SPRUNG FORMAL 2011 STAFF
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Ashley Anders, Ben Hlavacek, Christina Lenert, Liz Peters, Joshua Zink, Madeline Gallucci, Mitchell Hugh Kirkwood, Osciel Ramos, Sophie Roessler, Marie Dougherty, Theodore Bunch, Alora Wilde, Sami Freese.
SPRUNG FORMAL STAFF WOULD LIKE TO THANK
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Jordan Stempleman and his family, Phyllis Moore, Anne Boyer, Illona Bernard, Mark Salmon, Blue Bouquet, PrintResults, Moms and Dads, Kansas City Art Institute, Sun Fresh, Tuna Melts, everyone who submitted work, and friends.
COPYRIGHT 2011
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Sprung Formal literary magazine and Kansas City Art Institute all rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means, electrical, mechanical, or otherwise, including, but not limited to, photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the Sprung Formal Staff.
SPRUNG FORMAL
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VOLUME 6.1
ANNIE RAAB / 01 SAWAKO NAKAYASU / MATHIAS SVALINA / MATHIAS SVALINA / TEAL WILSON / ANGELA GENUSA / JOSHUA ZINK /
/ 02 / 03 / 04 / 05 / 06 / 10 /
BLIND RUN PARADE YOU ARE A BRAIN IN A VAT YOU ARE A BRAIN IN A VAT THREE YEARS MAH LETTERS 2 WENDY’S OLD FASHIOND CHEEZBURGERS A SUAVE OCEAN BREEZE
AUSTIN BUCKINGHAM & DUSTIN DOWNEY / 11 DANIEL BORZUTZKY / JOSHUA T. HOWELL / RYAN MACDONALD / SHANNON BURNS / JACLYN SENNE / ADAM BERIS / MARK LEIDNER / MILES FERMIN / TYSON GOUGH / EMILY KENDAL FREY /
/ 12 / 14 / 15 / 17 / 18 / 19 / 21 / 25 / 26 / 27 /
SINGLE FLUORESCENT MISSOURI T-PIN T-PAIN PREGOS DOME MEMORY GAME POINT WWW.ARTFAGCITY.COM LOVE IN THE TIME OF WHATEVER DISEASE THIS IS KEN TEST WINTER ON TEMPLE SQUARE, SALT LAKE CITY FLIGHT ATTENDANTS WILL DISTRIBUTE INFANT LIFE VESTS AS NEEDED
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ANNIE RAAB BLIND RUN
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SAWAKO NAKAYASU
PARADE
Through a giant megaphone: Today (today) ( ) is a unique (unique) ( 今 今 今 今 ーク) holiday (holiday) ( ホリデ), commemorated by a parade (parade) ( of black (black) ( ブラック ), four-legged (four-legged) ( 四つ 足の) stools (stools) ( スツール) going down (down) ( ダウン) the closed (closed) (クローズド ) street (street) ( ).
パレード)
All the neighborhood ants come out to take a look
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most of whom
そtake a very critical stance
, .
MATHIAS SVALINA
YOU ARE A BRAIN IN A VAT
Suppose you were a brain in a vat in a honky-tonk in Nashville on a Wednesday night. You are surrounded by hundreds of alarm clocks beeping incessantly. Around you men in clean cowboy hats & men in mean baseball hats. When the alarm clocks quiet the band begins. You are a brain in a vat. You have no ears & yet, there is something here that is familial, the worn carpet on the landing of the second floor of your childhood home, the crook of elbow where the sleeping head fits. The alarm clocks blink 12:00 in unison, like fireflies pulsing on a dark riverbank. The men in cowboy hats take their hats off & offer their bald heads to the men in baseball hats, who bite down with reverence. Bubbles collect on the glass walls of your vat. The music stops.
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MATHIAS SVALINA
YOU ARE A BRAIN IN A VAT
Suppose you were a brain in a vat that loved another brain in another vat. One brain in a vat can understand another brain in a vat perfectly, more fully than a body can understand another body. But they can never meet, never pass through the walls of their vat, never feel another brain against them, unless some helper with sterile gloves chooses to put both brains in a single vat. And that is not going to happen. Oh brain I love, you say. Yes, brain I love? the brain you love responds. I love you, you say. How do you know? the brain you love responds. When I think of you I am thinking of myself, you say. Prove it, the brain you love says. And what will happen when you do? When you cannot not prove it?
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TEAL WILSON THREE YEARS
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ANGELA GENUSA
MAH LETTERS 2 WENDY’S OLD FASHIOND CHEEZBURGERS *
JANUARY 30, 1997 IF I WUZ ROYALTY I WUD WANTS BIGGIE AN HUNDRD PLAIN CHEEZBURGERS. I WUD THROW AWAY TEH BUNS AN LAY TEH CHEEZBURGERS SIDE BY SIDE ON TEH SIDEWALK SO AS 2 FORM BED. I WUD TAEK OFF ALL MAH CLOTHEZ AN LIE DOWN IN DA BED WIF MAH BIGGIE. AS PEEPS PASD BY, I WUD SAY, “BEHOLD TEH MEATY BED OV ROYALTY! BEHOLD TEH FINAL BIGGIE!” AN I WUD RELAX THAR TIL I WUZ ARRESTD. JANUARY 23, 1997 I ALWAYS EXPECT 2 C WENDYS COVERD WIF REVOLUSHUN BANNERS. HISTORY IZ NO LONGR POSIBLE, THOUGH, EXCEPT AS TEH HISTORY OV ADVERTISEMENT. CRY OV “REVOLUSHUN” FRUM WENDYS WUD BE TAKEN NO DIFFERENTLY THAN TACO BELLS CRY OV “RUN 4 DA BORDR!” EACH IZ AN ATTEMPT 2 GENERATE HUNGR AN 2 PREFIGURE ITZ OUTCOME. CUD REVOLUSHUN HAS EVR BEEN ANYTHIN MOAR? SEPTEMBER 30, 1996 I DOAN LIEK TEH IDEA OV “OLD FASHIOND” CHEEZBURGERS. TEH DESIRE 2 DWELL IN DA WAYS OV OLD REDUCEZ BEAN 2 TOURISM. IT PUTS “YE OLDE” IN FRUNT OV EVRY LOCASHUN. YE OLDE DRUGSTORE, YE OLDE RESTROOM, YE OLDE PRISON, YE OLDE STRIP CLUB, YE OLDE CONVENIENCE STORE. TEH ONLY PLACE DAT STILL IZ PLACE--AN WENDYS IZ, DESPITE DIS SILLY SLOGAN--EXISTS PRIMARILY BEFORE, NOT AFTR, HISTORY. 0123456789 0123456789
AUGUST 27, 1996 STILL HIGH ON DOSE BROWNIEZ, BUT COMIN DOWN. I HAS EATEN, IN DA PAST 24 HOURS, SO VRY LOTZ DA CHEEZBURGERS AN CHKN SANDWICHEZ. TEH SEA OV COKE IZ HEAVY TODAI WIF MEAT--ITZ COLD SWELLS WIF TEH MEATY GOODNES DAT OBJECTS 2 LANGUAGE. SUM KIDZ DRIFT BY, TALKIN. WAN OV THEM SEZ, “DAT SUCKZ DED DONKEY DICKZ,” AN TEH OTHR AGREEZ. IMAGINE. MAY 20, 1997 ID LIEK 2 HAS MAH MUSCLEZ REMOVD. RESUME TEH INANIMATE. WENDYS ALLOWS ME 2 EXTRACT MYSELF FRUM TEH RETARDD NARCISISM OV ANIMAL THRIVINGS. I SIT STILL IN WARM BOOTH AN GIT THOT. ALL MOVEMENT WANTS, IN DA END, IZ STILLNES; TEH ANIMATE IZ JUS TEH FAILURE OV MOVEMENT 2 GIT WUT IT WANTS--WAN SLEEPIN BODY. TEH ROAD 2 HEAVEN IZ PAVD WIF MEAT: TEH ROAD 2 MEAT IZ NOT PAVD AT ALL. JULY 18, 1997 I WUZ JUS MINDIN TEH SWEET STRONG BOTTOMS OV NEW CUSTOMERS. Y IZ TEH BOTTOMS OV NEW CUSTOMERS ALWAYS SEEM SWEETR AN STRONGR? TODAI I FORCD MYSELF 2 EAT CHEEZBURGER KNOWIN FULL WELL I WUD NOT BE ABLE 2 KEEP IT DOWN. HOW USELES I HAS COME! HOW BOTTOMLES TEH MIND! 0123456789 0123456789
JANUARY 15, 1997 WERE ONLY GETTIN DIRTIR! DIRTIR AN DIRTIR WIF EVRY CHEEZBURGER-BITE, EVRY COKE, EVRY SINGLE FRY. WE R DEVICEZ DAT NED 2 BE CLEAN IN ORDR 2 FUNCSHUN--IN ORDR 2 CONTINUE EATIN, 2 CONTINUE SPEAKIN--BUT WE R INCREASINGLY INCAPABLE OV CLEANIN OURSELVEZ! LISTEN 2 TEH DEVICEZ STRUGGLE, CAKD WIF FILTH, 2 TAEK ANOTHR BITE, SPEEK ANOTHR SENTENCE. LISTEN 2 UR HART! NOVEMBER 13, 1996 AS HYPOTHETICALS GO, “MAN” SEEMS 2 ME TEH MOST DAMAGIN. BY DAMAGE I MEEN TEH VAGUENES IT CAUSEZ 2 ACCRUE UPON TEH RLY RATHR SPECIFIC AVENUEZ WE GO DOWN. I FINKZ “CREACHUR” IZ MUTCH LES DAMAGIN TURM 2 LIV UNDR; CREACHUR IZ ALWAYS IMPLICITLY CONJURD, SOMEHOW UNFIT 4 ITZ OWN COUNTRY, AN SO, APT 2 TRANZFORM ITSELF, IF NOT EVOLVE. NOVEMBER 9, 1996 2 HAS DOMINATD NOTHIN, DAT IZ MAH REAL CLAIM. IT GETS LOST AMONG TEH COUNTLES OTHR CLAIMS I MAK 2 SURVIV. ITZ GETTIN LOST IZ TEH ONLY HAPPINES I KNOE. WHEN IT GETS LOST, RLY LOST, IM AGAIN TRUE RESERVOIR, AN AGAIN TEH NOTHIN CAN FILL ME UP 2 OVERFLOWIN. CHEEZBURGER IZ NOTHIN. COKE IZ NOTHIN. FROSTY IZ NOTHIN. I HAS DOMINATD NOTHIN. 0123456789 0123456789
OCTOBER 18, 1996 4 NO REASON, NO EVENT, DO I PERSIST, ECHO. I PERSIST, ECHO, ONLY IN ORDR NOT 2, AN NOT 2, AN NOT 2. IM DEFENSE-ALTOGETHR DEFENSE--AN DEFENSE EMPLOYD BY I KNOE NOT HOO. SOMETIMEZ, MAH MEAL FINISHD, I SIT IN MAH BOOTH AN WONDR: WUT IZ I DEFENDIN? AN I CAN ONLY ANZWR: IM DEFENDIN WHATEVR IT DAT IM DEVOURIN.
