committed
under various conditions (none of them strenuous, all of them pleasant)
by Jenny Smith, Laura Rosenthal, Theodore Schwinke, Andrei Codrescu.
Transcribed and annotated with some unexplained ambiguities by T.
Schwinke
Contract
We
the subsumated
swear
here to never
sublimate
the trumpet
sublet
our follicles
borrow
anything nasty
and/or
eat zestless fruits
notwithstanding
peonies or their dependent stigmata
heretofore
to cover all wobble
all,
smile at all that toss things at us. Forthwith
and
henceforths, we the high & under-
masticated,
of dogfood sound and the eastern Krajina, betwixt
hard
rocks and incredibly moist terrapin bellies
swear
to heretofore
quit.
And start. And quit. And always eat our
breakfasts
30.
July 1997
If
not then it.
If
it then what.
If
when then or.
If
is or if.
("Maybe.")
30.
July 1997
Prose
Corpses
Jenny
Smith and Theodore Schwinke
I.
We
are charting the progression of our fevers on the wall of the living
room. I'm the dark horse, trailing streams of dust, leaving beheaded
bunnies in the wake of my hooves. I never stop for water.
The
only time I stops is when the coffee runs out. The caffeine acts
like nitrous oxide; the fever burns cleaner. Particles vibrate at
higher intensity. We should be able to pass through the walls before
dawn. Horsey, horsey, you are the only reason I go on. You are my
cell-wall, my semi-permeable membrane. We three kings of occident
are. At 3:30, Drew's fever hits 102 degrees like the county line.
You have to respect that. Searching for his coffee cup, Matt says,
"Any man who can't walk across the desert without a drop of water,
slaughter sixteen head of cattle, build an outhouse and then come
into the kitchen and make a decent cup of coffee ain't worth his
salt." Irvid agrees. Mildred comes in, carrying a roast chicken
on a stick. She stops in the doorway abruptly at the sight of us.
Resting the chicken across her shoulder like a rifle, she ratchets
a cigarette into her pierced lips. She lights the cigarette with
one of the dozen or so oil lamps blazing around the room.
Exhaling,
she says, "When I was a girl, and I was a little thing when I was
a girl, about as big as a cattail, I ate a side of beef a day. The
taste of meat was like raw strawberries to me." "I ate so much meat
that my colon went on strike," said Drew. "I can't touch the stuff
anymore." He took the fresh cup of coffee I offered him and started
spooning in sugar. Matt is reading a magazine that he's got behind
a menu. When the menu slips, everyone at the table see the cover,
which has at least three girls on one car along with something that
might be a pony.
Seeing
the strange magazine cover, his companions aspired to sainthood.
We are riveted with strange arrows. There is a knock at the door,
and we laugh.
II.
"Thank
you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you," said Ruth-Ann, as she backed
out of the door holding her uncle's head on a plate. The silver
platter holding her uncle's head slipped from her hands just short
of the table. Her uncle's head bounced like a ripe melon, its juices,
warm from the oven sprinkled her stockings like the sparkling icing
on the cookies. The head itself bounced off her new shoes like light
from a church window. It rolled across the floor collecting dust
bunnies in its orifices.
Ruth-Ann,
alarmed, shouted "Mary and Joseph! Get that in the sink with some
salt and cold water! Cold water!" Ruth-Ann was always the
village idiot until there was an emergency, which was pretty often,
come to think of it.
Around
the house, life was like a pail of milk that somebody had spat in.
A gun was heard from the backyard, and its sound bounced from wall
to wall so quickly that the paint chipped
The
stairs, unhappy to be trod on, give us the silent treatment. "Roust
out, you little rutabaga!" comes the inevitable morning shout from
the older sister. Not even today. Not even on Christmas morning
did the family touch a drop of butter, cream or milk. The kitchen
was clean of any evidence of dairy products.
Nothing
could be found except a darker stain at the high-water mark that
covered the trunks of the trees and the unfinished concrete walls
of the outbuildings' foundations. The flood lasted throughout January.
"Longer and higher than I'd seen in a coon's age," said some who
had the right. When the flood receded, half the town discovered
that their fingers were missing. Some kind of bacteria in the water,
I guess.
Anyway,
the missing appendages would probably be eaten up by catfish. Just
as well, I thought; I can't stand catfish anyway. Oh, the stories
we would hear from the boys. Sometimes, late at night when the floorboards
squeal, Barry, everybody's lonely uncle, can hear fingers. Thousands
of them, gleaming white, swimming through the air.
