tagvverkissue2

T A G VV E R K Issue 2 August 2014

Two Pieces Gary Shipley and RC Miller OBEY SPELL I disembowel werewolves in an effort to keep still. They will be traded later on for food. Funny how overfed girls sometimes melt in the sun. Suddenly I realize why I don't have more money, Why I need the monastery more than I need God. The future's circled by a mumbling immovable dash. I’m in the belly of a cloud gently hacking off my feet. DUMMY SKY My food is less morbid right before it falls out. I walk around upside down and without cheeks. The way to fly was lost in the bowel of a canary. I've exhausted my hair. When hunger grows back, it grows back thicker. The way to die is tossed in a towel screaming for a champion. The people we ate are behind us. Gary J Shipley is the author of various books, including the forthcoming Gumma Homo (Blue Square), Dreams of Amputation (Copeland Valley), The Death of Conrad Unger (Punctum / Dead Letter Office), Crypt(o)spasm (Punctum) and Theoretical Animals (BlazeVOX). He has published in Gargoyle, The Black Herald, PLINTH, elimae, nthposition, Paragraphiti, and others. More details can be found at​ Thek Prosthetics.​ ​ RC Miller lives in Metuchen, NJ. He is creator of Mask With Sausage, Pussy Guerilla Face Banana Fuck Nut, and the upcoming Demon Drawings. Miller maintains an art blog via WIGFUCKER​ .

Two Pieces Brian Oliu Ace of Base – Don’t Turn Around As if there was any other way to leave; by car, by boat, by anything with wheels instead of our slow stupid feet: that when we imagine this moment, we picture ourselves walking forever—towards a sunset, up and over a hill until we are out of sight; that there is a moment when movement stops & we sit in a house we will never share with anyone. It’s hard for me to remember who closed the door; it was you, it must’ve been you; my arms are not long enough to reach behind me & grab at handles while keeping my eyes forward. In a world where there are few regrets, here is one: I should’ve turned around & looked you in the eye to see if your heart broke, to see if you grew dizzy, to see if everything stopped making sense, to see if there was any damage that I could cause on my way out into summer—that instead of waiting on nights for you to come back from the dead, to transcend walls, to drink the water on the air, that I could know what pride feels like, that away is a place that I could walk. Darude ­ Sandstorm It’s something I’ve never seen: it is always too damp where I live—the silt would mix with the humidity & turn everything into mud: it would cake our faces, it would make our heat invisible. Your mother saw these things—how they would rise up from the earth like a declaration of spirit—how she would cover her eyes from anything foreign: a speck of glass, a dull­hearted boy with a fat tongue and no fear of what it is to move in the world. I would not last there, you would say, & it is true—my eyes too light, my lungs free from the grit of summer, how a strong gust of wind would give me pause. Take me back inside, let me sleep in a place that is colder than anything you could ever imagine. We only notice the wind during its greatest fits: the highs a devil, the lows coming in silence and strange shuffles—these loves of our youths before we knew there were other things across oceans, that there are places where the sand does not move. Brian Oliu is an instructor of Creative Writing, Literature, & Composition at the University of Alabama. Associate Director of Slash Pine Press. Author of So You Know It's Me, Level End, Come See For Yourself, & Leave Luck to Heaven (forthcoming 2014).

Paper Crown Laura Mullen Who sees this and names it Who negotiates a way through what is Saying what ought to be In a colorless room The camera angle Who calls the shot∗ The experience of seeing That which appears to deny The existence Of the audience I have the experience of raising My hand to my eye Covered in glass Just watch+ ___________________________ ∗Bolt gun cuffs protagonist I call the shots around here— Sweetheart. + Windows admit light Note: the body (more or less desperately) “honest” And I, I... Caught up in the effort to be anything but

I spy with my little eye The colorless room The bird in its cage “Fluttered”∗ In a sense Innocence Nothing seen by me except what I saw why is it so hard to believe that—why is the sense of having “seen it” (from someone else’s point of view) of having entered another’s visual field (as the subject) so strong I start “No no I perceived all this saw so much I never...” (as through my sleeve the dark seep of)⋅ then (hearing myself) Stopped Bridge station accident+ What I remember The camera not The tracks One of the two Inspectors hangs the receiver up behind the curtain Thinks Then replaces it with The transmitter “’I am the vessel of life’” This conveys something to the one Who said it _______________________ ∗Distressed (in that sense) ⋅Evidence + Also car and embankment what

