FOAMGHAST by Paul Cunningham Š 2012 by Paul Cunningham Images by Paul Cunningham, Rauan Klassnik & Adam Moorad. Chapbook by NAP naplitmag.com
FOA GHA foam (v) to emit foam; esp. to froth at the mouth; also with out. often as a hyperbolic description of vehement rage or wrath.
ghast (n) arch. or poet.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the editors of Thrush, in which “Edenic Language Suburbs and Holograms” first appeared and to the staff of Dislocate: A Minnesota Journal of Art & Writing for publishing “Autopsy of a Manta Ray.”
PASSAG PASSAGE
i saw nothing, i spoke with the lights off, i spoke calmly . . . tried coaxing myself to sleep i closed my eyes, i opened them, i closed them, i continued in this fashion . . . i eventually screamed out, could not discern if my eyes were still closed or if my eyes were still open through narrow slots in a large mass of dark tissue —a thick musculature—i saw intelligentsia —visionaries—through the slots in a large mass, slashed as if by knife, the mass, steaming as though recently gutted, and i had not imagined this, i swear i had not just imagined this, i had come to life, eyes open, an autodidact and what else would please me so?—what else, if not hope for a belief in purpose? i sought a belief in a purpose beyond hymns, beyond this mass—its flowing musculature— its sorrow
i closed my eyes for a really long time
and then i opened them could not discern if my eyes were still closed or if my eyes were still open
AUTOP AUTOPSY OF A MANTA RAY
i have heard so much about our ruined ocean of manta rays pillaged phrases capitalistic language dadaist amputations gliding, gliding, contrariant amputations gliding, gliding the blue where the last manta dwells whitegarbed against floors of deformed coral—a collection of twitching cephalic lobes (slowing movements) art art, with and without its ruined sex-parts withering cavernous mouth upholstery chomps the oceanfuture plankton-empty the task of the false and final manta
one last cavernous mouth (and stomach) exhausted, the contents: soft segmented bodies social forces of the epoch swallowed inside a veined magician’s cape (slowing movements)
EDEN EDENIC LANGUAGE SUBURBS AND HOLOGRAMS
cloud after cloud, we sway on porchswing. watch the sky replace itself. i fear we’ll become a timeless cartilage— without shine, brownrotten’d. i fear gruesome’s lightning. i fear the hologram made to bury our beautiful faces. Eden, calm berries sprout our heartbeat thickest creased with red torment. i rumble for those i love, but i can feel my small, small heart denied so much. i wear this metropolis ill-relinquished—memories at gasps and fond. my script to follow, mocked.
EAGLE
EAGLE
a laughing wingspan, sting-feathers over poorly perceived sleep muscles and constitutional history the sun hangs on our birds and mythologies, she believes we have become a technical procedure life’s praxis, your eagle grasps only one side of the contradictory process of historical development
FOAM FOAMGHAST
Flesh-animal stands in its apartment feeding it—a primal scene. Flesh-animal feeds it—floor—double foot. Flesh-animal, the porcelain ectomorph—muscles tagged with urban paints and salve—dancing soft to an ancient boom box. Softer, harder. Flesh-animal is the only painting in the city—a sheet of x-ray images: well-decorated worn-in cushions. It wants to dance a massacre across its couch its apartment interiors. It moves twists winks at itself in a nearby mirror. Scenes of its dance-massacre reach the nearest window. Skeleton, it moves toward the window dripping scenes of crawling torso, gasping ribs, exhausted heart, . . . smoke. Flesh-animal, dancing, obliteration, moves across the floor—double foot. It takes the window by looking, changes it by hand. Open, the window allows it much: a view of a terrifying city. Among its terrifying skyscrapers—moist negatives—flesh-animal confronts a creature bursting—wind through oil-silk drapes of rain—a smear of excess:
Manta Ray, wired to the sky, dips and recedes— spreads its immaculate darkness. Flesh-animal moves backwards from the window. The floor passes slowly under its shoes. Its dance-massacre has reached a conclusion. Flesh-animal’s boom box, . . . flesh-animal’s false prophet. The music has no longer its flesh of quickening flower—flesh-animal collapses to its knees as the Manta Ray oddity soars slowly toward the apartment window. Flesh-animal waits in its apartment, waits for antagonistic Manta Ray. Flesh-animal stretches its arms until they reach the ceiling. Tippy toes, painstaking calculation—its body tall. Principles of construction in music, the boom box, . . . agitated skull. Sonnet. Trinket. Pouring out.
