron-Lutzross, 40). As with gay men, all lesbian anglophones are unique individuals who express themselves in unique ways. The presence or absence of these phonetic features is not a reliable predictor of sexual orientation.

Another group uniquely impacted by linguistic signalling is the transgender community. Most notably, many transmasculine individuals choose to undergo testosterone-based hormone replacement therapy (HRT), colloquially abbreviated “T.” This functions identically to male puberty, characterized by the same enlargement of the larynx and thickening of the vocal cords. T is associated with initial speech patterns such as “voice cracks” and eventually, phonetic qualities associated with adult male speakers. Similarly, some transfeminine individuals include vocal feminization surgery (VFS) in their transition journeys. Since the changes caused by testosterone during male puberty are permanent, these surgical procedures seek to reverse them by trimming and/or thinning the vocal cords. While success rates and side effects for these procedures vary, this is associated with more feminine vocal qualities as if the speaker had never undergone a male puberty.

Regardless of gender identity, many transgender individuals utilize “voice training” to effectively craft a more masculine, more feminine, or more androgynous vocal expression. Studies show “evidence that gender-affirming speech-language pathology services warrant prioritization” (Oates et al). As with sexual orientation, transgender people are not monolithic, and each individual makes their own decisions about their own transition process. These issues do not affect everyone equally.

Beyond unique phonetic expression, diction itself is often impacted by queer identities in unique ways. This ranges from pronunciation preferences to entire secret lexicons. Representative of the former is the gender-associated preference for the /ɪn/ (“in”) or /iŋ/ (“ing”) pronunciation of the present participle suffix “-ing” and its implications on those who reject binary gender. Sociolinguistic expert Dr. Chantal Gratton observed nonbinary individuals using this distinction to distance themselves from their assigned gender at birth (AGAB), but noted that the pattern was virtually non-existent in queer spaces. She posits that “this is because the fear of being mis-gendered in safe-spaces is nearly non-existent, as others present will not presuppose a gender identity” (Gratton, 58). In other words, nonbinary individuals exhibit binary gender expressions opposite their AGAB to counteract the assumptions made outside of queer spaces based on physiological characteristics.

Slightly more transformational is the prevalence of gender-neutral language, specifically singular third-person pronouns, in nonbinary populations. A common misconception in modern discourse is that the increasingly accepted “singular they” is a new concept developed alongside the push for gender-neutral language. In reality, the word has been used in this manner for centuries (They, Pron.) and has simply gained popularity and adoption as the need for gender-neutral language has intensified.

More extreme yet is the constantly evolving world of queer terminology. From the term “queer” itself, originating as a pejorative in the late 19th to early 20th century (Partridge, 524) to more recent terms like “queerplatonic,” coined by asexual Tumblr users S.E. Smith and Kaz, the battle for control of our language has been at the forefront of the war to control our story. The less language we have at our disposal to share our experiences and discuss our issues, the more we cease to exist in society.

Perhaps the most impressive form of queer language was the secret “gay cant,” Polari, spoken as part of gay subculture throughout the U.K. primarily by 19th-century performance artists, sailors, sex workers, and criminals (occupations which represented a significant portion of the queer community). The language consisted primarily of English vocabulary and adopted English grammar and syntax, but words were selectively borrowed from Italian, Romani, Yiddish, cockney slang, and even other cants such as Thieves’ Cant and Shelta (a cant spoken by Irish tinkers). Most of the Italian vocabulary was introduced indirectly via the Mediterranean Lingua Franca descendant Sabir, which was spread by so-called “sea queens:” queer men who worked entertainment and service jobs aboard British Navy vessels and often served as “off-shore wives” for the sailors aboard (Stanley).

Seeing as the British empire at the time (especially in the Navy) had begun to heavily crack down on homosexuality, the idea was to obfuscate potentially incriminating subjects by tucking them behind this cryptic additional layer. Such efforts were widely successful, and much of modern queer slang (such as butch/femme, drag, and camp) and crude language (bitch and blowjob) originates from Polari, and many Yiddish terms that have made their way into colloquial English (such as zhush) owe thanks to the cant as well (Baker 1). This is all vital context for the historical cycles of and modern efforts in queer linguistics. Why is Polari not still spoken today? What happens when governments isolate and attack groups based on these features? What might happen if queer communities were accepted by their societies? These are pressing questions in the field of queer linguistics, and efforts are necessary to further research, preserve the history of, and raise public awareness in regards to them.

