The Vivisected Untitled Animal Poem ?


We here at the Butchered Switch offices are proud to unveil the first in our newest regular feature--the Vivisection Operation. Switcher Andy Dieck of Brooklyn sent in this piece, which is a vivisected version of the recently dropped Untitled Animal Poem ? .  We find his lines vigorous and overall his choices have revealed new and suprising depths to the text. 

If you find yourself spurred to vivisect a poem please feel free to send it in to the offices by way of our email address found in the profile above. We eagerly await any submissions. 
               -Thank You, 

Enjoy. (Note: this post was guest edited by former Bush Press Secretary Ari Fleisher.)


In the dawn in my boat, I go to cover
the sound of the dead
 women ripping each other off.
That song we sang until
we forgot it forgot us kiss.
his henchmen set up
camp in my yard
The pen I picked up
was different from the one
I put down.

Who keeps saying that?
the crow and the people
people lose all interest
you’re not a character, you are no depth,
Deux Machine all up on that string
drop the chorus in on tethers
the story goes like this, he doesn't get the girl.

 Years later the Bruce Willis's roll up,
to get filled in on the backstory.
pull the sheet off its cage. It looks like a vulture,
hunched over a game of solitare. Smoking,
the parrot soliloquizes the explanations.
this function is its cage.

Untitled Animal Poem?

"The mind is exactly this tree that bush
without thought or feeling both disappear"

      -Ikkyu


The pen I picked up
was different from the one
I put down

the crow and his henchmen set up
camp in my yard

get out of your way  cries the parrot

bah cries the goat

people lose all interest

and in the dawn I go in my boat

I don't know how to use

that song we sang until
we forgot
to cover
the sound of the dead
 women ripping each other off

they're quite comfortable there

I saw your wife go
in the dawn in my boat

the song  forgot us kiss
off kiss off cries the parrot

quick read the headlines lining its cage,

to get filled in on the backstory
pull the sheet off its cage

the parrot soliloquizes the explanations
this function is its cage.

your not a character, you are no depth,
Deux Machine all up on that string
drop the chorus in on tethers
the story goes like this, he doesn't get the girl.
 Years later the Bruce Willis's roll up,

a parrot and a goat,
the crow and the people

The dawn in my boat, I go.

Who keeps saying that? Is it that parrot?

Catch it mid-day and it looks like a vulture,
hunched over a game of solitare. Smoking.
Turning the screw.















Superbowl Success

I was in a bodega buying a can of calimari with dimes and while waiting in line my attention was caught by a figure speaking on the little tv over the counter. It was a former football quarterback talking about winning a super bowl, and the implications it had on his life. He was, how can I say, very earnest. The portion of this poem that is dialogue is taken fairly verbatim from his musings.

I was struck by a few things, one is the simple observation of just how important the superbowl is to people. Secondly, I was amused by how seriously this man was talking, it was as if he were giving a moving affirmation of the institution of marriage, except he was talking about what it feels like to kick ass at the ultimate sports experience in this country.

I also thought how much his tone and conversation, very self-satisfied and moral, mimics the attitude of direct-marking and business language, which boils down to the idea of to the winner go the spoils. Here was an exceptional individual basking in and contemplating the meaning and implications of their fantastic achievements.

So, take it for what it's worth and enjoy the game.



Superbowl Success

The blue glows on the bottles and patrons in their rows
On mute the tv mimes the sports dance
As the thrum of this sports bar setting dims to silence
You in your stool elbow deep in the peanut bowl
are brought ever closer to an unwanted confrontation
the weirdo across the room has made eyes at and is coming towards you.

But do not fear nor look away from this strange man
Who speaks too loud red face set around too white teeth
You are so alarmed by this intrusion into your personal space
You don’t hear what it is he is saying at first,
but pay attention and be warned:
his voice will disappear you
into the pampas of his shoulder.
For he is an adman and a caffeine junkie

It is his turn, to explain, his subject is success and fame:

A black sound stage a large man with a withered cheek sits wearing a cream colored suit, holding his hand in his lap nodding in the viewers direction, where the interviewer sits, asking questions telepathically—or the large man is just rambling on in that free-associative, filling time, bridging way like tv personalities do. The well-groomed former tight end at the start of his announcer’s career. The quarterback who broke major passing records at the super bowl, ruminating on the import of the ring:


‘I don’t act any different now then I did before it happened, I still

get up in the morning and go to work, but I don’t know, it seems like

people talk to you differently. They use your name. Talk about you differently.

It really changes your perspective, because you are brought into new levels,

So you can view time open, an empty stretch fading out of

The picture you have ranges but

When you’re a kid you think fixedly

‘I want to win the superbowl.


The time on the field so much outweighed
By time off, a guy has to build himself
An exit strategy, set something aside
For the years of his dotage, and
What I’m saying about this ring is
That if factors in that equation
I don’t even know all the ways how.

Your only chance to have it not
Kick your ass

Is to ride it out to completion.