Crapshoot Comeback
by Šari Dale
Be with me, muse. I’m but a low-
born waitress in a Hollandaise
apron, slingin’ mimosas and easy
poached eggs for Influencers
#brunchtime. Their persimmon
bell sleeves leak medieval, like
the peasants pick wheat from
their stockings sort of thing. The
fief I inherited was a digital sand-
box: Webkinz and Littlest Pet
Shop Online. And my dowry, a
pixelated steed Dad’s PC is too
2006 to run. Since returning to
reality, all I’ve left are stories from
the Ultra-Glam, my simulated
paradise. Muse, I’m not InStyle.
I fell from it before calico sling-
backs became a thing. Now thing
is a thing, and I’m just another
ingénue in a flume of blonde fur
following #like4likes. The haters
tell me to suffocate in a Whirlpool.
They want to see me eat human
shit, but I’m not that type of girl.
Guess you can call me original –
a diamond or dime piece, the
glittering digits on a debit card
before they chip with use. Muse,
is it immoral to prioritize public
adoration before the placation
of bodily needs? I want to be
a deity, neck bobbing beneath
Claire’s crown. When my cupid’s
bow bursts with injectables, the
worshippers will swill Coconut
Bacardi Original Lite Spirit. You
know, I could make a comeback
if you’d help me recall the Apple
product posing that overrode
my sentience. Speak, Memory,
of calories I forgot to record be-
tween photoshoots in my virtual
reality. I bought Gucci slides and
plundered palatial waterparks
splashin’ lines only a true scribe
could follow. My name seemed
a commodity in that false nature,
like any pair of Louboutin’s. I’ve
seen beauty corrodes like all
currency, but that didn’t stop me
from investing in Bitcoin. Speak
Immortal before brunch service
ends. Give it to me straight. O.K. –
not too straight. That’s boring.
born waitress in a Hollandaise
apron, slingin’ mimosas and easy
poached eggs for Influencers
#brunchtime. Their persimmon
bell sleeves leak medieval, like
the peasants pick wheat from
their stockings sort of thing. The
fief I inherited was a digital sand-
box: Webkinz and Littlest Pet
Shop Online. And my dowry, a
pixelated steed Dad’s PC is too
2006 to run. Since returning to
reality, all I’ve left are stories from
the Ultra-Glam, my simulated
paradise. Muse, I’m not InStyle.
I fell from it before calico sling-
backs became a thing. Now thing
is a thing, and I’m just another
ingénue in a flume of blonde fur
following #like4likes. The haters
tell me to suffocate in a Whirlpool.
They want to see me eat human
shit, but I’m not that type of girl.
Guess you can call me original –
a diamond or dime piece, the
glittering digits on a debit card
before they chip with use. Muse,
is it immoral to prioritize public
adoration before the placation
of bodily needs? I want to be
a deity, neck bobbing beneath
Claire’s crown. When my cupid’s
bow bursts with injectables, the
worshippers will swill Coconut
Bacardi Original Lite Spirit. You
know, I could make a comeback
if you’d help me recall the Apple
product posing that overrode
my sentience. Speak, Memory,
of calories I forgot to record be-
tween photoshoots in my virtual
reality. I bought Gucci slides and
plundered palatial waterparks
splashin’ lines only a true scribe
could follow. My name seemed
a commodity in that false nature,
like any pair of Louboutin’s. I’ve
seen beauty corrodes like all
currency, but that didn’t stop me
from investing in Bitcoin. Speak
Immortal before brunch service
ends. Give it to me straight. O.K. –
not too straight. That’s boring.
Transient Realities
After E.M. Forster
by Šari Dale
If there is a window, there are also flowers.
Satin is a tide to wade through while critiquing patrilineal inheritance.
A bee plunks off the pearl stamen of a taffeta peony.
When the birds chirp incoherently, kiss your second cousin.
Dear England is a method of distributing cash.
