SWALE – Cesar Felipe

January 3, 2026

Aren’t we fading away now, across the running parquet of the second floor bar where it is too early for all of this to be happening, right now.

So it isn’t, not really. That part comes much later when the bones are done grinding past the joint tear in your knee, finally loud enough to be heard. And you hear it too, on the table right by you where four children are sat and they are drinking champagne. It has not tasted the same in some time.

Should god annihilate me entirely (and why not!), let me first buy a charm. Something I’ll remember when I’ve at least come to accept that this part is no more. When I’ll look at the glimmer with pity, a smile. The best things in your life always happened before, but oh so much better to look back at the notes.

As if there isn’t much more!

REMOTE WORKER

Do not show me a poet, for what if he is uglier than me!

I would have to stop writing of course, the bulk of my time taken up by the need to ponder my next move.

Back to work more than likely.

THE FIRST MAN TO WEAR HAWAIIAN SHIRTS TO CHURCH IN TEXAS

The pit a bit slicker, a good bit of arm hair ago, and body weight too, in some basement house party when he puts his hands up and thinks I’ll be here forever.

And he is, in the pew, with the sweat sticking the same, and then not sticking, creeping, salt burns out of the armscye, seeking the shore.

Bright yellow turned piss, where secretions lap over.

Sherman’s march to the Sea.