5 Poems by Russell Jaffe

A WORLD OF WONDER,
NOT A WORLD OF CONQUEST, or
POEM FOR ILLINOIS

What we need is a state budget.
What we need are human services.
What we need is human.
Tissue paper falling in layers in the soft of the breeze.
The sun falls upon our faces. Woke.
What we are getting are throats
Caught & poured
Full of molten gold.
What makes us forever in struggle


DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TO SAY, BUT SAYING MADE ME FEEL,

So I said information.


MY AGENDA: MY MANIFESTO

We should all be broadcasting our visions.


CIVIL COPING MECHANISM FOR THE END, AND WE ALL MUST FACE THE END

Things are not ok.
Doomsday's at the don't of every corner.
We are waiting for the storybook someday rocket ship to take us away.
Storybook endings—what the fuck have we done?!
Answers, the split divided cells of the body
Of the mind.

The knife always goes in slow
Over many generations.
Blood learns to move out
Of its way​.


CIVIL COPING MECHANISM FOR THE THREE RULES
(REPETITION, REPETITION, REPETITION)

The diagnosis is that these
Are deeply spiritual times
That must be protected.

We Americans
Down dreams
Just right.

But we must have learned to from somewhere.

Repetition is classically American:
Annoying
And deeply sexual.


Bionote

Russell Jaffe is the editor of TL;DR magazine, a magazine of what's now. He is the author of the poetry collections This Super Doom I Aver (Poets Democracy, '13), INTROVERT // EXTROVERT (Punk Hostage, '14), Civil Coping Mechanisms (Civil Coping Mechanisms, forthcoming '17) and the chapbook LA CROIX WATER (Damask Press, 16). He films study guides for canonical literary texts, teaches English, and collects 8-tracks.