Mystic for hire

Not everything is for knowing.

I became convinced of ecstatic thought.

I learned of the force of ecstasy.

Passion asceticism indulgence.

I walked long distances in song.

I have traveled long distances to sing.

By sing I do just mean talking.

I once walked over a long bridge.

I felt something unknowable ridge inside.

I heard from a long future bride.

I refrained from asking a question.

Instead I sang one long song throngly.

I asked a crowd one million questions.

I wanted to receive two new answers.

I did not need to hold words.

I held water between my two fists.

I asked someone to pick between hands.

I tattooed a mystic on a bicep.

I kissed two people in a strange bed.

I knew what I was doing in an ancient manner.

I knew about the rime of the ancient mariner.

Something very old took hold of me.

I mistook nothing for something.

I mystic’d my way into a bedroom.

I fished my way into experience.

I drank my way to ecstatic deliriousness.

I believed in the ache of a passion.

I believe in the H in ache.

I imbibed a brilliant wet.

I released it from somewhere unknown.

I placed my mouth on a bridge of a nose.

A nozzle released a large gush.

I experienced a secret from above.

I placed it on paper like a vassal.

I engaged like a well crafted vessel.

I set sail beneath a long hung bridge.

I was on my way to celebrate a love.

I listened to a very long song.

I was told of an explosive force.

I listened and committed to memory.

The memory etched on my arm.

I endured and I fell and I wept.

I learned something secret through wet.

A tear in the fabric I wore.

I fell off the edge of the bed.

It was possible I’d overindulged.

I leapt from a corner to another corner.

I took off in a car along a bridge.

I sang in the car in my sleep.

I made it to places unknown.

I wrote something down.

I lay on the down.

I placed the etching in a bound object.

I shared it for the sake of ecstatics.

I shared it to document a journey.

I was blooming with something explosive.

I couldn’t keep it close to a breast.

I placed it instead on an arm.

I placed it in ancient cold water.

I ate of a body.

My eyes became tablets.

My arms became fabric.

I swallowed a plume.

I held up an instrument til it left a mark.

groceries

I was doing
a very good job
purchasing groceries
I felt the urge to
engage in an aisle
of thrill
extra flu
in the flue
this year
I ran out
out of things
to say
a state
never lasting
too long
the ramen like
cords in the morning
on a wall
near the coffee
I was struck
by a maximalist
impulse so
I purchased
swedish fish
from sweden
I sweat
from my
breast and I
bled from my
seat and I
spoke from
my hoodie
about the state
of swill
spewing
from mics
when the
world became
worse my daily
life seemed less
noteworthy
yet I kept
taking note
just in case
there was
an opening
I offered
my purchase
like a job
on the street
two men spotting
me toting
bags of
produce
I provided
information
while standing
to attention
I whispered
something
to a bag
of vegetables

song of $0|0 m@n

after the King James Bible’s Song of Solomon

1:1 this is the longest song I will ever write

1:2 the voice of a stranger amid a dm, a spill of boxed wine

1:3 o to unbox one’s own body within the vineyard of the world wide

1:4 web a snare, drum, one solo red grape undergoing surgery

1:5 real people are tall

1:6 though on the web one might be anything

1:7 Look upon me, for I have turneth into the loveliest filter 

1:8 and you can pour a like right through my eyes

1:9 I have compared thee to a computer

1:10 then I have paired my various devices

1:11 we will blue our teeth together: you air your pod to me

1:12 and when an image drops into the air my vice accepts it

1:13 incense my auxiliary

1:14 cords cluster my love like hearts on a corner of controversy

1:15 behold, the fresh morning dew upon green text

1:16 behold, the cold light upon the i of the cloud

1:17 my house is made of wood, the rafters are solid: analytics

2:1 I am the woman on the internet, and I wear bangs like teeth

2:2 as the bang among the silence, so is laughing to a crowd of crows

2:3 as the fun to the fawn, so is my offering to sons. I sat myself in this puddle of net and it held me

2:4 I walked to a house: love lolled on a banner like living or laughing

2:5 I was comforted by the react of a laugh: I was sick of the lick of a like

2:6 a message can be a hand, and a hand can craft a word

2:7 I charge you, my phone, by the bed, by the desk, by the crack in the couch, bedtime your mode til I wake

2:8 the voice of my mail! behold, a chain, sexed with emoji

2:9 a shape appears in a window, and the window is a perfect square

2:10 the shape spoke and said hello let’s get outta here

2:11 it’s boring on there and outside it’s sweet as hell

2:12 there’s all kinds of crazy stuff outside: flowers and birds and a turtle that talks

2:13 and trees, and real grapes, and people who are tall, come on, let’s go, let’s pokemon

2:14 and the shape kept talking, saying things like how I am hot as rocks, and sexy like stairs, and how the voice wanted to see me and hear me cause I have a hot face and voice

2:15 and together we could stand in the world and be tall 

2:16 and they could eat my bangs with teeth

2:17 until it was the morning and the marimba sounded and I shuffled my way back to the net, so I should stay, stay for a while like a piece of grass swaying in the shade of pickled ginger

3:1 I looked in my bed but found nothing

3:2 I got up at the bring of a tone and got out and I looked very hard at the world, I looked at light and at rocks but found nothing

3:3 people saw me on the streets: they found me. I asked them where the shape went but they know not triangles

3:4 I understand shapes though, as you all do, and you can help me search 

3:5 bars and I am mobilizing my mobile device for what it was intended: shhhh

3:6 who is that lining the time on my screen of a face: who is that oh ai generation?

