Beach Sloth

May: poems by Jakob Maier

               Jakob Maier is a poetic powerhouse of the Pacific Northwest. Look at those eyes. They don’t lie. Glasses protect them. He wears his inner Emo in those glasses. I think anybody who wears thick black glasses has to be Emo. It’s a default setting for them. Each time I see somebody with those glasses I want to hug them and tell them ‘It’s alright. I’m here for you.’

                May isn’t poetry month. I think that’s some other month. Poetry for me has no month. Jakob thinks May is a poetry month. I am okay with this because that means a free chapbook. And it is right here. His face is all messed up because he can’t take a clear photo. Or it could be a collage. I am inclined to think he fails at internet poetry.

                What is May about? It is a raw chapbook, much like the raw kale that flourishes in Jakob’s native homeland, Portland. Each poem is dedicated to a day. He wanted to capture the feelings he had for each day. No matter what happened he covered it. Poetry gets the journal treatment with this chapbook. 

                He turns 0 the first day. Zero is the most alt number since nothing can divide it. It stands against the world by itself. It isn’t even one, it is nothing. Zero cries itself to sleep knowing it is nothing. Wonder why he is moving forward. Backward is the new forward. Why does he wait 12 days to kiss someone? I feel he is going to do one of those 12 days of loving you I hear so much about. I used to share a bathroom with six people. It is called college. The internet runs on faux intellectualism. See: blogging. I do not think before I blog. I blog from the hip. Feel bad he is a dried up leaf. Leaves can do great things. Lying in bed with others is something leaves do all the time, via those giant dried leave orgy piles we see in the fall. 

                He does a lot of things with other people’s possessions. Couches get refurbished. I didn’t know that was a thing. I also lack couches. Sundays are many things when you are old. To me they are another work day. Does that make me a harder work than God? According to the Bible, yes it does. He wants people to come into his room for kissing. Jakob has never heard of ‘foreplay’ apparently. Clouds block him from the moon and people. I wonder if Jakob’s friends live on the moon. I feel they do because Portland is a pretty alternative place. Eyelid kissing is dangerous. Ice cream is good for Jakob. You are doomed when you’re old according to Jakob’s dad. 

                I like this chapbook. It makes me miss May. May is the beginning of the summer for so many people. Days grow longer and stronger. Weather improves. And there’s a lot more kissing going around. That’s what Jakob is all about: kissing May on the eyelids.