Searching the Mousetraps
Other widow’s peak to speak the egocentric circles unjustified & typed until all symbolic variations have been removed, then tied & in this gagged state a toyshop commando holding tire iron gloves promises to push the voltage on the rails as high as a mongoose left to its own devices, then knight at night to spin & to have spun the magic of the paranoid jumpers & acrobatic novel written on the creepy foreign papers leaning in the spellbinding wind, then a turning that led to a turnip w/ a busted lip playing the vibraphone while Max Ernst holds his breath & Mina Loy spins & spins as if there were tops that breathe fire or elephants colored green, then the base of a home of a zone of a long in the tooth memory gallivanting w/ the baroness & leading a life full of zany misadventures & dada gatherings of the occult ritualistic ropes splitting up after decades of passionate perseverance, then kangaroo w/ hazel eyes & violent tempers & gold dust for peanuts to Harpo Marx on the verge of a nervous breakdown, then Zelda in a boot, then the universe starting over at zero to combat nervous tension, then a paradox, then a parrot, then a bite that results in tubercular flinging of the arms around the larynx, then a shell by any other name could help itself to as many pies as there were roads to nowhere, then a flooded series of underpants, then a sea of generals gazing at the skin flute defectors eating under arms while flypaper rejects learn to count to a 100 in Romanian, then closer to the moment of reentry, then North Dakota shame in a South Dakota package, then delight.
Like running through ashes
Not as much washed up as ears full of sawdust and marmalade a strange and indecipherable color. It’s like running through ashes or jumping into piles of maniac dilemmas. Strung out on candy bars, again a code for something or other, but surely you know that all that is being said leads nowhere in particular. Whereas, in the study rooms of Byzantium, gentle children run around in circles and giants ponder crimson icons with the degree of certainty found in morons. I don’t know is a beautiful phrase. Once uttered, powers decrease. Once fathomed. Once disgraced. Stapled to the guitar strap and pulled like pork, juicy and delicious pork. Step back or take the escalator up. If the possibility presents itself to smash cars, take it. Take it! Take it! Is there anything you won’t say? And how about the stomach? There is no normal. You cannot control the world. A dwelling made of wine bottles. A kerosene lamp and then another and another and then a jug of bug juice. At least a talisman is an object that can be disregarded. You left home at eighteen and never looked back. There is beauty in abandonment. Not everything is worthwhile. The drums take the place of screaming. The difference is negligible. You ran into an old friend from high school but pretended like you didn’t remember. That’s your style after all. Stranger things have happened and there’s something more than intriguing about that.
In the algebraic morning
We are pleased to inform you that nothing you say or do has any bearing on the skinned fish piled up outside the turgid conversations shedding light only on the perverse & unimaginative methods of owls pontificating coded entrails like tea leaves summoned out of ego & out of the passing of gas until the heart has gone like explosive diarrheas of maddening dissolution & promises impounded through gin mills that only spill & to disregard all that is apparent in favor of a false wisdom carried on the backs of philistines drafting articles to provoke only a snicker & at best an eyeroll & a violent shuddering at how common a misconceived prairie dog can become in the fog & in the decline where dropping feels special & where killing can be made at the expense of a whole series of incantations.
Scourge of vampire
Hands inventing recitals scourge of vampire lip readers sucking cough drop BLISS from beneath an oven of birth DEFECTS one too many desert island dodgers swimming naked grotesqueries sculpted as in a mason jar of envious proportional ease tho vague & suffering the fateless grinning of a LEG of LAMB spinning on the granny fire gills standing tall fins resting branch face lunging glittered enticed kneeling to act out a PASSION PLAY stale bread game of Hide & GO seek ye the filled underwear to the urging tennis court ASHES ASHES we all fall to shriveled up princess cake adenoid paranoid schizo taking TIGER mountain half of mirrors CRISS crossing the wrongfully accused stun gun stingray of precious MOMENT puking tears in eyes ears busted trash can ceiling fan beside himself with grand standing ARISTOCRATIC cat of 9 lives licking.
A Saphead in Repose
Form face façade there on the nightstand lit smokeless fireside chatting scatting earthquakes personification maladies transfigurations carousel riding dropping axe feet dappled maps formless destroy displace replace shake up lift separate leavened lightened on the race course horse whip slip flip tied up tied down tied to lamppost fist handstand thank you ma’am moist mist at last out loud festival alarming damaged good to chip in on fly swatter pianos gunfire missed massed micro- this/that/there/then/thou art a skunk w/o a TRUNK w/o a TRICK up the shirt tail guaranteed to flutter as BUTTERFLY clip slip twit twitching itching snitching looser than a goose simplified rational though irrational! irrational! irrational! next of next to net w/o sink/drink/speak to speaker w/o VOLUME w/o TRAFFIC signal dialectic malfeasance seasons leaning night train in vain goodbye balancing next time & w/o & and & () () () paragraph break lake forsaken stirred demure burned/flattened/bruised lost w/o LIMP 50 CENT piece forged feigned flickering phony left on the side table misused cruised snoozed START ALL OVER AGAIN.
— Joshua Martin is a Philadelphia based writer and filmmaker, who currently works in a library. He is the author of the books Pointillistic Venetian Blinds (Alien Buddha Press, 2021) and Vagabond fragments of a hole (Schism Neuronics). He has had pieces previously published in Coven, Spontaneous Poetics, Ygdrasil, Expat, Selcouth Station. RASPUTIN, Train, Fugitives & Futurists, Otoliths, M58, Punk Noir Magazine, Beir Bua, and Scud among others. He tweets @jmartinpoetry.