Mike Topp

WHO KNOWS
- What famous actress is Larry King?
- Is intuition what I think it is?
- How many monkeys even own typewriters anymore?
- Who was the first interstellar candidate for Bronx borough president?
- What animal is found only in cyberspace?
- What is the key ingredient of frozen ginger ale salad?
- How come there's only one game called Monopoly?
- What could be simpler than the gift of a solid gold baby?


THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Five years ago today, cashiers began saying “No problem” instead of “You’re welcome.”


What r your thoughts on WINDSHIELD WIPERS?
I’ve always wanted one, off and on, since a friend got one (from his aunt) in high school. Well, just as sure as death and taxes, I thought of them again yesterday when it was raining. Here’s a drawing I did of the one I want: /

Mike Topp lives and works in a large Eastern metropolis.

P. A. Levy

Johnny Shoehead Accepts All Major Credit Cards

Johnny Shoehead’s ‘mood indicator’
patent invention and fashion accessory.
For practicality and urban awareness

he wears a loafer when he’s working
a flip-flop when he’s chilling,
a slipper when he’s tired,
a trainer when he’s wired
a sandal when he’s spiritual
a DM boot is angry
a brogue is for the occasional
court appearance
a dancing shoe …
no prizes for getting that one right
and sometimes he wears a stiletto heel,
he says this is kinda an antenna feel
so he can make contact
but with who he's never said.

Tried and tested.
Available in full range of colours
and sizes.
Includes chin strap
made to a high specification
and uber chic design.
Patent applied for.



Move and Paste into a New Place

Glancing through old holiday snaps
I came across a landscape
of green prospects with undulating
hills and shaded wooded glades,
the views that make water colourists
dribble and poets break their nibs.

I thought how wonderful to live there,
so I took a photograph of my house
and using Photoshop moved,
lock, stock and a very contented sleeping cat
to nestle amongst wild flower meadows.

Life was sweet until a cloud
of loneliness edged in,
but I found a picture of a beautiful girl,
and then a picture of two very cute kids.
Trashed the cloud and locked the sun.

To make this domestic bliss complete
I sourced a couple of jpeg Labradors
and decorated the house throughout
with lots of shiny things.
Compressed the layers.

Now we all live very happily together
with my girl’s silky shiny hair
and the kids’ toothpaste smiles
and bouncy wet nosed dogs
and a very contented cat
who had endured all this change and upheaval
fast asleep on my lap.

Born East London but now residing amongst the hedge mumblers of rural Suffolk, P.A.Levy has been published in many magazines, both on line and in print, from ‘A cappella Zoo’ to ‘Zygote In My Coffee’ and many stations in-between. He is also a founding member of the Clueless Collective and can be found loitering on page corners and wearing hoodies at http://www.cluelesscollective.co.uk/.

Megan McShea

Instructions

Should you ever find this feeling broken and dark, apply bleach to its forelegs, there by the grainy edge, and hold under cold water for about a minute. If you let it dry in the window’s natural light, a great glow will fill your heart, like a pearly munchkin aura beating up on the dark visages of alkie fuzzies. Bleat out your trombone when you hear the skinny wailing from the back of the store. This will ward off any snakes in the area. But ultimately, when the need arises, there will be no stopping it. A tiny brightness will appear in the mirror, slowly rotating around itself, making a moat-like pattern that mesmerizes and fascinates you. It will be the most interesting thing you have ever seen, and you will not be able to look away. Then a sinewy substance will begin to form in the spaces between you and other water-bearing objects. You will feel proud and even secure, but then almost without realizing it, you will have become cut off from everything around you, and then you will hear her silky voice, the voice of the heart-eating siren, and she will tell you to bring me to her. Do not let this happen. Do not come to me at that point. It will be too late for you, and I am sorry for that, but leave me out of it. I will be long gone anyway, and I’m not telling you where. If it pretends to thank you, just go along with it. Under that ugliness lies a great sadness, and under the sadness, that’s the best part for meat.