* The source text for these poems comes from Joe Wenderoth’s “Letters to Wendy’s” (2000, Verse
Press).
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JOSHUA ZINK
A SUAVE OCEAN BREEZE
Ah! Ocean Breeze there is nothing I love more than smelling like dirt and sea water after I step out of the shower. How does Suave capture the complexities of the ocean in a plastic bottle? Front label reads “Seaweed Extract” This is good. This is a good first step in capturing the ocean in a bottle. Blue 1—that must be how it gets that ocean blue color. What other qualities does this bottle hold? Ammonium Lauryl Sulfate, Ammonium Laureth Sulfate. Ah yes! As I recount my trips to the beach with my dear grand ma ma—I can see myself skipping through the Ammonium Lauryl Sulfate, while waves of Ammonium Laureth Sulfate chase at my happy feet. What would Lauryl and Laureth’s baby look like? And what the hell would they name it? 0123456789 0123456789
AUSTIN BUCKINGHAM & DUSTIN DOWNEY SINGLE FLUORESCENT
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DANIEL BORZUTZKY
MISSOURI
They left me on a bridge in Missouri and when they tied me by my feet they said don’t fall off this mountain. Beneath the bridge was a valley and I could see other bodies squirming in the mud and on the roots of the dying trees. From up so high they looked like little worms and when you found me I saw something in your mouth. Are there bodies in your mouth, I asked, and when your lips parted I saw your tongue and I realized that now I had no tongue, and I thought: I want to pull your tongue out of your mouth, and then you kissed my cheek and we watched two pigs crossing the bridge. They were thrown off a truck, you said, when a group of carjackers stopped the truck by firing a bullet straight into the vehicle’s windshield. Then you opened your mouth once more and before you spoke a worm squirmed out of your lips. I followed the worm as it left your mouth. It crawled down your chin and over your shirt and legs and down your shoe and when it hit the pavement you inadvertently squashed it at which point the bodies in the valley below began to murmur so loudly that I could not hear your voice. I tried to read the words coming out of your lips all I could hear was a wall of sound from the voices murmuring below and so we kept on walking until we stopped at the park where we found a group of men in business suits setting fire to a garbage bag full of money. They asked us if we had anything to contribute to the network of information they were developing. We shook our heads then warmed our hands over the fire and soon a boy arrived and said to one of the men: daddy I have the birds, and from a duffel bag he removed the carcasses of woodpeckers, cardinals, blue jays, hummingbirds, warblers, martins and ospreys. You asked the boy how the birds died and he told you that the wind had killed them and then one by one the men threw the birds into the fire then pissed on them and when they were finished they took out their rifles and started shooting at trees. They said: we must kill the trees before the feds kill them and we stood there listening to the trees and hoping that they might scream but there were no sounds except the bullets which soon disappeared into silence. Then we walked to a small pavilion outside of a football stadium used by a local high school. We bought cups of coffee and took them to the bleachers to watch the boys practicing with their coaches. There were only four boys on the field. The coach said now that you are the only ones left what the hell are we going to play. The boys 0123456789 0123456789
were wearing pads and helmets and one said let’s play the game where we are in control but the coach said no the only game we are allowed to play is the one where we are controlled by others. The boys ran up stairs and did push-ups and sit-ups and you told me that had you known I was going to have my tongue removed you would have taken a photograph of it back when you first loved me. I murmured something about the methods being used in Kansas to preserve tongues and other body parts but you could not understand what I was trying to say and we did not have a pen and paper for me to write it down so we contented ourselves with watching the boys on the field. The coach fired bullets at their feet as they ran through an obstacle course. In the distance we heard dogs howling and cows mooing and the river was being absorbed by the bodies who lived beneath it. Let’s find you another tongue, you said, and we set off for another state.
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JOSHUA T. HOWELL T-PIN T-PAIN
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RYAN MACDONALD
PREGOS
My high school student asked me the other day…say I am pregnant, she said, and I have sex while I’m pregnant, could my baby get pregnant too? Well, I said to her, your baby would have to be a girl, but, yes, that could happen, and then, what’s worse, if your baby’s baby is a girl, then that baby could also become pregnant, and so on. Her eyes glistened, her lips peeled back. Absolutely horrified. Listen, Samantha, I am here for you as a mentor and a friend, but if you need to talk I would suggest Stephen the school counselor. I’ve heard he’s a good listener and well liked among the students. She left the room in a sort of bobbing jog, wet cheeked, face contorted, hugging her pink trapper-keeper to her lactating chest. I put on my jacket and lifted my dangling keys from the pocket. In the car I waited for the heat to kick on. In my house I waited for the microwave to beep. In my bed I waited for the alarm clock to ring. In the bathroom I waited for my wife to get out of the shower. In my car I waited for the heat to kick on. Next day back at school I lecture for an hour on cultural diversity. The children seem vaguely interested, scratching away at their composition notebooks. I show them slides of current events and statistically proven facts. We watch a video about the economy in China; I have them share their thoughts. The children have clearly not been listening. Samantha speaks up. Is it true people in China cannot have more than two babies? Is it true people in China murder their infant daughters in order to have only boys? 0123456789 0123456789
These things have some truth to them, yes. Female infanticide, gender-selective abortions. There is, unfortunately, a long history of anti-female bias that pervades heavily in patriarchal societies, your examples being the most brutal manifestations of this bias. When I get home I find my wife in bed with her clone. They are clinging to each other. I can tell my wife from her clone because we shave the clone’s head. Jesus, well this is something, I say, thrown completely off. Christ, John, says my wife, I’m sorry, but haven’t you ever thought about it? No. No I hadn’t. I opted out of cloning myself due to the creeps it gives me. Though I suppose a part of me finds two identical wives caught mid-coitus appealing. Eventually I fall into it and within no time I’ve impregnated my wife, my wife’s clone, the baby in the clone, and the babies baby.
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SHANNON BURNS
DOME MEMORY
There were tall trees growing inside of the dome and the trees’s leaves made a smooth nappy cover like the, um...................jungle. Also inside the dome there was a bald knoll for parties. Also inside the dome were hundreds of talented women. At one party a woman wrote on a tree God is good, always good. Another woman came forward and wrote her name carefully & fifty times. A little boy wrote something and read it aloud: I’m a vampire and I can fly and I’m psychic At this, two men at the cone of the knoll got up and became boyfriends with each other. “Our teeth are the same color!” one said to the other, whose reply was drowned out by the sound of the dome exploding, or applause. 0123456789 0123456789
JACLYN SENNE GAME POINT
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ADAM BERIS WWW.ARTFAGCITY.COM
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ADAM BERIS WWW.ARTFAGCITY.COM
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MARK LEIDNER
LOVE IN THE TIME OF WHATEVER DISEASE THIS IS
Pussy like two beaches pressed against a single sea. Penis like an ashamed wand. You say, “My one regret is getting to witness the most beautiful things in the universe through one of the most disgusting men in it.” Before it reverses completely time almost stops moving as my pants magically lower like a Niagara Falls of Levis. You drip like a ship of physical aristocracy. Your undercarriage is drizzling stars. We make love like a church burning down in the imagination of a eunuch then flee together out of simile into you. When we climax I tell you I love you but it comes out, “I hate language.”
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When some dumb politician says something stupid intended to justify the slaughter of innocents in some far-flung province of whatever empire this is, I only hear the latest movement in the synthesis of reality with our ludicrous idiom. I’m so stupid the word the is my favorite word. The t and the h and the e are like these brittle little hieroglyphs of birth and death and life to me. I believe in the blind, unthinking Egyptification of everything and that God’s true nature is both depictable and pleasurable to depict through capitalization. Love castrates ambition and I’m so stupid I’d rather be great than happy.
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Your eyelashes flutter like hummingbird chainsaws gutting eternity. The worst movie ever made is like a blinding cataclysm of form to me from which I have never recovered only sung the song of my soul in the shadow of the mountain of money it made and was made from. Love remains a fine wine I’m always wasting by never drinking or drinking way too much of way too quickly so I can prove I’m dumb enough to mean the stupid things I love to say. Beauty so dense it bends creation around the eye like a gravity well, letting nothing else in. Windmills mark where the world sighs. Romantic comedies mill the girls’ sighs. Grammar is the cameraman of the soul. 0123456789 0123456789
The parking lot after a movie is the broken open world. The sun has high-jumped over the mall and broken its back producing spines of beauty. We thread the cemetery of empty cars like wreckage on the bottom of the afternoon which is so humid, it is like stepping into a deep dream of forgiveness. Later that night we were walking home and I asked you what time it was and you just lifted your limp wrist up to the full moon like it was your watch.
