Gephyromania Read online

  Nightboat Books encourages you to calibrate your text size using the line of characters below:

  “Lorem ipsum dolor eros amet, consectetur adipiscing a mi aliquet magna”

  When this text appears on one line on your device, the resulting settings will most accurately reproduce the layout of the text on the page and the line length intended by the author. Viewing the title at a higher than optimal text size or on a device too small to accommodate the lines in the text will cause the reading experience to be altered considerably; single lines of some poems will be displayed as multiple lines of text. If this occurs, the turn of the line will be marked with a shallow indent.

  For this title, we also encourage you to turn on the screen orientation lock. Much of the text in this book appears vertically on the page. Turning on screen lock will allow you to turn your device to read the vertical text similarly to a print book.

  Thank you!

  Copyright © 2014, 2022 by TC Tolbert

  All rights reserved

  Printed in the United States

  Gephyromania was first published by Ahsahta Press in 2014.

  Print ISBN: 978-1-643-62120-3

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-64362-162-3

  Cover design by Quemadura

  Cover artwork: Tomiko Jones, 40º40’N 121º63’W River Wash,

  Mount Hood, Oregon, from “Landscapes”

  Book design by Janet Holmes

  CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  is available from the Library of Congress

  Nightboat Books

  New York

  www.nightboat.org

  CONTENTS

  Gephyromania

  (ir)Retrieval

  What Space Faith Can Occupy

  elegy

  On braiding hair already cut away from the scalp

  A Love Note for My Breasts

  The Trapping Sessions: (Free)

  Offering

  Testing …

  Tau(gh)t

  shoulder gratitude

  Thaw

  territories of folding

  Crossing

  latitude: [perceived obsolescence]: unplanned

  Underneath February is a test strip. And believe me. Believe me. I would.

  The Palinode

  Spending Log

  On Minimalization

  From Passing …

  A Congress of Bring and of Invisible: The Language of Heaven is No

  The exit signs are behind us.

  Beg Approval

  Gephyromania

  Bridges I am thankful to have crossed

  Bridges over troubled water

  about the author

  IR)RETRIEVAL

  That __________ was born Melissa Dawn Tolbert, December 24, 1974

  to a woman named Jeanne Darline. That in this

  we decorate almost. We mean (we relegate) we mean.

  That the hopeful bearded face becomes a tyranny.

  (That what we believe in is a form of refraction. The back turning

  as a word, upon itself. Draping the neck into sound.) That there lies

  a calloused form of predicate beneath the Rupaul.

  That the body which is her body is a decency.

  That we draw can(n)ons around permissible and rest.

  That a book I received I then decided to return to you.

  That I do not know forgiveness for the things we choose to leave.

  That, like the afterimage given to a closed eye.

  She is prologue. And simultaneous. She is domicile.

  That this is not therefore. (salient.) That she bring.

  She remembers that there are names, kinder names,

  for the accidental bruising left by witness. And

  sedulous in her canter these are illegible. With a mouth

  full of tinder. and forget. With a hand, not a shade,

  and a gleaning. That she may liquefy all outposts. and fall back.

  That there is a causal born predisposed to a reachliness.

  That there are fists with which my mouth has not met.

  In what became known as The Topography

  of Unrequited Laughter, You Fucking Suck, and The Pedagogue

  of Sixth and Silhouette. It is not so much that transferable

  is in the offering. (Although I am ungentle and

  in between, dear Ramona.) That you come home

  anyway. And bring the telephone of your liking.

  That you block discreetly and settle spring between my mouth.

  That we are a history. On a good day. A context. The path

  of a paper airplane drawn optimistically about the edges

  of a room. That my hands do still so little (grieving)

  to listen to me. Usurpers of sleep and yet

  their genius is temerity. That they memory

  they memory they member. (non-consensual.) They member

  they memory they rest. In this, they encourage

  disparation. They gentle Hustler, Man 2 Man,

  and Too Deep. (we are patching this in on film.)

  That the bathroom is guileless in its obscurity. What we

  reach for when placing a _______ in the mouth.

  Do not hold your hands like a lift to me.

  Lying just below the derivative of undertow. That they

  are given twice as empty as sound.

  It’s not silence I’m afraid of, it’s commodification.

  (on peeing on, seeing on, Out.)

  Masturbation’s just not the same without menstruation: what

  with all the delectable injectables: where what’s obscure

  outweighs antiquity: to obdurate cheekily: there’s little

  that’s been improved here: he’s in and, clearly, she’s out.