Take those handsome tremors that start in the second month of treatment, and be sure to blend into a smooth paste. Jam all your jitters into a secret wall box, what the old desert healers used to call a plum pot. Be on the radio. Then when everything seems quiet, call the authorities and demand a hearing. Prepare statements. Hire representatives and expert witnesses. For so many days all efforts must be directed at a single purpose. When the day arrives, no one will show. It will be the most colossal blow-off of all time. A distant trumpet. The damp fog of dissipated purpose. A few of the guards will seem to be whispering behind your back. Have them fired. Bake muffins. Studies show that half of all moths want to get closer, and the other half is wary.

Megan McShea is the author of two chapbooks, Yarn and Recipes for Greatness. Her writing has also appeared in The Shattered Wig Review, SUCCESS!, I Am My Own Twin and the I.E. Reader. She lives in Baltimore and is currently working on a book of collaborative, experimental writing.

Justin Katko

WORM VS WORM

Disinfected is the Special Branch, by the CRS,
With molten why-blood honey tissue pots in the
Zone free of men within the zone of man's
Freedom, waiting for the opposite lip not
Yet dreaming of the larger dream, to eat out
The oracle of spherical rope. Concord in fortune
By pendulum strict, paranoid like bathing in ice;

Like the breathing of a wart on the back
Facet of a crystal middle finger, no song
Begins without its aching, the long wand's
Joint to the root gap awakening buckles.
Nicotine sheath do not fill up with blood,

Our warship uncompleted so, the quick so loaded over,
The anti-Waltonite bright behind the folded helicopter.

Justin Katko was born in Hazard, Kentucky. He studied at Miami University (Ohio) and Brown University, and he is now researching a PhD at Cambridge on Edward Dorn's Gunslinger and J.H. Prynne. A selection of lyric poems entitled Praxis Etudes was published by Grasp Press in 2009, and his opera The Death of Pringle is forthcoming from Veer Books. He edits the poetry press Critical Documents.

David NeSmith

Genius With No Effort

Like my friend Tania Boyadjieva,
I am a Genius with all the atoms that I have and own.

Why, do you ask?

Because I can solve any equation.

Math, Physics, both Astro- and Quantum-
Science, both Computer- and Food-

Here's the secret...

I just plug zeroes in where the letters are.

Take E=MC squared

if you make E, Energy
equal to zero
Zero Energy

m, Mass, Zero...
nothing there

c, Speed of Light,
squared
zero squared
is zero

0=0

Done. Solved.

You are welcome.

But guess how many Doctorates I have for figuring that one out?




Yep.

David NeSmith is usually just a musician and cartoonist but lately he has been working on a book of poems about Nothing. That is, the concept of Nothing. He has been in the bands Sleepytime Trio, Rah Bras, Men's Recovery Project, Bats & Mice and Sweatpants. Publishing Genius published his first book of cartoons in 2007. He has a very smart and pretty wife and two kittens. The boy kitten likes to step all over his
keyboarldkjfssdlfjsfss,ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssd while he types.

Catherine Pancake

Instructions for a Film w/X

Base the notion on Wavelength’s focal lengths & then add a desire for suspense and the idea of capturing nature visually at night. Then the gendery/identity part –the struggle for community, home, perfect living spaces as per X – imagined families, imperfect bodies – gender in flux. The idea of pandrogyny – in the images – not the trans situation – but the wholeness of the diversity – the leading of the story to the imagined living place – murder in reverse to healing. Or a murder in reverse to healing to a murder. The range, some shocking antics – sexual, erotic, referential to transgression – but also love. Some real politic? How? An embrace? Difficulty at home. A lake or river – tumult in water – joy. The sound – breaking sticks, frog chorus, drawn out bass beats of southern rap – intoxication, low. robo. The materiality of flesh and then the crackdown on belief – deterring the fantasy – hyper-aware – radical disbelief and conflict. End. Shoot with your brain and present at the Golden West with decaffeinated coffee.

Catherine Pancake is a filmmaker and instigator seeking the sublime from multiple vantage points.

Ken Jacobs

swim

swam topiary swam lash swam minor
swam topiary swam pudenda
flower  

   swam embarrassed lips
   of surprising figure

swam lash
lashes
   swam lasses already – swam about
   interfaces and injected
dependence
     if you weren’t a woman
then you might be a man
swam
   ugly cocks waving
as you pass under the bridge – swam under?

