Basic Needs
Playlist by Vanessa Jimenez GabbThese excerpts from my second poetry collection, BASIC NEEDS (October 26, 2021, Rescue Press), explore and report on capitalist existence, the ways in which labor informs and alienates the self. These poems believe that love, then, is a most radical act, a way to survive and defy as we await the inevitable. —Vanessa Jimenez Gabb
from Basic Needs
CON MEN
We count
completion of duties
you will be expected
All are expected
months
must
sign your acceptance
and your status at will
FRIDAY / I try to feel what I think / This feeling will feel / Like but I can’t / I don’t know how it will supposed to feel / It could be enchantment / To quit / The feeling of repetition for creativity / Of having done this before / Or the imprudence of grasping at nothing / A less invisible nerve / There will have been countless last days in me by then / Fantasies about not going back / The deer carcass finally disappeared / Where 124 meets 78 this morning / Every morning since the winter / Why no one has cleaned it yet / Or if there’s cleaning for the dead bodies at all / Is part of an inherent, scientific logic / A contradiction / I feel within myself / I know I will feel tomorrow / Slightly foolish for trying to anticipate my own feelings
In Kyiv they lived
the middle of the night
on brown bread
and butter they ate
cucumbers and tomatoes
with sunflower oil and pink salt
this was Kyiv
they’d already eaten somewhere
else but were so hungry
sometimes it would be fast
but lately it had been simple
food from the kitchen without having
to go out in the dark
and snow for what
was still at the table
he’d eat and smoke
she’d pace and make hot shapes
with her body in her mouth
she’d put food and look
at them in the hallway mirror
he looked like Rodin’s sculpture
Soviet thoughts in sadness
she didn’t think she should
return from someone that sad
having little to do with the philosophical
he was a painter
who returned to his hometown
given money and time
this was his assignment
this is what we want
but art is never as essential
as we alone would like
to think and be
it’s been so hard here
to do anything to get anywhere
no work but more work
I don’t need myself
I already am me
I don’t need any more
lessons in humility
just you
just you
she felt it exactly
having not written anything
or thought to in months
but love was taking turns
affecting a rock
but look at all you’ve been
just you
just you
or as he said
you be me
I be you
that’s love
once a month they had said
no months would pass without
and so they hadn’t
the flat was tall and old and cold
a small tree blinked
day and night
do you like our tree do you
she’d never cared about trees before
or this one just that
it resided there because he did
they’d projected so much
on the projector he never got
to use for murals
actors on blank walls
the same for their silence
the same for their talking
them of themselves
they’d close their eyes
and bite in perfect clarity
when they had the energy
they kept on
disagreeing and agreeing
about white governments
and Trotsky
one time they read
one time they went to the ballet
once she tried to poem him
once he sketched her
you have so much pose
because I’m trying so hard
after she’d become nauseous
she wasn’t used
to so much swallowing
are you going to come
come for me
yes
yes
what if I said I wasn’t in love with you what if –
that’s for you to decide
in a voice different from their own
they blushed
you know I would never
do any of this if it weren’t for you
I promise not to bore you
and she knew
this truth to be true
his simplicity
the simplicity
of a kind of life
of the kind of vulnerability
she always wanted surprised her still
bread
butter
salt
then
I took a plane here
then I took a plane here
There will be work
By late fall
It had been raining
In Habana Vieja
It’s so hard
Not to think of you
Privacy is complicated
The famous hotel
By the sea
Where did you come from
Where did you come from
The verbs
Aren’t important
Thank you
For this organization
The conspicuous absence
Of logos
These mountains
An absolution
When I remember
To look up
Money doesn’t always
Mean what I think
It does
It sounds lovely
Such red
Red berries
I will live
In your country
I haven’t always
In my country
We can’t always
Be so kind
The real question is not
Will we hurt
But what do I do
If this is happiness