Poetry by Cy Ozgood

             ​Mike Maguire CC



​
Warning

still, 
and quiet 
like it was
all hardness

fire gale
the wind
pulled in
light

bright blankness
light
covered all 

and sheen of rock

while the thin sun set
into the particulate
and the polyps
on the sea fingers all
were ghostly magi
forthcoming
--

if time is a mouth
rhythmically opening and closing

(hair grown sideways
in the river
stinging drops
on portal-door)

then awaking
plum vessel
and bullfrog
how it gapes so
to be as clean as you were
born unvoiced
unborn opaque

--

what happens
when rapture overtakes
our objects, all that's left
is finally
buzzing

windows open and loudly 
falling away from itself
like skin slicked off by a keen blade

--

in such a soft place
uncertain steps 

the only smell is rot
like a burrowing snout

freedom seethes
all ablaze
in safe color

the slack and constriction
of messianic heartbeat time





Warning, Pt. 2

a tender shoot 
of metastatic 
expression
limned in gold

if we could
eat the heart

parade parade

if we could find
its edge

--

(the stars unfold) 

(sprouting
and flying)
the singing dark
the window the window
the mirror 
the men

the body 
now beside itself
with valley

--

at the bottom 
of the rain
lays whispering
the horned beacon 
of all undoing

“come all apart into flowers
come all apart into song”

and never dies there





Warning, Pt. 3

touch is precious
word-made body

the voice hung empty
close enough
to taste

word-made body

fled
to the uninhabited places
to birth songs
that rang
the canyons raw

--

to crackle 
or smooth away 
the edge

where cryptids
writhe and wail 

rinse
and invisible
body dances
whips 
into froth

--

clicks free
the body
wing

this end of all
flinches out 
shadowed
not knowing 
why lay flat 
on the corpse
of last year’s grass
is this the time
that all things 
stop returning

in those days
they will say
it was enough
to wake up alive
even haunted
even so

​
​

Cy Ozgood is a queer poet and horologist living in Oakland, CA. They are the author of the chapbook Cynthia (The Magnificent Field, 2021) and their work can be found in Twang, Dirt Child, and elsewhere but they've changed their name a few times so good luck.

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