poem cereal

Butchered Switch is proud to announce the beginning of a new feature here at the blog, serial poems. We found some of the material we’ve been receiving to long to be endured in one sitting, yet so good that not one bit is worth chucking. Thus, our hands tied, we kick off our new series by introducing this snazzy, daft, little two-parter, entitled

w H E R E W O L F Pennsylvania

A free-wheeling exploration of consciousness, through consciousness bending poetic strategies of voice and utter context shift. In other words, it’s a bunch of hazy, crazy mumbo-gumbo buried at the heart of which is an empathetic (hopefully) confessional poem dealing with what I’ve been doing the last few days and this crazy movie I saw that you really should see.

We begin with a rapid introduction, moving from strangers to a deep mental intimacy. Then we go hallucinate a radical therapy commune at my house. The compounded Narrator begins trying to sell you something.

That’s that, commence the poem:

werewolf P E N N S Y L V A N I A

Take a belt of whisky.

No sentimental,

say, these days will not come back

no matter how much sushi

writing is

never strong

er, then: this way.

I pull my eyes out, one at a time, the left then the right

their strings dangle and sway, (it is November, I am single, in

cabs. I have a backstory.

But I’m not coming to you like that, I’m coming to you as a performer.

I want you to be entertained and amazed at my eyes.

Each goose gobbles one. Begin fighting.

Jules is bigger, but sassafras younger.

They scream. The chickens scream.

All the birds are screaming

as we eat our icecreams.

( -Dec. 23^rd, two years earlier)

Denny stands up, watch, runs through the fowl's midst,

scattering them, he caws

and gambols, fluffin his wings

He is going to go into a trance.

He falls into the air,

he hadn’t been there before because we weren’t

imaging him that way,

brrreath clouds, cigarettes cloud, Denny Denny, it’s ok

we’re all thinking of you, pushing you,

caring for you, you

Denny’s

eyes roll open, back and forth,

into his mouth,

becoming a baby,

a violent baby eating his own shit.

Cawing and cheeping,

we throwing our shit at him,

The turkeys respond with territorial gobbles.

Mouths full of mud,

The old man with his accordion,

He has become real, playing a ditty.

-This is one of the things we do here on the compound,

Once a week or month.

Are you kidding? We’ve got plenty of money.

We sell hand typed scrolls of primo-poetry, for fourty a pop,

they come as a surprise in a sealed tube.

Purchasers must designate a theme or bits of language, but

I’m getting off topic, you don’t care for money,

I can see that.

But have you ever unleashed the baby you?

-- Don’t knock it til you’ve tried.

* * *

Stay tuned and riveted for the next installment, the thrrrilling conclusion of Werewolf Pa

Zombie Apology

Butchered Switch would like to apologize for a mistake in it's last post. The photograph at the end of the post is of "the Zombies," an underground rock band comprised only of humans.



These are zombies:
Again, we apologize for the mistake.

ZombieS

This short post is meant to highlight two facts about Zombies.

1.) The zombie is a hopelessly confused animal. No longer totally human, no precedent for what it has become. Zombies are new animals. Eating humans and turning humans into zombies, these are its functions. Hunting in packs and extreme aggression are two features, which make this quite an efficient new species.

Since we don’t know much about them, it being incredibly difficult to collect field data, we must assume that zombies do not procreate. The only way new zombies are created is through the bite. For zombies, the bite is equivalent to coitus. It fertilizes the zombie seed through the blood of the bitten victim.

Not all victims of zombie attack become zombies, some of them are completely eaten and just die. Only those victim’s who somehow manage to repel a zombie attack, yet are still bitten, become zombies. Quite simply, natural selection works so that only strong specimens are added to the insane mass of the zombie mob.

The zombie combines enemy destruction, feeding and procreation in its bite. These combination's are at the root of the zombies disorienting, meta-physical and spiritual confusion, which is why they are so prone to run and scavenge aimless and wild. When a zombie sees a human it runs toward it. We may presume that until it gets there, it does not know which of its urges to satisfy.

2.) Zombies do not eat other zombies. Have you ever seen a zombie eat another zombie? No. They only eat humans. A zombie isn’t a cannibal. A human would probably consider it to be one, but zombies don’t think of themselves that way.

-Zombies

C O N T I N U

This poem is a fiction created around memory and fantasy becoming intertwined. So one can not tell them apart. Our guilt and our self justification become confused, our moral compass misaligned. This disorientation must not be allowed to make you afraid. If it does, you will miss the chance to go through the next door. And the opportunity doesn't roll around everyday...


Please, don’t play that Song.
it activates the toxins
stored in my brain

years of patient degradation
flood clutter
raising itself
into a pillar

myself, I abase
to forget
signal regret hones
in its echo. I am.

slumped on a bean bag
listening
but don’t remember
and why didn’t I…


groping round the hazy corner
to a man there
pale, the moon

entangled in the sheets

pushing forward

sliding down

into a boy, in the shed,
crying, what have I done

twang a distorted chord on a broke guitar
back to the black seed
don’t you understand
I am that man

Atlas, rolling the world
off my shoulders into bed
no more to hold but pin.
Naked with an animal

No feeling more alone.

grappling the past in heat

Stars flood the mind
pollen of poison
no jar to catch

and if I remember than
I am
so very crazy,
(what a thing to say)
put on mask,
take off face,
those gears,
beautiful black and white lines
swirling

Children Poem II

This poem is the second part of the children poem, the first of which appeared a little while ago. This poem is more confused, we have grown some, we are going to a really big party.

At parties I often get the sense of the whole party as a unit, as all the individual's have somehow come together, have become one by virtue of their similar goal, which is partying. Sometimes this is debauched, sometimes exciting, sometimes frightening. We are firmly in the territory where the people we were are creating the people we will become, without ever having solved the problem's and riddles of the personality, which seemed so important to do before moving forward. But hey, let's try to have a good time tonight.

II. Party Body

cramped

in the car

on our way

we feel each other

forget and reform

youth and memory

sorrow’s dim feelings

transform,

“this party gonna rock.”

“fuck yea brother.”

cinders blow

out the barrel

to flutter down

onto Bingo’s jeans ooch

ooch drinking jungle juice

music wafts from orifice

shapes merge

into the woods

come back glowin

the party forms a hybrid body.

dumb and blind

it bounds the ridge,

a dance a leap

to catch the moon and drink the wind

frenzy

sends us scattered

this way that, to and fro

why am I crying, where do we go

here, open your mind

open the box,

sniff these poppers,

huff this duster

get fingered

in the mud

and sleep

and arise

and ye are clean

again

(to be continued)