Saturday, October 24, 2015

Arabella Raincloud, Finding the Edge

                Ho|ma|ge to the Bloodhand Theater, 
                       image by Daniel Y. Harris 



Finding the Edge

I’ve lost my fingers to the pinch point
(something about manipulation)
(something about mutilation)
(something about cuts and programmable people)

I don’t want you to read this
(something about loss)
(something important)

I’ve worried too much about what was said
(something secret goes here)
(something like duckweed spread over the surface
so thick you think you can walk on the water
then end up wet-footed, tricked into sinking)

I keep my mouth shut now
dabble stumps in the nearest puddle
(something meaningful here)
(something left open)
(something dry)


—Arabella Raincloud




Friday, October 23, 2015

Rupert M. Loydell, from THE SILENCE INSIDE


"Portrait of Dr. Doubt" 
image by AC Evans  


from THE SILENCE INSIDE

--Rupert M. Loydell 



‘Maybe a man could not bear how the world had turned pallid, washed out, grey, every day a photocopy of the last.’
   - Peter Murphy, Shall We Gather At The River


‘What we are reluctant to touch often seems the very fabric of our salvation.’
   – Don DeLillo, White Noise



TRUST

Doctor Doubt is a doctor of doubt,
a one-man inquisition who questions
everything he was taught to believe.
Who says? How does that work?
Is that right? Well I never. That’s
just what they want you to think.
Negation and cynicism, disbelief
and doubt, are the foundations of
his self-conferred certification.

He would like to feel himself
slide through the wall, fall through
the floor, walk on water and live
on air: show everyone that everything
they know is wrong. But he can’t.
He is trapped in an endless loop
of unanswered questions and comments
which suggest that he knows best
but that you should never trust him.


SPIN DOCTOR

Nobody can see the wind
or the way electricity moves
through the wires. We do not
know or understand the things
that make up our world.

Trees grow, plants die, animals
breed and eat, do not need us
to organize or interfere, we are
just part of the scheme of things.
Do not doubt it, do not attempt

to make us more important
than we are. We are not
the centre of the universe,
suggests Doctor Doubt,
putting his own spin on things.


PERHAPS

Who knows what the Doctor is
looking for? It’s easy to say faith
but just as likely it’s a perfect
round pebble or the meaning
of marks found on a kerbstone.
Perhaps it’s just somewhere to sit
out of the wind, where the god
and his friends cannot find him.


THE SILENCE INSIDE

We make it from language,
states Doctor Doubt, cognition
is language is thought is life.

Only when we name
does it become meaning,
can we know anything.

There is nothing there,
so to speak, before
we begin to speak.

I only hurt when I know
I hurt, only love when…
Well, I never have.

The words cease. Doctor Doubt
falls quiet. He cannot describe
the silence inside, how

he would like to be loved,
spoken to, named and held,
cannot afford to doubt himself.


EMPTY

Doctor Doubt’s days are empty,
though he likes to sit in the sun
and ponder this fact.

Doctor Doubt’s mind is empty,
all he has to think about
is how endless the days are.

Doctor Doubt’s head is empty,
he has run out of days, of time.
Death is, in fact, a fact. 



Monday, October 19, 2015

Daniel Y. Harris & John Amen, excerpt from the manuscript, THE GOLDEN VOID, "The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even"


Veni, omnipotens aeterne Diabolus! image by Daniel Y. Harris 




The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even

A squatter named Marcel speaks while being lowered by gurney from an abandoned apartment complex. He had been stirring flammable liquids in beakers with a broken glow stick before the ensuing explosion and fire.

The Bride’s domain is jaundiced, oily declension
of lead foil and subjunctive dust, Vatican and Sistine,
virgin dust of Papal Bulls, chastity belts as a gown
of cracked glass. I should have killed Picabia in Jura,
buried his body in layers of bioclasts and oolitics—nothing
governs slippage.

The flammable liquids, it turns out, were comprised of a composite of glycerin and potassium permanganate. Marcel had swallowed halon or HFC-227 to interfere with the usual chemical reaction, which, to his mortification, didn’t work.

The insectile, monochromatic triptych with hint of a breast
stirs tentacle projections of a sexy misplaced ear, arches
the simian she becomes on a night of skin over wire.
                                                                                   “I am a sodomized
queen, raped by a rook between slits of broken
pane—my v-shaped proboscis, mechanical hip, and thrusters,
slender in silk, recede up a shapely thigh—sheer,
hydraulic.”

“Just drop me, you fetishists,” Marcel yelled to the paramedics, before continuing to break into metonymies of a drone-poesis with savage heaves.

