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Room Hack & Flak Mouth
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Written by Gary J. Shipley
Illustrated by Saba Soleymani
Read by Peter Twal
Published 3/17/2013
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Room Hack
The room promised them things.
There’d be windows eventually,
and walls and a floor. All they
had to do was wait. Be grateful
that the sky was hidden. That
their sweat glands weren’t
leaking bioethanol, that their
words weren’t naked flames. And
if they could just forget what they
thought they knew
about drinking-water, and rehydrate as the room demanded. Things,
then, would improve. New telephones would ring. There’d be
hands they could feel inside the gloves of their bodies,
and they’d ignore the screams in the street. Their faces would grow back
again, and the eyes would purr like manmade cats inside their sockets.
Coming soon:
Buta
A PARAGRAPHITI Anthology
But first the windows and the walls and the floor. And even before those
things, the removal of a dozen heads.
Flak Mouth
I flirt with the dogs without
teeth. I don’t run so fast. I walk
as fast as that. I masturbate my
message across pictures of
women I see on the street.
Pictures of women whose cone
cells are made from pictures of
other, different women. Women
born folded down the middle. I
troll my own disintegrated
hunger. Its laser beam’s a gag.
The drains are shouting. The
airway’s open and empty and
polluted that way. I have all the
composure of a ballgown stuffed
with birds.
Listen to this poem:
Room Hack & Flak Mouth
Read by Peter Twal
Download
Gary J. Shipley is
Saba Soleymani is
the author of six
an illustrator and a
books of various
graphic designer.
sizes, the latest of which is a co-
She has illustrated a number of
authored chapbook of poems
books and magazines in Iran.
forthcoming from Strange Cage.
Her work has appeared in several
His work has appeared
exhibitions as well as in print and
recently in The Black Herald, Ga
digital publications,
rgoyle, nthposition, elimae, >kill
including Artist Portfolio
author, 3:AM, and others. He
Magazine.
lives in the UK. More details can
(Updated Mar. 2013)
be found here.
(Updated Mar. 2013)
Peter Twal is both a writer and electrical engineer. After
completing his undergraduate degree, he found himself
programming software aboard countless ships, despite
being certain that just watching Titanic made him sea sick
as a kid. He only sometimes gets dizzy writing poetry these days. His
poems have appeared or are forthcoming in NAP Magazine, smoking
glue gun, and DIG Magazine. His chapbook,Sissyboy Bullshit and All of
the Above can be found in plain china. He is currently pursuing his
MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Notre Dame.
(Updated Feb. 2013)
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