Measured against Not a character But both Camera and watch­ Dog or canary In this case (Sing) frantic To be at once On both sides of The apparatus∗ Noisily making a Record+ Of what Of what ____________________ ∗Aperture +A racket

Peep peep peep A sense of having been in rooms When those who should have been there were not “I meant my mind”∗ Tracked+ Down (“I meant my mind but could only point to it via my body”) The light Beating of these Spread wings Against the bars That shot (Confined space) (and the train Of associations) I point to it you get My (drift) I indicate The POV One might take As if living it Out But the wad of blood­soaked gauze Tossed in the gutter I didn’t choose this (Hand to) mouth _______________________ ∗Windows we never gaze out of Take it from me + Across the newspaper Lining the bottom of that cage Grey fluff stirred by the frantic activity Drifts and gently rises up

Having been shot Having taken the shot∗ Having been hit and also The one who struck And also The one who left Without a mark+ Shut off Already beginning to think Of something else A kind of alarm System My breath my ha ha Art ______________________ ∗The train the chance the hint the point what else + What does it mean that I can imagine the world without

To Be a Living Organism Kim Parko In the large green room, there is a little room, blue, hidden, and home to a creature slightly large for it­ a creature longing to move into the large green room. This creature is called Orlion and this creature is both genderless and many gendered and will be referred to now on by the pronoun “ish”. Now, I don’t know about your sense of “room” or what “room” might mean to you, because you are not from this place, and I am using “room” merely as a category that might, loosely, contain the meaning of this room. Orlion is substantive; I just want to clarify that. Ish is of stuff perceived by all the senses. All twelve of them and the half and quarter senses and the multifaceted senses and multilayered senses as well. Oh, and the substrata senses and the senses in endless dispersion… It seems that to be a living organism one must outgrow their environs? Orlion is suffering from the condition of being, but ish also finds there to be moments of beauty throughout the day embedded in ish’s cramped space. For instance­ there are circles of moonlight from numerous portholes overhead, and there is a courtyard where ish can spread ish’s genderless and genderful genitals in the sun, warming them nicely. So, the want to move to the large green room could be classified as desire for what isn’t, while there exists a small contentedness for the little blue room of what is. Kim Parko is the author of Cure All (Caketrain 2010). She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico with her husband, daughter, and spirit dog.

PORNOGRAPHY: An Excerpt from a Scrapheap Manifesto Michael J Seidlinger In order to be felt, we must operate on the tips of our toes, the tips of our tongues. Reach out with tips of our tongues and reveal the impulse. Create ingenuity in the landscape of the lame. We must act in manners that reveal decisiveness even though we might not have reason to be here. Conceptualize the crash so that it might build a new beginning. Because we are given dozens of subjects to discuss—to explore—we are barely feeling at all. It might be that we have reason to adjust. We must conceptualize a voice of our own, and if there can only be one voice, what must it sound like to be the voice of the people? HOW TO CONCEPTUALIZE A VOICE THROUGH EXPLICIT ACTION: 1. ​ Break into homes but instead of stealing items, clean the house and leave behind a message that reads, “Thank you for this opportunity.” 2. ​ Show a person how they’ll die and tell them it’s okay, “I’ll be right there with you.” 3. ​ Lie to someone by telling them that their dreams come true. When they find out that it was false, tell them that they are closer now to believing their dreams are possible. 4. ​ Replace all actions and statements with IOUs and tell everyone you encounter that it’s just “one of those days.” 5. ​ When there is nothing to be said, play a song. Let it be on point. 6. ​ Write your own ransom note and mail it to yourself so that when you receive it a few days later, you will experience one sheer moment of confusion followed by relief, a one­two series of pure bliss for having spoken too soon. The pornography of the people is the material of misunderstanding.

It is the material of the momentary, and it outlines the distance that we may crash. The belief is that we may carry out the crash for as long as it takes to fully consume our confusion. If there will be anything felt, we must admit to ourselves that we feel nothing. We must shout without voices: Whatever. I don’t care. Only then will the end of the earth show itself. Only then will we reach the end of the earth. Michael J Seidlinger is the author of a number of novels including The Fun We’ve Had, The Laughter of Strangers, My Pet Serial Killer and The Sky Conducting. He serves as the Reviews Editor for Electric Literature as well as Publisher­in­Chief of Civil Coping Mechanisms, an indie press specializing in innovative fiction and poetry.