Saxon
Czech Poem 1
Sex
in Czech is zamilovat se
cabbage,
however, is forever while cosmos 2
wobbles
under the weight of the multiple
cartons
of malleable materials that
stank
of polyester and dead 3
sex
love
lines the carriages of the poetic
aristocracy
of limbs at rest in the
melliflous
4 places
between egg
sacs,
not human, scientific by definition
the
not 5 book
in which 7 is insribing 6
my testi-
monial
weeping men clutching their
midsection's
spoonlike soporific
July
30, 1997
1.
This corpse appears to be divided into three quatrains. While atypical
of the corpses produced by the authors in Prague at this, it is
possible that they were experimenting with traditional poetic techniques
and other substances. The reader will also note the frequent occurrence
of visual end rhyme.
2.
The word here is somewhat illegible. While it appears to be cosmos,
it lacks the definite article which would conventionally precede,
i.e. "the cosmos wobbles." It is possible that the author (who I
believe to have been Codrescu) was alluding to the 10th
century chronicler of Bohemian history, Cosmas of Prague (c. 1045-1125).
3.
Again, the original text is somewhat illegible. The author appears
to have begun one word and then changed his or her mind in the course
of writing it. While the final result bears more resemblence to
dead than any other word, the vocable hear looks something
akin to ahead, stead or deaf.
4.
sic. Probably mellifluous.
5.
sic. Probably note.
6.
The original text is somewhat illegible. Inscribing appears
to be the most logical choice, yet the word here could also be inscriby
or justify.
The
Protestan Century
The
red ork 1
dork fish-like and
mean what it says mean 2
it
smells like cat
spores
find holes to suck them
in
black silk
pants
off shirt off nipples
hard
like missionaries
noses
jutting from faces
of
Jan Hus, the antisemite
of
geese-- he is a goose
his
feathers plucked his head
aloft
flying just now past
Tahiti
July
30, 1997
1.
Possibly ark. If so, then the next word
beginning the second line is likely dark.
2.
Possibly meow.
The
Question Games
The
game as played here is intended as a series of questions and answers.
Invariably, however, the rules are too complicated, resulting in
frustration and fabulous disasters; but for the sake of art, it
is quite compelling. These were created at the gumbo party.
I.
Who
was the queen's bootlicker?
Mr.
Bouncety-Bounce
What
on earth makes them wrinkle that way?
it
is very blue, kinda round-shaped, but--I just don't know
When
did I die and make god me?
At
the moment of the shoemaker's epiphany.
how
much you clean
where
are my reference books
at
the Inn of the Boar where they keep the dogs
The
Tailor. The one with all the bandages.
Fish?
The
last fish. Did you know that you can hold a carp by its lower
lip?
II.
Who
made the dress of the fisherman's wife?
The
fucking bartender with the muffler
What
dropped from the bath with the baby?
The
collapse of Norwegian theatre.
One
wonders what one must do, but when?
When
did those soldiers pull up your pants finally?
Cabaza
de Vaca Day
Where
do they pickle sardines in vats?
in
a blue crate.
Why?
Why me? Because I'm the fucker with a necktie?
because
my cuticles have been chewed
by the
enemy
Czar
Nicholas in the height of indecision
III.
Who
put the mushroom in my bed?
mixed
the seriology and urine samples?
What
do Inuits call snow?
One
wonders whether the snow is white or in the mind?
When
did that blood get on your shoe?
When
will I stop being a dour self-absorbed cantankerous
up-start
with dark eyebrows and one pair of sneakers?
When
I say so, fool.
Across
the Ganges, upstream, by the water stand.
Why
did you trade the ice for gumbow 1?
Mars.
Why
(not) Oh, shit. I don't know why, just hand me the fish.
1. sic.
IV.
Who
is that man without the earlobes?
Andrei "Skimble-Shanks" Codrescu, that's who!
What was in the farmhouse when Farmer Struthers heard the shot?
the deed 1
Where
did the deer horns in my bed come from?
The
heart of darkness.
How
do you stand on your head?
How
did those keys get up there?
By
being so cross-eyed you can stand in the middle of
the
week and see both Sundays.
Why
have we faltered?
look
sweety-- I don't know why. The silk is "nice and dry"
Answer
a fish question.
1. Possibly
dud.
V.
