Test Pattern I

by Will LaPorte and Rute Ventura

I want to love you, but you wear a hideous mask.

Its spines draw thick blood. Durian, pineapple, prickly pear.

The fruit of exterior chaos.

Sweetness drawn by the knife,

but the unwise take a bite.

A ceramic glaze, a crack and its dust, poisoning my meal.

i am starving, i am gaunt.

I still dance with you,

with the last of my stamina,

you’re all i’ve got.

Calorically dense,

blind and unwise.

Collecting punctures on my cheek,

See you again next week.

I know of nothing with promise

I give you my word.

I could give you my world

If it wasn’t surreal.

In a backwards slow motion video you would be able to see my heart.

Its liquid,

thick as wax,

red as blood,

hot.

Just like truth.

A strange floating thing awaiting to fit its special form.

Perspective.

Honoring the ability to sense.

Even pain.

the axe feels bad,

the axe is home,

the axe is crying in its wife’s lap,

the axe will feel better tomorrow,

there are no more trees to remember

it is as big as how far it sees.

Sees beyond hills

rocky mountains

endless landscapes

outside memory.

It’s blurry

It cares about cats,

(overrated cats)

balance.

It recalls how hopeful it feels.

Things are what they are

…mostly.

It takes responsibility and

refrains from concerns,

moves on

the turtles crush a couple cans,

dwell in filth,

morning sun meets a cold bloodshot eye,

i can hide,

it’s built in, or

i can just sit in it and

eyes closed bliss

hate every second

The frog-man got away with it

Let me buy you a lettuce

I hope you like the moon

I’m a round shapes collector

I can use the rubber band

It will be over soon

I’m so sorry

my detritus

has ruined your

priceless work of

art

I heard your call

It was loud.

smart

could hear it all the way from

a different universe

welcoming the entropy

Don’t.

Punish

Me

only dream

of bon jovi

mouth a desert

window wide

sirens wail

my body runs a bath

to be sure i arise

unsorted

part of this disorder is impermanent.

The other part, internal conflict

irrational instinct disguised

as illusion

of consciousness.

some things adapt, not all.

He refuses.

with the right temperature!

eyes closed, arms open and

the smell of fresh coffee

even the impossible

becomes

the present that always is

levitating, just a few feet

bending my fingers back

trying to remember

if a heroic feat at seven

was a dream or someone

really could have died

if not for my hand

then by it

In space it tries to take me.

I was never able to describe it

wouldn’t be able to paint its picture.

I know theres no light.

I only cry, when feeling it.

It’s too foreign.

Pulls me

too strongly

It wants to take me away

I don’t know where

or what it is

I fight back in tears

ceiling fell

lights stayed up

asbestos should have been

mitigated by now

where did my extra

five years go

liminal grandkids never met

waiting rooms are sterile!

to a fault, all kinds of antibiotic

resistant microbes

where did my extra

ten years go

theoretical kids never born

retire to nothing and get travel

in quick, trip to pompeii

before the flop

see ash-trapped dogs!

and bark in synch

I can hear them,

but I begin to forget all shades of grey, form,

the look in their eyes

their smell

I wanted to be reminded of their smell.

I can still see the rest!

and, by some kind of magic

I can physically sense them

but I can’t remember the smell.

It wasn’t until I begin to move

that I realized how stuck I was.

There’s blood running through my veins

If I get still enough, I can hear it.

Then, I’m reminded that I needed!

to forget

claw machine full of plastic

grabby hands at the plastic

swing the plastic door grab

my plastic prize take my teeth

to the plastic and i am one thing

richer

suck your teeth at the dotted line walked in forgetting something

i’m searching for it in any other direction

i grab at switches and corners and lift like i am a kid looking for bugs

and they’re going to fistfight!

on a log for candy money!

and i’m tense like!

i’m betting on a fistfight!

for the gold you can’t chew

grabby hands i want back in

i shine a light on the corner

you lied yourself into

i have what i need, you lie

i never really cared, you lie

i feel nothing, you lie

the plastic plaything

and the plastic my teeth tore

both outlive us

my plastic plaything

fished out of the trash

for a final glance!

it’s amidst cartoon slime

and it’s bone dry

There’s a wall

it’s big and thick !

Goes beyond my peripheral vision

Seems infinite.

It’s in my way, fuck!

It is Really in my way

I want to get a big hammer and break it down!

I want to become a sorcerer and make it vanish!

that’s my instinct!

it makes me mad!

it makes me strong

it makes me dangerous!

it takes a whole world away from me..

but later I realize

nothing is infinite aside from infinity itself!

so

logically

I know that there’s a way around it

Side to side, top and bottom

no matter the direction

I have a solution!