If the man has a father, marry them both.
Now everything is spoiled—Everything is still spoiled!
Sheep eat cherries off a wedding cake, and the juice stains their wool.
Won’t you come out dearest? The lords will be delighted!
Nothing will be sweet if we cannot afford sugar.
The drawing room is gold filigree with a dollop of China.
If there is a carpet, it is of petals.
If there is a peach, it is of ejaculate.
You might build a nest in your hair, so the birds can contemplate art.
Is this Grecian statuary…Greek enough?
You could say the pianoforte is my...forte—But should you?
Truly the most decadent sonnet is Shakespeare’s 69th.
Someone’s aunt needs to sit me down and tell me I’m ridiculous.
Can you find me beneath this staggering wreath of ringlets?
Those silver candlesticks are very amiable.
But social structures are crumbling in the horse’s braids!
There is a breed of door that opens in French lace.
And the trees are almost green enough to worry about money.
Listen to me read this thing about beauty.
Watch my umbrella while I hang laundry in a wheat field!
But what will we talk about if the weather does not change?
When things are never the same, they will never be the same again.
Satin is a tide to wade through while critiquing patrilineal inheritance.
A bee plunks off the pearl stamen of a taffeta peony.
When the birds chirp incoherently, kiss your second cousin.
Dear England is a method of distributing cash.
If the man has a father, marry them both.
Now everything is spoiled—Everything is still spoiled!
Sheep eat cherries off a wedding cake, and the juice stains their wool.
Won’t you come out dearest? The lords will be delighted!
Nothing will be sweet if we cannot afford sugar.
The drawing room is gold filigree with a dollop of China.
If there is a carpet, it is of petals.
If there is a peach, it is of ejaculate.
You might build a nest in your hair, so the birds can contemplate art.
Is this Grecian statuary…Greek enough?
You could say the pianoforte is my...forte—But should you?
Truly the most decadent sonnet is Shakespeare’s 69th.
Someone’s aunt needs to sit me down and tell me I’m ridiculous.
Can you find me beneath this staggering wreath of ringlets?
Those silver candlesticks are very amiable.
But social structures are crumbling in the horse’s braids!
There is a breed of door that opens in French lace.
And the trees are almost green enough to worry about money.
Listen to me read this thing about beauty.
Watch my umbrella while I hang laundry in a wheat field!
But what will we talk about if the weather does not change?
When things are never the same, they will never be the same again.
Plague Snack
After https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RQKaTOc8FU
by Šari Dale
In this princedom of bubonic pleasure
I melt Kraft singles
on a bowl of bloody ramen
and train my parrot to sing
the dominant tongue.
It’s a frilly rhythm of rose-eyed
descriptors prettying sickly
treacherous subjugation and death.
Freelancing millennials
shan’t receive pension
nor any other symbol of the ruler’s
provisory love, so I eek
out sustenance in a twinkling digital
sphere of SJW memes
and 24/7 counselling services.
Does Indeed have a thread
for raving troubadours?
Maybe I’ll work in a restaurant
where the aging bourgeoise
eat rotisserie chicken
in rubber booths, while nurses kiss
the crisp skin from their lips.
My heart! How I fear
this history will be remembered
fondly in the lush palette
of revolution, like Sofia Coppola’s
Marie Antoinette licking
macarons like monkey livers
in her little carriage with the maids.
To avoid infection take
your woeful snoozes in circles
of fire, sport plague masks
to community markets.
Pay $12 for turmeric granola.
Plant a bountiful desire
in your window box. It will bloom
mercurial roses like
pocket cash. Toss the petals
at sentry towers, which
are a rubble dynamo of patriotism
and ruby harps with tinkling
strings. I clip my parrot’s
wings like a king
castrating the sons of ex-lovers.
He fucks around with their blood
on TV, cuts their bodies
with snap-on bracelets,
and compiles coffee table
books on the travesties of war.
