qarrtsiluni

I
Go tell John to stop writing backwards. Stop calling forth unrooted trees. Make broth from worn shoes and empty hands. Stow away family albums and vermouth. Place neon bar signs over your doors. Winnow the undesired shoals into darker waters. Resuscitate the pipe organ. Pound cutlets from abandoned expatriates.

II
They won’t ply you with ice cream trucks. They cannot play chess. They will not mime a man trapped in soggy tissue paper. They won’t abscond with the escape ladders. They won’t fritter the last hours away on carousels. They will seal every exit but cover their footsteps. They will hesitate before slicing the skies and filling you with sawdust and straw. They will want what you can never say to them unless you are speaking in tongues.

III
Liquor drizzles the porn collection. Hula hoops enter oncoming traffic. Viaducts volley their occupants. Articulating arms reach out for pulsating bodies, leech heat. Tarot cards shuffle, tell the same story. Fur stoles crawl into knotted piles. Stamp collections peal away from their albums, mail themselves to the past.

IV
In disastrous end-times, you will suffer: unending lines at the grocery store check-out; muscles, unmassaged and unused; queasy silences at the dinner table; the coarse laughter of your daughter’s daughter; a crushing lack of caffeinated beverages; mosquitoes (their bite and buzz); the stench and mortification of eternally unbrushed teeth.

by E.A.P. and Dana Guthrie Martin

Download the MP3

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windows will shatter before impact
force of forward thrust
fabric will scratch and tear

all escapeways will remain sealed
all lavatories will empty
water into the darkness

by E.A.P. and Dana Guthrie Martin

Download the MP3

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