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Todd Colby reads from Splash State and Flushing Meadows

If you are new to Todd Colby’s poetry, you’ll enjoy it because it is full of sounds and images that are unexpected, funny sexy surprises that can penetrate all the five senses. Todd is a musician, poet, and artist, but in this particular post, the poet and the artist most happily happen. Whether in earnest, tongue in cheek or even a slip of the tongue, Todd doesn’t stop. He is honest. He kids you not—Well, maybe sometimes he does, and you walk into language that is sublime and full of fun houses. His poetry has made me forget a sad anxious morning—Yes, be here now, laugh and smile.

I am going to type out three poems he doesn’t read in the Vimeo. Enjoy.

Wednesday

Wednesday is such an elegant and refined word,
with a regal d followed by a soothing n. Wednesday,
so serious and stout, yet elegant and refined.
Wednesday is transparent, yet bold and playfully midweek.
Wednesday is also known as “hump day.”
Wednesday is the name of a woman whose
parents know the playful solidity of the day,
and how delightful those qualities are in a woman’s
name or character. Wednesday is the link
between early week and midweek. Wednesday
is not a holiday, but more of a working
day. Wednesday is a point in the middle of the week
when sleeves are rolled up and unfinished work from early
in the week with days that have dreaded names like
“Monday” or “Tuesday” are finished up.
Wednesday nudges us to conclusions,
and leads us to tempered resolutions.
It is a day of mild atonement, a day of gentle reconciliation
between early and late week.
It is a day that unfolds gracefully,
a day we are usually glad to see.
So stalwart and sweet, Wednesday is reality
tempered with perfection.
Oh, Wednesday, thank you for getting here.

Butter

Just once I’d like to sleep with real purpose!
When serenity arrives, it is always entwined with vengeance.
I give you this box of notes.
A poem is hidden in a book on the top shelf that you’ll never find
because you never look up there, or read my books.
White chalk lines form the outline of my arms,
spread to reveal nothing but the better part
of me which is really only flesh and bones.
I’m as spaced-out as that line of airplanes
zooming in over Barclay Center.
But I have a plan and it is full of entertainment
and distractions. People cry all the time
for what has happened to them,
or for what is about to happen to them,
or for what will never happen to them.

Tonight

Tonight I’m going to shake your hand into butter,
curve around you until you’re gel,
climb the soft pieces of you with spikes,
insert a vibrating dial, and conjure you
into living goop. I will slip my hand
under your belt; and lose a wisdom tooth,
make a necklace of it, and hang it around
your neck. My gift of light will shimmer
on your smooth throat, and all the institutes of longing
will permeate the landscape with medicinal
cloud formations that disperse calming
solutions of tingle water and kink spray.
I will secrete a secret mud that enhances
your ability to thrust your hips into mine
on a bed that is damp and purple.
You are so smooth that when you get up,
you leave behind n impression
of our Lord and Savior.








Splash State is published by The Song Cave. You can check them out here:

http://the-song-cave.com/

In an interview, Todd talks about his poetry below:


http://www.statedmag.com/articles/interview-poet-todd-colby-book-on-flushing-meadows.html

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