Art
of the Novel |
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| Fiction | Poetry |
| Kevin Anslow | |
| Georgina Benson | |
| Lynn Bryan | |
| Vikram Chauhan | |
| Nasrullah Kahn | |
| Jay Mandal | |
| Peter Maughan | |
Shane Allison
Weblink: Future Tense Books. |
| Lay of the Land I'm going back home to freeload off my parents, get a job in the mall at The Tilt, giving quarters to teenagers who smell like dirt and bubblegum. I'm going to Borders to spend hours reading magazines I dream of writing for. I'm gonna read poetry and wish I was back in New York eating ramon noodles, dancing at Stonewall. I'm going to suck off old men in parking lots. Take two steps back with no life of my own where someone is always home. I'm headed back to Tallahassee to get fat off thirty-five cent honeybuns. My boxes are boxed, the address has been changed and all mail will be forwarded to Charlie Ash Lane. I'm leaving soon for Tallahassee. Everything has been shipped to my aunt's house in Queens. Gotta be out of my apartment by noon. Bus leaves at one. I will cry in Baltimore. I'll be home soon. Get myself a one bedroom apartment on Tharpe Street, drink at the only gay bar in town, and get a job I hate. I'm here. Who Cares Who cares about your high school days? Who cares if you were fucking president of your senior class? Who cares if your friends knew you were gay or that they were cool with it? I was never class president anything during my high school days. Nor did I have gay-friendly friends who was cool with my being gay. It's not like I would have cared if they were cool with it or not, anywayz. Who cares if you were Homecoming King? What do you want, a damn medal? Who cares if you ran track and had the fourth fastest mile in your county? You obviously weren't that fast, being fourth and all. No one cares about homecoming kings running the fourth fastest mile. Who cares if you grew up in Cook County, cookie county, cum, country county, or whatever you call it. I don't. I've forgotten already. Who cares about little towns? No one cares about little towns or even the black athletes of your cookie-cutter little town, 'razzing' you. Is 'razz' even a word? AHHHHHHH! WHO CARES? Who cares if your town was lily-white? Your town gives lilies a bad name. Who cares about the KKK? They dumb any damn way. A lily-white KKK town. A town whiter than KKK hoods. Who gives a shit you grew up in a KKK-white town? Your skin ain't brown, so what the hell do you know about it? No one cares about cross burnings or crosses burning, and five hour rides to Mississippi. Who cares if your sister was scared shitless? She act like she's never seen crosses burning at cross burnings. No one cares if she saw a cross burning in the front yard. We care about burning crosses about as much as we care about wild violets. Neither of which, we care about. We don't care about five hour car rides to Mississippi or give a rat's ass about wild violets in your sister's hair, or burning crosses from cross burnings burning in the mirrors of your sister's eyes. Who cares if the wild violet is your state flower or the cardinal is your state bird. Who cares about a river named Kickapoo? We don't give a rat's ass about wild violets and cardinals. Wild violets, along with dead cardinals can go jump in the Kickapoo River for all we care. We don't care about Kickapoo River, violets gone wild, cardinals found dead, or Indians. Could you be anymore politically incorrect? Did you know lily-white actors during the lily-white days of Hollywood, played 'Indians' in old westerns? But no one cares about that. No one gives a shit that lily white actors painted their faces orange, wore black wigs, and pretended to be Native Americans. Who cares about Lily-white actors during the days of lily-white Hollywood painting their faces orange and wearing head dresses that flowed down their fancy backs, burning crosses at cross burnings in studio parking lots? Show me one caregiver who cares about that. We don't care about a burning cross from a cross burning floating down the Kickapoo River of violets and dead cardinals. Lily-white actors with orange faces, with wild violets sticking out of their black wigs, can go to hell. Who cares about sun fish and charred crosses? Who cares about digging up worms in hot summer days or catching sun fish with the worms dug up in the hot summer sun? Who cares about tourists and state parks? We don't. We don't care about tourists touring state parks with state violets in their hair or cardinals eating the food that cardinals eat out of the hands of state park-touring tourists. Nor do we care about state park tourists eating sun fish caught with worms dug up in the summer's sun. Who cares about tourists eating sun fish charbroiled on a charred cross caught with worms dug up in some summer's sun? The summer sun can go suck a worm. We don't give a shit about enormous lakes either. I almost drowned in a lake when I was seven. I wish I had drowned. I wish I had drowned so a sun fish fisherman could discover my black, waterlogged body floating on a burnt cross