To understand why these features fade to obscurity, we must first understand why they develop in the first place. In the case of Polari, the language was used secretly by homosexuals (Baker 4) to provide shelter from prying eyes in a hostile historical context for queer rights. Because of the importance of this secrecy, once the radio show Round the Horne started to gain popularity for its two “camp,” polari-speaking characters, the language fell out of favor and use (Baker 1). It also means that the language was almost exclusively spoken, which has made it somewhat difficult to build a full picture of the language within its time.

It thus becomes clear that these features rely on subtlety, and lose their potency when exposed to the general public. They often even become an active danger. If it is public knowledge that a persecuted demographic can be identified by certain words or phrases, members of the demographic tend to avoid using those words or phrases out of fear their government will persecute them (as they so often do).

This abandonment, while necessary for the safety of individuals, leaves gaps in vital areas of queer cultural history and can leave vulnerable groups without the tools to support each other, advocate for themselves, or even tell their own story. Fortunately, the community has largely taken it upon itself to archive, teach, and remember our own queer history (Lesbian Herstory Archives par. 1). This has led to impressive, foundational, and treasured collections of historical artifacts and knowledge of all scales, one of the greatest prides of queer heritage.

That said, such efforts are not sufficient alone. It is equally important that research is broadened and continued to slowly fill in some of the gaps in our story and uncover any additional connections. Research in this specific field of sociolinguistics is responsible for much progress made in our historical reclamation and preservation, but it is quite limited in certain areas.

The most obvious such gap in research is simply the vast body of queer historical and cultural artifacts that have been lost to time. From much of the foundational queer poetic works of Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath, Walt Whitman, and others to the massive body of medical and psychological research from the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute of Sexology) destroyed by the Nazi state in the 1930s and the ongoing erasure of queer American history from government archives, websites, and buildings, the story of queer love has faced countless attacks throughout history, and much of it has been lost forever in the process.

Because of the heavily patriarchal nature of many human societies throughout history, another quite unique area of lack in queer linguistic research is with the most marginalized specific demographics. This means that much less research is possible and has been conducted on queer women, on gender-nonconforming queer people, and on queer people of color, as well as on other more marginalized specific demographics. This is because when an aspect of a person’s identity is decreed transgressive by either a government or a populace, the ability to transgress by openly presenting that identity is directly proportional to privilege. Those who are safe and secure in their place in society can survive its scorn, but those who are barely able to stay afloat as is are less likely to risk discovery and less likely to survive if they do.

Most of the time, however, these lacking areas are more broad fields of study which are simply resistant to any analysis through the lens of queer history. As an experienced academic, William G. Tierney described his experience with this, “more often than not, however, homosexuality and homosexuals were never considered” (Tierney 40). Unfortunately, this is a very slow process because it is inherently a disruptive one–forcing paradigm shifts and recontextualizing existing knowledge within patriarchal, gendered structures of society.

What’s more, even with the full might of the academic community working together to preserve and uncover the rich cultural history of queer linguistics, there would be a piece missing. As important as it is to understand and record the cycle of needing, developing, and losing linguistic signalling tools, it is more important to break it. The only way this could be accomplished is by fighting to embed these issues deeply within the public awareness. The world doesn’t need radio show characters speaking Polari, it needs its average citizen to understand and fight to dismantle the oppressive societal systems which bred and which perpetuate the cycle.

From movies about hidden figures of queer history such as Alan Turing or from such figures like Marlon Riggs to queer-inclusive spaces such as GSA clubs in schools, many such efforts have been made. The most successful and critical examples of such efforts are those that aim not simply to archive queer stories, but to actively share them. To package them into palatable units of queer history that can lay the groundwork for more accurate and holistic expressions. The Initiative Arts Projects of Manchester, a group focused on exactly this, words it quite elegantly: “we tell the stories of LGBTQIA+ people utilising multi-disciplinary art forms to engage, welcome and entertain.” (IAP Manchester, par. 1). This is precisely the way. If the general public refuses to care about queer history, it can only surface by injecting it into the most engaging, welcoming, and entertaining content so that by the time queer history is involved, they already care.

