[In a Hypothetical World] a Poem

            In the hypothetical world,

everything’s possible,

even possible is this colossal

misadventure to fold back on

itself,

gift us respite,

as we’ve never should have been to

this extent-

-shower-shunned still still nights,

flourished-envy, deeply dark,

mysterious in the intense clarity

knowing we’ve had our share of love,

affairs, love affairs running course long

after receiving a poor prognosis, locomotive

till tomorrow rolls forward,

directly over our beaten path,

and questions arise between us,

as numerous as stars rearranging their

next elliptical,

then the you inside,

the you everyone supposes

acclimates to those suppositions,

planets peering from behind cloud cover,

taking on titles unsuited if only to suit a

more viable presence-

we cannot take into each other each other

when those fragments aren’t indivisible,

individuals defiant, crying in a sad life as everyone

visible sadness has contaminated everyone visible-

-so shall we become invisible?

and will we fall into terminal despondency,

make still our motion as to attract no eyes

in motion?

Always, reckonings punching themselves

out, tiresome the wait will become darling, as

a fighter’s punch is always the last to go.

-Dontrell Lovet't

from [UnderStudies]

Photography by Nicholas Percell 

[All the While the Power-Play] a Poem

[All the While the Power-Play]

            You look so pretty today,

like an undeniable, undenied happiness,

& the power-play,

the night before the

last we spent together,

was predictably pleasurable,

releasing the most molecular

of myself into the wide, culpable

fauces leading down into the warmth

of your core-

-this was the day I found myself

face to face with a woman I suddenly

didn’t want nor wanted to be wanted,

if snakes were perpetually made in

the image of you,

they’d strike relentlessly,

unprovoked,

the friends you’ve scattered

like the plagues of old,

have returned, reconciled in our

confederacy;

the isolation,

the biome exceptional for

conjuring slaves,

has grown dense & rich

oasis-

-now you can go,

& as you go, you should

know your power-play has

played itself into predictability

now serpeants made in your

image can be exiled from this place

in me,

or stand petulant to be

cut down to extinction-

-from [UnderStudies]
Poem by Dontrell Lovet't
Photography by Nosmot Gbadamosi

[The Shape of Reinvention] a Poem

            This autonomous man has never undergone reinvention;

there’s never been a need so great to cause such an effect-

-manufacture is for the inane without self-invention,

the cripple of a soul needing some hindrance to project

the how and whys of declaring what should have been-

-nothing that has not been was suppose to be,

what has been was never suppose to be,

we make what has become and what will become,

we will make it as well-

nothing can occur naturally in the soil beneath our

feet; this is a man-made marvel,

standing as tall as the lowest structure

enduring time only by slight chance,

an orgasm by a precise measured fall from

the gallows,

an orifice of either-or differentiation-

-from [UnderStudies]

photography by Johnathan Jiang