The Consistency of Nostalgia 5

Everything is gray outside and beautiful
packed in grocery bags and concert
jungles of dreams bulletting out of my gut.
I keep shattering the landmarks of the city,
I thought the Chrysler building would be OK
if it fell off the coffee table — it’s a matter
of having to rely on something internal
like a compass or smoke signal or heart
murmur, something obviously brittle
and prowling for resources. I was filling
out the matrix of saudade-ish animals
and still have blank spaces for some kind
of predator or whale; nothing scares me
more than the looming giants poking out
from the peripheral fog and hiding their eyes
and treating me as a vague and constant
instant flirting with the long blonde hair
stuck to my coat wrenching euphoric.

-C.S. Henderson

The Consistency of Nostalgia 4

The lifespan of a fact is how long
it takes to roll out from under
my nose, it’s a shame I have to
apologize so much for that —
I think it might be more helpful
to crawl into the snow than let
the sun throw mucusy tissues
and UVB all over me and make
it OK to get sad in the winter
as long as I remember the Demerol
clouds are just a trick of light.
The weakest part of the thesis
is that there’s any light at all
and that it’s just nostalgia
leaving the body scrawled
as a crude lymphatic bull
shit in some dumb damp cave.

-C.S. Henderson

The Consistency of Nostalgia 3

The rainbows terrorized the bread crumb
city, reminding it of the serpentine flood laying
it its hole. And so it invented decay to ward
off the heft of its sky. A taunted god is a mean
drunk and calls throughout the night.

Things separate in order to appear, the city
had to leave to let the cranes and scaffolding
rise in layer cake and steam-blowing stacks
of muffin hovels. It tries to fulfill a shape but can’t
stop the mold from spreading out as Angelenos,

then waits for the day when all its homelessness
sings Motown choruses of opulent circles
and gets beautiful tips under heavy twilight
civility, instant unearned nostalgia, and
the charm of implied stilt-walking loss.

-C.S. Henderson

The Consistency of Nostalgia 2

The whole idea fell apart, ascribing clouds
to the cult of objects, which only begets
a culture of objects and its poor analogs
of exhaling and shitting (an arch has about

as many calories as the whole land
of bison and I can’t fathom adding a second).
I try to retreat from the stones and
only imagine the arch, but without

the stones imagining an arch between them
they might as well impede me as a wall,
so, basically, I’m stuck.
The consistency of nostalgia is too much

like paste when I leave it in the fridge —
but how else can I eradicate my fear
of the present just going to hell
when I’m not even doing anything, or sleeping?

I must stop thinking of myself
as a terrified being/ someone has already replaced
the glowy densities of my parents’ wanton fun lust
of life. I can remember by the digital conversion to a dust.

-C.S. Henderson

The Consistency of Nostalgia 1

the pitch of the city throws the clouds
into nothing — treating objects like
culture evicts the culture of objects

leaves a ring on the table
and capitulates magnificence
into the moment trash is put curbside

analogs of breathing and eating
are unreliable narratives
wishing looks good as a diorama

but there are some misplaced trees
and a tear in the corner
leaks indiscriminate paste

into the object’s focus
so a filter needs to coax nostalgia
into embracing the present

as it did the plastic
wrapped leftovers that were saved
before the diner and history burned.

-C.S. Henderson