Who
was the dolt whose hair caught in the drain?
The
man in red, of course.
What
is the difference between Barcelona and Madrid?
The
seventh seal of the apocalypse.
When
we are what we wear
When
I first saw your tits and sensed the taste of you
How
much goop dripped from Andalusia's eye?
In
where would you find george's head again?
In
Robert Frost's anus.
Ferocious
hounds devoured who?
it
oozes. Today--fresh, moist--salty. Tomorrow = festering,
mouldy,
pussy.
(but
I don't understand)
VI.
Who
farted?
Fellini,
with jinglebells on.
What
happened to the cap on your pen?
Whatever,
dude.
When,
exactly, did the shit go down?
pigeons
pay rent
how
much did I have to suffer before having
an honest
orgasm
In
what orifice did the sacred object lay?
Franz
Kafka.
What
is the meaning of life?
The
pillow
In
whom might one find a copy of A.S. Matheson's "Post-
Modern
Perspectives on the Plight of Underpriveledged
Neurethetic
Peguins 1"?
!
Humpbacked Aphesic
Robert
Everz
1.
sic.
VII.
Who
packed this Caruel 1
ice cream?
Santa
Claus
What
was the telephone number of Castro?
The
Green Manalishy 2
with the Two Pronged Crown
When
did the leave the womb?
The
Blue Moon -- The Second Moon -- Thursday
Where
is the Sojourner space probe?
Inside
the game show host.
how
did she ever keep that thing on her
head
from falling off?
Franz-Joseph
Why
did they do this?
Because
we're all just pleasure-seeking druids
1.
The original ms. is somewhat illegible.
2. The original ms. is somewhat illegible.
VIII.
Who
the hell asked you, you arch-monolithic, troglodytic simp? Who?
The woman with all the fishooks 1.
What
the fuck do the fire-ants eat at dawn?
four
blocks
When
did you sleep with that weird guy?
Many
yars later, when Colonel Aureliano Buendia
was
to face the firing squad, he would remember
that
distant afternoon when his grandfather
took
him to discover ice.
Where
did Trevor go?
Where
is the mother of that bug?
In
the brown valley of hair between her breasts.
How
did her knees bend like violin bows?
From
the behind.
In
whom does the worm worm worm?
in
my girlfriend for a while but then
there
were other possibilities
Did
you know how many dancers assembled?
of
course, isn't the number of lighters constant?
Untitled
(A Pygmy with a Hardon) 1
A pygmy
with a hardon sucks my
metaphysics
are the free-floating eyeblinks of
gods,"
said Drusilla 2,
flashing her legs at the
crowd
pleasing whippersnappers who can't sit still when she tips her
hat
of mary -- he's 3
with tri-cornered prepuces 4
in
the
breach, baked in an iron oven, 24 blackbirds
accidentally
tripping over an amoeba and furnishing the grape
jelly
contraceptives that the Czechs followed the
French
ignorance is a legitimate
defense
department is the worst excuse for protection in the
world
underworld big world bold world of worldly world
peppers
not peepers, poppers not choppers he
exclaimed
the morning sun above the heads of
swans
a singing six geese a laying, five horny toading
fucking
right I never get it fucking right what if the
fucking
anywhere else would
be
slow and malicious and belligerent and sweet.
1. The
original ms. is unsigned and untitled. It appears to be created
at the gumbo party.
2. The
original ms. is somewhat illegible. This proper noun is possibly
Priscilla or Drúsilla.
3. The
original ms. is largely illegible. The word that is most likely,
but by no means positively, mary is followed by hypen and
then the word I have presented here as he's, although the
original lacks an apostrophe. Further interpretations are welcomed,
encouraged and well-nigh pleaded for.
4. The
original ms. is somewhat illegible, but I feel that this is the
correct word, prepuce being foreskin.
Untitled
(Left-Handed Corpse) 1
Testing
gruel in
Paris
nor Prague where
all
th 2 moments
co
incide
with
moons
liquid crushed
by
the way--she ate your
Breakfast!!
Shut up, you dripping
genital-less
morons! Shut up, you post-modern
sluts!
They had wings
They
said. Fortunately, the dog
man
3 bit
the cigar and not the
stick
to beat that dog again
for
the people, by the people, of another kind of
humanity
no, I haven't got humanity.
1.