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MILES FERMIN KEN TEST 0123456789 0123456789
TYSON GOUGH
WINTER ON TEMPLE SQUARE, SALT LAKE CITY
The Cedar of Lebanon, near the east gate, will not be lit this year for the bulbs’ heat initiates in the tree a false budding and the arboreal sleepwalker rattles the closed doors of summer. Yet, the tabernacle is re-roofed. Zion’s Bank looks over scaffolds, a sign of enterprise. All is covered with lights. Nightfall and the square is a forge. The temple glows in an ember spray, white hot, though it is the cold air that burns. For acres there is no lodging for the wrong kind of oblivion. Nevertheless, wheat for man, and corn for the ox, oats for the horse and so on… There is no gloom to kneel in. The longest night is Christmas-lit, the reflection pool full of flames.
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EMILY KENDAL FREY
FLIGHT ATTENDANTS WILL DISTRIBUTE INFANT LIFE VESTS AS NEEDED
I. If we were all from L.A., If we emerged, draped in pith,
I dreamt I stood in the “Beginner’s Section”
from the uterine cyst of California
Light pink, a baby’s lung
If we cawed, each in our black sunglasses then migrated— streaking amber across the country Some to nest in pines
Across the road the healers were gathering On their knees I kept them as I stood, learning and learning hard
Some to eat gum Some with hands down pants Some worried, in bed, a cheap plant on the table If California ripped like the bodice seams of a dress A hole for a dog
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II.
III.
Your boob job makes me want to play Whack-A-Mole
Under your jackets is language
Your boobs are jerking on your chest like a fire dancer
Of course, that last phone conversation with your father was unsatisfying
World of worlds! We gather round Your boobs shine a piercing light on the essential dirt worm of me Stunned, I fold my napkin, gauge my need to pee Your boobs take us down the mountain On Thursdays I’m going to be a shitty person but Thursdays only
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It’s probably time to come around to the idea of an iPad When we meet at the top of the hill I’m going to keep my jacket on You’ll know by my tiger eyes that this gesture is kind
IV.
V.
Remember the woman from Mississippi who built a boat in her backyard, then lived in it?
Context is what I’m arguing for, not contextualization
The t-shirt I sleep in bears an anti-timeline slogan
Here: do you remember your crib?
Dot me with poppies, field of the field of death
I was pissed every time they came in the room We’re confined not by structures but by our access to light
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SPRUNG FORMAL
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VOLUME 6.2
ABBE FINDLEY / 01 JACK CHRISTIAN / MARIE DOUGHERTY / MIKE YOUNG / NICK CHAN / JUSTIN KEMP /
/ 02 / 03 / 04 / 05 / 07 /
ENTER ON I THOUGHT GOD WAS A TREE DOG/BEAR TV STOP LONG ENOUGH HOW TO DISAPPEAR ALL THE GIRLS FROM THE URBAN OUTFITTERS CATALOG WITH THEIR BACKS TURNED TO ME
SHAWNA ENYART / 08
/ / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14 / 17 / 19 / 20 / 21 / 22 / 25 / 34 / 35 /
WAYS TO DISCOVER THE DESERT
SOPHIE ROESSLER / 10
GETTING READY
JOSHUA T. HOWELL /
POINTS OF A HORSE
RYAN MACDONALD / LAUREN STOOKEY / SANDRA SIMONDS / BRYAN COFFELT / LINH DINH / RICHARD LUCYSHYN / DARA WIER / ANNIE RAAB / DANA WARD / RYAN FEENEY / MICHELLE TARANSKY /
THE OBSERVABLE CHARACTERISTICS OF ORGANISMS HIS CURLY HAIR POEM THE EARTH FEDERATION AND ITS COLONIES ARE ENGAGED IN AN APOCALYPTIC WAR PAWN SHOP LOS ANGELES MANMADE WATER LIKE A SIMILE PLACES MY DIAMOND THE COWARDLY PHOTOGRAPHER #2, 2010 WE HID IN A
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ABBE FINDLEY ENTER ON
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JACK CHRISTIAN
I THOUGHT GOD WAS A TREE
What I was doing in the thunderstorm I was shaking my fist at the God of trash-talk. I was stomping the footpath to the fence post. I parked – a star shot – I couldn’t take it as coincidence. I said a prayer to the God of sleeping outside who’s the same as the God of conniving. I said a prayer for anyone who never came back. I said a prayer to the God who answers back. I said one for you if you chased your Gods away. And one to the God of table manners and to the God of horseshoes. And I said God if you’re God you’re God of my lamplight and of my undershirt. You’re God of my feelings which are mostly. But also of the trail I walk but also toward a taller you. Hey God, I finished the rock dam. I went in the field and said one of patterned animal tracks and one to you of cattle birth. I said one to the farmer Judy who’s always talking to herself and one to the snapshot of the thing that’s always happening. I said God if there’s the choice you’re a God then if everything’s a choice. This was in half-light in timber it was often.
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MARIE DOUGHERTY DOG/BEAR TV
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MIKE YOUNG
STOP LONG ENOUGH
When I rinse my hands I flip the light, hoping for electric conduct. Google only recognizes ― help‖ eleven times in a row for its autocomplete. After eleven, you’re in the territory of individuals. Walking head bowed, mouth harp slung. Thank you again for checking us out. Luxury sedan from an outdated oil crisis conceded re: snow. Stars next to some emails. Some people, you’ll never be able to place who they remind you of. They make remembering off. When I’m nervous, I know enough to touch and count. All my windows are a mess. Gonna be the only thing I love today or what? Ain’t got forever. One more person watching Marvin Gaye rescue the National Anthem. First somebody starts a clapalong, and then years later someone listens to a digitized analogy of that clapalong and thinks Damn, great idea. And I could say the nickname of anyone and a story to go along. Stop loving blank faced bullshit. In 1983, an NBA All-Star buys an Almond Joy before the game. Marvin Gaye tucks a handkerchief just right. Someone ignores Facebook long enough to perfect a gesture, and I’m thinking space heater in the hot tub? Klonopin? Popular bridge? Top hits for ―easiest suicide‖ are fakeout hope spiels. Stop walking without holding hands. Stars on and off. Help plus twelve. You’ll meet someone, she’ll be who she claims to be, and she can dance. Other things inside the video: Marvin’s sunglasses, the mustache of a Trailblazer. 0123456789 0123456789
NICK CHAN
I
HOW TO DISAPPEAR
I remember being seven Throwing pebbles across the roadThat black river of death That will steal you away. I swear I see it melting In the hot Texas sun Becoming Texas itself. The smell of burnt Rubber roasted Frogskin and how I wish I could’ve paid our toll so we could Cross back over That suburban Styx. But the ferry doesn’t come home from work until 5:30. We wait on that sidewalk for nearly an hour and You tell me if I close my eyes and cover my ears, I can go somewhere else, That the world disappears, That I can become invisible. Face up in this grass purgatory We take turns, afraid That if we disappear at the same time We might never find our way back.
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II After your family moved the third time The letters came back in the mail. I stopped writing you after that You finally learned How to disappear. Even now in sleepless nights I close my eyes And cover my ears And disappear for a while. And I wonder if you still do it too.
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JUSTIN KEMP ALL THE GIRLS FROM THE URBAN OUTFITTERS CATALOG WITH THEIR BACKS TURNED TO ME
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SHAWNA ENYART
WAYS TO DISCOVER THE DESERT
As you may be waking up or falling asleep when you read this - I’d like to give you something psychedelic to chew on, because that is the stuff of dreams and what I believe in most. In California, there are many ways to discover the desert; as in taking a rock from it, or planting something in it and bringing water from somewhere to create growth in a place where things dry up. And then there is this Three girls traveling northeast towards the Mojave desert in a car, listening to Lou Reed singing, I Found A Reason. The sky’s blasted open by the sun. It is unbelievably bright, and the darkest part of the sky hugs closely to the mountains. And these girls, sometimes they get along and sometimes they do not but today they are on a mission, with a brown paper bag full of mushrooms, a lot of water and some sunscreen to trip out The day is magnificent with color. They park the car and eat bitter morsels from the paper bag. There is laughter and there are revelations. Sometimes someone cries and the others run to her, and sometimes someone thinks they hear crying but really it’s the wind, or someone laughing at an ant - thinking, “How beautiful and silly - an ant alive in the desert, like us, they are somehow just like us, walking sideways.” One girl stretches her mouth as wide as it will open, over and over, just for the sake of doing it. She makes the sound of what she imagines a tiger’s roar to be, and simultaneously rubs the softest part of her belly, because, well, it’s just comforting and reminds her of being a very loved and liked little baby. In her head, she hears sounds she remembers from the car, like wind droning through the windows, the radio playing and people talking. She wants to drown it out. She stands and dances to the sound of her feet pounding the earth. She whips her hair from side to side, striking her shoulders and her face with treble tones. She opens her mouth and roars. 0123456789 0123456789
Nearby, another girl lies down in the sand. Granules of sand slip between her skin and clothing. She thinks it’s all quite messy, and she will probably have to shower, but right now the hot tickling sensation is unmatched by concern for other things. The landscape sparkles and ebbs like an ocean around her. Until today, she felt emptiness like a hollow lack of feeling but today she is full of feeling. She hears her friend roaring and she laughs. The laughter echoes and fills her body. She registers this as joy, and something larger than her, a rhythm. Her laughter is a rhythm. Her body is a vessel, carrying the laughter onto this sparkling ocean. The laughter recedes into breath and she feels she has achieved something, a mastery of awareness, which is the lack of awareness. It is her emptiness turned inside out. There is this girl, also. She feels the dryness of her eyes like a tickling sensation akin to wings flapping. She looks down at her shirt and sees purple as softness. She closes her eyes and sees Egypt. The desert unravels like a bellowing frontier in front of her. She wants to feel sun kissed. She wants to feel at one with the place. She wants to be undone in the desert, but really, really what she wants is to be where she was, in the safety of a car, listening to Lou Reed, sitting on familiar seats, staring out the window and feeling the breeze. So she goes to it, and there she is. Eventually the sun fades and the trip ends, like trips do. Then it’s over, and the vibrant, burning edges of the sunset are stacked up in front of them so they decide to go home. And that is all, and that is the reason: to be in it.
