J.D. Debris

THE GIRL IN THE AMERICAN APPAREL AD

Grayscale & gartered & lechers' target
With rabbit ears & nipples showing through the fishnet,
10/31/12 has long passed, but the red typeset heading your Halloween ad
Still lights up my desk. Reagan was shot for the attention
Of a starlet with half your charm. Remember that,
Sweetheart, next time you dress up
For public consumption, hips/ass so thick, thighs touching.
(I'm not crying, I'm chopping an onion). Let me
Send you winks with the parenthesis and semicolon,
Let me send you XOs, two fists
To bodyguard your painted-on sex kitten nose—keep you
Out of mischief. Think you’re coy? Those messages
You send—so obvious. Remember that earthquake?
My desk and your photo rumbled together at 528 Hz, the frequency of love.
Your photo's on the back of every Boston Phoenix, but some subway
Spirit told me—made me—take the right one. The only
Copy that could Xerox your soul intact, that could boomerang
My passion back, I can see it in that leotard
With the cut-out torso, that high waist,
Those teased waves falling shoulder-length,
The deep blanks of your stare—stop, I'm spoken for.
But my girl hasn't said a word. We made love
On my desk last Thursday, my gaze fixed on your
Faux camera-shy pout. I can't wipe it out:
She growled my name—I've Googled and Googled
But can't find yours. You are a wordless howl,
A flash of "I'm going to Hell" as I spasm
In toast to your namelessness & shape—only two-
Dimensional, but growing, growing, please sponge-soak
These lines & never let the ink dry.
This valentine will be thrown into the fire without me.


J.D. reads "The Girl in the American Apparel Ad":



Subscribe to Channel Five-Two for first view of new videos.


J.D. confesses: "Brief flash of erotomania lasting, oh, about two months. Watching Taxi Driver fifteen times in a row could turn you into John Hinckley III, or it could just bore you to sleep. Or you could write a poem."

J.D. DEBRIS is a bad, bad man from the Witch City. Like Gil Scott-Heron and Saul Williams before him, J.D. Debris pulls double duty as a performance poet and an Alternative R&B artist. He has been a featured reader at the Mass Poetry Fest, Speak UP!, and Lynn Unplugged Coffeehouse, profiled in Red Skies Magazine, and selected by the 2012 Mass Poetry Seminar as one of the top student poets in the state. His all-new, free, digital EP, "Prince of Thieves, Vol. 1" is out now.