I’ll squish any with my thumbnail
that trample on my words
and lest he be remembered,
on a period, obscured.

————

Casey FitzSimons is an over-educated, under-published artist and writer. Her father was a Milton scholar and she has yet to walk it off.

I couldn’t read my intervention on how hegemonic ideology physically changes the way people see the world until I put on my new glasses with the thick black ear pieces that are all the rage now. I started to see things as if I were a point-of-view shot in a movie, so I knew I was getting ready to do something bad. I’ve come to terms with everything I’ve ever done, but I’m still embarrassed by the hair on my nose. When I look in the mirror, I think of the mathematical statement that 1 can be noted two ways, either as 1 or .99. People who believe that someday their Prince will come have never really been constipated.

 

[specimen]

She was a mail-order bride, yet she resented our kidnapping her, which struck us as a little inconsistent. But that fighter plane what costs $150 million is our health care system. He said, “floating bridges the relationship between solid and liquid.” Then we found the bridge didn’t float. The committee took a never-say-die approach toward investigating reports of reincarnation.

 

[specimen]

Only 27% of the people surveyed could tell where their lungs are. My bowels moved and didn’t leave a forwarding address. Brits Say They Made Sperm. Monsanto used to make plastics; now it copyrights organisms, but I don’t think they go so well with muzak. My life changed forever when my date to the sixth grade prom wore a Stay Furry button on her dress. Scientists Reveal that the Human Body Glows.

 

[specimen]

No doubt aliens built the pyramids, but were they legal aliens? Now that I don’t get around easily, I’ve become interested in hyperspace. The website’s package tracking offered a “Quantum View” and, indeed, it could tell me either that the package was moving or where it was, but not both at the same time. The phrase “anxiety of the infinite” was so vague we realized we’d worry over it endlessly. It turned out the 80-ft. long boar thing wasn’t back projected-we were.

————

The following information about Mark Cunningham is true: he has four chapbooks out, all on-line:  Second Story and nightlightnight (with photographs by Mel Nichols), both from Right Hand Pointing; 10 specimens from Gold Wake Press; and Nachträglichkeit from Beard of Bees.  He also has three books out: BodyLanguage from Tarpaulin Sky Press, 80 Beetles from Otoliths, and 71 Leaves, an ebook from BlazeVox. Mark Cunningham is also a notorious liar. Look up any of these publications, and you’ll find nothing but advertisements for shampoo and donuts (and one instance of shampoo for donuts). Go ahead. Look them up.

he called
at 4 in the
morning
crying into
the phone
telling me
she’d left
him and
asking for
my advice.
i told him
to take a
nice hot bath,
clean his
apartment
of all her things,
listen to some
jazz (Miles Davis
if he had any),
take the phone off
the hook, lock
his door, fix himself
something to eat, &
go the fuck
back to bed.

Budget Meeting

I put in a comma
break the 4 lines
into 2 stanzas,
while I talk to my wife
about economics.
I finish it and read
the poem aloud to her.
She looks up at me from
our stack of bills,
and smiles gently.

“That’s very interesting, honey.
And, oh, thanks for reminding
me. I forgot to budget in
the $25 you made this
month from your writing
career.”

————

Doug Draime emerged as a presence in the ‘underground’ literary movement in Los Angeles in the late 1960′s. Most recent books include: “Knox County” (Kendra Steiner Editions) and “Los Angeles Terminal” (Covert Press). Forthcoming are two large collected volumes: “Transmissions From The Underground” (d/e/a/d/b/e/a/t press) and “Farrago Soup” (Coatlism Press). Also, coming out in 2009, “Boulevards of Oblivion” from Tainted Coffee Press. His diverse range of writing continues to appear in publications worldwide. He moved to the foothills of Oregon in 1981, where he still resides.