I am not my penis but y’d never know it
the way it swam, swam among primitive
data
not
raw
   literal
they make y’r hand move over thighs
into the digital balls and cunts y prefer
   wetted toward yr anus
do you like that?

   the way has been
   prepared

make y’r mind swim with lashes
     among the brilliant
polar caps - ha
       ha ha
I mean bears
   swam in yr
so human y can’t help it
   with y’r dreadful cock

cock dependence
   swam ,
embarrassed lips swam
   over the figures
   the obsessive helpless boy
cornered
   in the market ‘dog head’ they
think
   reaching toward his rough hair

   y’d go to prison fer that one
   y’r cell ringing
y’r cell ringing    y’r hands behind
y’r back
   sitting on them
tingling
     as the circulation ends
y’r rectum
   purring with all the fucking y’ve
   been subject to
   -love is legal-
but shimmied tangles and trenches
   are the limit feeling fer y’r balls
   and labia, maybe y left them,
   maybe they’re in y’r
pocket

   embarrassed lips
that he would make
     metaphors of his
   rounds
that their bodies were his

   O, Bill
they aren’t dancing
   fer y
not dancing swimming or mending
they got nothing fer y.

Ken Jacobs has lived in and about Washington D.C. for more than thirty years. A new pamphlet Sooner from Phylum Press release in December 2009 and has a poem included in 'The Portable Boog Reader 4' out in January 2010.

Buck Downs

I'M STILL WORRIED
ABOUT THE LAST GIRL


WHEN I OUGHTA BE WORRIED
ABOUT THE NEXT GIRL


[TASTY SHAVER]






THE FORMAL POSSIBILITIES
OF DOING AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE


THE PHYSICAL ACTIVITY OF SITTING
STILL AMID ALL THIS ACTIVITY


[TASTY SHAVER]








WHERE THE GRAPHITE
MEETS THE COTTON


WHERE THE LEAD
HITS THE LAID


[TASTY SHAVER]






FOR EVERY SLIP
THERE IS A SKIRT


IN HER CATFISH
HEAVEN T SHIRT

[TASTY SHAVER]



THE RIGHT PEOPLE
TAKE IT THE WRONG WAY


THE WRONG PEOPLE
TAKE IT THE RIGHT WAY

[TASTY SHAVER]



THE FIRST TIME IT'S A DRAMA
THE NEXT TIME IT'S A JOKE


THERE ISN'T ALWAYS A FIRST TIME
BUT THERE'S ALWAYS A NEXT TIME

[TASTY SHAVER]



NEW CENTURY
DISCLAIMER


WE ARE NOT RESPONSE
FOR ANY BELONGING


[TASTY SHAVER]



MENTAL TRANSPORT
OUT OF MY MIND


I WAS THE GUY
WHO BEEN AWAY

[TASTY SHAVER]



THE BEAVER SHUT
THE BEAVER HUT


THE WAR ON TATER
HAD BEGUN

[TASTY SHAVER]



TELETYPEWRITER UNITARY
STRING OF MEANING


TO GAMBLE THE UNIVERSE
ON A NIGHT'S GLIMPSED DREAM


[TASTY SHAVER]

Buck Downs lives in Washington DC, and sends poetry postcards to friends across the country and around the world. To find out more, visit http://www.buckdowns.com/.

Rupert Wondolowski

A Shoebox Versus a Church Versus a Swimming Pool

Shadows dump the
voices of frustrated
pay phone calls into
the shoebox, along with
an unimpeded box car
moustache that once
rode above lips tossed
with indigestion.

The church is filled
with hushed marching and
a brocaded cushion
feels boundless yearning
for the swinging
incense cannister.

A swimming pool can
be baptismal, so
blue and rippling and topped
with shifting light
triangles, but it can
also be a fondue
bowl of greasy bodies
doing things that
humans do in what
some may call their
mortal weakness.

For the disgruntled
onlookers things are
at a maddening crawl
as they yell for
blue suede shoes
reflected in Cadillac
chrome, Germanic angels
lifted from Deutsche
Grammophon covers
aloft in trees,
roaring stadiums or
at least wrinkle free collars.

There is a slow
closeup pan on
a heavily veined hand
lifting a photo of
Uncle Divshek from
the still crisp shoebox,
its corners not yet
blunted or kicked around,
which indicates that
there might still be
hope, that someone has
bought new sneakers
or wingtips for
a fresh school year
or job interview.

