Apartment Poetry Quarterly

8A              8B              8C              8D              8E              8F

 

8F Marty Cain

 

fuck this mass
this faceted conglomerate
we will desire its outsides into ourselves
reconfigure its center with barricade ribbons
the flesh of the page will become a portal, its atoms shifting
its molecules shifting, it makes an opening, it grins at us wildly
its rippling fur, its smile is plastic yet permeably moving,
totoro cat, reshaping itself in errant purpose, reshaping for the body
and the body of bodies
will gaze within
will gaze and stand
will gaze through its asshole from inside the frame
the convenient fluorescents in the housewares aisle
will see a tunnel ice winds and the roads they shatter
into variegated glass the wind whispers back, our trauma is cud
is eaten up and made into words and chewed up in the ormasum section
in the rumen section in the smoking section the ruminatory chambers of endless
flesh, an aging hotel, an open door and our ambulatory eye, it crosses the floor,
it crosses the dresser, it crosses the bathroom linoleum and the paisley wallpaper with its corners peeling, the eye rapidly opens and discloses wood with grains and
fissures speaking out, squeezed of fluid, made into songs, the sheets covered
in a jubilatory meat like the lungs of leaders stuck in a blender to constellate comforters and screens and the wood-veneer clock u got off ebay
midcentury modern, shabby chic, when I think of death
I think of a chick in an egg, shabby and wet
time as a grabbing, as architectural fetish
stomach as a mess hall when I go to sleep and wake up sad
and splay my liver on Styrofoam plates
and go to sleep and wake up angry and walk through the day
sweating from my palms and ass for no discernable reason and go to the urinal
at the end of the hall desperately wanting to be alone, don’t turn on the light
don’t let me be dying, don’t let me lose my mind and go back to wanting to cut
open my arm, I stop midstream, I laugh and am living, I return and read
the emergency active shooter instructions from inside my bunker
and walk by the police station on the scenic way home
ducks in the river shielding each other
anger made particular and rapidly inverted
we went sailing with family friends and were suddenly astounded
water as medium vs. prosthesis of capital / everything is nihilistic
and dying when you’re drinking Corona on a fucking sailboat






RURAL THRASH, VOL. 13

THE WOODPILE BURNS
BETWEEN MY HOUSE
AND MY BRAIN
BETWEEN MY BRAIN
AND PULSATING LINES
W/ WOLFSPIDERS INSIDE
AND ROTTING MICE
THE FEVERDREAM TURNS
ITSELF ON ITS BELLY
I SEE BLUE NEURONS THROB
WHEN I TOUCH MY EYE
I SEE MILKLIVER FINGERS
WHEN I TOUCH THE BAG
NOT A SITE OF VIOLENCE
BUT AN ORPHIC OPENING
FROM THE HOLE IN MY HEART
W/ A DIAMONDBACK HISSING
I EJACULATE SOIL I GROW CLOSE TO THE EARTH

A DIGITIZED TOMBSTONE ON YR BLUISH SCREEN
AND THE EXCAVATOR WEEPS ALL NIGHT ON THE LAWN






MAY OUR ENEMIES RECEIVE THE WORMS THEY DESERVE

                                      [           ]

                                      held in stone
                                      held in this tree

    in fingernail bark on the cusp of itself
in corpusculent economies of aspen crowns
     & held in hands of our uncles through post-dinner cocktails
                        who stare through doorways when we change at night

             their reddened eyes

                                      we vow to hamstring
                                                              singing miraculous deaths
                                      to marry the state of indefinite origin

                       to open the biome
                                                                               we see termites moving

                                to encompass our hands as they leave our pockets
                                           in woken dreams when we wait for buses
the avatar gliding its way though the streets
             on a globalized screen of retina crystals

            & termites eat through sweating fingers

and swallow our chip cards & monthly passes

            & NO MORE TRAUMA
OR SCREAMING IN WOODS
no death in fields or under rocks
or railroad tracks or tourist receptacles

            our lifeline a worm                                                     [or a well-worn dagger]

                                               when we open the meat what birds are singing
                                    when we open the corpse what organs are showing
                                               when we open the grave o where do we love
                        what soil & blood or brainless body do we want
                        a world                                     OF SMITHEREEN PULP
                        and neurons stubbily reaching out armless

but have no origin
but have an aim
for aimed at the head
                        our fingers unending                                                  to smother the state

                                                             for where is the I
                                                             what violin

what’s in an instance
what’s in an instance
what’s in an incident & its glowing agent

when we invert the form towards a hollering what.