Erect on nine malic molds, the Bachelors stir like empty carcasses
or wet shirts hanging from a clothesline. Seven conical cylinders
effect circumcision—rotate, gyrate, penetrate the slow rapture
of the chocolate grinder. Fellatio is exegetical. I mean it as pedagogy,
to be studied and redacted, we of the x-shaped rod, on a night
of ridges, lubricants, and six circles.

The paramedics notice that Marcel’s head is a circle; not circular, per se, nor circle-shaped, as if one meant a tad more circular than a normatively shaped round head, but rather a circle. A perfect circle.

Capped with a sphere to coat the shards (dried blood with discolored
cracks from years of transport), the Bachelors’ domain becomes an
amphitheater of feet churning, the hegemon stuck in a feedback loop
without the possibility of climax.

39 St. Mark’s Street. Theater of the Rollicking Cusp. Rehearsal #4, Blood in Eden.

A narrator, garbed in black cloak and boots, face darkened by shadow; actors motionless on the stage, ready to come to life, as it were, enact his well-elocuted words:

The empress-vampire, flanked by sycophantic drones,
paces a labyrinth beneath the City of Eden. She has grown
to appreciate, nay relish, mold and reptilian remains,
the way the earth moans like a didgeridoo. Her powers
now bore her—astral travel, psychic preemption, trans-
defiance of phenomenal law. Blah!
                                            At night, though, she and her
hematophic flock emerge like starving chiropteras, rising
from manholes and foul sewage tracts. They stalk the alleys
and theater districts, combing Banker’s Boulevard in hopes
of quarrying some drunken broker high on the dragon.
                                                    Ah, the city in darkness.
Red nimbus throbbing in the cottony gray. Electric music
wafting from bars. The young men with their ripe dreams
and randy flesh, their desire like breath in a breathless grave.

No, no, no, screams the director as the leather-clad vixen enters the stage. You have no sense of timing, he bellows. Skip it, skip it, the director continues, just move to the next fucking scene. Jesus, people, this isn’t Shakespeare.

The narrator clears his throat, resumes at the director’s prompting:

In the hotel off Eldritch River, where bohemians convene
to drink and dissolve, and paramours ensnare their patrons,
The Chosen One (he does not yet know of his epic destiny)
sucks an opium pipe, recalls with nostalgia his provincial home.
On the muddy banks, the opalescent empress spurs her legions;
bathed in waves of moonlight, they advance, scaling the hotel,
hundreds of deranged bugs scuttling towards an open window.

Not sure about this, mumbles the writer. He has been waiting for his Moo Goo Gai Pan for two hours now. The only saving grace is the vixen winking at him from across the aisle. Two days prior she had said, so, you’re the God of this, huh. They had gone out for drinks, though she spent the entire (fucking) time on her cell phone, bantering with some vociferous and high-pitched call-girl named Jennie (he had wondered if they were lovers).

Now, the director blurts, the climactic scene. The climactic scene!

The empress, now redeemed by her love for The Chosen One,
reclines in the velvet coffin where for centuries she has slept.
You must drive the stake through my heart, she moans, but first:
tease me with that mortal tongue in this place that for years waned boreal,
but now waxes tropical from your throbbing promise. Together they draw,
the empress’s face, for so long pallid, now flushed with yearning.
Yes, God, she moans as The Chosen One lowers his face to her
dewy clume.

          And then he penetrates her sacred cavern, quick and dead
in perfect syncopation. The stake now upon her heaving breast, she
hollers like a barmaid: Soon, soon I shall be released, but not,
my love, prematurely! He feels within his phallus the expanding heat,
grabs the hammer as woefully vowed; and, as he erupts into her
smoldering loins, drives the stake into her now forgiven and again
mortal heart. I die, yes, alas, she groans, I die! The vampire-empress,
gloriously spent, turns to ash in the hoary arms of The Chosen One.

Final scene: As The Chosen One stares at the now ashen form of his love, a breeze blows through the open window, dispersing the remains of the empress throughout the room. The Chosen One rolls onto his back, shaking his fist at the indifferent sky.

Applause. Cheers. That’s it for tonight, says the director. Not too bad for a first run-through. Be back tomorrow. 7PM, goddamn it. Now, anybody up for Indian?