I bought one to look at
when luncheon convos slow
and even eye contact
is a striking contaminant. I’m not
hungry, just vacant
and craving the satisfaction
of corporeal media.
Media substantial enough
to drink like milk from the body.
What’d you make? Noodles?
Let’s consume trash
until the collapsing oligarchy
sounds like rain on cobblestone.
I will feed my leftovers
to a parrot named Freedom
and sleep in the system
whose sickness is replication,
whose anthems I’ll sing
recklessly between brunch shifts
in this lazy, sordid form.
I melt Kraft singles
on a bowl of bloody ramen
and train my parrot to sing
the dominant tongue.
It’s a frilly rhythm of rose-eyed
descriptors prettying sickly
treacherous subjugation and death.
Freelancing millennials
shan’t receive pension
nor any other symbol of the ruler’s
provisory love, so I eek
out sustenance in a twinkling digital
sphere of SJW memes
and 24/7 counselling services.
Does Indeed have a thread
for raving troubadours?
Maybe I’ll work in a restaurant
where the aging bourgeoise
eat rotisserie chicken
in rubber booths, while nurses kiss
the crisp skin from their lips.
My heart! How I fear
this history will be remembered
fondly in the lush palette
of revolution, like Sofia Coppola’s
Marie Antoinette licking
macarons like monkey livers
in her little carriage with the maids.
To avoid infection take
your woeful snoozes in circles
of fire, sport plague masks
to community markets.
Pay $12 for turmeric granola.
Plant a bountiful desire
in your window box. It will bloom
mercurial roses like
pocket cash. Toss the petals
at sentry towers, which
are a rubble dynamo of patriotism
and ruby harps with tinkling
strings. I clip my parrot’s
wings like a king
castrating the sons of ex-lovers.
He fucks around with their blood
on TV, cuts their bodies
with snap-on bracelets,
and compiles coffee table
books on the travesties of war.
I bought one to look at
when luncheon convos slow
and even eye contact
is a striking contaminant. I’m not
hungry, just vacant
and craving the satisfaction
of corporeal media.
Media substantial enough
to drink like milk from the body.
What’d you make? Noodles?
Let’s consume trash
until the collapsing oligarchy
sounds like rain on cobblestone.
I will feed my leftovers
to a parrot named Freedom
and sleep in the system
whose sickness is replication,
whose anthems I’ll sing
recklessly between brunch shifts
in this lazy, sordid form.
Mulholland
by Šari Dale
If you want to
use your
whole hand.
Get higher
I like it wilder.
Sex acts
aren’t subject
to poetic
constraint.
I can’t situate
love in
a lyrical form.
You tease
me with
promises of
objective
being.
I’m wet for
actual life.
Feel like
living actually
Dissociation
kills our
buzz cause
sometimes I
amnesia.
Kiss your
debutante
in a death
dream, which
solidifies
as we describe
its falsity
and pursue
the affair
regardless.
I’m ruthless
smitten
with alternative
takes, plot
points
peripheral
to narrative.
Touch me.
We’re a movie.
If you’re
worried
censor the shot.
use your
whole hand.
Get higher
I like it wilder.
Sex acts
aren’t subject
to poetic
constraint.
I can’t situate
love in
a lyrical form.
You tease
me with
promises of
objective
being.
I’m wet for
actual life.
Feel like
living actually
Dissociation
kills our
buzz cause
sometimes I
amnesia.
Kiss your
debutante
in a death
dream, which
solidifies
as we describe
its falsity
and pursue
the affair
regardless.
I’m ruthless
smitten
with alternative
takes, plot
points
peripheral
to narrative.
Touch me.
We’re a movie.
If you’re
worried
censor the shot.
Šari writes from Kelowna, British Columbia on unceded Syilx territory. Her poetry has appeared in Arc, Grain, and The Malahat Review among others. She posts word scraps on Instagram @sari.docx.
