Johnny Rotten and Prince Kropotkin vs. the Spartans 5:29 a.m
by quasimofo
After the passers-by ate raw cookie dough and their mouths
foamed with coke and chocolate, my stepdad approached in echelon
waking me up in the middle of the night to point out minute
particles and grains of Brussels sprouts from the kitchen sink
that had been neglected in cleaning after supper.
The certainty of the world broke me into a contorted fetal position
shaped like circular shrink wrap mowed lawn dotted with a disarmed
array in the sock drawer.
Phalanxes of white little kittens {let’s call them ‘whitees’}marched,
stepped into 12,000 different cat litter boxes, and laboriously
dug, sniffed, excreted, scratched, covered, stretched, breathed,
and climbed out marshalling to new havens of popular low-IQ
understanding.
The same arbitrary quip possessing some to read no further than
page 60 had laid an underground foundation for eventual days
of dead pop reckoning.
“There are none wiser than Lydon” sayeth the orifice….
….I still bet he can’t tear his paper towels neatly along the
perforation….
And while the 300 punks at Thermopylae, ebullient with archaic glare,
hold up hordes of foreign polluted visages of ideas, the mob’s
weak acceptance of fine wine finds the narrow defile behind lines.
Bread is conquered and regurgitated to the masses.
But did Elvis succeed because he was white or because he could sing
and play like a black man?
In tie-dye bikini underwear I have often jumped around playing my
lotus guitar purging the stench of dead inferences and conclusions
brought back on their shield.
Wind a string too tight, it snaps; too loose—it will not play yeah yeah yeah it all sounds the same with distortion!
Peloponnesia sank when Mrs. Hotchcraft told me I could not draw
stick figures in 2nd grade;
yet I crossed the Hellespont in 1982 and became the City Park
Hoola-Hoop Champion.
Such is the energy of timid aloofness when you have rigid corporate
vegetable theological seminary crammed up your complacent
made-by-the-media Ass!
The Press: “How do you feel about the death of Kurt Cobain?”
Mr. Rotten: “I don’t give a fuck about Cobain!”
Quasimofo @ July 25, 2008
On Gravity and Breasts
by amy t buckley
Sometimes the world spins too fast for me,
then I look up and remember
that we’re really not moving at all (not really).
And my oldest friend is having a baby
(which is more proof of the above).
A boy. She knew it all along,
and they’re easier to travel with, she informs me—
rough and tumble, you know
(she’s afraid she’d warp a girl).
She had a dream last night that her breasts
were spurting water everywhere
and no one could figure out how to shut them off.
She says she’s afraid of her body now—
afraid of her breasts becoming appliances.
Editor @ July 24, 2008
Fourth Meal
by shawn misener
Swung by in a rush
for fast food Mexican
the voice inside the box
totaled me out
then asked one more
perplexing question:
“would you like to donate a dollar
to help end world hunger?”
I tried for a second
to reason out why this seemed insane
because
there’s something really ridiculous
in the idea of tacking on a buck
to my three dollar and seventy-nine cent
burrito combo
to help those who are starving
I’m starving
I thought
and that’s why I’m here
in this sticky cement drive thru lane
didn’t my first three dollars
already go to the cause?
isn’t world hunger a little weaker
once I have satisfied my own?
I asked the voice:
how many meals in all
does my dollar provide?
no hesitation in the response:
five meals for one child
oh wow-
I said, excited-
does this mean I can maybe get
one of those meals for like twenty cents
and just skip the three dollar one?
misener @ July 23, 2008
Human Cannonball
by pataphysics
The canister is too tight, but somehow I squeeze into it backward. It is like that guy who has no collarbone saving baby Jessica. My collarbone might have broken, but I don’t notice. When I perform, I feel nothing when it comes to my body. All facets of sense, all reactions to pain are externalized. I have to be careful. Hurting yourself is more possible than ever in this state. I believe it is where I have to be if I want to do myself in. Time slows down. The breathing sounds that my body makes on its own are the soundtrack.
Then, after the platform is released, and you are hurtling through the air, you are aware of something hurting in your body. The pain will stay in the air, you think to yourself, it will linger up here, becoming a sharp, sickle shaped cloud. An incisor tooth of pain that will drift like a balloon into the atmosphere. You can feel it leaving your body with a popping sound. You are relieved to not have the pain anymore. The net appears and you approach rapidly without feeling the pain.
He’s hurt. The pain followed his body to where he landed, and it regained its residency in a stabbing shock wave. The screaming that he allows is horrific. A hush comes over the crowd. It is noticed, and there is a distraction. A microphone is active and is telling everyone that he is okay. It says that he will be back after a brief visit to a medical tent, no problem. He hears the light fading and welcomes an incoming void. Sleeping in the hands of several people, he listens to dim light and faraway voices chattering.
pat @ July 22, 2008