keep out and Other Poems

By Dane Lyn

keep out

after Olga Rozanova’s “Abstract Composition (Color-painting)”

please keep your hands and arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times
please keep your thoughts and insights inside your pretty little head 
please keep tabs on your sensuality 
please keep your story straight
please keep up appearances 
please keep
please keep
keep away
keep breathing keep breathing keep breathing
keep your weight off my shoulders 
I’m keeping score
I’m keeping my middle fingers in the sky

doomed beautiful thing

after Hal Fischer’s “Bobby at the Beach”

his tenuous hold on life as delicate as any doomed beautiful thing 
beach soothing rough edges,
grinding rock to sand, and sand to dust, and dust to skin.
cotton in negative, a whirlwind
packed into those pockets, silver 
dreams blown across the waves.
grinding dreams to ash, and ash to stardust, and stardust to glitter.
a sparkling dissipation across oceans
and he will come again to this beach
leaving bread crumb trails of his longings
until his pockets are empty.

launchpad

Earth is broken,
I want to                leave
find me     
                 waiting       

my disassembled launch pad
buried under dot matrix print-out instructions 
tools 
                                   somewhere

beam me up and away,
might be stranded           here   on
a planet                   that mocks
me

coordinates hazy
         but that’s a risk worth taking
to fly up and away 
because 

Earth is broken,
I want to                leave
find me
            find me

Dane Lyn (they/them) is a neurodivergent, genderqueer, disabled, educator, poet, and glitter enthusiast with an MFA from Lindenwood University. Find them in L.A. with their partner, constructing blanket forts, caring for their menagerie of teens, snakes, lizards, dogs, rabbits, and cats, and ridding their shoes of beach sand. Dane’s work can be seen in Quillkeepers, Gnashing Teeth, Gutslut, and Imposter. Their debut chapbook by bottlecap press, “bubblegum black” will be released in early 2023. They are on social media @punkhippypoet and most of their published work can be seen at www.danelyn.net.