Living as queer people in today’s world, this is our future. This is our charge. To preserve, to recover, and to teach. To use every linguistic tool at our disposal to make sure the queer story survives. To defy every attempt at erasure. As Walter Benjamin put it in the ninth of his 1940 Theses, we must “stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed.” We must fight to stay alive and spread the word, find the lost ghosts of our culture, and restore the fullest possible extent of our history. We must be indomitable, our lavender tongues never still nor quiet. Only then will we be seen, and only then will we be free.

Works Cited

Baker, Paul. “Polari: The Lost Language of Gay Men.” Routledge Studies in Linguistics, Routledge, 2002, pp. 1-4, web.archive.org/web/20250129210816/https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/staff/bakerjp/polari/home. Accessed 27 March 2025. Barron-Lutzross, Auburn. “The Production and Perception of a Lesbian Speech Style.” UC Berkeley PhonLab Annual Report, 11, 2015, p. 40. Borsel, John Van, et al. “The prevalence of lisping in gay men.” Journal of Communication Disorders, vol 42, 2009, p. 102. —. “Pitch and pitch variation in lesbian women.” Journal of Voice, vol 27.5, September 2013, par. 5. Gratton, Chantal. “Resisting the Gender Binary: The Use of (ING) in the Construction of Non-binary Transgender Identities.” U. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics, Volume 22.2, 2016, p. 58. IAP Manchester. “About.” IAP:MCR, Initiative Arts Projects Ltd., web.archive.org/web/20250424015744/https://www.iapmcr.co.uk/about, par. 1. Accessed 23 April 2025. Lesbian Herstory Archives. “Principles.” Lesbian Herstory Archives, 2019, web.archive.org/web/20250423003725/https://www.lesbianherstoryarchives.org/about/#principles, par. 1. Accessed 22 April 2025. Mack, Sara, Benjamin Munson. “The influence of /s/ quality on ratings of men’s sexual orientation: Explicit and implicit measures of the ‘gay lisp’ stereotype.” Journal of Phonetics, vol 40, 2012, pp. 200-209. Munson, Benjamin, et al. “The acoustic and perceptual bases of judgments of women and men’s sexual orientation from read speech.” Journal of Phonetics, vol 34.2, April 2006, par. 12. Oates, Jennifer, et al. “Gender-Affirming Voice Training for Trans Women: Effectiveness of Training on Patient-Reported Outcomes and Listener Perceptions of Voice.” Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, vol 66.11, 9 November 2023. Partridge, Eric. “A Dictionary Of Slang And Unconventional English.” 1937, p. 524. “They, Pron., Sense I.2.a.” Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford UP, March 2025, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/7697010413. Stanley, Jo, Paul Baker. “Hello Sailor!: The Hidden History of Gay Life at Sea.” Longman, 2003. Tierney, William G., and Patrick Dilley. “Constructing knowledge: Educational research and gay and lesbian studies.” Queer theory in education. Routledge, 2012, p. 40.

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Thu, 14 May 2026 11:25:25 -0700

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Wed, 13 May 2026 20:40:37 -0700

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Its Alive and It Hates You

Wed, 13 May 2026 20:48:58 -0700

Imagine you live in something like a house, but it’s alive and it hates you. It keeps the house at least 10% colder than you are comfortable with at all times. It seems like something should be small enough to live with if it can be solved by a blanket, but the house knows if you use a blanket or if you put on a jacket or sit by the fireplace. It cranks the heat up because it knows and it hates you. It wants you to exist in a constant state of adding layers, overheating, taking off layers, and freezing. You will be hot and you will be cold and you will be hot because the house wants you to know that you don’t deserve comfort. It’s alive and it hates you.

You’ve always struggled to keep the house neat because it likes to move your things around. It learns what’s most important and takes a particular liking to them. You have to leave yourself an extra 15 minutes before you leave the house to search for your keys. You go through your day with one hand for fear of setting down your phone and the house burying it in the yard again. If you try to clean things up or get organized, the house insists you can’t. If you beg enough, it reluctantly agrees but insists you go shop for new cleaning supplies first. You indulge it because you’re finally going to get to clean but then the house insists that you can’t clean until you’ve made coffee. It reminds you of that email you were supposed to write earlier, and when you send it off, the house points out that you’re on your phone already anyway so you might as well watch videos of other people cleaning their houses for 11 uninterrupted hours.