  Faux hawk

  ☑

  (:when it all comes down to hegemony)

  Chin stache

  ☑

  (: i.e. and/or even the pathology of and/or)

  White speak

  ☑

  (: gephyromania is interminable and dis-ease)

  Ellipses

  ☑

  (make that a double check) (: with regard to virile mangos,

  friends, and (more important) money: the subtextual consciousness of queer.)

  I press curiously tender to your Arabia. (oh baby i)

  My labia swell and Really. That’s so neat and all.

  But it’s the rise of the dicklet we all cheer.

  disappearing wheelbarrow, I wish you wheelbarrow.

  the whiskey rash reel off the hand.

  the ballyhorse leg is a spoonfall; applesauce

  class in a round. hermeneutically sealed

  in a braindrop (we are) fucking shit up

  with insistence. the barrel chain bounty gives

  ground.      Mercedes! Mercedes! Despite the genuflect.

  how much plow could really you land in a day.

  despite the eyelids and the pants that fall

  accordingly. despite Rothko, repatriation,

  and the parallel. what will generous make

  broken in the handoff. (we are) (tiny) a population

  of peligro. despite the temperature and armistice of when.

  (we are) rebar: for rent or for rain.

  (So that there is at least one flag you will never know the weight of.)

  (So that the chair has many permutations.)

  (So that you move forward as if through a jump-rope.

  The handles molesting your hands.)

  (So that there are peepholes in which we are still lingering.)

  (So that my tits are still tits in the summertime.)

  (So that as long as I hold you I will continue to pour my hair out.)

  (So that lack may not measure thic
kness, nor health, nor sound.)

  That the body which is my body is a relevancy.

  That the new body which is irrelevant is a test.

  That there’s never been a man in the room. That,

  were it not for one man fucking me back into existence,

  I would have sworn to you that I thought I saw two.

  That there are now tears in what was supposed to be

  impermeable. That either way I am unable to be conceived.

  That the body which is my body is indeterminately.

  That there is little room for the tiny tufts of toilet paper.

  That I will hold them in the verisimilitude I continuously

  refer to as my chest. That this is somehow a demonstration

  of bravery. That better models of logic are exemplified

  by this drain. That erosion is why some still believe in philanthropy.

  That this is a prayer shawl. That still we refuse to call her by her name.

  WHAT SPACE FAITH CAN OCCUPY

  I believe that witness is a magnitude of vulnerability.

  That when I say love what I mean is not a feeling

  nor a promise of a feeling. I believe in attention.

  My love for you is a monolith of try.

  The woman I love pays an inordinate amount

  of attention to large and small objects. She is not

  described by anything. Because I could not mean anything else,

  she knows exactly what I mean.

  Once upon a time a line saw itself

  clear to its end. I have seen the shape

  of happiness. (y=mx+b)

  I am holding it. It is your hand.

  ELEGY

  I am so not myself (sometimes) I look at her.

  And we are never equal to the break that we bring.

  ON BRAIDING HAIR

  ALREADY CUT AWAY FROM THE SCALP

  let there be silence. and plenty.

  let there be end tables. breasts. buoys.

  let there be exit ramps. breasts. balls.

  when what essentially I made off with was your stair.

  like a tunnel grieves a view of the sky:

  all the emptiness between my teeth is a gift.

  pray down the mirror our reflection says we

  see through. your new lover on one side of the street.

  your new bicycle. and then, therefore, you.

  pray down a rope around the syllable

  that haunts us. the narrative that continually takes

  itself too seriously. a symphony of strangulated rests.

  our music undone periscopically.

  the pornography remains inexhaustible.

  a white flag fading at the root.

  and what void can we still find our way into.

  victimless.

  a hand signaling daylight to the sky.

  a myelin mouth frozen open in the bedroom.

  what you recognize is not me, is (not) me.

  that, inside the body which is not your body

  to defibrillate, your plastic hands articulate a bruise.

  (I love you more with your pants down.) pray down an overpass.

  because a demonstrative is lingering in the airway.

  all pedal and unfrozen—will you see me?

  pray down a casino and then a cornfield in the coda.

  (prayitdownprayitoverpassmeoverprayitdownpassitoverprayitback)

  tooth enamel is the strongest substance in the human body.

  shame is not something we carry.

  it multiplies in the recesses of our mouths.

  because one hand still reaches into the empty.

  pray down the pressure of your hand on my body.

  a violence of comfort and request.

  A LOVE NOTE FOR MY BREASTS (ABRIDGED)

  Thank you for the joke about tuning in. I’m cutting you off now. For my grandmother and the way she talked about my grandfather. She said he liked her for her big brown eyes.

