Two poems by Jax NTP

a fish rots from the head down

• i.
• grandma said white men love poverty porn
• that sepia distance from hard work and low to no pay
• strokes their appeal to tradition egos fat wallets and raison d’être
• ii.
• when a person become symbolic = they gain symbolic power
• at the price of independent power = token means death of agency 
• this is a simple scene = no subtext = dirt hands dig in pockets full of soot
• how can you walk away from labor if you ain’t got nothing to walk towards
• iii.
• brecciated railroad tracks are the poor’s portal to freedom
• while the existential lily-livered mourns for dried moon water
• in the coldest spot of sun someone slightly familiar sings
• at a funeral in an easy one two beat that deep south dew drop
• boogalooing please hum along what is real bait and what is chum
• swig twice the difference between untangle and reaction is peace

dear patron saint of unsung effigy,

• dear patron saint of unsung effigy, 
• the intimacy of inhaling your cigarette smoke
• is destruction of body accelerated in slow motion
• what is life without the occasional surrender to impulse 

• orange sodium street lights and hungry wandering rats 
• “mottainai” is Japanese for the sense of regret if anything is wasted
• there’s a certain level of accountability when there’s permanence

• the latin quarter was fresh is fresh still, is it too late to rediscover
• nothing like a little honesty to diffuse difficult situations
• what is there left to say but “hi, whoops, i love you”

Jax NTP holds a Master in Fine Arts from California State University, Long Beach. She teaches critical thinking, literature, and composition at Golden West College, Irvine Valley College, and Cypress College, edits fiction and poetry for The Offing Magazine, Indicia Lit, and By&By Poetry. Her words have been featured in various publications, including Berkeley Poetry Review, Apogee Journal, Permafrost Magazine, and Antithesis Journal, University of Melbourne.