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SOPHIE ROESSLER
GETTING READY
My hair is the texture of dead grass and braiding it, you pull too tightly, like my mother. We talk about the way things used to be when we were fourteen but that doesn’t matter now. We are sitting with bare legs on the hotel bed with sheets that feel like petals on fake flowers, fake crocuses. Not quite plastic. You tell me how losing your virginity at fourteen felt like a doctor giving you a flu shot in your right arm.
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JOSHUA T. HOWELL POINTS OF A HORSE
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RYAN MACDONALD
THE OBSERABLE CHARACTERISTICS OF ORGANISMS
In the zoo we accomplish many things. The animals are always fed and locked in their cages. Habitats are well hosed down and visitors have a decent view, even though the animals sit completely still most of the time. My daughter has a low tolerance for such things. She is three and has a low tolerance. The animals look so sad, she says. They are not sad, I assure her. They are maybe a little homesick. They are maybe a little lonely. But they are not sad. Animals are incapable of feeling things. Yesterday I went into the penguin habitat. It smelled like chlorine and sweaty feet so I opened the door a crack to let the place breathe a bit. A penguin squeezed through the crack and ran into the pedestrian path. It was too slippery to catch. I tried to stop it from entering the polar bear cage by throwing a large rock at it. But I missed and in it went. To be swallowed whole, I said triumphantly to the gasping crowd, an arm raised for emphasis. My daughter is in the employee lounge right now dissecting owl pellets. Plucking tiny mouse skulls from them. She wants to be a zoologist. I like to look at things from different angles, Daddy, she says to me. I am not for or against this idea. I do, however, wish she would find an interest in botany or figure skating, something less repulsive, something not as smelly. My daughter walks with a disgusting limp. This is why she will always be single, I think. My daughter, the limping zoologist. I will love her anyway. Today we had ice cream at the concession stand near the entrance of the zoo. I watched my daughter eat the ice cream, chocolate all over her nose and cheeks. Even a little smudge on her forehead. Disgusting, I thought, and wiped it off with a wet-nap. I took her into the greenhouse to show her the plant-life. We walked carefully down the aisles, holding our hands out to brush the tops of the greenery. My daughter sang a song as she walked, something about the observable characteristics of organisms with favorable phenotypes. Afterwards we witnessed the birth of a rhinoceros. It was magical, to be sure, and difficult to watch. When Rhinos have babies they tremble. They tremble the way all mothers tremble when having babies I bet. I wanted to be a mother. I’ve always wanted to be a mother, if only to tremble, to feel the warmth of the creature leaving me. It will never happen, I said triumphantly to the rhinos in their hay-smelling habitat.
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LAUREN STOOKEY HIS CURLY HAIR
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SANDRA SIMONDS
POEM
I want to tell you this secret so bad. I have been keeping it in the privacy of my heirloom because I thought it would be best to pass it down through the Human Genome Project. But then I reconsidered because it’s not mandatory to recreate the species through..duh... fried chicken. And then I reconsidered my position on mating with the Human Genome Project. And then I reconsidered my position on the DNA of the Peoples of Iceland. And then I reconsidered my position on my heavy use of the word ‘I’ as well as the fact that I write these poems so quickly. Writing a poem quickly is unmotherly and unwomanly. Well, maybe it’s okay for sluts. I don’t know. You decide. I’m leaving it all to you because 0123456789 0123456789
I am passing everything down like my fat cells sliding through the body. I have been known to write terrible poems about anorexia and fat cells and bones. That’s all in my past though. Have I been eating you ask I don’t know have you Sandra? I microwaved the Styrofoam. That is my secret intrusion. It was so globular and funky. It was like an airplane to Mars or Venus w/ tax documents from 1994 and 1995 and 1998, 1992, 1973, 1943, 1964, 1975, 1954, 1955 and 1996. They will tell you that toxic chemicals get all over your hands and feet when you cuddle the microwave but this is disingenuous. You should cuddle the microwave when you are lonely and you are longing for 0123456789 0123456789
brief miscarriages. They also will tell you other things that are simply not true or truisms--you decide. Someone ask who “they” is now. Someone get a priest in this room immediately. Sometimes my son asks for corn. He calls the peas corn. He calls fried chicken corn. I’m talking about my dead son now. He calls every food imaginable corn.
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BRYAN COFFELT
THE EARTH FEDERATION AND ITS SPACE COLONIES ARE ENGAGED IN AN APOCALYPTIC WAR
Evil walks the Earth like a mermaid in a pantsuit: A black pantsuit of simple cut, quality fabric and a matching jacket— the dress code for The Apocalypse. A pants suit plus color but not colored— A tearful plaintiff draws a crowd loaded with scientists sparring over an Asteroid Apocalypse. The Apocalypse is the stretch velour at the slot machines. No it is not. That’s a recession, not The Apocalypse. The Apocalypse is Donatella Versace in a wolf in a Sarah Palin pantsuit— a curvy, monotonic cyborg learning to say, “I’m sure I’ll hear some negatives.” They think she’s a tough little Christian Zionist termagant. They think she’s something between an android and a female impersonator. 0123456789 0123456789
I see her every day I think she looks like a little mini sun next to the big one.
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LINH DINH PAWN SHOP—LOS ANGELES
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RICHARD LUCYSHYN
MANMADE WATER
The weather was long and clattered. I guess there were clouds. And wind from one way to the next. Good birds filled their bones With air and made romance with bad birds. Bad birds dropped Stitches above the river and cried foul. Hunger left a mark On my lower incisor. I unmeant the line about birds. Stated clouds As corollary for possible rain. Intentional flood. I bit through The branch closest to the banks. Beneath the water. Above the other Water. Redacted birds threw halos to the flood mark. I parlayed Stones. Made query of the fence line. There was no action without Its reflection. In mud and grass. In diamond sutured drops of unproven Rain. The weather grew shutters. Closed itself off from theoretical Names. It called itself hunger. I believed every word. Wrote maps To guide myself through fog. I counted every tooth from everything Broken. I scratched out my letters and unlearned the reason for wetness.
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DARA WIER
LIKE A SIMILE
It reminds me of memory, my memory, sometimes your memory, word for word, blow by blow, note by note, drop by drop, lip by lip. As if this were a simile and we were unable to resist it. As if we were intersecting with insects. In the same manner as we mimic one another. Compared to what we are doing. Compared to why we are doing it. I am having a memorial anniversary birthday ceremony ritual In a few minutes several times over. I have you soundly in mind in my scrapbook. Imitation is a kind of memorization. A kind? Memorization mimics us all. This one woman I know, she has to trim her eyelids. No, her eyelashes. I wish we could send one another messages By carrier pigeon, smoke signal or flashlight.
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ANNIE RAAB
PLACES
Hunched over, bored, impatient, I saw you texting at the Gates of Hell. The wait was long and long lines made you nervous. “Man,”‖ you tell your girlfriends, “this is bullshit.” They send back their faces and tears made of punctuation marks. You make plans to catch lunch that week together. In all the places, the non-places we stayed in, it seems as if an ever present cheap, greasy nacho stand lingered in the background. It didn’t matter if it was a place like Meezle’s Burgers & Beer or the Nashville airport—the mucous texture of liquid cheese has been ever present in our travels. I hadn’t explicitly noticed this in each situation; it was more like bad lobby music in the background than a physical presence. “Stop eavesdropping,”‖you tell me, making a cheesy mess of your pretty white v-neck. “You always listen to what everyone else is saying.”‖ I wasn’t listening to her; I was listening to the phone call behind me. Somewhere in the row of locked chairs and unattended baggage, a woman was saying, “There’s money in the sock drawer and if she gives you any trouble, call AC and they will take it from there.” What was AC? Animal Control? Adolescent Counseling? What kind of beast was the person on the other end responsible for? I would be more concerned about the location of the taser and liquid sedatives than a few bucks in a sock drawer. There are just some things money can’t protect you from. I turned to mention this to you as the plane left the gate and we felt the vibration of the engine climb through the padded plastic chairs. I watched you wipe your fingers on the suitcase as you declared flight attendants to be so “unbearably stoic.” We once stayed for a week at the drive-in, one of our first vacations together. Do you remember how we’d lie down in the back of the wagon, popping and crunching greasy chips in our mouths, and read newspaper clippings to each other? We clipped all the stories we found about shark attacks that year and made a promise to take our next vacation to the coast. We made up stories about the victims, giving them elaborate backgrounds and mo0123456789 0123456789
tives, patterns of financial hardship and public exposure. Some of the more severe cases just had a negative HIV test, took a relieving swim in the ocean with their lover, and were now missing a leg. Outside the windshield, the world ended, true love was discovered, and a man convinced himself he was a giant redwood—every single night. The car smelled of processed cheese and we tried not to bleed on the paper clippings. Our trip to the terminal was less romantic. I remember you were angry with me the whole time for joking about being terminally ill. I had forgotten about your mother and decided to keep my mouth shut until the train left. You never were ironic, and that always was a nonplace between us. When the car broke down, we worked together to push it to the car shop that was near the diner half a mile back. You threw the car in neutral and we pushed until the cracked white garage and short blue diner appeared on the right. The mechanic told us it was the carburetor and that it would take a couple hours to get to, pointing to the line of slumped vehicles and oil spills. I told him we would sit in the diner for lunch and coffee until he was finished. The counters had a waxy layer over them and a woman with one eye made our grilled cheese sandwiches and prepared coffee. An hour and a half later, I went back to the shop to check on the car and was confronted by the plastic CLOSED sign on the door. I looked inside the dirty window and saw the garage completely empty, no oil stains or anything. I went around back and saw no sign of cars or mechanics. I sat back down at the waxy countertop and we ordered some nachos. When you were ten, you were suddenly inspired. You were copying arithmetical equations off the blackboard when you suddenly put your pencil down, got up from your desk and left the room without a word. The hall monitor saw you from the frosted window, sitting atop the plastic slide outside wearing only your t-shirt and jeans, snow falling in your hair. Later 0123456789 0123456789
your mother had a very serious talk with your teacher who suggested you be put in Room 17 for the rest of the year. I didn’t know you then. I was thirteen and stealing my father’s magazines for one night at a time, having flings with the glossy girls inside. I wanted to be the object of desire; you refused to burn up in your social position. Standing in front of the wrought iron gates, hearing the screams of pain and pleasure and rumbling metal, I thought about the non-places we each had. I could understand my own non-places: certainty, altruism, and Japanese miniatures. Your non-places were authority, infidelity, and horror movies. We moved around each other’s non-places like we moved around potholes in the car. They could be touched upon, but I knew for myself that I never wanted to make you feel uncomfortable. Watching you move your thumbs across the tiny keys of your mango-yellow cell phone, I knew we could spend eternity on this vacation and I would never expose your non-places. We could be in line forever in this heat and it would never make me forget. I reached around your shoulders and closed your phone and we stood like that until the line inched forward. The smell of over-processed cheese dominated the theme park.