After surviving the
Battle of Bastogne
Uncle Divshek refused
to fly unless the
pop band The Beatles
were also on
the plane, reasoning that
no god would take
them down while they
were so beloved.
Which is not saying much
for Buddy Holly or Patsy Cline.

In this photo
Uncle Divshek has his
arm around his
parish priest by
the side of the
neighborhood pool.
A few days after
it was taken
two altar boys were
found floating dead
on the pool's surface
and Ringo Starr
was killed in a hunting
accident by the
Vice President of
the United States.

Rupert Wondolowski's work has recently been published in The i.e. Series Reader, Lamination Colony, Mud Luscious Stamp Stories and will be nestled close by that of Gertrude Stein in the upcoming anthology City Sages: Baltimore. Despite the prohibitive size of his head, it can be seen in the new film "60 Writers/60 Places" by Michael Kimball and Luca DiPierro. He edits Shattered Wig Press and its catalog and his splattered heart thoughts blogged can be found at: http://shatteredwig.blogspot.com/

Nik Korpon

REACTION

I knead my collarbone as he tosses clothes into a microwave box. Head down, he says he's all grown-up now. My tongue is heavy as a stone.

If only.


TWINS

Crushed cans and curry tins lay scattered like dead soldiers. My footsteps leave trenches in the mold. A Pat Benatar tape plays in the kitchen and I make our gashes mirror reflections while she shudders. Rust or blood, what’s the difference anymore? Sunrays cauterize the cobblestone street like a scab. Breathe, exhale. Gummy fingertips pressed to my eyelids, London morning's come again.

Nik Korpon is from Baltimore, MD. His work has appeared in 3:AM, Out of the Gutter, and Cause and Effect, as well as some other upcoming stuff. He is a Fiction Editor for ROTTEN LEAVES Magazine, a contributor to the Outsider Writers Collective and co-hosts LAST SUNDAY, LAST RITES, a monthly reading series in Baltimore. Read more at http://www.nikkorpon.com/.

Ric Royer

Hey, my name is Matthew. I’m into games, but I bet you guessed that already. Ha! This morning I was feeling good -- limber and tactile -- so I went on my balcony and caught a bird in mid-flight with my teeth. Aint the first time!

Let’s see, I live in Elderton, PA (that’s just an hour outside of Pittsburgh), I have a brother named Billy and a dog named Number One.

My favorite game would have to be Rebel Colonial Settlements. That’s a revolutionary war game. This game provides amusement for the participants as they compete against others or the game itself.

WHAT’S UP?! YO SMELLY!

Last night in a dream I followed my father to the parking garage. Vandals did a number on the car. He was red with rage, and my first reaction was to order him a book called “How Dare You?! “; an illustrated travelogue about Mexico. Amazon.com.

We camped out in that garage all night and my girlfriend thanked me for the book about the Mexico. She was my girlfriend and my father at the same time. Dreams may do this. At one point I remember my father’s feces glowing under a purple Saturn sky, just like Ronald and Nancy Reagan.

Ric Royer is a writer of performances and performer of writings. Recently, one of his friends (same age) had something wrong with his kidneys, and another (again, same age) a problem with his heart. Ric is worried that this might be the beginning of the endless falling apart that happens to people and their peers. He is not quite sure he is strong enough to handle it yet, he could certainly use more time to prepare for what some call “The Quickening”.


His recent publications, The Weather Not The Weather (Outside Voices), Time Machine (Slack Buddha) and his recent productions--50 Greatest Ladies and Gentlemen (Ontological Hysteric Theatre), and Mary Shelley (The Annex), give him something to do in the meantime.

Irving Weiss

These are visual poems not published in Visual Voices: The Poem As a Print Object.

Irving Weiss just published his complete translation of Malcolm de Chazal, Sens-Plastique with foreword by W.H. Auden. He is now working on I Sit on My Botom, a collection of the writings in English by children, 15th to 19th centuries.

Chad Lietz

Click here to view PDF (7 pages).

Chad Lietz lives & works in Oakland, Calif. An audio realization of "Permutations = 1" appears in aslongasittakes Issue 3.

