I finally got word that the first part of my seven-section poem "I discover i is an android" has posted in the "sneaky previoo" section of Shampoo #30 HERE!!! My name is John for those of you who don't know...I'm particularly excited about this publication because two contributors to this journal's last edition (Kevin Killian and Rae Armantrout) have both been included in previous "Best American Poetry" anthologies...which means that this is the most respectable (i.e., widely read) publication I've squeaked into yet! Anyway, the other six parts of the poem should be appearing over the next few weeks, so keep checking in!
post edit: So some of you may have noticed in my blog last week that I'd FINALLY gotten an interview for a writing job. At the time I had no idea what the hell it was for, but found out at the interview that I'd basically be writing and editing the text content for businesses building simple websites through a variety of hosts (mostly AT&T, though - the evil telecommunications empire!).
The plus side is that I'd be writing/editing for a living, i.e. actually making use of my forty thousand dollar education each and every day - which could only be a boon for my own personal writing.
The down side, you ask? I'd be working a swing shift. A fucking swing shift! Five p.m. to 1 a.m. Which would not be a huge problem if I were single. The kicker is that my gf is a pastry chef, which means that she works from 7:30 in the morning to about 3:30 in the afternoon (though she generally ends up working about 2 more hours in overtime. So, long story short, we would NEVER see each other, except on weekends, barring a huge re-arrangement of her sleeping schedule.
Now, I've been hoping to get a little more time to myself, but this is ridiculous.
Oh, did I mention I got the job?
So here's the big question folks: Do I take it?
Poem!
[portrait]
she soft intaglio in age-
yellowed ivory
supplesmoothseam-
less taut
he keen-
edged (pallid
shriek opening
to red
as tongue-
speak (rose
cannot cut such
buttery surfaces
petalthorns her
teeth pale
roots clutch
catch hold.
soft animal breath
silkcut
roomcell viral heat pouring
'round rib-
bon(e)s.
we insistent encyst.
body stretched in-
cised canvas.
[Mr.s and Mrs.s]
Mr. awakes.
Its time accelerates. The surrounding world
is hurrying, rushing toward its fate,
a fate suddenly, clearly now
entwining with itself.
It's a Mrs.
Days, years, come now!
She is waiting,
on her long, delicate, curved legs, a Mrs., tall, graceful,
soul full of regrets and plans, a real soul.
Expectant flesh?
Marble is sweating. Afternoon darkens.
Still, he is alive
mange of sparks makes a skull itch painfully. It's the reddened water. It's a running pain. It's
enlarging, as he approaches.
in his immense suffering a
delicate central chamber, struggling in the packing. It's the reddened water of useless memory flowing
aimlessly but not purposelessly in its small
passages leaking all
over - miniscule, multiple punctures
over - miniscule, multiple punctures.
small veins of his faith in himself burst. He falls into new darkness again and again, into new ponds.
Eyes,
make him suffer from the weight of the mail combined with the weight of slavery;
shadow he casts in front of him speaks volumes about this.
Mr. with a charred face.
Every today -
it is, isn't that natural? -
down at a slant (some drifting, no doubt) with their hands at rest, pressed against their legs
- outside, they would get bored -
swells up wildly toward the Mr. who
stops, stupefied,
dropping his work (although he was quite
engrossed in it), dropping everything to
obey the fatal fascination
empyrean like a cannon shell of future bliss.
Mr.s and Mrs.s have longed for so much,
so much, at last they have reached it.
There they are.
to be honest, i havnt met many americans.
i get a few that come to our shop when theyre on holiday and they'll flirt with me really badly haha!
theyre always the ones old enough to be my dad