Two poems at Sugar Mule

Two poems at Sugar Mule
Published September 2014

Archaic Prosaic 

This is a prose poem. It is different from other forms of poetry because there are no line breaks and it looks exactly like a paragraph. It is a superior form of poetry because it allows you to pour out a stream of thoughts without regard to structure. It is a deceptive form of poetry, too, because you think it's going to be a story. And of course prose poems can be stories, too. But this prose poem is not a story. This prose poem wants to eat yer mama's eyes out. This prose poem lives in the ghetto. That's g-h-e-t-t-o. The gh is not pronounced as in laugh, cuz if it was, then it'd befetto, and what the fuck is that?. This prose poem doesn't discriminate: this prose poem hates blacks and whites alike. This prose poem is okay with Latinos and Asians, but only on Mondays after 5pm until midnight. This prose poem is going to butt-dial Salvador Dali and play him Sonic Youth songs until his ears melt into clocks. This prose poem loves it some prose poetry, but only during Lent, when it gives itself up until Easter Sunday. Then it's going to a bomb a homoerotic church, cuz this prose poem is a homophobic motherfucker. This prose poem fucks its own mother. This prose poem is full of incest. This prose poem is rated G for Gangsta. This prose poem hates gratuitous sex in poetry and apologizes for offending people of color. For example, green people might be offended because this prose poem is written in a black font. This prose poem was written almost entirely on sticky notes. This prose poem wants you to know that it loves gay people, but only when it's in the mood and the candles are lit and the wine is poured and the hi-fi is playing sultry songs by Barry Manilow. Man, I'm very low. This prose poem sucks the life out of life. Death will soon follow. Death to prose poetry! Long live line breaks! I say we bomb the Church of Prose Poetry back to Archaica. This prose poem will lead the revolution against poems disguised as paragraphs. Protect the paragraph! Mr. Para Graph called and he wants his namesake back. Fuck the prose poem, he says. Fuck it in the ass! He's so gangsta. He lives in the fetto. Viva la Revolucion!* 

*This prose poem was written in Spanish and translated into Elizabethan English by Che Castro Garcia Gabriel Allende Subcomandante, III. * 

*This prose poem includes references to authors, artists, musicians and political figures to make its author* look cool and/or lame. 

*This prose poem has no author.* 

*This prose poem wishes it was written by Dr. Seuss but only in the afterlife, cuz bitches* in the afterlife be dope. 

*This prose poem is not a misogynist. This prose poem* is a matriarchal mind-fuck. 

*This prose poem speaks* multiple languages simultaneously but only in the imperfect tense, cuz, like, no way. 

*This prose poem uses copious personification cuz personification is in this season, along with clothing of all fabrics, except cotton, polyester, and onomatopoeia. 

(This prose poem would like to thank the following people in no particular order: god, guns, and country.) 

(This prose poem was born in the deep Scary south but identifies more with the Yankees of yesteryear who wanted to emancipate themselves from mental slavery, cuz none but ourselves can free our minds.) 

(This prose poem would also like to thank its own reflection in the mirror for making itself look like a fabulous Homer's odyssey through space and time, all wrapped in a beautiful package of being and nothingness. Love, Kama Sartre) 

(This prose poem is no longer a prose poem. This prose poem has line breaks, but you cannot see them with the naked eye. Please clothe your eye and you will see that this prose poem is a sartorial optical illusion.) 

(This prose poem is not terribly countercultural, but it sure does love the taste of yer mama's eyes, fried in bacon fat*) 

*Unlike yer mama's bacon-fat eyes, this prose poem will never die. * Please press pause or rewind on your 8-track or cassette deck. 

*This prose poem has taken on a life of its own. This prose poem will now take its own life 


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cosmic psychotica 

The cosmic psychotic is a comic paradox: Self-referential and self-reverential, he references his reverence of self via the medium of narcisstic atrophy which erodes the legos of his ego, the building blocks of his toy angst. 


The cosmic psychotic is full of existential lust: he has sex with nothing and ejaculates nihilism. His id is tainted with time. His time is tainted with Freudian slips, which he wears to cocktail parties in the afterlife of the sun. 


The cosmic psychotic gets all up in yer grill. His favorite songs are those that never existed except in the backyard cook-outs of eternal damnation. There they play the funky beats of the freaky geeks. 


The cosmic psychotic inhabits a fully functional dystopia. He writes subversive verse which he rehearses in a hearse. He dies of claustrophobic euphoria and is buried in the cemetery of relativity. 


The cosmic psychotic's corpse is found alive and well at the doorstep of the Inferno, where the Hollow Man waits for gravity's rainbow to appear on the psychic side of the moon. 

Author's statement:

My poetic process, such as it is, encompasses allowing impressions to pour forth in a veritable waterfall of images and ideas. Something may trigger these impressions - a song, a painting, another poem - and then my mind just lets loose. I don't force poems: I allow phrases and images to spill out in a tumultuous tumble, and then I attempt to shape them into some sort of tangible form. But I don't linger too long on a particular piece or labor over edits, because I like to keep them pure and in the moment. I have noticed that the poems I like least are the ones I have labored over. Indeed, they sound labored and contrived. I aim only to please myself, but am shocked and ecstatic when my poems resonate with others. I don't take my poems too seriously, but I get cathartic visceral orgasmic thrill in writing them. Language is my homeboy. Long live language!

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Clockwise Cat publisher and editor Alison Ross dabbles delicately in verse. She also spews incessant invective. You may peruse her precious poesie and rowdy rants online. She was once nominated for Best of the Net, but lost out to savvier scribes. To her giddy bemusement, she was also selected for the 2012 and 2014 Erbacce Prize longlists. Alison's chapbook, Clockwise Cats, published by the venerable Fowlpox Press, will subvert your dissonant dystopia into a euphonious utopia of Zen-Surrealist bliss.