Tim Atkins

Petrarch 303

Popcorn dust speckles my deck

Ink shakes at the mountain solvents

On the hooks of your dress

Merging with a line from March

Blue bossa-nova pills and a Schweppes

Coming off to Piers Ploughman

A bright horn in the snow

Twinkles entitled “mystical bread pump poems”

Walking out in the grasslight

Plump green acorns fill my sack

The spine-line is a clear sign

& the fields are covered in moonbuttons

Oestrogen rises on the Eastern horizon at last

I shall ride with the bunnies to Brighton

Petrarch 309

Now that it is 1340-something I am finally without myself & with women

On behalf of my peace of mind I must turn my back on popular culture milk paperbacks blogging & travel without fear of incontinence

Being old is five centuries of tales held together with sellotape

& awaiting urn burial

Content for if the bad guys are asleep & sucking in the cool blue

Smoke of a cigarette’s smoke

It is easy to be in love with a perfect voice singing towards & surrounding love

But for the ones with herpes short ones & cleft palates in 67 sonnets

Silence surpasses everything in the Italian language

It is often but not always enough like koalas or elephants just to live

Without gender looking at the moon like Nat King Cole

Pressing his bare feet into the cool grass of his Hollywood lawn

The point of writing is to sing beyond what you know & to remain awake

This is the notion which feeds & informs me

Tim Atkins is the author of Folklore 1-25, To Repel Ghosts, 25 Sonnets, and Horace. Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at UEL, editor of the online poetry magazine onedit, and translator of Petrarch, Horace, and Buddhist texts, he is a Buddhist, husband, poet, and father. He is a happy man.

Paul Siegell

*MIAMI, MIASMA*

a milestone for mercy, a maestro in need of
amelioration—like a Colorado coroner.

a maelstrom of ambiguity—just ask Alaska. an
amethyst with ambitious intents—like filling up on
“Regular” in Oregon, then off to where we’re going.

an amusement park for amputees, an ambulance
with an ambiance amiss, the awful stench of amniotic
fluid, a kinky amphitheater overflowing with the
monumental merriment of Mississippi happiness.

a “0% OFF SALE”? that’s rich, like an amulet for
mercenaries or an amalgamation ambling toward
ambivalence, a mannequin with an amorphophallus
corsage and all that Illinois employs.

amateurs of sorrow and amour measuring all
the diameters of basketballs in Indiana.

amoebas with amicable ammunition, amphibians
meandering in Amish amendments and the synergies
of flavors found in Wisconsin maple syrup.

ambassadors amok with amnesia & ampersands in
none other than Omaha, brash, the nebula of Nebraska.

an ambush of ambidextrous amino acids, a mutation,
aghast, The Amityville Horror—

Maestro! Obama’s pajamas and a dug-up Texas T.
Rex tailbone, such ammonia and amazement—

it’s all Baltimorrrrrrious! but please, ameliorate
this amplification of ambiguity:
Si, amigos.
Mira, America: a medley—a melody.

amen.

Paul Siegell is the author of jambandbootleg (A-Head Publishing, 2009), Poemergency Room (Otoliths Books, 2008) and the forthcoming wild life rifle fire (Otoliths Books, 2010). He is a staff editor at Painted Bride Quarterly, and has contributed to The American Poetry Review, Coconut, No Tell Motel, Rattle and other fine journals. Kindly find more of Paul's work at http://paulsiegell.blogspot.com/.

