It was unfortunate for Ladytron that they rose to fame when Larry Tee’s Electroclash Festival was happening in 2001. The not-really-a-genre was pinned for mixing synthesizers, performance art, fashion, and a few fetishized key elements (such as utilizing foreign languages for instant cosmopolitanism). For this reason it’s understandable that listeners connected those qualities with the immediate impact of prez gorite, prez poliata, pod zvezdite, nad zhitata in 604‘s “Discotraxx”. Mira Aroyo’s smoky, dark recitations of Marxist nursery rhymes—while providing an otherworldly contrast to Helen Marnie’s voice—represent her Bulgarian identity rather than carelessly borrowing from another culture for sound alone. As soon as the first line is spoken in front of a quiet background, the powerful synthesizers and drumbeat kick in. I get chills every time.

It is easy to overlook “Discotraxx”. It’s name is fairly unserious for the band that would be later known for its slick black outfits and startling unity on stage. The misbehaving teenagers or young-twenty-somethings that appear in the lyrics are not exactly a new trope. Sex, drugs, carelessness. However, this song is so deeply layered that I am surprised at what my ear picks up with each relisten. The magic exists in the simple, romantic, sad lyrics. The combinations of both Mira and Helen’s voices both with and without the music show the complexities through the layers of the song. Absence and presence. This song is electronic sorcery.

Ten years later, now with a Best of 00–10 compilation out, Ladytron has surely killed off any doubts of them being a legitimate music group. They have outlived trends, continued where so many electronic groups fell to the wayside. In their extensive discography, it is generally regarded that Witching Hour is Ladytron’s best, most polished album. I agree that it’s when their image, music, and tone were most harmonized and cohesive. It was probably also when the world was finally ready for Ladytron’s tight, evocative songs. Still, I can’t help myself when I put on 604 and “Discotraxx” comes on. It’s like going to church for me. This is the song that reaches out to me above all other songs on their albums. It is dizzying and nostalgic and never sounds dated to me, even if it’s a part of my personal past. For every element it stole from eighties new wave in its nascency, it still lives in a place where sharp electropop exists outside the anchors of time.

It is a strange thing to put poems on the internet every day immediately after you write them. You think, I hope no one reads that one. You think, why am I writing about wizards so much? Perhaps “NaPoWriMo” is an exercise in intrepidity above all else. Either way, I am glad to have committed, having 30 more poems than I did on March 31. I’ve already begun editing a few of them to send out, so a few entries might go mysteriously private as I sent poems out into the internet with tiny digital parachutes. Pinky swear I wrote 30 though!

I prick my finger and oil comes out.
I could be a baron via bloodletting.
It is strange, but it does not hurt,
holding a flashlight up to my palm
and finding black interstates beneath.
Leech me of coin fluid, salary vitals!

I am cautious of cigarettes, matches,
prayer candles displaying varied saints.
A careful routine as henpecked as zeroes.
It could be okay though. My body igniting,
imagine it just like that: casinos of fire,
each part of me a vehicle for incandescence.

It alarms me: how patiently I sit locked in this carnival ride.
The blurring car-paint shimmers, crusty speakerbox song.

Metallic arm dance. How the machine is responsible for our movement.
It haunts how I cannot grapple you in one soft maneuver.

How determined your amnesia was. Every morning I woke
with a humid mouth against the back of my neck, your mouth,

the one I trained and suffered and even broke my body
to red essentials for. Is love based on economy?

There is a small country of time where my allegiance
to you would not be considered imprudent. With cotton

we could wrestle, replacing modesty with needlework.
I wanted answers or understanding. I consider these simple things.

Which virtue should I sacrifice? Patience? Clemency?
The mathematics of loss are complicated. You know this.

There is always auditing at the junction of want and touch,
always division, regions where the bloodmuscle subtracts,

incurious dances and shadow hunts, fictive languages
I call out in, again, to an ear consumed with secrecy.

Ace of Wands

Would so to imagine the person a eunuch,
to do in so forth as “tenderness.”
To make do. It is the algorithm of wet dreams.
It is a paradigm of dreaming. Besides,
a kiss in front of the family is inappropriate,
a crotch grab in front of the family is inappropriate,
a weak fantasy suggests something darker suggests nothing.
Invent yourself a better you, the freshness, freshly you.
A tarot card contains paper and color and gloss but not valor.
A valor contains a direction, contains a valor, contains
brave choices, contains a path closed down for construction
leaving one. Galvanize the body without electricity,
shock the genitals electric. To do so would create a eunuch,
creativity a eunuch, electric, would do so. To go forth
with such energies, to initiate such contacts and contact
a person, imagine a person making do. A god hand
reaching out of a cloud, expanding cloud, expanding.
Direction of trimmed fingernails is a divination.
divination and direction. Which corner originates,
initiates, expands. The trimmed hand grabs the wand,
ejaculating wand not hidden not subtle not unphallic.
The resourcefulness of a god hand which do and did and does.

Another Marriage

This thrift store is full of people who are only brave
when they are drunk. I am certain. I know these types well.

It is monotonous to be brave all the time. A circle
drawn perfect by hand alone. But this is a thrift store,

so let’s go shopping. A pair of pleated pants.
A green eye buried. A ceramic owl. Flowered kettle.

I’ll load up my basket and wash my hands when I get home.
I’ll bring new things into the apartment that have memories

so different than my own. The woman at the counter is sad.
I am certain. I know these gripes well. How sadness

clings to the body like garlic. Capsaicin burning orifices.
She wanted to go on a cruise once, it was going to pass Alaska.

Then she saw Titanic, how it touched the iceberg. This touch
could not be described as “tender.” Now she fears drowning.

She keeps a poster of Leonardo DiCaprio behind her bathroom door.
He is seventeen, pink nippled. He watches from ink, never aging.

A kiss from Leo would be enough. She could pay her mortgage,
she could do so many things. This romper is half off.

I’ll pay with a fifty. How the numbers will vibrate in her hands.
How many drinks could she buy with my change? I am watching.

Her golem acrylics glowing with secret mud. Her golden bracelet
spinning after her arm stops moving. We could get married.

I could propose some arrangement where everything would be distinctive.
We could sleep on a futon and talk about happiness as if it were a bird.

I would kiss her, but only if I got something out of it too. I am not
that selfless. I am a woman with sharp teeth who knows what she wants.