ABOUT

CONTENTS

EDITORIAL

ARCHIVE

LAGNIAPPE

MAST

SUBMISSIONS

Four Poems
by Sasha Steensen


MORROW-HEARTED METHOD DREAMS

Every little whale-thought waits
awhile, then dives deeper
into sleep.

Once awake, blowing hard
for air, Method dunno
what he saw
there.

Ganging to remember
how he ate stars
how his liver escaped out his anus
and the sun rose through his genitals

or, how his eyebrows,
                                the two parents, or two sons, or two partners, or two spouses
                                or two handmaids, or two proxies
became bushy and beautiful, then fell out.

Only now,
beached on the Cape,
driftwood stuck and nudged
into each side
by curious vacationers
does he know how every object
that looks like an object
will be destroyed
finally.




AND YOU YOURSELF ARE A RESIDENT OF THIS CITY

Through the city, Method markes his way

          Methinks mias-
                     ma
          fallen in shrubs
          has left our city a series
          of suburbs

By all means, be wary of ends
hankering for revenge
herded together
in our otherwise silent square.

In hospital, Middle-Aged men
exchange their hearts with ours.

I swear by this city
and by the begetter
and all whom he begot,
I’m the word of God.



Me Thee Odes

Method’s wealth is went away
his twelfth time down to the bar.
He’s on the outs. He stinks.
He has his way with me.
He is some sad
sulking.

He is not these things.
He is not.

He sats all day poking out.
He rots, and riles his heart.
He moves underground.
He bucks me off.
He hangs around, loiters
gives up for lent
the following:

He carries a bell for bears,
to scare them off.
He’s tender towards me.
I sell him down the river,
all shitty and sorry.

He’s bigger than me.
He’s better.
He’s all round and his rump
is lovely.

He went again
to the bar and lost
his thirteenth.

And shot a dart through
the window
hitting all but me.

He is his own he.
He is.
His is dead and gone,
and his comes along,
very scary. Boo
hoo.

His is one too many.

He is an object that looks like an object.
I love an object that looks like an object.
He is an object that looks like an object.
He is not.

He fell
a forest
over
and so broke
his crown

A body without a head
is no more to be feared
than a land without
a king, he said.

He is himself about the ground,
rolling and wild
with his
own
heart
pounding

and full of piss and fire
God Bless him
and his.

Method is his own his
And no one else’s.

He looks like him and his,
anyway,
he eats like him and his
and so he is.




WEST EATS MEAT

Master Method emerges on the street
                                          snout & cleft feet

he hogs the grazing land
and we go hungry
not even an oint-
-mint left in the bowl

until
run over
by a hummer,
            he's matted, flattened, worn, warn.

Our hour has arrived,
a platter garnished with roast feet.
We eat.

No wonder,
ourselves and our monsters are on parade
& on stage, an olive tree leaved with sparrows sings:

“a worm a worm
    eats word
    eastward
    east’s warned”