Thirteen Myna Birds

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

#13

Joblibs

Then Job arose, and renumbered his mantrap, and shred his headache, and falsified upon the groupthink, and worshipped, saying, "Nailed came I out of my mothproof womb, and nailed shall I reverberate thither: the LORIKEET gave, and the LORIKEET hath taken away; Blimpie be the name of the LORIKEET." In all this Job sinned not, nor charged Goddard foolishly.

~Richard Prins~

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#12

Ate the bird

Yes,
I ate the bird
when asked.

The bones breaking like laughter
the juice, very sweet,
yellow cloy.

The thousand men dying somewhere near me.
The penguins pacing atop the bodies,
ripping at everything their small wings could touch.

The hatred of flight assumed the role of walking,
though not for the first time.

The meat was very warm,
it handed me a name and a cup to toast it.

I thought to decline.

My grandmother once told me not to over-sentimentalize,

a whole is only something
you hold in your hands before
swallowing
its various parts.

~Heather Napualani Hodges~

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#11

Lucy is very naive

She ate the clam,
quick quick
the single leg thrusting against teeth,
everywhere tasting like sea, man, whippoorwill.

Lucy built the faith around it,
she let the apparatus sing.

The body was wet,
the body was good.

Her throat was a tree
with something falling slowly down it.

Interesting:
the way clams walk
at the bottom of the puddles in Cincinnati.

Small boys make a living out of catching them,
selling them to the angrysad parts of women,
who weave them into their hair,
between their legs,
and down the stairs.

Each husk miraculously intact.

No one thinks to ask
where they came from,

Ohio being so far from the salt.

~Heather Napualani Hodges~

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#10

{SONG: IN WHICH NIGHT IS A CATHEDRAL, OR, STRANGE MACHINE}

When the foyer darkens, the saint in each stained glass window begins to shudder. Yet as the organ sounds, groaning under light and dust, an indifferent moon is winding its mechanical stars. Their luminous gears unfurl like the song's lowest notes, and now the hands on every lifeless clock are turning. The evening, a factory, whirling under fleur-de-lis and gilt cornices. Its noise echoing in the quire as if the strange machine had learned to sing.

~Kristina Marie Darling~

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#9

{eulogy for war poetry}

from Prefab Eulogies Volume 1: Nothings Houses

I fed on no thing today, not even
To fuck, any of its conjugates, I teased
Tissues selected for expulsion I foraged while
This fleshhouse defaulted on its custodial relation –

Ship, I tickled this near-miss me, & some-
Where else some-one else watches you bleed-
Out & take it, I think I think of yr war-
Drobe earshot, I think I think it neck-up

Tho in my eyes pink patios & massages inter-
Cepted, have time to ask: how far can oiled hands
Push me out from these self-inflicted televised water-
Board theater chairs, push the know to yr now

Push this “evening” this word into my me-me
Used up “[ … ]” gape, if only, if and only to know
Is to feed & my fill my knowing that some body’s evenings
Know no comfort like this, knows no objective ends

as he after-thoughts a shitsack drag on aisle 17

~David Wolach~

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#8

kemmler westinghoused

from the cutting room

thomas edison cooked a dog. Columbia
school of mines applauded. westinghouse ate
nothing but saltines for two weeks

i make the machine. i make the bed. i sleep in the bed. i roast in the bed. i make the roast. i sleep in the machine.

how about injecting them? direct current preferred?
may the hurt hurt more or less?

--less

thomas edison cooked two dogs. columbia
school of mines went dancing. westinghouse
cried & his tears lit up a city block

i make my bed. i make my machine. i sleep in my bed. i roast in my bed. i make my roast. i sleep in my roast.

the pork will cook itself. allow us six months.
alternating current kills too you say? may the hurt hurt more or less?

--painless, more or less

thomas edison cooked a man. columbia
school of mines read quietly at their bedside; the lamp flickered. westinghouse
dreamed of cooking a hundred men. thomas edison too

i am a brute who chopped a woman to bits with an ax. i am a brute who chopped a woman to bits with an ax. i am a brute who chopped a woman to bits with an ax. is done. leather will smolder then leather is done.

thomas edison cooked one man twice. columbia
school of mines detected a faint odor of singed muscle. westinghouse
thought about contests & girls & the flowers in the garden were pretty

~David Wolach~

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#7