Even—Marcel2 i = The Chosen e i·ln(2) = cos: The Bride
(ln(2))+i·sin(ln(2)) = Stripped Bare (e π) i = 535.49 i = 1
0.7692+i·0.63896 = the Bachelor Machine as matrix of eros—prefer French
to Indian. Prefer the anachronism of 1912: the malic molds
point to eight liveries and uniforms (policeman, calvaryman, flunky,
funeral director, constable, priest, deliveryman, footman): Marcel’s
ashen form of love, the illuminating gas. Viscosity,
                                                                                   which I doubt or the large
glass with its shaft of freed metal, this champ le du I bequeath to you,
sex cylinders, readymades, et al. I have lost singularity—H. Mutt’s
urinal has erased my name from retina to brain. I am the occultic witness
who owes nothing to shibboleths. I liquefy in the fractured m-dash,
blending into yellow perfumes, then reverting back to pistons moved by air
currents. The dénouement of slippage with necktie and bayonet: severed
between acts and misdirected to the final scene.
Even—Marcel: bicyclewheelPharmacy
BottleDryerInadvanceofthebrokenarmPulledat4pinsCombTraveller’sFold
ingItemWithHiddenNoiseApolinéreEnamelledTrss
Unhappyreadymade50ccofParisAirL.H.O.O.Q.50
ccofParisAirBelleHaleineEaudeVioletteWanted$2000Reward
FreshWidowTheBrawlatAusterlitzWhynotSneezeRroseSélavyReady
madesunalteredobjectsAssistedreadymadesRectifiedreadymades
CorrectedreadymadesReciprocalreadymadesusingRembrandt
asanironingboard.

Applause. Cackles. You thought it was over for tonight, says the director. Not too bad for a deja run-back through it from a swerving unfocused angle. Be back the day before last Tuesday’s postponement. 8PM, for the love of goddamn it. Now, anybody up for seeing if the body made a crack in the sidewalk?

Even—Marcel
Stephane is dead. The chalky crime scene. Paramedics check his tattered pockets and retrieve a marble, a centime, a thimble, a Mona Lisa cutout, and a crumpled page torn from a theosophical encyclopedia, chapter MCMXII. 
Marcel with a Centime

The thermodynamic orchestra is enclosed in a mobile
cage, its conductor sporting a metallic lung—the earthworm
plays a zither from core mechanomorphic to digitomorphic:
                                                                                                 burrows,
cranks—the penal pistons—gears of a motherboard
at night in the rain with a wireless mouse.
                                                                    I have returned. Not
what you think. Chassis with legs, ideogrammatic tubes, the magento
of base (cf. the welter of base)— to assume my post
as Chief Elder of the Istic Society. Please bear with my lustful
masonry as I reveal my inmost self.
                                                           The bivector spin
and the electroweak augment complex phases
of the 24-root vector gauge, the wheel’s eight paddles dark and clear:
                                     luminous bardo from Gehinnom
to Gan Eden to the sunspot half-period of twelve years.
Within a few seconds, a later heaven, one eye—
for almost an hour the occultist changing his mind.
                             
(Turns out, to expand the memoir, that the crumpled page torn from a theosophical encyclopedia is a section of a far more ominous codex, stuffed in Marcel’s coat in desperation. It’s discovered postmortem in the small apartment at 23 rue Saint-Hippolyte.)  



—Daniel Y. Harris & John Amen

Friday, October 16, 2015

Ed Coletti, Bricolage

                                     
                                                    "A Mona Lisa for Psychotics," 
                                          (16 x 20 Watercolor), image by Ed Coletti 


Bricolage

Sursum corda
from taedium vitae
as illicit fandango
quickens to saraband
where
you’re on your own
all alone
with my enchantment
words and phrases
tongues as petals
leaves of grass
slight susurrus
stretto and al segno

Who is this pathetic quid nunc
a veritable National Enquirer
who playing Cassandra
nudges chaos in to form-
al actus reus
whose life work
re presents no thing
but trompe l’ oeil?
Spider-elbowed camarilla’s
badinage
gets right to
the mandamus
of baksheesh—
timely pay each tranche
lest the tattooed Argus
drop you deep into
an oubliette

where
“nil desperandum”
is never heard,                          

where
“memento mori”
can only be drowned
in endless waiting.