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DANA WARD
MY DIAMOND
FOR CEDAR SIGO
I work on snowy days until my head burns with bitterness because it receives calls on earth. The little glitches in my narcissism single their effects approximating edgeless pleasure just like sex with clouds on the liquidated border between art & life it’s so cash-rich my love stopped working this year as clear as day & only one carat of pellucid phlegm with a thread-thin network of blood or information is what I coughed up in my hand yes it signaled to its setting in the locket of the world it signaled to the street where I’m your man & here I come I’m stepping out of it, reeling is where I want suspension to confine me so, like, we’re just talking. I can sell you my life. I started taking codeine to become a good parent overnight all that’s left to do is give up fear & force every person to wish you good luck This sonnet is going to initiate an addiction narrative inside an evolving vacuum. The gratingly explicit affirmation that its flowering distributes into governmental mindedness demonstrates accelerated reaching for my own death inside me by illuminating monuments to its eventuality with floodlights the bulbs of which, not abject derivations but expressions of a canceled joy, barter with each other in their own deep coded networks each trafficking in multivalent signals & proprietary affects the sum of which mistaken for life’s co-efficient is really my diamond, a cigarette with nothing else before it like the universe but brutally exact in its nasenece 0123456789 0123456789
by accounting for the contours of my life with a nothingness called childhood though I was so well loved. I have come, a student of the sun, to be visually compounded with more and more light nothing can pierce I’ve rescued my body before but never from this point of absolute comfort I don’t want to go back because I can’t the impasses is pure like imagine our life without piracy now between any two points you can’t take without asking you beg and you beg and you beg but each thing is running so hard ahead of Eden in conception & miserably fucking original need gets ruled and soldered to the base of it but I have so much happiness my water keeps breaking my lines feel broad like timber and the highlights in my hair shine with the light of a world without trees the night before the baby was born we watched Jersey Shore & Twin Peaks & it was the realest experience I’ve ever had of non-being it was totally complete Listen to me while I petition automation I could not make a clearer break with the provisions if I make them rot they gain distinction decomposing if I cut their legs off and shoot them in their faces they are martyred beyond their once compromised grace into utterly angelic confections I remember the swing in my voice was a substitute 0123456789 0123456789
but nothing could make this less one the blood keeps rushing from my head to stupid purity where I rush out to see it staunched by rags of sun heterodox like a lot of starry little orthodoxies eating each other being part of the life-event without a vengeful juror I hate our false meritocracy too how much it reminds me of me trying to provide for myself with a fantasy break & I never even really fucking needed it A sonnet is just like a paragraph anyway by which I mean another obligation. When I shit my pants I have to take off my diaper put it on my head & leave the world. A passion is just unlike anything else. It surrounds you from the inside & finishes you. My parents couldn’t think they were middle class people I thought addiction was the thing designed to save you by being so far from redemption but mirroring back a kind of vertical appraisal of diminishment along a slow axis of ascension that in this case dipped down far from anything else until, you alone & your diamond cemented all value & that’s what I’m heavy with: appreciating pathos rich in voracious & annihilating feelings for the index of human achievement This isn’t nice but then a diamond isn’t nice it’s a species of tyrannical gorgeousness making every other creature less special in its wake. What’s weird is that the nihilistic posture is the farthest thing from me 0123456789 0123456789
day to day my mind changes on heaven canned tuna Tapatio, parmeasan cheese when I stopped watching Jersey Shore I thought it was a moral failing people talk a lot about high/low collapse some poets won’t really go too low in the end they won’t, on Two & A Half Men, spend prestige they could bend all the way out to the Verizon. I wish poets were as good at poetry as they are at resentment no I don’t buy me back from this ebb with a large margarita at the end of the boardwalk by the wheel Surpasses all the gall it quells with exponential bliss stops teardrops in their ducts makes the muscles feel like moonlight perfumes the moving vehicle creates a scared mist around the face frames death in a criminal hotness that aggregates bruises the heart to exaggerate its caustic obsolescence glimmers pointlessly flames fills space with downy ash tastes like having been ravished & fucked without any reservations god’s humanness carte blanche my diamond. But I’m only casually allergic to a therapeutic bond between reason and the back of the hand subjectivity is just so fucking dirty the ocean of that thought could come & then would fuck me like a person 0123456789 0123456789
I would love to be made not to dream on Riker’s Island Lil Wayne walked the halls & kept watch over the suicidal prisoners making sure they were either ok, or asleep, or all three just alive. But Lil Wayne embodies every indexed human reason to not commit suicide so I close my eyes & listen to the bird that’s trapped behind our summer cover which shutters the non working fireplace featuring an image of the goddess in relief held fast to the branch of a tree amid some kind of windstorm you’re supposed to put these kinds of things inside my poem, they’re the medicine that’s sort of out there waiting in the repertoire to escalate the repertory healing, so Turning my diamond into gold I exchange it for my face on the page my mom broke her arm back in early December then Sarah had to have a Cesarean, so I ended up exposed to all this codeine it was everywhere & both my mom & Sarah (neither of whom seem care for its effects) had a fair amount of pills left over once their pain abated. So how many times can I like myself today & savor the interior beating my wings while someone listens disinterested but integrated nervously against their better judgment strung along the love boat in the dark of its alignments which always flood the harness my diamond pulls flush with my shoulders god bless the eyes I pull this ice over The wind once made a wind 0123456789 0123456789
for the wind to enjoy pathos tore the universe apart at that point the 21st Century lathed flat with kindergarten scissors until the end of it curled back adorably & coiled this yielded, duh, like, a hundred different coils enough that I made a nice box spring & some shocks I was already such a bad poet Twin Peaks & Jersey Shore turned out to not be all that different both feature these graphic expenditures of spirit guided by midgets & giants the codeine lasted only just as long as I could take it I cut away the section of the diamond you can actually cut (just the non-diamond part) the goddess never did blow away In Twin Peaks the lights were always flashing off & on it never snowed it always rained there were more dreams on the outside than the inside the baby’s heart changed overnight it was murmuring fitfully then it found a metric like lights in Twin Peaks it quit flashing & became a fixed aurora that aurora is a diamond mine so anxious for its license it continues ceaselessly to beat 0123456789 0123456789
but quiet now, quiet, eating milk I don’t need you or your brand new Benz or your bougie friends I don’t need love looking like diamonds looking like diamonds. Tyrone has a line in his “Futures Elections” “We must break with economy” when he read that line I remember more than anything the way it made me feel How my body got warm & god called Tyrone on his cell in the middle of the reading. I want to search/replace my diamond with that feeling like replacing the real thing with a knock-off then over & over until the cancellation has effaced the glowing absence of nothing to correct in this errency some monad ghost story princess cut by me I was born permitted to smile about it although I know dogs with more attractive teeth than mine Cedar Cedar sorry this was going to be sweeter all about my reading “Stranger in Town” to the baby overnight this kind of lullaby I hoped would arrange the psychic terrain of her future prosodoically, so an incantation. I believe. High or not on codeine sneaking out to smoke in whirling snowfall while she slept her new life through your lines “I cut out the heart with Snowflake myself but it is not mine” “I have cracked the words filled diamonds as I drew them had all the inanimate 0123456789 0123456789
innumerable obsessions where fools are hanged & blackened in the wind on the look out for guys like the hangmen before the world wakes” I’d lay her down gently in her bassinet to sleep & once she was safe I’d go out for another smoke myself Are the world’s saddest words ‘private hospital’ or are they ‘something else’ I think of that a million times & then do not die I used to have our poetry & now it’s all I have a question that tries to establish the infirmary of weakness & mercy readied as they are so conspicuous danger baits change & extravagance allied to her newness tonight John Wiener’s birthday the fact of which devours all sentiment makes it priceless truly as all known valuations savor hell in proportion to serenity & I am telling you I am not going to negate the catalytic part of living for some half-hearted metaphysical aporia slaved to an oblivion that isn’t as complete as her hunger I wrote this all through alchemy because there’s no such thing this is not what not doing it looks like Shit I forgot the obligatory Gollum ovation for myself & my diamond how I am so fine like linen you can spread me out over the coils & I can disappear into their curls maybe I’ll get kind of ripped & poked apart there’ll be holes & wounds & all this wind to feel for sighs, snow, I don’t know…. what else goes into a sonnet sequence, roses 0123456789 0123456789
I bury my book Gracie Allen was a very lucid comedienne there’s other stuff historically validated palatial praise-worthy faded, weirdly new But the hook is what I like? Like being on one for myself & others pleasure so you know that we’ll never forget it when the flesh drops a certain degree below zero & blushes the diamond writes over it like writing to a friend is this thing conflating every limit it can sense with every opening it can’t understand? The changes for ‘Tuesday is Gone with The Wind’ open ruin in the café’s clear air feeling crunchy I buy one of their iced mandala cookies when you eat it it’s supposed to bring you peace & then it did. I thought a lot about it how not to survive it for I could no longer take in its meagerness that word
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RYAN FEENEY THE COWARDLY PHOTOGRAPHER #2, 2010
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MICHELLE TARANSKY
WE HID IN A
Woods like a woods is the last robber ship. How to define an approach after an approach that changes. The current and its anticipation circling the clamor clamor to await a witness and his dictionary. Both a cross made from the particular trees sold by dividing chair and axe into ash
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SPRUNG FORMAL
/
DZIADEK WYDRA ODJAZDOWY / 01
/ / 03 / 04 / 05 / 07 / 08 / 09 / 12 / 15 / 16 / 17 / 19 / 20 / 22 / 24 / 25 / 26 / 27 / 28 /
ROBERT J. BAUMANN / 02 CYRUS CONSOLE / OSCIEL RAMOS / TIM JONES-YELVINGTON / MARIE DOUGHERTY / JACLYN SENNE / DANIEL BORZUTZKY / MITCHELL HUGH KIRKWOOD / MADELINE GALLUCCI / JAMES SANDERS / SANDRA SIMONDS / LINH DINH / ALICE MILLER / KRISTEN ISKANDRIAN / MIKE YOUNG / KATHLEEN FURLONG / JACK CHRISTIAN / CHRISTINA LENERT / DANTE /
VOLUME 6.3
CORNING-WARE RAJA OUR RESPECTIVE DICKS MEN OF 2011 SIGHTS BEYOND SIGHTS TIM JONES-YELVINGTON WORE SEQUINS A NAMED MAUL ACE THE MANNEQUIN I AM A WEALTHY TERRITORY UNCLE HO POEM TO READ IN A CAR SITTING AT A STOPLIGHT UNTIL YOU GET HONKED AT SCREEN OF BROKEN LINKS COUPLE ON STONE BENCH—PHILADELPHIA YOU I AM GRADING PAPERS (ALT TITLE: TO BE OR NOT TO BE, THAT IS THE ANSWER) TRUE LIFE I WAS A CONTENT MILL BRUTERMA A GIANT REALM CELL SPLITTING THE INFERNO, CANTO VIII translated by Mary Jo Bang
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DZIADEK WYDRA ODJAZDOWY CORNING-WARE RAJA
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ROBERT J. BAUMANN
OUR RESPECTIVE DICKS
What Dingley says is the color of sheer milk comes clear through your hose— he has a hose, scouts note, 70 on the 80-point scale but not made of real hose. You’re a real dick metaphorical in nature just like your real dick saying one thing is some other thing that it isn’t. In this case your dick is skin and blood and organ parts like pipes, slider chests, unit chests, releathered chest shells and the like. EXHAUSTIVE WORD INDEX OF THE WHOLE SITE: tiny.
