Here are three spoken word poems & recordings from a brand new collection by Toronto poet Liz Worth who is also the author of an unforgettably named nonfiction book Treat Me Like Dirt: An Oral History of Punk in Toronto and Beyond. The poems are personal/social commentaries, incantatory, and replete with surrealistic detours and juxtapositions and the three-syllable latinate nouns characteristic of the genre. The collection is called Amphetamine Heart, published by Guernica Editions. Liz Worth has also written three chapbooks, Eleven: Eleven, Manifestations, and Arik’s Dream. She lives in Toronto. (Author photo by Don Pyle.)
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Amphetamine Heart: Poems & Readings
By Liz Worth
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.
On Cheetah’s Speed
we are taut and directionless,
networks of revolutions suspended
like fingertips to a temple,
poised and blurring into white spider legs,
their ends painted an intrusive shade of red.
At this angle everything looks better from the left,
even the accelerated aging of blondes.
Warts of perspiration radiate,
glossed by black lights and exit signs.
We are marked as wounded, fragile,
the stimulated strength beneath us, between us,
imperceptible.
.
Beginner’s Guide
The demolition of her atonement
has you salivating;
it could be a viral reaction, or your glands
flexing practiced analysis.
Over her heart you hang twin blades.
She reaches around, brands your back with
quarter-moon nails.
The breath between you is hoarse,
a crisis.
A bead of salt slides down your sternum,
reaches her chin.
Her lips bend to accommodate the moisture,
bend away from resistance.
Beneath you, she divides in two, opens wide.
.
Internal Dialogue
You must anticipate destruction
before the tongue penetrates marked territory.
I recommend surgical masks
to harness ultimate sobriety.
When alternating between vivisection
and vaginal secretions
to determine what will satisfy your
open sores faster,
take note of discolouration
versus saturation.
Afterwards, you will hold yourself
as a battered animal.
Your internal dialogue
will accelerate till it catches on a
chipped tooth.
Becoming porcelain
diagnosed as primitive.
—Liz Worth
How lovely to hear the author read her own poetry. Thanks!