ABOUT

CONTENTS

EDITORIAL

ARCHIVE

LAGNIAPPE

MAST

SUBMISSIONS

Two Poems
by Phillip Griffith


THE WHALES

The first sounds of exploding were the interior capsules set to
detonate with the soft floss of filter feeding. The whales a soft
where the knife the soft parasitic clinging.

The whales through gumming blubber circumnavigating the scene of the
piled whale bones culled from a shallows. For the sake set ruin to various
masses called a foliage a shambles bled the centers of capsized whales.



A set of accidents kept them enthralled. A cross section kept an
interested out. The flay of a pinned down sides. They kept the finned
down. The vivisection soon                        bleating recognition.



The packed weight hefted a remains. An arm yielded in bricks from a
coat. Hacked out summons until the spittle cough. The canoe centers.

The whales set a vote of confidence to the quorum. Quailed out a
murmur for history. Sounding the shallows heft a earlier lot of
recipes. Net, mote, sawn fine mince to quarry, under nails. Stored
murmur of shallows sounding. Prawn breened up. Coat breened up. The
whales



from Uptown

we   said   absent,      evanescent,   becoming    supports    of      ourselves
engaging digital optics          we said the bus might get us there faster than
         around   the corner supplicating the accusers in open court magisterial interest in each step             in each chandelier suspended over courtyards and streets                      in chalked outlines and whispered prosecutions                in chandeliers suspended over oceans and liners nodding toward the answers                being a con and running the galley or that the con is running our galley             but           sites immaculately listening set in for response conditioned in              1          the bears kept nosing their ways into the trains        2           the bears just kept nosing in 4         we did not want to let the bears in          in visual acuity to notice what was out of place, a totalizing logic                the total threat of our uptown of          said the witness of        said the accusers        process of polypped artifacts           said strung to informants said witness
safe houses off the harbor and here the safe houses had gone underground we said         the safe houses are no longer safe        1          the soft nuzzle of the bears          told us bravely             against the soft nuzzle told us        1         told us to board the ocean liner          2           told us the doors would not reopen         4          told us security in fear         4
told us the warm noses        are a fuse, a circuit breaker         set to dark on dark water          but the morning still brought the papers delivered to our doors             the summons signaled post-machine age machinations set to dark on darker water           our uptown kept afeared, kept abreast our uptown          1

crawling out of the sleeve might running from the first lights on the street side        from inside the bear mask like one of            we said insistent push       or we said           we said the emergency practice exit        we said, the three        swaying lightbulbs leapt the rates of the courage laid out in the contractual and the outage to face the tunnels        lease dictates a bus route mapped around a stern       strung a mat of fur on the corner, the shoulders outside the last open club            a backed bar, a swallowed dive       a shoulders set macula and meaty plate        docks not cater the euphorics                seemed upset in the email (cf. “prowling for a fuck”) we said all the comfort of release               we said the lists, the confidential contractual agreement            2             the nosing kept the nuzzle a cheap imitation            the sweaty scent attracted to the costume       their bravado, the soft sinking nuzzle              kept the chandeliers alight the soft marbled venison            crawling across the venison filament                 the emergency light kept us to equivocate the salting               the steaks for preservation from the tendon           can tunnel safety through mask
parades we said 3          fear 3 and ceiling vaulted the salting cellars
tied up in the marshes, we logic did not want to let the bears in      we packed the venison response         we said our flanks of meaty             we said the salt, condition, macula        we said the three not to let the bears in we said          all the slices of venison         we said        1

 

Phillip Griffth currently lives in Paris where he is pursuing a master's degree.