Forgive such
gallimaufry,
learn from it
that fun can be
antidote
to karoshi.
Permit yourself
to romp farouche,
cha cha cha
your soul away;
discover
the vertiginous
opening


                                                Ed Coletti 

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Margie Shaheed, SANOBIA MOORE


               "S./a|No.bi>a," image by Daniel Y. Harris & Irene Koronas



“Mailman, mailman, do yo’ duty
Here comes a lady wida African booty
She can do pom-poms
She can do splits
Ah betcha $5 she caint do dis”



SANOBIA MOORE*

People come to the bar for different reasons—to drink
and socialize and dance to the loudest jukebox in town
They come swearing by
the ranting of a particular DJ
who will have them
jumping from their seats
singing and popping fingers,
clapping their hands
He plays all the right songs
at the right time, all night long, and they sweat
Some come to fellowship
where you’ll find teachers, PhDs
and lawyers pitching cartwheels
with preachers, pimps, poets and whores
Some people come just to talk loud—
they can’t do it anywhere else

People come here to pick up somebody new 
to squeeze them tightly into next morning’s light
They come to hawk their wares
Some people come to show off their clothes
sparkling pinky fingers erect
Some folks don’t drink alcohol at all
they come to tell lies, learn about the truth,
talk politics, and turn religion on its side
They come to do crossword puzzles
People come to meditate, to share good news,
talk themselves whole, to heal whatever’s ailing them—
it’s cheaper than paying for a doctor
Some come to show off vacation photos
They come to eat hot fish dinners on Friday night
or pass out cigars when a new baby is born
Some people come to see if they left
their cell phones last night
They come when syllables grow dull and flat
in their mouths—when words are not easily found
They come to show off their children’s straight A
report cards; they are proud
Some are simply on a drug run…

But when they come to Barry’s Corner Bar and Grill
on Tuesday nights they come just to watch
Sanobia Moore’s big, fine, round ass
as she struts it back and forth on high-heeled shoes
She is a bar star
The original rump shaker
Men come from near and far
follow her around from bar to bar
to be entertained by those
hefty luscious hips

Wipe the cobwebs out of your eyes!
Her voluptuous hips are the ease
of movement on a playground swing
She is the Hottentot Venus
on display for all to see—
difference is her fleshy buttocks
shatters the walls of cages
The one thing that can hold down
these hips almighty is tight fabric
and they fight against that too
these hips are meant to be free

Now, it’s a well-known fact
when she steps behind the bar 
the eyeballs of men pop out of their sockets
roll across the floor and anchor themselves
to her feet where they quickly
turn their gaze to 180 degrees
As part of the act, she gets one
of her girls to collect money
for the jukebox, and tells
her to play Prince’s “Sexy Motherfucker
When the music starts,
she picks one lucky guy
to rub her behind up-against
his firm thighs knowing full damn well
it will move him from stasis to motion
make him vibrate, shake and cry
Especially as he watches her walk away
slinging her wide ass from left to right

Sanobia, the original rump shaker,
has the crowd exactly where she wants them
She tosses up a bottle of liquor
catches it mid-air
and slams it down on the bar all in one stroke
Cocks her mouth to the side,
and with her Louisville accent she shouts,
“Where all mah boyz at cuz Ah wonah give ‘em
a hit of dis thang!”
They holler out answering her in unison,
“Heah we is!” 

Her ass is the main attraction and she knows it—she loves it
she invites attention to take a seat in the front row
The men cheer her on as she pastes her red painted hands
on her tiny waist held together by thick black leather
further accentuating her mountain of an ass
She bends over just wide enough
to give spectators a proper right view
she turns around winks at the crowd
and dares anyone to climb on
And there you have it—her ass—shining in the spotlight
as she shamelessly wiggles and jiggles it
winding her behind round and round
in a full clockwise circle
Overcome, one man points his finger at her
and screams out what everybody’s thinking,
“Man, you see that gurl shakin’ her big o’ ass like dat?”
The men go wild

She smiles
With that she stands straight up
parks her ass on her high-heeled shoes
Swoops up a hand full
of shot glasses from the top shelf
slams down one in front
of each man present
She knows, as she works the bar
her booty churns out the notes
of a booming crescendo
and is the source of all African rhythms
She dances, plays and prances

She stops to pour a shot of liquor
for each man and puts it on her personal tab
As etiquette has it
no one drinks from his glass
until the last man’s shot is poured

But not before Sanobia picks up the cowbell
waves it loudly in the air,
and announces at the top of her lungs,
“Alluv the boyz in the bar jus’ hada drink
on Sanobia Moore! Ah don’t know why but y’all
got me feelin’ a lil’ freaky up in heah tonite so
Ah jus’ had to give alluv y’all a hit of dis thang!”
The men rush to their feet clapping thunder, cheering,
blowing whistles and catcalls through their teeth
and the cash register rings all night long…

People come to the bar for different reasons—to drink
and socialize and dance to the loudest jukebox in town
But when they come to Barry’s Corner Bar and Grill
on Tuesday nights they come just to watch
Sanobia Moore’s big, fine, round ass
as she struts it back and forth on high-heeled shoes!


—Margie Shaheed


*Sanobia Moore, was originally published in the anthology, LipSmack 2 (NightBallet Press 2013)