3:7 look at this bed: it is thuma

3:8 everyone has a sword because they are scared

3:9 I have a sword that’s a car

3:10 the one I seek has a body with hands that work: you are handsfree

3:11 device go forth, go fifth, go sick, go dummy, go off, gogo, go fund me

4:1 behold, be honest, be bold, be brave, be kiki or buba, be humble

4:2 Your teeth are rained with rot and rocks 

4:3 Your lips lap long 

4:4 Your neck a grip agape a google

4:5 Your chest is a follow and I a notification pink upon it

4:6 In the night you shape a scent no message an unsent quibble to the quora borealis

4:7 You are hot and mysterious

4:8 Take me somewhere, on a train, where I might sit and eat a sandwich

4:9 Everyone on the acela is horny

4:10 Everyone on the revel is free

4:11 You smell good, like a train, subsidized and high

4:12 speeding into a garden: unguarded with swords words or ssssssh

4:13 You have nice plants

4:14 industry, dust, I am trying to grow something, I am trying to see something, my air plant needs charging

4:15 across and into the real hard and tooth and rock

4:16 out with cock a doodle doo out let’s eat fruit in the morning juice cleansly

5:1 my garden is plenty by yotam ottolenghi

5:2 and plenty more I have been sleeping on reddit threads posting thru dew

5:3 drops lines round corners. You put a hand by the hole of the door and my bowls shifted

5:4 I woke up and I smelled good, I put a hand on a handle on a lock I was

5:5 locked in locked up jailed for twenty-five minutes for security purposes, I’d forgotten my passed word

5:6 my keychain jangles silent. I called and a voice mailed back answerless, voiceless

5:7 memo the people on the street went round and they found me they canceled

5:8 me my subscription my sub

5:9 tweet my stack tell them you know what shapes I am seeking I am posting I am very

5:10 online please my love is the best head

5:11 please my whiff, it’s very in line, staying in it

5:12 your eyes are bad

5:13 your cheeks are cheeks and lips I’ve been over

5:14 this hands with five fingers on each and one ring

5:15 legs 

5:16 you have them: and a mouth: and they are real not even once rendered

6:1 Where did you go? o replier of guises

6:2 My love is a gardenia, a handle, an avi

6:3 a user in name, a link in a biome

6:4 you are beautiful and terrible like azealia

6:5 banksy on banks ferrying a rainbow

6:6 through a parade your teeth again teeing

6:7 this one up for schedule send

6:8 me sending love sending hope ascending

6:9 696969969699696969696996969696996

6:10 the shape thinks me hot and terrible

6:11 I went down to the bank to collect my paycheck 

6:12 to see if the shape was there but no the check not solid no blue 

6:13 check cheek out my profile hit enter hit enter hit enter hit enter

7:1 Your belly your bells your being your best the illest lilies of the

7:2 valances, valiant effort for accrued value metric my meter then terminate

7:3 your neck your back your nose is a nose is a nose

7:4 and I am braking

7:5 internet soliloquy your hair is purple and a king is in a gallery

7:6 of images you are fun and hot o love, which rocks!

7:7 I could mention the way you stand: I could mention all kind of shapes

7:8 I could climb a tree, I could triage, I could triumph, I could trip

7:9 it is unlikely, just try me, the roof of your mouth is wood, like a roof

7:10 you want me

7:11 come on, let’s go, let’s get a hotel, let’s air out a bed a breakfast an unpaid break

7:12 and fuck in the garden

7:13 of quarterly evals it will smell good in a new and old way: you can proof of program for private purposes

8:1 I wish we were mutuals, I wish were oomfs: and when I find you in the streets we will dfmo

8:2 and I will bring you home where I will serve a bad drink

8:3 your left hand out plunders my head and your right well you know

8:4 I charge you, my phone, stay silent, stay never foraging, shh we are sleeping

8:5 on nothing sharp are our eyes like my car like my words

8:6 up and UX when I find you: x marks the 

8:7 spoilers, alert, push, notify, amber, red, yellow, what water fills my brita, what drop lands on screen

8:8 what text is sent and what sext is meant and what hex is bent

8:9 over a paywall, hacking at my frame on main, launching me softly, lunching meat

8:10 I am an open source, a source of rizzdom, a domicile of going live, a live sigher

8:11 @ s0|0 m@n had a real house with a garden and was rich in bits of coins 

8:12 I found this person in the net I sat and then I piled myself in satin and then slipped inside a shape

8:13 I went to the garden of the valley of the egirls and escaped: I heard something, it was real, it was silence

8:4 hurry hurry my love we must go I am seeking something, and it is real, it is tall and it is a shape, I am searching with my bangs and my teeth, I am seeking as a mountain of spies does

Juliet Gelfman-Randazzo lives in Philadelphia, where she curates the reading series Spit Poetry. She is the author of the poetry chapbooks "Boring Eclipse" (The Year, forthcoming October 2026) and "DUH" (Bullshit Lit, 2022). Her work appears in The Iowa Review, Joyland, The Offing, Poetry Northwest, and The Cleveland Review of Books, among others. She can be followed @tall.spy on Instagram but she can never be caught.