Adriana Kobor
OFF TO THE RACES

The world keeps ex-is-ting. Axe its things, […] weather wanes

in inward mirrors. The purple enters now more harshly.

Within: a boredom’s lense ’n lassitude (where all

A.I.titudes: Schrödinger and Schönberg,

die Erklärte Nacht und What Is Life,

exhuding […] humes and fumes). Extra-dict-ion of tra-dit-ion.

We will keep the science silent; give it a long-haul process

to hold ‘m: faces short and short ages’ break. You are

waging waves, off-races are your spendings. We dwell:

on an on, off one off — this is the word that didn’t want to.

Bees buzz, and humble bumbles hum in the hub of

their besties. Our initials: so bestial, Y.S. — (why cee?) —

A.K. — (awful call!) —; subliminal deadlines me-and-

e-ring: (me and E ring). Anders: his cup

overturned by itself, hence overfull.

This ocean ate all emptiness before me.

I think hunger and wage-theft.

Those games are the flashy momentums on the rifle’s loop;

tubeless tires holding on effortlessly, turning in

tuned acceleration. Now done,

so undone before,

overdone by then.

If I look back at it:

empty ores, enriching no one.

Keiner hilft keinem. Deine Rechnung. Ending up at odds ‘n

never to be-s, there, enleashing the end of times. No

body is capable of missing. Misses, miss us, mourn mean,

no meaning. Tabula rasa. By a scream a canvas torn,

born no bodies, half-lives written on the black-box-warning.

In the morning: not one change. Afternoon-bold,

evening curse, Eve, A. sneak, sneaking into

the loop. Its body as heavy as life, its outline: memberless.

I loosen my laces, and we are off.

Adriana Kobor
CUTTING INEDIBLES
“I’m afraid I can’t put it more clearly,” Alice replied, very politely, “for I can’t understand it myself, to begin with; and being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing.” -- Lewis Carrol 1865, Jan Švankmajer 1988

We were constantly climbing [heading South]

till your icecaged grime curled around

and sat on my larynx, and lifeless

larvae of unhatched butterflies

were gliding down

my aesophagus.

I was pulling wild asparagi

[the ultimate cliffhangers]

attempting to grasp

a steady metamorphosis of unchained

changes that would bind us to

the erratic North. I recall

the frozen-dead sound. Unrhymed,

I have no more words to shout,

unless you would hear the last breath of

this edelweiss of least concern,

in this stateless love of cocain.



If she says “the truth can’t be more true than it is true”, “D., D., I'm through”,

it’s a Plath platitude vulnerably expressed.


“Truth comes to me, truth loves me.”, she said as well,

so that the other throttle in the mechanical turtledove

wouldn’t be stuck.


Maybe the only sincere and reciprocated love, even if also a love-hate relationship,

through and through.


A phenomenal full moon is awaiting, intricately kind, as diluted blood

on a baby duvet.


“I miss your words”, he said —

‘I had too many’; and silence

became :CC

Adriana Kobor
DEATHTHROESLUNCHING
“Careful, amigo, you're flippin’”
— Ella Fitzgerald & Count Basie

They shall come to your bed sheets,

‘n arrange a last supper where you

lay, dying. Abruptly normal,

they will leave their toys

on the cushion, all the pawns

breaking their non-existing legs

in a fight that will turn you on

no more. It’s a fake check-mate:

you can still move limbless,

whether you were invited or not

to their empty bowls, you were

pouring all your sugar into.

The last ounces will hurt more

than a mistaken dance step.

You will raise from this death bed,

throes and all, sucking on their

lazy toes, while the land mower

is killing your neighbor, you’ve

failed to notice. Such love!,

such a kindred spirit,

without a dead man’s switch,

that makes your long lost milk

spill teeth into a crazy voodoo.

Dolls. They should bind your jaw,

and never mind you. Death is

at least here to be dealt with.

Zombies are walking in socks

on tiptoes, so that you are subtly

aware of their presence,

each time the tooth fairy

has done her job well.

With the passenger-seat airbag

switched off, no smooth landing.

Truth you have known all along,

munching on corpses left

by the road, ditched,

never given a first-aid,

at last. They wouldn’t last long,

however. In this purposelessness of

cul-de-sacs and reiterations:

just a crash, a nosebleed,

not much scrap to mention,

nor gain the ultimate comfort of

this white nothingness.

It shall give off.

