Julian Talamantez Brolaski

whoso list to surf, I know where is a tide
when you stood under a certain
slant of moonlight,
yea, when the moon
slapped your face
long tall guzzle
of water
body,
what sappho’s lover did to so
transfix sappho
thrumming the double
cutaway lyre
—bangles the mind—
corse which makes no shade
cut thru the rising waves
and walk to the edge
of your board
whoso list to surf
I put them out of doubt
dragonflies in quantum tides
the kind of tide you could sink
your teeth into
all phosphorescent and dinoflagellates
luminescing at the crash of the wave
you found yourself dreamily
barrelled inside
turquoise neon, that would be the color
of my true love’s hair 

I have encircled you
w/ the forces drawn
w/ feathers
gently touching the arm of the wind
in the air around you, I have circum
drawn you          I draw you
slap of the old world
haunting this one
ephemeral in its stakes
pregenerate woodland
bereft of stars
bounded thru w/ black & yellow rope
in the old world and in
the old songs, plain were I
properly provided
w/ an ax and a box to stomp on
who wants to come thru
I asked inside the hollow of the
channel of my spine
the dííyin are as good as you
sing, angel, when that I was
a light upon the road
w/ a face like a star and a form
like shining icicles

Julian Talamantez Brolaski (it / xe / them) is a poet and country singer, the author of Of Mongrelitude (Wave Books 2017), Advice for Lovers (City Lights 2012), and gowanus atropolis (Ugly Duckling Presse 2011).  Julian is a 2023 Bagley Wright lecturer, a 2021 Pew Foundation Fellow, and the recipient of the 2020 Cy Twombly Award for Poetry.  Its poems were recently included in When the Light of the World was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry (2020) and We Want It All: An Anthology of Radical Trans Poetics (Nightboat 2020).  With its band Juan & the Pines, it released an EP Glittering Forest in 2019; Julian’s first full-length album It's Okay Honey came out in August 2023.