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Now what scouts say of me Don’t pay too much attention to what scouts say and don’t focus too much on measureables; if a guy can ball, he deserves a chance. Too big? He deserves a chance, balls, too. I received a merit scrotum— like, on a pin— on my chin scouting you closer.
CYRUS CONSOLE
MEN OF 2011
Softness of the asymptotic left hook of nightmare, inaudible comeback worse-than-ineffectual so-called verbal aikido, Kentucky do-nothing man in management with no ideas but in things, larger and better knife collections west of Mississippi “the� Mississippi, wounded reenactor troll of 60th annual Fairlawn Plaza Santa, or someone wearing his clothes settler of an earthlike planet with 298 other academics and Travis, giving them their laws
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OSCIEL RAMOS SIGHTS BEYOND SIGHTS
TIM JONES-YELVINGTON
TIM JONES-YELVINGTON WORE SEQUINS
I wore a sequined, embellished shirt for my birthday. I wore a sequined glove to my high school graduation. A white cotton glove that I glued sequins all over. I wore a sequined sailor’s outfit, one glove, and a surgical mask while hanging out with a chimp. I wore sequins for four days straight. I wore sequins to cheer myself up! I wore sequins for absolutely no reason at all, and had a spectacular time doing it. I wore a sequined flapper’s dress that I bought at a carnival. I wore a sequined top I bought at Forever 21, or, as my aunt calls it, ―Almost Fourteen.‖ I wore a sequined tailcoat that I made and, like, these big wide pants and this satin shirt, and I had a mohawk. I wore a sequined beanie. I wore a sequined Givenchy gown with giant holes cut out of it. I wore a sequined leotard with my bright pink bra hooked onto my butt, and I paraded around with a magenta tail courtesy of Victoria’s Secret. I wore a sequined tank underneath a black 3/4 sleeve blazer, and when I pulled into the Chick-Fil-A drive-thru to get my lunch, the cashier asked me if I was “going to a party.‖ I wore a sequined blazer to last year’s company Christmas party. I wore a sequined dress I bought at a yard sale, and then left after like half an hour to get the drunkest I’ve ever been in my life. I wore sequins. Lots and lots of them. I wore sequins, boots, see-through black crepe shirts...the girls thought I was strange, but I just went with the whole ―rock star‖ thing. I wore sequins and no one else did, I was calling attention to myself, and probably knew that when I walked in wearing sequins. I wore sequins from head to heels. I knew everyone. And of course they knew me. I wore a sequined dress by Robert Rodriguez to a benefit, and somebody said I looked like Diana Ross. I wore a sequined number that Nancy lent me, and it made me feel like Marilyn Monroe. I once wore sequins while pregnant, and ended up getting called a pregnant Tina 0123456789 0123456789
Turner. I wore a sequined Fendi t-shirt dress, crazy maroon tights and incredible Loriblu ankle boots to the premiere of my new film, Whip It, at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles. I wore a sequined onesie on the red carpet, but I wore the completely wrong shoes, and it made my body look weird. I glued sequins on everything I could. I glued sequins onto a pair of shoes for a costume, and then when the damn glue dried the shoes were too tight. I glued sequins to my hat. I glued sequins to the sides, I was trying to get it to look like exotic fish scales. I glued sequins on the tail of a mermaid. I glued sequins on my face. I glued sequins on my scrotum. I glued sequins on the wood and painted it purple and white. I glued sequins on in a swirly design so as to add a little bling. I glued sequins and glitter sparkles all over my pecker and put a lampshade on it, then lay very still to see if anybody would try to turn me on. I wanted guys to be embarrassed to be seen with my tulle in their hands. I glued sequins on the ones I really wanted to keep. I hung upside down in a yoga sling. I was surrounded by friends. I wore sequins, he wore peacocks, we four enjoyed a mess of tacos against the backdrop of the skyline, a better skyline there never was. When I performed an erotic striptease at The Bijou Theatre, the world’s oldest gay porn theater/bathhouse, I wore a sequined dress, which I think conveyed how classy a clown can be, then stripped down to a very fancy rainbow-striped sparkly vintage bathing suit, then eventually, to nothing. Do you think anyone took me seriously if I wore sequins on a regular basis? I wore a sequined suit... it was a political statement. And then the Queer smiled, pressed a secret button hidden inside his Givenchy purse (Fall 2010 collection), and all of a sudden he grew 25 feet tall and roared a mixture of fire and sequins. HEY LEAVE ME ALONE, AT LEAST I WORE SEQUINS. I wore a sequined dress and creeped out the inhabitants of what is quite likely one of the creepiest towns in America. I wore sequins just last night. Very dashing I looked, too, and I only got beaten up twice. 0123456789 0123456789
MARIE DOUGHERTY
A NAMED MAUL
What was shut was shut and what was shut out dragged on the rough road with a ragged beg. With small voice from the other side of the door, or a loud thwack at the other side of the door, a swinging open of the door and a silence. These stupid-sore quilt covers, both the one who talks and the one who sleeps say it’s not about who loves whom. No. Feel the warmth of the faux-fire-screensaver, hot, hissing or however these things start funny but become fuzzy warm. Just a joke and splitting say family or say familiar, say mauled from the same log.
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JACLYN SENNE ACE
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DANIEL BORZUTZKY
THE MANNEQUIN
We set off for another state but we didn’t make it. The roads were closed and the highways were too dangerous to walk on so we headed again for a mall where we heard that the bodies were offered protection. We arrived at the mall and found that they had routed a river to run through it. The security guard at the front entrance gave us rafts and life jackets and said watch out for the floating bodies if they get caught in the bottom of your raft then the whole thing might tip. We took a few steps on the dry concrete floor before we found ourselves standing in water. You pointed at the mountains and from where we stood we saw a few bodies trying to climb them. There were wildflowers and deer and cats roaming through the mountains and the voice over the loudspeaker said that today in the food court there would be an identity recovery seminar for those who did not know who they were. We followed a father and son who set out on their raft with confidence. The father said son to get to where we need to be we will need to stop being ourselves for awhile. The father had two mannequin arms and he used these as paddles while the son simply used his hands.
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The son asked the father where they were going and the father said we are off to find your mother. She is buried beneath the river. She lives there now and she is calling us. We had just set sail on the raft when a body fell from the ceiling and landed a few feet in front of us. The ear of the body had been sliced off at the top and blood was gushing out of the skin and staining the water with blotches of red that appeared in puffs then disappeared. The body was holding a bag of money and he struggled to keep it above his head as he tried to swim with one arm towards our raft. He threw the money to us and we pulled him on board but when you explained that the bag of money was merely an extra weight that we did not wish to carry he jumped back in the water and set off to look for another raft. I don’t remember much about the next few minutes except that there were bodies and ripped clothing everywhere. I think I managed to fall asleep and when I awoke we were standing once more in the garden and I could not hold back the need to vomit. I lowered my head and retched onto a bed of tomatoes and when I came up for air there were lizards crawling all over your arms. 0123456789 0123456789
I flicked one lizard to the ground but immediately another sprung up in its place. I swept a few lizards off your head only to find more lizards sprouting up from beneath the surface of your skull. You said something about the curve of the wind and what it reveals about the thinking of God and when the lizards crawled into your mouth you accepted the silence and stretched out on the wet rocks to sleep. A few moments later you disappeared behind a wall of lizards and once more I was alone with the murmurs. They told me to walk to an intersection not far from the apartment where we used to live. I was in the middle of a strange city and I walked in what I thought was the right direction but it soon became clear that the streets were completely indistinguishable from each other. I asked a woman in a corner store for directions and she said yes yes I know those streets they are right next to these other streets that I know and then I asked her for some water but she said that she couldn’t give me any because the pipes in the city were dry.
