ARGYRANTHEMUM MADERENSE by Jarrett Bywaters FEEDING CYCLE OF THE CLOCK: by Martin Elwell at 3:00am on sunday i woke with the blissful un-obligated whim of a labrador released by old age and the end of hunting season no longer burdened by sunrise at 3:00am on monday i woke with the weight of predatory cats on my chest in the crystalline blue light of the alarm clock's blinking colon and various growling punctuation marks at 3:00am on tuesday i woke to the sound of enamel rubbing hungry enamel like the un-oiled hinge of our back door swinging in fall's predawn frost at 3:00am on wednesday i was torn open by scavengers who nosed through the rotting leftovers of my repose and left limping into the trees at 3:00am on thursday i cowered under the circling flight of bats chirping, salivating and ingesting the bloody morsels of my dreams at 3:00am on friday i searched blindly for nourishment grubbing in the grassy darkness and spreading the dirt with my boney fingers but saturday with the brush of her freckled hand domesticated and shadowed in the muted silver haze of moon i slept without looking at the clock DAY PLANNER by Martin Elwell I’ve abandoned moon gazing, beach sitting, napping, meditating, and bird watching. I’ve given up on sitting still long enough to watch a candle burn, a camp fire consume itself, snow fall, wind blow, clouds pass, veins pulse, or one foot tap. I work: waking, dressing, running, showering, re-dressing, driving, passing everyone to gain a few seconds, tailgating, speeding, lane switching… hand gesturing, radio singing, cell phone talking, text messaging, parking… saying good morning, key striking, word scanning, ink scribbling, and symmetrically organizing. I participate: scribble notes in meetings to keep my hands moving, take the stairs, answer questions, respond to e-mails (hundreds of them). I assign work, manage performance, monitor behavior, host conference calls, argue, piss, laugh, leave. I run errands: food shopping, picking up dry cleaning, complaining, scheming, worrying about this in order to avoid worrying about that. I clean dishes, swallow Advil, yawn, fake a smile, my metabolism slows, my motivation declining. I download porn, sit on the couch, watch a sitcom, channel surf…my head nods, my eye lids close, the moon unlooked at, the beach in darkness, one lark singing somewhere else. 
ONCE UPON A TIME: REGULAR by Robert Sanders RETIREMENT PARTY by Alan Britt When language and experience are severed, the image is deemed to be old, tattered along its gilded leather edges, complacent, all too given to the moral rhetoric of its age. When language refuses pollen from the sagging orange trumpet of the squash flower because it has found a sentimental salve to protect its upper thighs against our most carnivorous caresses. Then this language absently fanning an acoustic guitar in Grand Central Station must surely invent other joyous moments to make us believe we're alive though otherwise entangled in intolerable situations? If you think that language should behave differently than wild cheetahs shouldering the long grasses of our solitary discontent, then I offer you this farewell toast, my poor, exhausted friend. |
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