Post image for Poem of the Week: M.A. Vizsolyi & Ronnie Yates

Poem of the Week: M.A. Vizsolyi & Ronnie Yates

Poem of the Week: M.A. Vizsolyi & Ronnie Yates

by Levi Rubeck on June 22, 2012

Author’s statement: In the summer of 2012, M.A, Vizsolyi visited Ronnie Yates in Houston, Texas, where it was hot as a mofo. They took walks beneath the live oaks, sweated their asses off, and at night, on the roof of Nick Flynn’s apartment (Nick was away in Paris), they began a collaboration tentatively titled, “It’d be a little cooler not to Rock This,” from which this poem is taken.

Houston Poem 26

this moment
she’s flowering
there were boys around her

that does suck
i agree with that
talk about that grief

i would have been like ‘whoa’
morality is a bitch

but dude

morality will grind your ass
it will fucking stripe your ass
it’s a cat of nine tails
rightous indignation
that’s a legion of decency

oh my shit

that’s like scarlet letter styles
that’s like dragging that girl by the hair

terrible humiliation

nah!

i don’t think that’s what one should do
i don’t think that’s what one should give one’s energies to

_____________________________________________________________
M.A. Vizsolyi’s first book of poems, The Lamp with Wings, was a National Poetry Series selection. His poems have recently appeared in the journals Ploughshares, Tuesday: An Art Project, Ninth Letter, and BOMB. He currently rocks it in Brooklyn.

Ronnie Yates‘ poems have appeared in Ploughshares, POOL, and Colorado Review. His manuscript, Inconsolable Garden, was a finalist for the 2012 Emily Dickinson First Book Award. He is currently rockin’ it in Houston, Texas.

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June 22, 2012 at 9:42 am

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