Sorry If I’ve Been Obscene, I’m Just A Relic Of The Holocene
Eight poems about the humanity of being a writer
[I hope you had a great Thanksgiving holiday! These following poems will be featured in my upcoming poetry book, Moon Goon.]
The Spectacular Specialization Of Labor
the peregrination of humanity
is in growing wheat for hallucinogenic beer
and then steady stable consistent food
building cities around the fertile spots
and specializing labor ever more creatively.
live a life of personal eras and flaunt your artistic renaissances
charming those who watch you grow
happy to never count you out.
looking through an old notebook
I found a page ripped out and wondered what it had been
what secret I destroyed
or message I tore out and passed
or embarrassment of art I wanted scratched from the record.
I’m my only biographer I’ll ever have
and I’ll never know.
10,000 Hours
following vice of mind things are happening fast
and then a little kind of dull
just a ship out in the foam
far away where the waves don’t bob
a forgotten swampy nowhere muck
of decaying musk and floating dea=d things
with throats full of straws and I can’t think or swim
my compass is bent and broke and I need a valve in me
somewhere to release the surplus black bile gases
and I’m choking as the blood in me is stunned
and everyone’s asking their neighbors what the hold up is down ahead
so I put my head down and just keep going
and find myself up a tree alone on my own
where there are creeping tigers on the prowl
eyeballs glowing a thousand at a time
playing greater games and I’m out of luck I can’t take a tiger
so I jump and dive and kick and flutter my legs like jet propulsion
and I barrel roll through the murk
escaping velocity and dimensional cohesion
and I’m way out in the foothills of the cosmos
between the ellipsing moons and planets
and extremes of proton temperatures
and climb aboard a long lost satellite wing
and my oxygen cable turns taut and snaps
and my air is sucked out
my jetpack sputters and my visor cracks
and I’m bouncing off moons and the helmet shatters
and I’m vacuumed out of the suit and weightless
skullfaced airless and floating out there
in the greens and blues and galactic oranges and reds
and I fall into an asteroid belt
and I’m going good through the celestial rocks
miraculously missing with my eyes closed tight
but I smack a litter rocket shell and flatten there to jellyand dissolve into tiny clumps of cells
and am eaten by an army of marching tardigrade phalanxes
and the rocket husk is hit by a rogue omega comet
and falls into a galaxy hole
where my single cells reconstitute in the last dimension
growing and dividing and getting more complex
till I notice I’m put back into place
my puzzle piece atoms in quorum on their carbon rings
and it’s me again
I’ve somehow made it to my desk in the corner
and my work is complete and has a score circled in red
I believe I’ve somewhat earned.
Post-Existence
the flight was taking longer than expected
something about a strong headwind
through which the writer organized the files on his laptop
just in anxious case of an untimely death
so if the laptop landed the fall
his work might be preserved
and as he finished and closed the laptop screen
the plane rocked back and forth
tumbling in those headwinds all the way down
into a desolate wilderness mountain with all aboard destroyed
and his laptop settled at the bottom of a cliff intact
safe and durable but abandoned and lost
till past its technological compatibility
and the work dutifully arranged
for post-existence discovery was lost nonetheless.
Pitchforks At The Door
at a certain point in our public airing
of everyone’s dirty laundry forever in the digital books
and puritan refusal to forgive and let things go
no one will ever be allowed to enjoy anything
and our heads will be shoved down back beneath our trash can lids
every time we peek beyond the rims
because no one is impeccably innocent
and no one lived by today’s moral standards decades ago
and no one has the next century’s manners today
so no one deserves even a modicum of happiness.
Cancel Robin Walters
robin walters cured cancer
all of them at once in a stroke of biochemical genius
but he also one time got mad in the middle of having a bad day
at a woman who happened to be black
so on the off chance he might have been racist we’ll write it on his collar
put it on his encyclopedia page
and never let anyone discuss his achievements without one of us yelling out
reminding the audience he once had a bad day
and yelled at a woman who happened to be black.
fuck robin walters forever
he deserves to get cancer.
The Incomprehensible Man
the incomprehensible man thinks everything is intolerable
and it’s decadence for the others to not follow along
his thousand page theses
and moral rot for them to not agree
with his footnoted ranting conclusions
and he will not accept the notion
cannot accept the notion
that his ideas have all been impenetrable and unintelligible.
Thanks for your eyeballs!
—Dash MacIntyre
My new prose poetry book, Cabaret No Stare, is available in print and on Kindle now. If you like the themes, attitude, and humor of my satirical work, you’ll like my poetry as well!
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I am loving 3 of these, and looking forward to seeing the book.