"soaked engine," "Sock Puppet Alarm Clock," and "Stepping over a cloudless leaf blower"

soaked engine

Allied:
 
            freed to breed across enemy lines.
 
                                    Wasn’t this a line
                                    draining at one
                                    time & not the necessary
                                    rhyme you see before you?
 
                                                            Tail spin/
                                                skin lengthening
                                                                        procedure/
there once was a brutality
soaked engine that engulfed
the world in its flames
& everyone rejoiced
in its strangely & overly fetishized
beauty to which I could
not find a fitting response.
 
                        Salvation
&                                 BURNING
            bridges!
                                                Welcome
to                     the                               21st
            century!

 


 

Sock Puppet Alarm Clock

Named for the sock rifle of disbelief
a dumbstruck prince of tides
wanders into an all-night desire
munching on tacos and hitting
the dance floor until sledge hammer
fists until soccer cleats glow in the
ooze of radiation destructive pulse.
 
Slip, slip,
            slippers and stickers
                        depicting an
                                    A+++++
financial
            DISASTER.
 
                                    To sing
            & sing
& sing              until the throat
suffers a stroke
                        (not of good luck)
            (no! no! no! no!).
 
Aqua marine agua,
            lusting after mines
                        & drifting through
futuristic ennui
                                    until the
demands are                            met.
 
Meanwhile, back on the
suffocating plane of time
we study transit maps
until the breath breaks
the absolute stalemate
of infinity.

 


 

Stepping over a cloudless leaf blower

the LIZARD has a culminating endeavor
                        THO chooses
not to speak
so the veins bursting at the neck
                                    WHERE
                        ONCE,                        there had
been muscles of the type
that French kiss in twilight
as if trains colliding
                                    in
                        spherical
                                                TUNNELS
lifted off the walls the painted
grimaces of coal yard regrets
that i reject outright as OVER-
                                    WROUGHT   &
                        that,
                                    to be,               the must
            amid
tides & tumultuous park benches
where policemen lie & lie & lie
                        & LIE as
                                    incapable of
            telling                          the                   TRUTH
as a                  PREACHER
                                    in a gilded
cage whose cheeks have hollowed
            OUT
                        &         the brief truncated
            mysteries                     of                     the
leaping fish could only let fly the
aliveness of sounded out VOWELS
                        to
            the                   CHILDREN               of                     the
monstrous        &                                                         the
greedy w/ heads like mushroom clouds
w/ bits of torn up paper products
adrift in the sewers of our times
            THEIR mouths,
                        still in envy,
THEIR                                    spores
            like potato                   balloon
& gigantic
                        swinging primrose
            tyrants
stuffed full of handsomely adorned
charms,
            pounding at the alley door,
                        which changes shapes as
            much as an organ bellows
having set foot
in a back & forth crawling pit,
                        enhanced by virtue
abandoned,
            STOMPED,
                        played OUT,
                                    freshly put in
to &
            out of
                        theories abound as
to why all else fails to
bridge the gaps b/t RICH &
                                                POOR,
b/t SLOB                    &                     COWARD,
                                                                        b/t
the demiurges left on backdoor step
for the vultures to
obscure.

 

 

Joshua Martin

Joshua Martin is a Philadelphia based writer and filmmaker, who currently works in a library. He is member of C22, an experimental writing collective. He is the author most recently of the books peeping sardine fumes (RANGER Press) and [Ruptured] >> Schematic <<  MAZES (Sweat Drenched Press). He has had numerous pieces published in various journals. You can find links to his published work at joshuamartinwriting.blogspot.com Joshua recommends the Morris Animal Refuge.

 

Edited for Unlikely by Jonathan Penton, Editor-in-Chief
Last revised on Monday, April 11, 2022 - 22:00