Sometimes, the house likes to make noises just to mess with you. One day, a skull-shaking buzz wakes you up in the middle of the night. It scrapes against your ear drums and drills into your skull. You jump up and run around the house until you find that you can suddenly hear the refrigerator. You sleep outside that night. The dirt tries to mush itself into your skin but at least it isn’t quite as cold as the house. You remember the day you stepped out of the shower and your bath mat was the wrong texture. It felt soggy, mushy, muddy, clinging to you and infecting the souls of your feet with its rot. You’ve never felt anything so repulsive. The house insists the mat has always felt like that and no one else has a problem with it, because it hates you and it wants you to go crazy.

When other people want to see the house, you try to avoid it. People don’t like you when they’ve seen the house, and they don’t understand. They don’t know what it’s like to live in the house. They don’t realize that the house is alive or that it hates you. They start to hate you too because it isn’t that hard to keep a house clean. They hate you because it’s not even that cold in here. They hate you because they’ve never known anyone who could “hear the refrigerator,” and someone your age should be able to keep track of their god damned car keys. They hate you because the house knows them and it wants them to hate you. It knows you and it wants you to hate yourself. It lives for the nights you spend sitting in the shower, hot streams of water raining down on your face so that you can’t tell how much you’ve been crying. It hates you and it wants you to know that everyone else does too.

the Pen imprisoned

Wed, 13 May 2026 19:47:25 -0700

the state’s men came to take the poet’s home
she Trekked a desert page
they took her clothes they took her skin
she Glided through ink seas

they locked her in a prison dark and bare
she Soared through trees of rhyme
they snapped her body killed her every love
she Scaled the bluffs of verse

when there was nothing else to take, they snatched
her Pen and made her watch it break, she wept
and raged and then she shrilled:
how now can i be, Free?

Poe Endures

Wed, 13 May 2026 20:54:39 -0700

once upon a midnight, eerie, a man discovered, tattered, weary, mutters strangely from the trenches, he stumbles, and his gut he clenches as no man ever clenched before! who is this man, who writhes in horror?

why it was Poe, I could’ve sworn! it was Poe, as rainfall drenches! as if a knock upon a door, a face emerged ‘midst foul stenches, we celebrate, for Poe endures!

what circumstance did bring him here? what character could be endeared to clench, and writhe, and mutter so? what feats of his could ever know a life beyond the death and gore? how does this man today endure?

’twas his foe, who he abhored, ’twas his foe, who made it so! “tell us this, make us know! tell us of the man deplored!” you yearn to learn how Poe endures!

you’ve met the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe, the ghost of tragic talent, “that which you mistake for madness, is but sensory acuteness” like nothing you’ve been told before! unlike the drunken, gambling langor, like nothing you’ve been told before!

for Poe was not a hopeless bore, nor sick with mad nonsenses, no troubling, troubled alcoholic, no reflection of his diabolic orators of dark expenses— but always writing, writing more, in writing he dispenses: love and passion, and something more, Poe dispenses, “Art endures!”

upon that art, he staked his life— upon that art, he fought and died!

he stayed in richmond one july, for a magazine in ‘49, and when he left for baltimore, blue as death, and deathly poor, a week he wandered, lost and weary— nearly dead, but only nearly, ’til Poe was found in baltimore!

what happened next, I must delay, for accomplishments before his cryptic death that dreadful day— that damned day in baltimore come seventh of Octo’er!

stay your intrigue, drink the tension know of Poe, not dark obsessions and know the foe who dimmed his glory, and sang his lies in euology of drink and drugs and nothing more, for by his slander, Poe endures!

as for Poe’s writings, seven score: risen loves and shortened stories, reclusive sleuths and gothic horror— Poe fathered these and many more; by their furies, he endures.

you’ve heard the words he churned before that fateful night in baltimore; so what occurred that dreadful night— October third in baltimore?