Flesh-animal stares down as his dance pours out his golden dance his massacre romp his deep meaty veins the apartment interior—a thick musculature—a beastly Manta Ray a source a generation a multiplicity of artists a dwindling autonomy aesthetic a declining number the loosening the loosening the wealthy city and its Manta Ray—the dark, dark city of surplus a source of corruption a cavernous wound in a cavernous mouth, . .. Flesh-animal stares down and sees its soul go moist. Negative.
OUTH CAVERNOUS WOUND IN A CAVERNOUS MOUTH
an x-rayed mouth: ledging, sighs of choir patterned digest—repeated a lonely x-rayed mouth and a lonely x-rayed mouth: newcomers, a foaming bouquet stretches, adopts a lonely x-rayed man masturbates: column, floating, stream a lonely x-rayed woman masturbates: half-turning fingers, fixing swung an x-rayed wound in an x-rayed mouth: salted gasp, bloodestablished a meat of violent plum an x-rayed cavernous wound in an x-rayed cavernous mouth: one of those tastes you’re forced to taste
GEOG GEOGRAPHIC TONGUE
geographic tongue, proceeds recedingly expressionless into fortified rooms inside heads (eel noises clogged the space around our teeth) our entrance, a hole into a cavern (eel noises whisper us tighter) geographic tongue, no lines or X’s just throbbing flatland
HER IT
GATHER IT
carry your flesh-animal across discandied blushmounds paint it paint it what it has in its hand‌ your hand you decide to stay close to it
TREN TRENDING
maybe one day sex organs will resemble hashtags
#
we’re afraid of the instructions printed on our ‘evil parts’ want no more heated skewers want no more shame-bruises want no more skin
FRAID I AM ALSO AFRAID
i am afraid, i say my twentysomething neighbor (the one who collects guns) he wakes up alone drives off scans the population crocheted, outlines too calculated i am also afraid, someone says a life is long ripples, unthinking
MANT MANTA RAY
flightcut night eardrum soft, . . . catching voice-ripples blackest a contact from this side-less biter—Manta the biter moves forward—Manta tailthrusts: foamghast smears the drifting homosapien artists smears thrusts smears with its darkest muscle Manta seeks a goddess to conquer (any cheerful cattle to drag in its chains)
RENE
GANGRENE
Will we survive the tongues of old worlds? Delusion-producing monoliths? the memories, . . . they scratch a pale hooked sociological approach and the functions of art eat us down modern privilege “mister president, oh joyful mouthful . . . ” narrow squeals muffled audience-gauzed no bard-float “mister president, lead me into crammed corporate tombs . . . ” no bard-float to tack the sky with illusions of freedom
NATIO NATIONAL ANTHEM
a mouth vomiting knotted sheets (too many coughs and white spiders climb out) a fever of cheap seasonal tablecloths plastic itching scars: poinsettias, fireworks, etc. you cut pieces of your family from your dining room and compared them to everyone else silence is a woodpile of family tables
TUME
MY STATUE OF LIBERTY COSTUME
looks way different than yours
way more tongue way more tongue
FOA GHA foam (v) to emit foam; esp. to froth at the mouth; also with out. often as a hyperbolic description of vehement rage or wrath.
ghast (n) arch. or poet.
Paul Cunningham currently lives in Pennsylvania where he manages Radioactive Moat Press. His first e-chapbook of poems was Metro-GoldwynMayer (Pangur Ban Party, 2010) and his other work has appeared in or is forthcoming in publications like Aesthetix, Esque, Dislocate: A Minnesota Journal of Writing & Art, Dark Sky Magazine, Thrush, and DIAGRAM. You can read more of his work at http://pecunningham.tumblr.com/