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MITCHELL HUGH KIRKWOOD
I AM A WEALTHY TERRITORY
Tents are in South Carolina, they are small and for one and two bodies. Once tomes are written that are greater than the great Tome of Shandygaff, it will be able to send men walking great distances without shoes. “If they can’t be inside, I think they will look nice in the car park…………Matilda?” “Only Geraldo Rivera can get us there.” When your bodie is in a tent with another bodie. When your bodie is with the rum and the rum is sandy. A single orange road worker’s vest, A blue vest from Carhartt with international history wings, rubber maids for carrying, and a chair in the back of a Vietnamese market. The tents will be a city, but first, bodies will have to learn zippers and find stakes. The first one up in the morning will know what has happened when he looks to see what he could not see in the dark. I imagine he had some sand in his mouth and that he had used his shoes as a pillow. He probably wrapped his t-shirt around them and tied the sleeves together. Waking up before his two bodied tents and not as clever as it would be in any movie about a heist. I have seen the book that effectively categorizes the styles and origins of the jump shot. When a better is written, I will lose. And how do you win? Not a shit here for Dark Wing. 0123456789 0123456789
It says here that a cluster-fuck is like a newly discovered allergy. A new kind of mayonnaise on a new shelf in the gourmet section of the marinades and rubs aisle in the Osceola Cheese store. I tried them all, I and Ash ketchum’, all. But his tent did not zip all the way up. The sand got in the sand. And America is just like that. It has mountains and an affinity for the effects of a sledgehammer. It has tape rolls. Then again, it wasn’t really spring break, I just said it was. In the land of the pine we sang mambo number five o’clock somewhere over the rainbow in our two-bodie tents. And that is how my tent got full up with sand and became a one-bodie tent. RVs moved in on the tent city and the Rankor entered left of the exit wound. I heard Ash run towards me in the dark. He was leading with his head forward and arms behind, the way I assume an ostrich or emu or maybe some other bird does. Except for his knees, his knees were still facing the right direction. He wasn’t going to stop so I flipped him over my shoulder using a move I learned from the Blue Ranger. The sandbox kept him from experiencing the rest of gravity. I broke his nose and mouth. He slept with zipper open. This is how I won. 0123456789 0123456789
The way my eyes took it we had met some sort of Canadians that night. The way my face felt I really needed to eat that sandwich before tasting it. The way I yelled spring break while vomiting out the window of the white Ranger. I have eaten enough pizza in my lifetime. And, And how you win, vicariously, through jump shots, must be a personal goal. And as for me as artist as Tom Hanks as Forrest, I discovered America like a mayonnaise allergy.
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MADELINE GALLUCCI UNCLE HO
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JAMES SANDERS
snigger-far
POEM TO READ IN A CAR SITTING AT A STOPLIGHT UNTIL YOU GET HONKED AT
sashers in
upwards only the arms are awake or fluorescent falling as air w/ the sleep on around t and the sheet he white has no eyeholes oral circles ooky bawding turn off the areas and toothpaste to poise in a curl i running from the n lives phooier log w/my paws all language in my parents as doo wop too spectral to be the you n pointy or patty ecks on and to awa ke is to aim
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SANDRA SIMONDS
SCREEN OF BROKEN LINKS
Hello. Welcome to my website. I am literary like a cantaloupe. When you cut open my fruity skin, guess what you will get? That’s right: more cantaloupe. I am going to give a reading at your funeral. It is unfortunate that you will have to die first. Will you please let me brush your long black hair when you’re in the coffin? You are so silky and good. Sometimes they make coffins in the form of a toy car. Sometimes a coffin can be shaped like a strawberry cupcake. You can eat a coffin, I guarantee you that. Do you want to be buried with the moon I want to. Do you want the moon to drip fruit juice over your dead feet? Would like to wear flip flops or flats? I don’t know. I never think about those things. I am too preoccupied moving the green tank to the left part of the screen with my toes; I want the green tank to shoot Saturn. Today my son fed some boiled chicken to his plastic dinosaur and then he held the dinosaur up to my breast indicating that he wanted me to breastfeed his plastic dinosaur. That’s sick you say well yeah of course it’s a cantaloupe. Every time I see my picture on the internet, it darkens a little as I breastfeed the dinosaur. My face has the look of a mother who loves her son. Is my son a mother or a is there a coffin on my website? I want you to remove that coffin 0123456789 0123456789
you put on Saturn now. I don’t think you have any idea what it’s like to push a child through your webbed feet. It’s like the history of paper money. (All those paper leaders with their hoods on.) Everyone wants gold—but there’s nothing to exchange.
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LINH DINH COUPLE ON STONE BENCH-PHILADELPHIA
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ALICE MILLER
YOU
Inside the island ark is you and every variation of you you’ve ever imagined. You feature quite prominently as a fireman in your silver suit, clutching your hose with fog nozzle; as a veterinarian holding back the throats of groaning puppies; as a magician, spotlit, centrestage, above oohing and aahing blackness. Ah, here you are as a baby suckling, under your sheepskin hood. Here you’re sitting cross-legged on the boards as a whore, bearing a tiny axe, your brain stuffed tight with murder. Naturally, you’re here as God herself and Himself and itself and myself. You feature as all of the failed angels. And here you are a snowman about to melt. Here’s you as a Jew. A supermodel. Here’s you as ash on your mother’s hand; you as Jesus. As Phillip Seymour Hoffman; as salmon. As a fat Lady Macbeth. You feature as a small toilet stall. A poem. Caesar. You, pregnant, with no baby inside. Over here, you’re a wide-eyed suicide. In the far corner, you’re dying over and over, dead after every disease; after pursuit by knife-wielding Kings, who stab you in alleys, in libraries, who stab you up against a lady’s caramel-colored harp, your blood leaking over its catgut strings. Mostly, you feature as nothing at all.
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But in every case, the face – and there always is one – still looks like your face now; your skin surfaces like a wreck dragged up out of the ocean, and your bone structure forces up from under your skin. For this reason, you never really look like Caesar, or a fireman, or a baby, at all. I’m leaving you now, to go looking for water.
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KRISTEN ISKANDRIAN
I AM GRADING PAPERS (ALT TITLE: TO BE OR NOT TO BE, THAT IS THE ANSWER)
I am grading papers. I am grading papers. I read, “Hamlet is arguably the most famous play of all time.” I read it again. I write in the margin: It’s not fair for you to write this because you don’t know this from your own head. I think how unfair it is. I think she must have read that on the back of the VHS box of the movie with that actor in it. She doesn’t know it from her own head. Maybe one day I said it in class because I was feeling like the back of a VHS box. I am circling words and underlining them, feeling happy because with such a system chances are good I will not grade papers until I die. One underline means no. Two underlines means hmmm, ok. Circle means something. Arrows mean move this or why didn’t you move this or see this or what about this. Awk means awk. I am happy because with my system I will go to bed soon and have a dream about a place. I am grading papers about Hamlet and his antic disposition. Nobody knows what that means. Everybody writes everything and nobody knows what it means. I am tired of milk and water. I want something different besides milk and water, but everything is either milk or it is water. I think some of these people who write about Hamlet have guns. I hear them talking. I imagine how they look shooting things, shooting holes into things and seeing holes fill with blood and knowing that they made the bloodfilled holes. And then they go to sleep and they dream about places and things that are whole, that have nothing to do with bloody holes. All of the bloody holes that they’re not dreaming about come to my dream and get covered with milk and still I am grading papers. I just want to write at the top of each one, Can you tell me where I can buy a gun so that I can stop dreaming about your bloody holes? I don’t write this. I write misplaced modifier and I write this contradicts what you say earlier and I write every argument needs a thesis. And I don’t believe any of it. I am grading papers without believing in anything. I am a heathen, grading God’s papers. I want to write at the top, Can you tell me how to believe? I am grading papers and I am realizing with alarm that is like someone else’s alarm that I am the one who needs teaching. I am one and they are many and between them they probably know everything and everything they know makes them happy, whereas I don’t know anything but anything I know makes me sad. And I keep knowing sadder and getting sadder until the day comes for an incredible reversal. The day 0123456789 0123456789
comes when everything I know and everything I don’t know will be the same, and there will be only papers, milk, and water, and the milk and water will cleanse us of all desire. In a little while I am going to pour milk on these papers and eat them and I am going to pour milk on my head and eat it, and afterward when I go to bed I will dream of a meadow filled with grazing, lowing papers. I will lay down amongst them and grade them and I will simply be glad. I am losing my system in all this milk, and the water in this smudged glass looks milky, and I think I must be arguably the most famous play of all time, sitting here thirsty and grading these papers. Already there has been an overture and a first act and a second act and an intermission and a mezzanine where things are for sale, where the guns are for sale, and the students selling them are so happy! They believe in the goodishness of everything, in the -ishness of everything, in the -esqueness of everything. The programs say, Welcome to the Production of What is Arguably the Most Famous Play of All Time. They hand one to me and smile and I sit down in the very back row, also smiling, smiling their smile, the exact same one, because that is the power that they have now, here, in this theater of surrender. I grade papers throughout the third act and sip my milky water which has, I’m noticing, a little bit of head in it. I’m nervous, but nobody around me is nervous, and soon I am not nervous either. A tiny light has been supplied for me, hanging just above my slightly torn head, and I think to myself, so that’s what a dangling modifier is!—until I see that it is being held by a boy with a gun. I say thank you and he just smiles and laughs at one of the jokes in Act 3. I laugh a little too and he leans down without moving the light even a millimeter and tells me, That was one antic disposition! I write that on the top of the paper I am grading and I include a smiley-face to show that I understand the joke and I underline it twice.
