Unlikely 2.0


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Editors' Notes

Maria Damon and Michelle Greenblatt
Jim Leftwich and Michelle Greenblatt
Sheila E. Murphy and Michelle Greenblatt

A Visual Conversation on Michelle Greenblatt's ASHES AND SEEDS with Stephen Harrison, Monika Mori | MOO, Jonathan Penton and Michelle Greenblatt

Letters for Michelle: with work by Jukka-Pekka Kervinen, Jeffrey Side, Larry Goodell, mark hartenbach, Charles J. Butler, Alexandria Bryan and Brian Kovich

Visual Poetry by Reed Altemus
Poetry by Glen Armstrong
Poetry by Lana Bella
A Eulogic Poem by John M. Bennett
Elegic Poetry by John M. Bennett
Poetry by Wendy Taylor Carlisle
A Eulogy by Vincent A. Cellucci
Poetry by Vincent A. Cellucci
Poetry by Joel Chace
A Spoken Word Poem and Visual Art by K.R. Copeland
A Eulogy by Alan Fyfe
Poetry by Win Harms
Poetry by Carolyn Hembree
Poetry by Cindy Hochman
A Eulogy by Steffen Horstmann
A Eulogic Poem by Dylan Krieger
An Elegic Poem by Dylan Krieger
Visual Art by Donna Kuhn
Poetry by Louise Landes Levi
Poetry by Jim Lineberger
Poetry by Dennis Mahagin
Poetry by Peter Marra
A Eulogy by Frankie Metro
A Song by Alexis Moon and Jonathan Penton
Poetry by Jay Passer
A Eulogy by Jonathan Penton
Visual Poetry by Anne Elezabeth Pluto and Bryson Dean-Gauthier
Visual Art by Marthe Reed
A Eulogy by Gabriel Ricard
Poetry by Alison Ross
A Short Movie by Bernd Sauermann
Poetry by Christopher Shipman
A Spoken Word Poem by Larissa Shmailo
A Eulogic Poem by Jay Sizemore
Elegic Poetry by Jay Sizemore
Poetry by Felino A. Soriano
Visual Art by Jamie Stoneman
Poetry by Ray Succre
Poetry by Yuriy Tarnawsky
A Song by Marc Vincenz


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Three Poems by John Bryan

I HAVE CANCER, I AM GOING TO DIE

If a location joke is only appreciated
By having to be there, then my lumpy cells
Are all coagulating toward that destination's singularity.
This text becomes my body, you, healthy reader, a doctor
Who will whisper to me, sagely nothings, your diagnoses:
I can't believe this is happening.
Two months before it wasn't.
The hoarseness of throat and excessive coughing.
The fluctuating from constipation to diarrhoea.
The pain when I piss, uncontrollably, reeking of blood.
The same red, coughed up.
My skin darkening, reddening, itching.
The excessive hair growth on my moles.
The sores that don't heal.
The sores that come back.
The indigestion and trouble swallowing.
The lumps under my skin.
The ever present weariness.
The constant dull pain.
The weight loss now reducing me.

Now

That

I

Have

Your

Attention:

made you look... dirty chook.

my apology, deceitful patient, only acute
if its potential to be rebuffed
is not self righteous on reply,
i cannot promise such remissions
in relapse
( or is that the disease ? )

- ... well I laughed




Lisa this is so incriminating

writing is incriminating
do they realise Lisa writes?

Lisa writes: and Thursday always feels like tuesday;
( twenty minutes left )

written an age away
which I read, revive, survive
Lisa writes: I haven't cried once today;
I take that as a really good sign ( in spite of awful cramps ! );
I guess what I'm saying is I really think that I can do it alone from here,
but... do you suppose it's possible that I could still get the discounted meds ?

react how I felt at the sight of blood
depending on its function as
sustenance or waste
and faint
Lisa writes: Nothing in common,
                     but mutual friends,
                     house music,
                     The Simpsons,

I've always believed the next massacre to occur
at a McDonalds restaurant would be done by
Homer
Lisa writes: I started to notice things about him
I didn't like: he couldn't relate to me /
dosen't like to read /
thinks poetry is trivial.

Historical precedents between poetry and painting:
Maldoror's mutilation of the girl
In Lautreamont's 'Third Canto' ( 1869 )
To Jack the Ripper's portrait: 'Mary Jane Kelly' ( 1888 )
Lisa rights: whatever you want
                    want to do me in the ass
                    do it doggy style
                    do it standing up

Lisa rites: She has a lot of Faith.
                  Faith. Why Faith?
                  She builds it for herself.

                  Mother prays for her Mother.

                  I'm living in sin, Gin.
                  I'm going to Hell, Dewey Dell:
                  " I don't believe in God, God. God, I don't believe in God ".
                  Mother still prays for me anyway.

no need even to dust the paper
for finger prints from praying hands
or review a conversation
in confession

You know who you are.

' Lisa Juntunen was last seen alive on March 12, 2001. Her boyfriend reported her missing the next day, and her body was found mid - April. April 5th, 2001 would have been her 23rd birthday '.




Completely Fits

Layout:
Poems compiled in
Order they are published
Every one hundred poems
Constitutes a Fit.

Title of each Fit: ( Number ) Fit: ( Month / Year )
All Fits are numbered according to completion
Of another one hundred poems
The month a Fit is completed is
Based on the last poem in said Fit
By the month it gets published, therefore named

No poem is numbered twice - a previously published
Poem acquires its exact number according
To which previously unpublished journal
It makes its debut in

At the time of writing this I have published
Poem # 307 ( to become seventh poem in the Fourth Fit )
Further poems have been scheduled until
The # 315 slot is filled at this stage.

i.e. The Third Fit: June 2k5 was finished in June, upon
The publication of ' i lack drive and ambition ' ( poem # 300 )
In Thieves Jargon in June 2005

There will be a finite number of Fits,
Possibly six, at least five, according to personal taste
In numbers and my superstition of them.

After they are completed I will write no more
I will do something else:

Plan my death.
Do something momentous.

Have kids so I can show them my children.

As for this particular poem:
I cannot
At present
Put a number
On this calculated idea.

Will leave that task for the editor.
At the risk of being sloth ( two digit, a remainder bipedal; not three digit, nor
Megatherium ): Not my job ...

If I were you I'd publish me


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'Dear John, stop watching TV - far too clever for your own good - please, blow out the candles on your birthday cake before you write to us again'.
—Richard Hillman, SideWaLK Magazine