STATEMENT OF PROCESS

I refute
these intrusions
to what was once

my whole earthly
deal. Wires too tangled
for later-breaking

religious inculcation
require a different
tack to shame out

the scroll impulse:
observance of
a framed Grace Jones
photo in which she smokes
in a robe & studded leather gloves

I try to imagine
her hunched, tapping
inconclusively—
okay, no —

& tap the mic
inside my mind
to get attention’s
attention— allegedly,
a poet’s singular advantage

The speaker will arrive
once she locates
a working light switch
in her memory palace,

some sense
of when the government
will collapse at last

Clarity a slant pursuit
overridden by the
day’s many mysteries,

like whether this potato
is still edible, & what to do
with all the hours
once oriented around
self-selected debasement

Facewash container offers
Believe in what’s real—
an empty ontological dare
I can’t even laugh about

when slop is well settled
atop the info pyramid

I consider better ways to fill time:

1. Ranking types of dapple

2.

STATEMENT OF WORK

First go at existence, far
as I know, & neglecting
to take legible notes

The mother tongue
remains the language
of feelings:

опять is repetition
without a positive outcome

снова is hope
for a better outcome
this time

The lyric I presents
as jumbled silt in the rapids
of production,

reanimates
in the exuberance of
wake up,
expected nowhere

All week I replied
Mostly here to rest,
impressing nobody
at the residency

Hoping the poem
just needed a piano player,
to get going,

I approached one
in the hotel lobby
but a guest intercepted:

Are you the poet? &
said he began to write
too, recently, after
a breakup

I wanted to counter
Anything
can be a poem
but look
where that attitude’s
gotten me—

Alina Pleskova is a poet, editor, and Moscow-born immigrant turned proud Philadelphian. Her full-length collection, Toska (Deep Vellum) was a 2024 Lambda Literary Award finalist. You can find her work in various places, and her spirit in the astral realm. More at alina-pleskova on IG or alinapleskova.com.