ID: 5 poems by disabled, HIV+, white Jewish poet Dan Schapiro, from their first book, HOLEPLAY.
The following plaintext descriptions are excerpted from a larger access copy which can be requested for free by contacting Dan Schapiro at ds3630@columbia.edu.



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[all flowers in time by elizabeth fraser and jeff buckley]




   blowing  you  is  like,  oh
   blowing the loneliest parenthesis  
   alive  jerking off  2 funereal
   flowers   plugging   my hole 
   the 1st song   you ever 
   heard sung was 
                pink
   no, really 
   all tops are sad sic 
   (sic) bastards it’s 
   true   all tops* (
   sick       sic 
        COPS**)
   can fuck
    off to hell for all    [i care][1]
   time,,same difference




[  this isn't to say i do not hold  a deep admiration for the reticular mesh
    
    work of the Venus flytrap--
                    
        I  always    will..
        your cock       
        to fill [        (all ill, all sick)][2]          
                                                                                                               
                 with blood.

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[1] text decoration: strikethrough
[2] text decoration: strikethrough



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in math in lov a demon
has no figure i find it hard to have a dad 
I find it hard to have a fist 
to have a hole aa flower



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a diamond hears[3] my mirror
image glancing[4] along[5] water.
                                                                                
[3] alt substitution: ‘holds’
[4] alt substitution: ‘bracing’
[5] alt substitution: ‘against’



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moonlistening, do you hear the moon(g)listening to 22nd ¢[6] by Nina Simone?  
   
she sings of a great, sweeping imminence, which is ironic, knowing that   
imminence is not possible, only its negative: an overwhelming sense 
of It having just before you occurred though what It is remains inde-   
terminate,       a little jew-
el makes no sense, tag It


                         there


                                awl


                                    ]


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[6] abbreviation: this is shorthand for the Exuma song 22nd Century, covered by Nina Simone.



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At night, I grow closer to Nina—I grow closer to the window.
Somewhere a man kisses me and I am not there.



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