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MIKE YOUNG
TRUE LIFE I WAS A CONTENT MILL
Tropicana uses three types of oranges in their juice: Valencia, Hamlin, and Pineapple Sweet. Who knows how much you paid to read that here, but eHow paid me fifteen dollars to find out. Let’s hope they don’t sue me for reproducing my own work. Message finally decoded in the Civil War-era bottle: NO HOPE FOR REINFORCEMENTS. Glad you asked? Let us hope (you go). Lettuce, what is that, for goats? Goats eat leftover Christmas trees. Eat your heart out, ghosts. To mail frozen or refrigerated food, you need to buy dry ice. Or gel coolant packs. I mean, you know you buy something. Because you need it or not. Fifteen dollars. Thanks to in-car GPS navigation systems, you no longer have to stop at backwoods souvenir havens and submit the temporary goals of your life. Let us hope you’ll stay with me until my next assignment. Cover songs are sung when it’s so cold outside everybody respects the past. In 1917, young scientist and fur trader Clarence Birdseye was hard at work in the Arctic when he noticed local Inuits preserving fish by exposing them to freezing winds. When you copy and paste shit off eHow, they force in a link to the original article. But I’m the original here, and I want to eat the hand you hit Enter with. Spread mustard over its knuckles, chew as you sit on it funny, so you can’t feel it when you stand up, which is called something when it happens in a conversation. It is called ―My hand fell asleep.‖ 0123456789 0123456789
KATHLEEN FURLONG BRUTERMA
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JACK CHRISTIAN
A GIANT REALM
We stood by the mill and told the stories of Fred, Ned, and Ed. One time, Ned flipped a cement truck. Ed owned a confident dog. Fred leased farm equipment. Fred became obsessed with the unevenness of his face. Ned said, God says cut-up in church. Ed caught a fish with his hands. Ned didn’t eat right. The donkey nearly died when Fred fed it cake. The donkey nearly broke my fingers when I saved its life. A blue heron nested by the picnic area on the Upper Catawba. Below the dam was the Lower Catawba. We moved to the mud. The dog killed a muskrat. Fred climbed after pawpaws. Ed found a bundle of wire in a stump by the bank. Ned said, we could call-up anybody. When the blue heron landed it was because of our noise.
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CHRISTINA LENERT CELL SPLITTING
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DANTE
THE INFERNO, CANTO VIII TRANSLATED BY MARY JO BANG
Picking up from where VII left off, I should say That long before we came to the foot of the high-rise Watchtower, we caught sight of something at the top— Two klieg lights. A counter-signal was sent To whomever was controlling those, But from so far off we could barely make it out. I turned to that vast ocean of knowing called Virgil, And said, “What’s this about? What’s the other lamp signaling? And who’s sending these midnight-messages?” He said, “You should be able to see what they’ve called over From across the pond’s scum-cover Unless the marsh gas is too thick.” An Ultimate Aero Couldn’t pass through air faster than the little skiff I suddenly caught sight of Cutting through the water and coming at us. It was manned by a single boatman who yelled, “I’ve got you now, you cheating no-body.” “Phlegyas, Phlegyas, not this time,” My guardian said. “You won’t get either of us Longer than it takes to cross this mud puddle.” Like someone who, after finding he’s been the patsy 0123456789 0123456789
15
In a Ponzi scam, throws a fit— So Phlegyas had his tantrum. My teacher got into the skiff, then motioned me To get in. Only when I was on board Did the boat appear to carry weight. As soon as we took our seats and settled in The worn prow took off, cutting a deeper wake Than when it held the weightless others.
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As we were fast-forwarding through the dead mill pond A man surfaced from beneath the mud and said, “Who Are YOU? And what brings you down here early?” I said, “I might be here now but that doesn’t mean I’m here To stay. But you, why do you have to live in this filth?” “You can see,” he said, “I’m someone who’s sad and crying. I told him, “Yeah, keep it up; cry your eyes out. It’s what you deserve. I can see who you are, You hell-house ghost, even with your mud-mask on.” At that, he reached out with both hands as if to grab the boat And tip it over. Virgil, ever-on-guard, pushed him off Saying, “Get back down with the other dogs.” He then threw an arm around my neck, and gave me a peck On the cheek and said, “Wow! What moral indignation! 0123456789 0123456789
Your mother was lucky to have a son like you.
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When he was up in the world he was nothing But pure arrogance. Less than zero good Is attached to his memory, so now his ghost is furious. Earth is full of men and women who act like divas But who’ll later lie in this mire like swine; They’ll be known only as someone dispised.” I said, “I’d like nothing better Than to see him pulled under the slimy surface Of this soup bowl before we get out of this boat.” He said, “Before the shore becomes visible, You’ll get your wish. It’s the kind of wish That deserves to be fulfilled.” Minutes later, the mud-covered crowd took after him; They tore him apart, limb by limb, and I still say, Thanks Good God, for letting me see it. When they began to shout, “Get Filippo Argenti!” The fractious Florentine turned on himself And began to gnaw at his own flesh. We left him there, and that’s the end of the story. It was then that the sound of sobbing struck my ears. With eyes wide open, I strain to identify the source. 0123456789 0123456789
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My teacher, pure goodness, said, “Now, mon fils, The city just ahead is called Dis and it’s filled With a vast garrison of grim-faced citizens.” “I can already make out the domed shapes,” I said, “At the margin where the swamp ends and the suburbs begin, Glowing like coals fresh from a campfire.” He said, “As you can see, The never-ending fire inside the city Makes them look neon red in this nether-hell.”
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We kept on until finally we reached the moats That defended that Hotel California. The walls, high reaching To the horrid roof, seemed made of molten iron. We had to make a huge circle before we came to the place Where the sullen boatman hollered back to us, “Get out here! It’s the entrance.” Gathered at the gates were some thousand or more angels Who’d once fallen from heaven like a hard rain. The angry mob was shouting, “Who’s this Who’s not dead but is cutting through this deadhead Kingdom Come.” My savvy master made a gesture That he’d like to talk to them in private. At that, they quieted slightly, then said, 0123456789 0123456789
“Fine, but just you. Let the pompous brat who dared Breech the kingdom’s security go back by himself. Let him try to retrace his idiot steps. As if he ever could! You’ll have to stay with us For having brought him across in the dark.”
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Think about it—my doppelganger-reader— Wouldn’t you have lost heart like I did, after hearing that? I knew I couldn’t find my way back. “Look, teacher,” I said, “so many times You’ve restored my confidence And rescued me from what seemed like certain ruin. Please don’t leave me this way. I can’t survive. If they refuse to let us go on, Let’s quickly go back the way we came.” The one who’d brought me this far, looked at me And said, “Don’t worry. No one can say no To the one who said we could make this trip. Wait here for me. Your spirit’s exhausted; tell it To have hope, that things will soon be better. I’m not about to desert you here in the underworld.” So—there he goes, my gentle Freudian father figure, And I’m abandoned, and I sit and watch while yes 0123456789 0123456789
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And no (I will survive, I won’t) wage war inside my head. I couldn’t catch a word of what he was saying But he wasn’t there very long before the angels—shoving And elbowing each another—scurried back inside the gates. Then these, our adversaries, clanged shut the gates In the face of my teacher who was left standing outside. He turned and walked slowly toward me. Keeping his eyes on the ground, and with a furrowed brow That spoke a lack of confidence, he sighed and said, “Who are they to say I can’t enter this theatre of grief. But you mustn’t be upset,” he said, “Just because I am. I’ll prevail, Whatever plot they’re hatching to try to stop us.
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Their hubris is nothing new. They tried this trick long ago at a less hidden gate And it’s still standing open. You saw the sign above it, the message to the dead. Someone is already on his way here, coming down The embankment, crossing the circles without an escort; He’ll open the city to us.”
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NOTES TO CANTO VIII
9. “Who’s sending these midnight-messages?”: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Paul Revere’s Ride”: first published in The Atlantic Monthly in January 1861. The poem ends: In the hour of darkness and peril and need, The people will waken and listen to hear The hurrying hoof-beat of that steed, And the midnight-message of Paul Revere. Longfellow’s translation of the Inferno, first published in 1867 by Ticknor and Fields, Boston, Massachusetts, was the first American translation. 13. An Ultimate Aero: The Ultimate Aero is the fastest production car in the world. Its recorded top speed (verified by the Guinness World Records) of 256.18 mph equals 375.73 fps. Arrows from some contemporary compound bows reach speeds of over 350 fps. 19. Phlegyas: In Greek mythology, Phlegyas is the son of Mars (the god of war) and Chryse. In a fit of anger, following the rape of his daughter, Coronis, by Apollo, he set fire to the temple of Apollo at Delphi. He was, in turn, killed by Apollo and sent to Tartarus, the netherworld region reserved for those who sin against the gods. 32-33. A man surfaced from beneath the mud and said, “Who/Are YOU?: Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Chapter 5: “Advice from a Caterpillar”): The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in silence: at last the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth, and addressed her in a languid, sleepy voice. “Who are YOU?” said the Caterpillar. “Who Are You” is a song composed by Pete Townshend, of the hard rock band, The Who. 0123456789 0123456789
It was recorded in October 1977 and released in 1978, first as a single and then as the title track on The Who’s 1978 release, Who Are You, the last album released before the death of the drummer Keith Moon in September 1978. It is currently used as the theme song for the television series, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. 77. Hotel California: “Hotel California” is the title song of the 1977 album by the rock band, the Eagles; it was first released as a single in October of 1977. It is ranked 49th on the Rolling Stone Magazine’s list of “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Times.” “Relax,” said the night man, “We are programmed to receive. You can check out any time you like, But you can never leave!” 77-78. high reaching/To the horrid roof: John Milton, Paradise Lost (Book II): . . . At last appear Hell-bounds, high reaching to the horrid roof, And thrice threefold the gates; three folds were brass, Three iron, three of adamantine rock, Impenetrable, impaled with circling fire, 109. So—there he goes, my gentle Freudian father figure: Sigmund Freud created a structural model of the unconscious that contained three divisions: the id, the ego, and the superego (in German, “das Über-Ich”—literally, the upper- or over-I). According to Freud, men identify with their fathers (and father substitutes) as a means of resolving libidinal jealousies known as Oedipal Complexes. The thoroughly integrated super ego stands in for the father’s authority and ensures the continuation of social order and morality.
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