“repulsive! haggard!” his witness wrote “a stained and faded corded coat, shoes worn, a hat of straw, slack pantaloons, too full to be his own!” by no attempt could he be wakened; his eyes lie “lusterless and vacant” as no eyes ever lie before, that fateful night in baltimore.

four days more, he twitched and swore, then on his deathbed he did scorn, “Reynolds!” and nothing more that seventh of Octo’er.

nothing more, yet Poe endures! in stephen king and eldritch horror, ray bradbury and sherlock holmes! in twisted tales and whispered whims of that night in baltimore, and in every yank he set upon the starving artist’s course, in these and more, Poe endures!

as with all things, this tale must end though as with every word he penned, your mind, you’ll find, persists him still. just four figures for the till, 140 works or more, not one a love did he not mourn, quoth our writers, “Poe endures!”

for he was no man to be deplored, no man of evil will, “write for him!” I thus implore, “think not of time or skill!” say with me now the ancient lore: say with me, “Poe endures.”

-# by Jester Lumos; performed during COM 225 (2025)

Two Eyes

Wed, 13 May 2026 20:43:48 -0700

millenials are coverin’ up their slytherin tattoos and watching ai fetish porn from hud tvs on the news

we’re selling spleens for breakfast eggs buying weed with apple pay splurging on our rent and bills and raiding epstein’s grave

“palworld dating simulator,” “mr. beast squid games,” the murderous, police state just as jefferson proclaimed,

the slow and tortured death of art, the rise of the machines, jojo siwa’s litterbox, and hunger games x shein.

as tensions rise, attentions fall; you only have Two Eyes; no mortal mind can hold it all, yet futilely we try.

when we burn up all the green on earth, they’ll sell us dye and “de-extincted” mammoth rats, and continents on fire.

poisoning the water system for tesla batteries while ai server centers spread like thirsty thirsty weeds.

there’s flowers in antartica while florida drowns in snow and billion-dollar carbon credits for nepo ceos.

the world inside, the world out there– you only have Two Eyes; no mortal mind can hold it all, yet futilely we try.

it’s the district of america, the throne of elon musk! buy a tesla from the whitehouse lawn, just a hundred thousand bucks!

inaugurating donald trump in the name of mlk– the glorious leader’s birthday and military parade.

hitler, mussolini, donald tragedy then farce– tariffs on the traitor nations, watching as we starve.

for all the lies, and all the truth, you only have Two Eyes; no mortal mind can hold it all, yet futilely we try.

when self defense means bombing churches, hospitals and schools, at least i still can count on you to remind me of the rules. not allowed to speak aloud from blood cobalt iphones. im too rich for empathy, and too queer to have a soul. bow down to irl maleficent, reprised by gal gadot.

worshippers of jesus christ are sieging bethlehem, but people think i give two shits about the return of eminem??

one more demise, or four or ten– you only have Two Eyes; no mortal mind can hold it all, yet futilely we try.

mothers bleed to death in dumpsters, while doctors rot in jail, with fraudsters, insurrections, and rapists out on bail.

“foid,” “cum dumpster,” “birth machine” after all, “boys will be boys!” “great replacement,” “falling birth rates,” so “your body my choice.”

fifty dollar birth control pills, “no mercy,” “woman’s job.” does he even want a partner– or just to fuck his mom?

the changing times, the tides of men– you only have Two Eyes; no mortal mind can hold it all, yet futilely we try.

buying votes means water bottles not million dollar checks; “cost of living,” “battleground state,” “illegal protest,” a ceo assassin cult, with no class consciousness, “dei,” “minimum wage,” and “human resources.”

no joe, no roe, no fowl, no harm, “no politics in art;” no time to run, no nowhere to go, and no money to depart.

remembering what it’s like to feel, to live, to love, to dream– with just Two Ears, how could we hear each and every scream?

-# by Jester Lumos; performed at ASU (2025, 20 poems in 20 days)

neon graveyard

Thu, 14 May 2026 09:41:05 -0700

is it enough to sit and count
the years that pass as i sketch
each bone in the neon graveyard?

the metal monsters start to stretch,
the scales aglow, the eyes aware
of the years that pass as i sketch.

my history stops to catch my stare;
it knows my shame, my ignorance
of the scales aglow, and eyes aware.

a horseshoe’s radiant decadence
unfolds a fractal 8 million miles,
and knows my shame, my ignorance.

i’ll never forget the smiles. of each bone in the neon graveyard,
fractals unfolding for millions of miles!

why can’t i sing the elegy
of each bone in the neon graveyard?
is it enough to sit and count
each bone in the neon graveyard?