Adriana Kobor
SECONDARY
Perfect weather. Sweating Dutchmen. “Look at this, finally I can sit outside without a pull on”, and now, and already: the leather-jacket perspective on a spring evening of a summer never there, yet. #itwasjust #asecondpartofhim #notyettold
“I sit in my chair” — Ella Fitzgerald

“If a body had five dollars.” — Søren Kierkegaard

Powdery lips shine; overcrowded

DNA takes too long to prove:

you aren’t a ton of raw bot. Fold

then: where it begun, “be gain!”,

we whispered, yet, at the end:

we ended up stranded

[deadme-s-s en gers as gems and

germs, or the typhoid fever:

the fastest cancer during this in die

an summer], as sure as Assur-

Bani Pahl’s urbanistics… ‘is

this game wicked?’ [unsider kn

owe-ledge app-reciated as]; —

‘Swipe me under the eiderdown,

I don't want to see how all is

going to or not going to end,

I prefer that which…’: suicidal is,

terminal is, lethal is, disdained is,

dainting little ink bottle at

my lips, frowning at this plural

‘plurum unum’, while quad-

ruplets are dripping

no change, but altercation,

pluribus, a reiteration of 0,

the apocalypse of CAP

italistic nat naught freight

without a weight. They

carry death: it is in the wings,

it does have that s wing ‘n

it’s arright you don’t appreciate

poetry, it means no recipro-

cation, it is Ciroan,

a Tolstoy at birth,

all that which you haven

’t read, […] just as you quit

Kierkegaard on the third

reaching the fence, page 7,

ignoring the garden.

Your lips: dripping injustice. I mo

urn in a slow pace, hence you

are in the process of dying,

not dead yet.

At the hairdresser’s the drama

queens keep silent,

sitting in a row, with overheated

heads: a curly burlesque

in the making.

The stiff upper lips: all botoxed.

Unboxing the toxins!

We all knew she would swipe to

the left, while you, the right one

wouldn't even appear on her sc

reen. Be level headed, take heed!

Rhyne…!, when the screw

turns,

the ghost will look like

human remains. All the good

that is left of them, there,

6 feet under,

never to scream again.

She wore sunscreen

under the owning —

a double protection —,

drinking bubbles for

the spark,

slow electricity

giving her unplugged

goosebumps. ‘Why would you

apply the aftersun?’, ‘you

seem like a lunatic who

haven’t ever witnessed

the Moon, knocked out

on Diazepam. Since

then I know: white-collar

workers will have to wait

23 years to see

the strawberry moon.

Shut up in normalcy.

Shine! Enshrine! Receptacle!

Editing a poem whenever had time

to write nothing that rhymes with.

Adriana Kobor
THEPARTYLOINS, Illinois, “free to” crowdout&lONEIN
“and am so far from desiring a repetition of it that I presume it is not feasible even a first time” — Søren Kierkegaard

blue collar red ribbon “putain, samedi” re-addre,

es macht das weiter und so: while, inte längre,

alltså, lycka till! #eveningsingingofftheshe|

|| he was •, I am °, -ual, I got used to myself

“nooneonnonenoennouen” “andmoneymoneysh

eismaking” work.men.hands, gardensweat/

errs, at the end it is your failure, no one else’s

so nalized ’n we are talking hands and walking

“nouens” nowanddances, muons, maar

weet je nog toen we, de ver te be keerde zin ver-

gekeerd in het zicht maar: ze zien enkel een band,

trash ‘n trellis. Lily said what papa did was awful,

yet, we still only know what Lily said, and not

what papa did. I wish upon this wishwasher and!,

standing in your kitchen I tell you: “So it all can go

into the trash!”. Cargo. “No sleep, until I am going

finding these answers!” “in the shadows of

my time” noone is the lim it, the sky is sucking on

little fingers that only know how to cling…

“It ain't w or king” — she fucks the maiden

’n you fuck the maid: madeinmadeof —

it is neither iron, stainless nor steel,

the stealthy manager in A cup. After you’ve learned

to grab, to grasp, gasp, not to cling onto, you will

learn how to “holdon, holdon”;

w.o.r.k.m.e.n.h.a.n.d. s. off soft for the softies and

hardened for the hardies’ diehards “look, my e

yes are just hollow grounds, look, your love

has drawn red from my hands, from my hands

you’ll know you'll never be, modern twist in

my sobriety” So, bright ethics!, “Johnny B.

just listen to me, oh, why can’t you see, J.B.”,

headphones smashing pumpkins.

What Lily says is silly, what papa has done

is limitless, “moi, je m’appelle bleu mé

thylène” c’est pas mal, c’est la put

tana troia una vendemmia di

bestemmie, compravendite, La Borsa! se vu

le vu oi verdienen, ver dienen, maar toch,

c’est pas grave, c’est trop bien et boucoup!

aujourd’hui je parle pas Franyes, to-ta-le-?

il benzinaio, il serbatoio, la sete “don’t

let gooooh, never give up such a w

onderful life” it is laid out in front of you:

le cadavre exquis, le caisson,

la cassonade éparse sur la place,

une plaine rouge plein, roux

rouge, le nouveau numéro désiré

de remplacement.

Adriana Kobor
IF YOU DIE, THEN

Turn to me, ‘n I’ll answer you…,

Turn to me from the graves of

your grieving ’n

the mountains of your

peak-performance

thoughts. Truth is

the question off,

‘n all panting: a peace ablaze.

What now?, when I should

recall the lost, appease

the appended, cutting

the vocal chords of

their treacherous chanting?

The crowd is singing sinful,

lying ‘seemless’.

The spider in the middle of

the crocheted round

cloth had entangled

its feet,

playing plenty,

a prey to evil and war!

No pace kept,

all things worn

running on the ball bearings,

the world’s mechanisms

screaming

thoughtless.