2 poems
by Yaz Lancaster
Yaz Lancaster (b.1996) is a composer-performer and poet based in Brooklyn. Their poems have appeared in both print & online sources including Potluck Magazine, The Minetta Review, and three self-published collections. They hold degrees in music & poetry from NYU, where they are still attending for an M.M. in violin performance. You can find them on twitter @yazjanelle_ & instagram @newmusicbabe.
familiar
after frank ocean
i didn’t care to state the plain.
the way u get into silence
conveys meaning. in my bad head
i rearrange everything
u never said from alluvion to zawn.
we lava ooze n cool. we summer
slowly in these bodies.
things fall chromatically
into a chord all around us, noted.
i get a lil crazy sometimes, noted.
like ‘can’t help myself’ holding
all the goo. we humming-
bird sip foxgloves. we small n not
worth the mention. in my bad head
i pretend it isn’t. all my feelings
n everything else obliterating.
all my feelings n everything else water-
color running. won’t text u
when i get home but we can talk
if i ever fall asleep.
every day the earth shrinks or maybe that’s called growing
before we were big we wanted to be
pioneers. there was a time
when we were made from some
mud, packs of crayons, a little hydrogen
peroxide & hot cedarwood.
summers were for the brown
apartment with the little window, fire
escape creaking, the one real green
green park that seemed
to sprout out of nowhere in the middle
of the city & listening to biggie.
lounging at the barbecues
hanging on the avenues
collecting names like ‘samara fruit,’
‘tymbal,’ & ‘sweetgum.’
collecting names like lightning
bugs in small jars. I’m afraid
we’re running out of all the terra
incognita. sometimes the sun shows up
only to droop our eyelids & I don’t know
why I thought light would remain
pure when it’s so infinite.
there are things like holding
a shovel or tasting a plum
I still haven’t done yet.