Jeff Harrison

Belly Rouge

(fûrn), worm (un´yun) to (met) we (Ap), (gö´tu)
(fing´gur), sang (akt), sheen (klIm) (ôr´bit),
(bOOt), (rich) twins are chipper, man (boi), (tôNb)
fire (hot), rich singing (get), tight vest (I),
(sô) eve (ej) dock (chin), (fä´thur), trivial (E´zulE)
cannon oh (pIp), (bod´E) (kan´un), (dis-här´tun)
cough chin on cook king (sang), back (sum) (mir´ur)
soggy circus Oh! (kûrl), (fôl), flood (pyoor) (hwEl)
road Virginia (root), end (lit´ul), hammer sure (but)
sank loose (tIlt), talked ô jam (bet´ur), (bAst) (grO)
(pil), grow (sted´E), (fAz), girl (hach´ut), (jam),
(fä´vor) et û (hwich) (yOO), finger new (it), to (klEr)
(lA´dE), thin iron (tredz) (shOOr), me (tôkt) wax see
bat (O´vur), coward (kou´urd) (waks), boot (gûrl)
body out father hot hope (bat) full pleasure phrase
curl baste happy (sO), ease sad hatchet, pharaoh (zip´ur),
ape saw met (kôf) shall (pool) pill winner (kâr) nation (triv´Eul)
(sing´ing), (kär´puntur) (nOn), verge air royal item (zero)
which bigger tackle mirror (kook) little (kab) (map), pipe (roi´ul)
(sO´fu), bath (isle), drew her eye (drOO), true (Ev),
such steady labor (bak), (twinz), dearth (lA´bur), (noo)
kit orbit climb one belly rouge (hOp), appeared (kit), lady (dA)
crowd (sad) sofa (oil), ginger clear cite in father (lOOz)
(jin´jur), some (thin), (sangk) (hap´E) (rOOzh) (bath)
(hand), over (Ev) (fAl), (kroud), (sûr´kus) raven (toes)
I easy (tak´ul), (bAck) shd known but (sE) fail bathe u r (wolf)
put (flud), (hol´E), Hole (ärt), (wûrm) (shal), (man), â bit (hou)
(nA´shun) buyer edge (dok), (âr), then b oil (I´tum), (upErd´)
carpenter (end), (sIt), (big´ur), (I´urn), (bI´ur) i wolf m O (plezh´ur)
pure ä fern angry boy fall (vest), (ham´ur), (out) (win´ur)
cab wheel eve better get ahead (rOd), you care art tag hand (uhed´)
trOO) (tag) day treads act now O (hijem´unE, hE-, hej´umO"nE, heg´u-)

Jeff Harrison has publications from MAG Press, Writers Forum, Persistencia Press, and Furniture Press. He has two e-books at xPress(ed), and one at Blazevox. His poetry has appeared in the second volume of The Hay(na)ku Anthology, Otoliths, Sentence: a Journal of Prose Poetics, Nerve Lantern: Axon of Performance Literature, Xerography, Moria, NOON: journal of the short poem, Drunken Boat's Oulipo issue, and elsewhere.

Dina Kelberman

Click images to view larger size.

My name is Dina Kelberman. I live in Baltimore, MD and am a founding member of the Wham City art "collective". I make comics, draw stuff, paint cardboard, website, and routinely bring garbage into the house. I love my friends dearly. I have a weekly comic in the Baltimore City Paper and recently made a book called Important Comics: A Collection of Unquestionable Merit. I am interested in behavioral neurology and animal cognition. Please contact me at your slightest whim. http://importantcomics.com/ Thank You!

Jackie Milad

Click image to view larger size.

Jackie Milad lives in Baltimore.

Chris Toll

Book of Dreams

Click collage to view larger size.

Chris Toll lives in Baltimore, Maryland. In 2010, Publishing Genius Press will bring out his new book, Why Is Try in Poetry?

Matthew Klane

• (0, 0)
Introduction to Political Religion

Hellooooooooooooooo

Hezbollah






• (0, 0)
Proxy Battlefield

box-office







• (0, 0)
Funnel Support

i.e. guns and money







• (0, 0)
Burst Communications

the fffffffffft
before
the boom!







• (0, 0)
Department of the Interior

You are Here

Matthew Klane is co-editor/founder of Flim Forum Press, publisher of the anthologies Oh One Arrow (2007) and A Sing Economy (2008). His book is B_____ Meditations (Stockport Flats Press, 2008). New work can be found online at Absent Magazine and word for / word.

