somethingdarker

25 July 2024: I have found this poet's works under several name variations: Xandria, Xander, Xan, and Xan Forest. That is, I've found identical poems credited differently in different places. I think that Xan Forest is likely current and preferred as the poet's current bio at poets.org uses he/him and says he's won a Lambda for 'Transgender Poetry.' (Also, the book that used Xandria is something I read in 2021, so it had to have been printed earlier than that.) I may, however, be wrong. At any rate, based on that assumption, I'm going through and changing the author's name on all snippets.

Swallow a key for every year - Xan Forest Phillips "Angola Penitentiary"

To dream so nothing occurs - Xan Forest Phillips "Black Heroism is Unskilled Labor"

A call to dream so nothing occurs - Xan Forest Phillips "Black Heroism is Unskilled Labor"

In a dress made of flames - Xan Forest Phillips "Captivity Lessons"

The fire's wake dressed in ash - Xan Forest Phillips "Classification and Dissection"

Still hold violent reverberations - Xan Forest Phillips "Edmonia Lewis and I Weather the Storm"

Your absence became religion - Xan Forest Phillips "Elmina Castle"

A ledger traced in salt - Xan Forest Phillips "A Fruit We Never Tasted"

Teeth plucked from howling jaws - Xan Forest Phillips "A Fruit We Never Tasted"

The bodies of fruit we never tasted - Xan Forest Phillips "A Fruit We Never Tasted"

Rattle the coins in my chest - Xan Forest Phillips "Hull"

A cacophony of inverted sound - Xan Forest Phillips "Hull"

A salient stain on the horizon - Xan Forest Phillips "Hull"

The hot stars in my fingertips - Xan Forest Phillips "I Like the Cold"

Brittle cicada skins abandoned - Xan Phillips "I Never Felt Comfortable in My Own Skin so I Made a New One"

Among these discreet mutilations - Xan Phillips "I Never Felt Comfortable in My Own Skin so I Made a New One"

The divine thrown down to us - Xan Forest Phillips "I Never Used to Write About Birds"

When the sun betrays their secret - Xan Forest Phillips "I Never Used to Write About Birds"

Against the cusp of dusk - Xan Forest Phillips "I Never Used to Write About Birds"

Filling the broken compromise - Xan Forest Phillips "I Never Used to Write About Birds"

The stars burning gainless - Xan Forest Phillips "I Never Used to Write About Birds"

Casting a net of postures - Xan Forest Phillips "Nativity"

The shark more ancient than trees - Xan Forest Phillips "Nature Poem with Compulsive Attraction to the Shark"

Parch the lips of tempest - Xan Forest Phillips "Nature Poem with Compulsive Attraction to the Shark"

No other way to tether love - Xan Forest Phillips "Never Have I Ever"

Cast against an ocean's skin - Xan Forest Phillips "Never Have I Ever"

The fruits of my demise - Xan Forest Phillips "No One Speaks of How Tendrils Feed on the Fruits"

feed on the fruits of my demise - Xan Forest Phillips "No One Speaks of How Tendrils Feed on the Fruits"

rotting in the wrong hemisphere - Xan Forest Phillips "No One Speaks of How Tendrils Feed on the Fruits"

My body out of context - Xan Forest Phillips "No One Speaks of How Tendrils Feed on the Fruits"

Tremble at my murmur - Xan Forest Phillips "No One Speaks of How Tendrils Feed on the Fruits"

Derived sun-fed design - Xan Forest Phillips "No One Speaks of How Tendrils Feed on the Fruits"

splits open revealing mirroring paths - Xan Forest Phillips "no one wants to be rough anymore"

some frivolous instinct shifting into weather - Xan Forest Phillips "no one wants to be rough anymore"

Wrong to wander inward - Xan Forest Phillips "Opulence"

A flock of braying gestures - Xan Forest Phillips "Sometimes Boyhood"

Drowning Orion in blush - Xan Forest Phillips "Splay My Country"

Built to hold every gaze - Xan Forest Phillips "Splay My Country"

Die against the skyline - Xan Forest Phillips "Splay My Country"

What we risk in unison - Xan Forest Phillips "Splay My Country"

Stranded and walking barefoot - Xan Forest Phillips "Two-Headed Slake"

Left a truck full of shivers - Xan Forest Phillips "War on Drugs"

Before I indulge your gentleness - Xan Forest Phillips "You and I"

A partition made of circumstance - Xan Forest Phillips "You and I"

Poet's page at poets.org.

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