  ~

  Thank you for protecting me from straight women. I’ll miss that. For making me think long and hard about why there was a marriage I was leaving. For the 1997 I never had.

  ~

  THE TRAPPING SESSIONS: (FREE)

  Somehow,

  if I speak the same: (do I speak the same)

  negative capability is just a word. (Word.)

  I live in that compression. Language—

  do something unusual

  to languish me. Language me,

  language, steal my voice.

              .

  Let’s just say I’m the

  fish. Yes. I’m the fish begging

  tricks for less air.

  Compositional improv is not metaphor.

  My voice changed and I

  thought I was k(no)wingly.

  Speak memory, speak. ____.

  Memory: break voice.

              .

  Smile (defer) smile, smile,

  shimmy. Wink—wait. That’s not my

  line. My line slipped.

  A table covered

  with t-shirts is a living

  room. And who wouldn’t

  feel safe in that ray-

  o-gram. Where we are only

  what the light cannot

  prove. (I live in that

  compression.) And who wouldn’t

  language in whose voice.

              .

  If there is not here

  there’s a line I crossed. Somewhere valence

  got Prufrocked with the T.

              .

  Tell me something porch light

  and give it earplugs. I swear to god

  my clit’s the size of your arm.

              .

  You have forgotten that I do so little

  with the skin I’m in. You make me a ladder

  and now I want you to make me more.

  OFFERING

  A rope and then somehow it’s opposite.

  Cantilevered.

  An amalgam of pre-injury rests.

  TESTING …

  When in the company of men. Ketchup.

  I spilled paint on my leg and now I know

  what I want for my next tattoo.

  If men are divisible by five.

  Rip, rip, rip, rip, rip.

                    Done.

  The rectangle colored with squares.

  dash of coiled hose. sprig of shadow.

  dash again. or pocket change. watch

  people.        you.

  You’re two inches higher than god.

  (oops, floppy. staple, pin, sew, clasp, copy

  erase erase erase

  better.)

  Son?

  TAU(GH)T

  I go back to that no and I sing from it.

  I practice epilogue: needlethreadepi-

  thelium. As what constitutes mean is the

  variance. Perhaps I fly hollow. Into

  some you, then. And rest. And where will the drama

  queen darling? My tongue is thin without your tongue

  to build a team on. Because we have been there,

  dear Ranger. Let me punt to you. Face first is

  the new tyranny of winged-ness. We were

  a Jerusalem of avalanches gone

  cleanly. Grip the resting heart, wresting. (Love, rest.)

  Pre-existential condition: we. Victim-

  ized and plural and. I will say you until

  I break it. I will say it. Your father

  drove while you slid your hand out the window. What

  became a roof with no house, just some sky. We

  barter what we witness. Because I can for-

  give what forgives not forgets. This is a house

  on fire. I will say it. You are changing. You

/>   are not never there. And what will shame me in

  to breathing if I lose you. And what will pre-

  sent tense if not corroborate with the past.

  [this will always be the bathroom where I fucked

  you where I fuck you where I fuck you where I

  pee this fucking goes ongoing fuck with me

  fucking you memory by member I re-

  member you dick will do that dick will

  barter baby’s restless call it the blue year

  dick will dip you dick will slip you dick will knee

  who told you momma may be an omnivore

  but she always comes home to eat I got your

  gruel right here baby fire me that’s what she said

  I see fuck too much this fucking fuck with me]

  I hesitate to use the phrase palm tree

  because palm tree is so Miami. Nonethe-

  less. Palm trees are indicative of regret.

  When the palm tree does what it is doing now.

  A thing anthropomorphic and lovingly

  to my back. This happened in Fayetteville once

  but, horticulture being what it is, the

  palm tree lost by popular vote. There is no-

  thing more humiliating than replacement.

  To quote Eric Magrane, I’m not certain why

  (you, me) we conceived in this order the world.

  Where does coffee enjoy you in your new home?

  I am a guest. And as such I will be mis-

  taken. The porch chair disintegrated and.

  With it the severalties abated. I

  cannot say I miss her. I can, however,

  own up to what I did to the chair. Can you

  masturbate? No, never. Memory is use-

  less. Still. Her hand was a chronology of

  irrevocable. The shape of happiness.

  I imagined 4 trillion lost cells inside

  it: nevering and the press back of the ear.

  And please that we not clobber nor posture. Plead

  fists that forget their fists and drive up dumbly

  inside. Praise the devil right out of my hands

  and pray he leaves hard. Pray a house on fire and