These texts emerged from the dueling audio/visio battle between Jon T and Sandolore Sykes. Jon wrote a text, which Sandolore inverted word by word. Jon then reinverted it, and Sandolore inverted it back once more. If that sounds confusing, here’s the gist: these poems loop through permutations, ultimately circling back to the same meaning.
This short video shows how each line transformed into its counterpart, creating two poems in parallel. You can also read them individually below.
Jon’s text:
Put it on So underneath A killer moon Lies low asleep And in the tinge The freckled fringe All soft with brown A jagged crown A burning head To wake the dead And birds tuck in The beaks and feet A triad hole A sucker droll You squint and smirk And body jerk Dumb veil of rust All chips and crust We fall apart Piled bones and teeth
Sandolore’s doubled back response:
I sink myself below With the moon sinking with me Falling into a faded trance With my skull rough, all white and cold With a crown of black corals Made of the teeth of my husbands who are walking now, waking now, their soil gills pumping from a thousand underground holes. They shrink these mouths as they drink, a laughing, Blind eyed tear, a smile full of happy bones. The soil animates my body in its dull matte, Piecing me out, taking me apart Each bit clipped, this sinking, this undoing. This return. This unmasking of my bones underneath.
See the original collaboration here:
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