with wild violets stuck under my armpits and a fucking state cardinal stuffed in my mouth. Sacrificed by lily-white actors in Indian face no doubt. I wish I were a banyan tree. I wish I were a banyan tree with violets growing out of me where cardinals would build nests in my branches. Being a human man sucks more than a homecoming king picking wild berries from wild berry bushes. Not saying that I care about wild berries or the wild berry bushes these wild berries were plucked from. I could care less. Just saying that being human sucks more than wild berries being plucked from wild berry bushes from a homecoming king. We don't care but I bet you a wild violet homecoming kings and senior class presidents in KKK towns care. Like their caring even matters. Who cares about lily-white actors dressed as Native Americans burning crosses at cross burning parties? Lily-white cross burners dressed as Native Americans having cross burning parties are dumb and stupid. It's about as stupid, about as dumb as planting a garden. If you want to plant a garden, plant a garden, but don't expect us to care. We don't care about pumpkin seeds or sweet corn or tomato plants either. You can go make a pumkin pie for all we care. You can make a cornbeef sandwich with slices of vine-fresh tomatoes. WHO CARES!?! WHATEVER! Vine-fresh tomatoes on a cornbeef sandwich is dumb any damn way. Who cares about green pepper plants or squash? We hate squash. Who cares about lettuce? Lettuce, we will have you know, is DUMB AND STUPID! We don't give a fuck about dumb old lettuce, green peppers and stupid squash. You can go put it on a corn beef sandwich for all we care,which we don't care. Squash is dumb. Green peppers are stupid. Not as stupid as a senior class president dressed in blackface eating a corn beef sandwich with slices of vine-fresh tomatoes, but stupid nonetheless. Who cares about this dumb old stupid stuff anywayz? WHO CARES!?! THIS IS SO FRIGGIN' STUPID! Litany praise be to abdominal pain bloats praise be to belly button seat belts praise be to marijuana roulette wheels praise be to diamond-studded ravioli praise be to shrimp beef crutches praise be to chicken reefs praise be to sweet and sour plate porks praise be to Mongolian roast eggs praise be to cow hat snow peas praise be to vegetable peppers praise be to furry curry chicken praise be to nut wounded cashew knees praise be to lobster thread praise be to oyster masks praise be to buffet ring ties praise be to pumpernickel boxes praise be to hearing aid egg noodles praise be to wild roll egg cards praise be to credit lattes reports praise be to loanmopeds praise be to rubber chicken necks praise be to eraser jet pencil invisibles praise be to smoke mirrors praise be to lung bullets praise be to red hot celebrities Lung Bullet lung bullet in me crab cake panty pinks lung bullet in me sesame sausage lung bullet in me fat free zeta milk lung bullet in me barbecue bean rib lung bullet in me dashboard headache migraine lung bullet in me seat cover blood vessel lung bullet in me dainty dandelion dress lung bullet in me dumpy pork lung bullet in me glass hour lung bullet in me hard-headed stripper lung bullet in me jumbo lobster shrimp lung bullet in me paper weight garlic lung bullet in me scum brace lung bullet in me red pepper desk lamp lung bullet in me ear puke wax lung bullet in me Al Sharpton ashtray lung bullet in me loose ring tooth nose lung bullet in me torture room rape chamber lung bullet in me carrot sadwich salad tuna lung bullet in me cuff car seat links What I Remember About Jarret I remember when I first saw you. You were wearing dark shades. I think you said hello to me, but I paid you no attention & wondered who the hell you were. I remember black hair that was somewhat curly I remember your lips I remember white, freshly printed out poems on a desk I remember you took my dragon journal and wrote me a check for sixteen dollars. I remember regretting cashing that check I remember great big handwriting I remember low quiz scores written in red ink I remember you saying something about wanting to stick your dick between the tits of young freshman girls. I remember asking you if you were into fat chicks I remember eating sandwiches at Schlotsky’s I remember a black toenail in sandals I remember being kicked out of the office I remember boxes upon boxes of undistributed literary magazines I remember the picture of a woman on a green cover eating an apple. I remember calling and asking, “Did you get any hits?” I remember the endless lists of magazines you got published in. I remember being a little jealous of your life I remember you calling and telling me you found a publisher for Monster Fashion, and how happy and excited I was for you. I remember the smell of honey mustard and the sight of an empty Chicken Mcnugget box. (I was sure Todd left it). I remember a box filled with fat envelopes of poetry submissions. I remember walking in on you with your shirt off. I remember how quickly you put it back on when you saw it was me. I don’t remember the day you left Tallahassee. |