Would you like to hear it?

wouldn’t you like to know the answer

i’d like to square this before i bounce

can we split the check

i gotta split

i ordered so much more than you

so much more than you

you’ll have to roll me out of here

roll me out of here

i take advantage of your kindness

i pluck you like a pretty flower

perfume to mulch pipeline

cowardly slink out of the dining garden

i take advantage of your flowers

i cut them at their prettiest

can i borrow a couple thousand

can i borrow this basket of bread or chips

can i borrow your time

i take advantage of your money

and i pretend you don’t mind

you’d like to know why you keep me around

but you’d rather spend it to never have to ask

Hhhhhhhhhuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

There’s always a before and an after

I don’t care about many things

I wonder if you know anything about butterflies

How they mutate

Within themselves

Outside themselves

They become these completely different creatures overtime

Well…

There’s thousands of them living inside on me

Beautiful fruits on the table

strawberries, blueberries

blackberries, raspberries

plums, peaches

apples

grapes

I want to eat them badly

but I’m tied up

Guilt

Blame

I’m being punished

the table looks beautiful

all I can do is look

I can’t move

I’m blocked

Two iguanas guard the fruit precisely to make sure I don’t touch it

a black cat under the table stands in permanent bristle

I’m starving

man kicks a bottle

bends down to apologize

to little world he shook

sees a face!

in epoxy on the floor

says hello

somewhere unspecific!

a jockey box of hope

a world of unfinished stories!

monday a sunday, sunday a sun day

hanging upside down

disrupting the passive gaze

offering ways in which is possible to experience ideas!

and emotions!

a glove compartment with many things!

(but gloves)

out of tricks

i feel funny

breathing you in

uncareful

happily catching

your sickness

car ride uptown

bus ride downtown

with pretty friend!

i never see

spit-laugh!

back and forth

stiltedly

language

canny and

canned

understandable as

nothing

to beloved

bystanders

plucking

my own feathers

deleting it

all

specially words

one by one

begone

burning papers

forcing myself to

accept the unacceptable

haven’t slept well in months

last night an amethyst

washed away my thoughts.

what a peace!

I Could Eat Your Words

they ripple

allowing me to move

past pass it

to move on

onto

some place away from suspension,

suspense and suspicion

to take a nap

and not even dream

you pass through

a window and

become real

you walk through

a doorway in

full color

once transparent,

once on a television,

once a test pattern,

once a reflection,

once broken glass,

once melting plastic,

once nothing

and you click

Left over arch

south under deep

layers curved low

hands path energy

fingers pain ouch

strength fist meek

bodily ghost glow

light soft density.

Mutual mural plural

paint faint saint

goth moth sought

loose truce mousse

mouth south out

spoil soil coil

rice dice nice

flight sight might

was it golden

banded throated

tailed swallowed

bald black red

white pecker

goldenrod thrush

sparrow eagle

whispered tarred

mocking booby

greater lesser

crested pileated

paradise tit

kite spoon

pigmented roseate

fledgling night

mourning

in pure mindfulness

feeling everything

becoming an angle

disguised with wings

hunting

in an intricate fake process

through the lace of my imagination

give me goslings

to nurture, feed

we laugh together

kind as kin

grow regardless

into flocks of monsters

roadkill, a ruckus

inconsiderate,

desecrating

eggs and shit

where it shouldn’t

be, loud and all

flying v of

my children

non-sleepwalking incomprehensible skills

power of singular expression

collective efforts!

rhyzomatic developments

defying boundaries

a kick in the tongue

a promise into the future

next to a broken fortune teller.

Present without gifts

memory projections

possibilities

possibilities

possibilities

lady next to me
with binoculars
said the tiger
leaping distance
pacing for dinner
was looking
right at me

Just as the tiger I’m greedy.

Sometimes I recognize my greediness during the moment in which it takes place.

I can even tell to myself!

“This is it, no more, stop!”

but moments later when is too late

and something goes wrong,

when I’m losing,

I feel bad about not having implemented the necessary courage to stop.

Still learning how to do this.

I find it very difficult to take life slowly!

my gear is tuned for a fast pace

and although I wish to become smarter about holding onto what’s good,

part of me observes that I’m not getting any better at it.

I won’t surrender to that

It sets me back.

I think I need a new plan,

more discipline.

I’ll force myself to become who I want to be

i kick the ladder

a rusted, painted over

fire escape

it rattles down

i slide down all of the thousands of them, no longer rated for human load

into all of the thousands

of terrible restaurants, no longer rated for human consumption, about

1.5 stars, 2, 3, kinds of food poisoning you couldn’t even dream of, and they are a dream

freezer chicken and frozen fries and ice creams from cursed cows i’m alive under a faded awning

i’m in awe of the capacity of the anti-yummy scum of the earth

salt of the earth

4.5 billion year waits

old as time,

older than me,

tax evading,

staying alive

too much space in wide areas

its impossible to be fully aware of the effects from all causation,

so I jumped of a roof, the tallest in town,

too little space for ethical consumption!

as I was falling I learned to fly.

I decided to fly over everything

but there’s nothing but birds in the sky.

Rute Ventura is a Portuguese multidisciplinary visual artist based in NYC, her art explores identity, reflecting her self-journey, paying close attention to thoughts – conscious awareness. Allowing ideas to navigate through her intuitive creative process, transforming them into images or words, in a poetic way. Concurrently, Ventura’s work evokes a surrealistic existentialist aesthetic with physical, emotional and subconscious sensations, in a bold and symbolic way.

Will LaPorte is a musician, writer, and photographer based in Brooklyn, NY. They weave narratives about nature, aging, and strangers, set over anxious electronic soundscapes. You can find LaPorte’s work in Peach Mag, Violet Blue Indigo Etc., and Pretty Cool Poetry Thing.

Ventura and LaPorte started sharing mostly freeform poetry over text in the spring of 2024. The writing project, initiated to overcome sleeplessness, would eventually coalesce into the poetry zine Test Pattern.