Syd Westley

i’m restless everything’s turning me
on the fuzz pedal the sweat i see the way
yr looking at me u could take me home
u know sex could be like a game
and we could just go back and forth forever
u don’t have to be pure david said
but i never stood a chance
when i first heard iggy pop scream
I WANNA BE YR DOG i thought
it was stupid i didn’t get it til
i heard kim gordon’s version iggy
yr not desperate enough yr a man
what could u know about desperation
yr emaciated yr building the myth
of the rockstar and i’m subscribing
in unhealthy ways chasing a dream
of art and sex into the black and
empty night yr fucking me from behind
i think we look like dogs yr hand’s
on my neck i would follow u anywhere

lush in yr marsh i


believe there will be


substance somewhere


if we wade long enough


thinking punk was a place


to find in the dark at the


right industrial leftist


gay bar negation as an


ethics means saying


no to the right things


not just the usual ram


blings like there r too


many sweaty men here


for me to feel safe NOPE


to the question of sub


stance everything gets


all up in the air when i


push on it my ex said


real punks know u can


never escape yr upper


class sensibilities and she’s


right i can’t lose my


past even if i say no to it


every day for the rest


of my life the kind of


commitment i’d like


to make and who said


we even wanted virtues


anyways at odds w/ my


whole wanting my whole


needing the aux to facilitate


my being my whole confusion


about absence and presence


and what any of it means


for a kind of politics or


community sometimes noise


just reveals a large emptiness


within me is it pervasive is it in


everyone all these people in


their various states of fucked


up or sober no it can’t be


or yes it must be knowing


when collectivity fails it fails


hard and still and despite that


the refusal to stay away  

Texture over melody. I’ve been feeling wrong,
but the feeling is what matters. Heavy distortion.
Thick layers of fuzz. New York’s flooding again.
I’m in a little glass box, and the rain is getting into
my dreams. Water like sound. I’m in the shower,
sitting with my knees crossed, feeling like Sofia
Coppola, looking at my girlish body. Girls are so
beautiful. I’m so beautiful. I created a body in my
imagination, and then I made it real. Gender’s over.
It’s all fashion now. Nonsense reigns supreme. I’m
nothing but a collection of STUFF. A Korg Volca
Beats Machine. Newports flattened on the sidewalk
I don’t smoke but like to look at. My little blue
slippers. Beep beep. I can hear Rosa Yemen. I can’t
understand her, but that’s not the point. The floods
were biblical, David said. In August, I came out
of a basement in Queens, and the sky was purple
and silver, falling down all around me. The water
came out of the sky and touched my skin, which was
new skin. In the club, the music was also rain,
and the people animals all around me. There
was sweat and lightning in the sound, and you
touching me everywhere with your cold hands.

Syd Westley (they/them) is a poet and artist living in Oakland, California. Holding an MFA in poetry from Washington University in St. Louis, their work has been supported and/or published by Lambda Literary, the Adroit Journal, Berkeley Poetry Review, and others. They also write music reviews at https://sydboyxxxmusic.blogspot.com