Poet Mimi Tempestt reads their poem "mia, the mountain."
mia, the mountain
on my neck sits
a spiked collar
in my mouth: a gag: ball: red: spit drips
hand-cuffed
at wrists
i'll let us sit in this mood
switch
violin chain-gang
breaks
sliced jokes
the pea
into mid-air
"niceties"
in my city
i mourn legends who knew more
about life
who carry a switchblade
or two at night
i've moved on from piss-stained streets
the lie sounds better in kaleidoscope
you can't teach a decent revelry of sheet music
for an audience who buys books
to prance bourgeoisie
every saturday evening
you either have the will of god behind your pen
or you don't
genius boxing up heaven
to let the peons penny
their iconography for the sake of hell
crying about a day off
all i need is
the heart
spilling
spilling
spilling
spilling on the page