Ricky Garni

from TELE-FRICASSEE
An episodic roux brought to you by The Honeymooners, Mr. Lucky, Hazel, Meet Mr. McNutley, Oh! Susanna, Our Miss Brooks, The Twilight Zone, Leave It To Beaver, Astro Boy, The Real McCoys, Make Room For Daddy, Outer Limits, Father Knows Best, Mr. Ed, Ben Casey, My Mother the Car, The Addams Family, Lost in Space, Honey West, The Mod Squad, My Favorite Martian, Green Hornet, Batman, Family Affair, Candid Camera, Mr. Terrific, The Wild Wild West, Diff’rent Strokes, The Rifleman, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, The Time Tunnel, The Bionic Woman, Love American Style, That Girl, Chico and The Man, The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., The Flying Nun, Get Smart, Fantasy Island, Gidget, Have Gun Will Travel, Green Acres, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Petticoat Junction, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Sea Hunt, Colombo, Then Came Bronson, The Living Doll, Nip/Tuck

#5: I WOULD LIKE TO CHANGE THIS MONSTER
I would like to change this botanical garden into a playground
one that would not disturb the slumbering giant into wakefulness
like the man who wants to commit suicide because he can’t find
his wife and he doesn’t know that she’s already dead
“But what about,” you ask, “the cryogenic machine used by the sphinx monster?”
••

#7: WHILE READING THAT AWFUL NUCLEAR EXPLOSION
While reading about a swan named Princess Lollipop
I stole a dog named Smiley that never smiled
scarcely noticing that the man who claims to be my father is:
1) running for president and 2) not my father
it’s my fault: I love to read, and I hardly stop to notice things since
that awful nuclear explosion.
••

#33: SNEAKING LOUISE
Sneaking a sip of Mama Garcia’s bean sauce
its magic makes me want to give Louise a kiss
in my ice cream store, fabulously successful magically so
which surprises no one but irritates Eddy and Lumpy
Still: I do not fear the jealousy of Eddy, of Lumpy,
one touch of my antennae, the tiniest touch
and poof
Come to me Louise
••

#38: MY WIFE WITH VIOLENT THOUGHTS
My wife will never understand me
or my matador financé, Antonio
I comb and grease my hair
I coo at the parrot, which I hide
before I write love letters aloud
and leave them in cookbooks
for her, or should I say, them
did I mention also that I dream
about a certain pin up girl and
Mary Ellen Rogers, who cha-chas tomorrow
my wife will never understand
them but still I love her she utilizes
the great powers of the universe
the secret powers of the universe
the gentle soul
with violent thoughts

Ricky Garni is a graphic designer who moved from 105 Fidelity Street Apt B-17 to 105 Fidelity Street Apt B-35 and is still suffering a little from culture shock: "The areas seems the same at first, but there are nuances in the languages that differ in subtle ways, and you have to be careful what you say, especially with the elders of the village in this region." Mr. Garni sighs. "I don't think I will never get used to slurping my soup or the way they treat animals over her. Sometimes I miss the my old life…"

Alex Ebstein

Alex Ebstein is a co-curator/director of Nudashank, art critic, artist, dog walker.

Adam Trowbridge

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“The Goat Said...” was created by entering public domain books into an artificial intelligence “conversation simulator.” The results were postproduced, resulting in the text above. All text and images used in the production of “The Goat Said...” were in the US public domain and found using Project Gutenberg.

Adam Trowbridge is an artist focused on research that fractures the intersection of sensation and cognition, or any collective basis for meaning, purpose and communication. His work explores the aesthetic possibilities that arise as communication breaks down. Using new media and popular culture in a practice at the intersection of linguistics and sensational aesthetics, he invents incidents that occur slightly above the noise level, between words that organize our communities and the chaos that lies beyond them. Materially, his recent work has been in the form of theater, performance, responsive art and video.

He holds a MFA in Electronic Visualization from the University of Illinois Chicago and a BFA in painting and sculpture from the University of Central Florida, where he studied under sculptor Johann Eyfells. His work has been featured nationally and internationally including The Grey Market and Anthology Film Archives, NYC; Pleasure Dome, Toronto; Workspaces Ltd., San Francisco, CA; The Hyde Park Center, Chicago, IL; as well as at festivals in France, The
Netherlands, Switzerland, Korea, and Russia.

He is also working with Philadelphia’s Basekamp to expand the education outreach of Plausible Artworlds, a collaborative initiative that aims to provide a platform for examining and accompanying the emergence of plural artistic environments.

Trowbridge is an Adjunct Professor with the Photo and Media Art program at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
http://www.atrowbri.com/
http://www.basekamp.com/
http://www.plausibleartworlds.org/