GRIM CUTAWAY PRODUCTION

callous slack/slow rotten blessing/drawn on an inhale/ a vilification/ a lionization/lumbering/a load full

w/ indispensable guilt/a filament misfiring/a line nervous/under breath/under done/fruit of labors/ cut from my tongue/turn the tiny edge into the end of the sunset’s sliver/hand down/nasty

little understatements/blistered keepsakes/kept for the night/ impeding invoice of childhood/built/hesitations/ records/ornaments/measured hang/from the wall of eyes/ loose knot/histrionics of red/like sleep was overdue/ flickering open sign/gather a payment/all the deficit/

parade phantoms/find the new haze/ & the repertoire/

of flesh receipts/a chip in the tooth/caters to catastrophe/

caters to hodge-podge futures/—in a grim cutaway production/ call the necktie tightening/a numb road downing a blessing/ our disposition is a new front/loose/in the rust

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CAJOLING BURNOUT

My HEAVY stomach

remains broken—

a CONSTELLATION—

& I will lose it to the blunder of my writing

The truncated lines of my wait aspiring to fit into asequence of hearts

is bad plumbing CAJOLING burnout

This is working

towards some new remote-control obsession for MISERY

like LICKING hydrogen peroxide to make knots on my tongue

If I loosen the grip of NUISANCE & collect neutral tones

the cracked edge of will— of ARROGANCE—

might end as a healthy red corruption

Yawning hello in the sharp ash of autumn

our cravings: THROAT/CHEST/BREATH low to make new commodities

to float in the flood

The fix dwells in the last BONE of a miserable landscape

PAINTED w/ the slanted grind of the HORIZON

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DOUBTHEAD

DOUBT’s gold door/ties to the wheel/of our ever-advancing acid test slog/as a subtle burn of orange dust/& easy-on nervousness/leaves a work tune running overtime/in the atrial valve/doubt couldn’t swing/an apartment & instead chose a dead zone/w/ a brown apple core & termite wallpaper/break open those clingy letters & hang the half-written suicide notes/on the clothesline against the horizons/of blue lips laced w/ admonishments/mythroat feels like it might swallow/any remaining gumption/& the mutiny in my spine/wants to howl in the pillbox/of malfeasance/I am still waiting for a course correction/in the wreck of the downtown midnight echo/a sinister violin of self- importance/becomes a lone shadow/a necktie driving/ towards the blunted scent/of sleeplessness/tightening into a forgiveness—/cut into a call for serenity—/a book of land/seeded with bittersweet divergence/hopes bathed in dirt patches & traffic battles/all I can love in this moment/is ashovel/a disappearing perspective/dropping shoes/through the back country/of my tongue/to put dry fuel/on mega-box architecture/I remain flush w/ rattling teeth/in my HEAD/

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UNHOLY IN THE EGG FIELD

I am a machine eating words to become the scum in the socket enriching someone else’s dawn I try to catch my own eye like an “oh” & look for a saunter or a gait wearing a fascinator

I am model endings levitating like a gnashing love jammed into a fresh plastic seal ring I am the broken tip of the gem nicking the countdown that dropped out of your head

I crawl over the egg field into something like a dread mess resembling a life of fire I am a type of amphibious heavy buzz bringing down romantic dances (a serpent) I am the pocket change of my future cancers wearing heavy unholy armors

I’ve become the bottom of the shoes of a surly apostate of traffic agitation I am a salt painter wielding the brush of sharp words of self-effacement

I become a community of venom praying unintended answers I could be supple over-extended arrangements

I could hold a majesty of grief lines I am the masquerade of a scripture I am a need to survive

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Adam Stutz is the Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of Broken Lens Journal and a neurodivergent poet. He is the author of Transcript (Cooper Dillon Books, 2017), The Scales (White Stag Publishing, 2018), The Sham Tapestry (White Stag Publishing, 2024), and Compunctions + Thefts (White Stag Publishing, 2024). His work was recently shortlisted for the Capilano Review’s 2023 Writing Contest, Writing in the Aftermath, and has appeared in various print and online publications including The Equalizer: Second Series, A Sharp Piece of Awesome, Prelude, Be About It, Deluge, Dum Dum Zine, The Pinch, Dodging the Rain, Where is the River, Dream Pop, Cover, Ghost Proposal, Columba Poetry, Only Good Poems, INKSOUNDS, Spectra Poets, Trilobite, and hush: a journal of noise. His work can also be found at https://stutzwrites.com. He currently resides in Los Angeles, CA.