This corpse is unsigned. While the original manuscript was plainly
penned left-handed (by those authors who were right-handed; right-handed
for southpaws), it is not possible for the archivist to distinguish
the handwriting, and therefore the identity of the authors. If memory
serves, however, this corpse and several others included in this
collection were created at the apartment of A.Codrescu and L.Rosenthal
after a dinner of gumbo and ample portions of vodka. In addition
to Codrescu and Rosenthal, those present, and possibly contributing
to these works, included Jenny Smith, Theodore Schwinke, Robert
Eversz, William Hollister. With less certainty, I might further
suggest the presence of Clark Blaise, Julie Chibbaro, Julie Ashley
and Anthony Tognazzini.
2.
sic. Doubtlessly intended as the definite article the,
but whether the omission of the final vowel is intentional or not
can not be ascertained.
3.
Mercifully, the word man is crossed out in the original by
a jagged up-and-down scribble. I doubt the author intended it to
be thus included in the final work and should therefore probably
be omitted from further editions.
Untitled
(The cherubs of insecurity) 1
The
cherubs of insecurity sink their
teeth made from the keys on an electric
piano. I've always wanted to play but my teacher had
turquoise grit under her nails and as she demonstrated scales
I stared always, fixated, scared, at her fingers and never
learned a single
tune. A guitarist would do much better. All he'd do is change the
chord. Put it here, with spades and jokers. There can be
no other novelists in the fold, no other mice in the cheese. We
have lost
the only reservation he had about the incident was an
immense baby in a baptism of blood with
Cossacks full of Pepsi riding their nags 2
into the
sunset, where a shoehorn becomes a newt becomes an
axolotl teotipruec teotihuocon mextal conxelmuh 3
columbo,
the parrot, nabbed a necktie in his beak and
squawked
and chattered.
Eggplant
with the tint of an old Polaroid. I stood
suddenly
a glass slipped from her hand. Red wine spilled on her dress; the
glass
shards splinter my concious thoughts of fear.
pain,
as deep as Paris 4
as wide as techno-parsimony and
parsley
that never gets eat 5
from all the plates.
coming
thru the annals of histrionic de-evolution.
1.
The original ms. is untitled and unsigned. Probably created at the
gumbo party.
2.
The original ms. is somewhat illegible.
3.
The original ms. is somewhat illegible. Plainly, a mimicking of
Aztec names is intended.
4.
The original ms. is somewhat illegible. Possibly Pain.
5.
sic.
Untitled
(The kitchen boiled over my thighs) 1
The
kitchen boiled over my
thighs the alternative to murder by
scissors shreading 2
stripes of parched flesh, like
leather silk wood metal glass plastic cotton wool blend
of my best friend: Sasha Solanovanovitch the II,
"Esquire, Joe," he said, shaking hands.
"I'm sorry. Really. I Realize I should stand up for myself but just--
--sorry." This, of course, was wholly unsatisfactory, riddled
as 3
depleted,
as riddled with holes as a careless gunman's distillery,
as coldly as he could he said "When the Revolution
comes for the ice cream, pistachio, that they had
bought a cannibal in the passage and ate her out in
spades dig you deeper than aces, but
diamonds with chocolate, strange as dice. Someone has taken
a scissors--motion, sliding. slithering. closing sharbly 4
--like
motion sickness. After the game, we took turns changing
heads
will roll when the fallacy of royalty falls to bastians 5
of
hedonists at the gates of heaven and the goats from the
Amazon.
1.
The original ms. is unsigned and untitled. Probably
created at the gumbo party.
2.
sic. shredding
3.
The words riddled as are crossed out, probably because the
author thought they better fit in the next line.
4.
sic. Probably sharply.
5.
sic. bastions
Untitled
(The Legs of Deer are Hairy)1
The
legs of deer are hairy but my heart
throbs
through the coarse cotton
shirt,
straw hat and wire glasses fought
intensely
mirrored. Plants and bees shoe themselves in
green,
green as fireflies, as new peanuts. "Put this
in
context." Algorhythms, however better determine the size of the
street 2
"Wallah
Wallah? Never been there," said Phil. "Heard they
grow
apples there." He picked his
teeth,
and looking down her porcine nose, snuffling and
saying
what she could. She always said what she could, however
she
did it. She said a lot of things but who could tell
what
one ought to believe?
Once,
twice, but never again. There were three competing things that got
her.
Article noun preposition verb adverb, this the latest dispatch
from
points unbeehooved. 3
74 women drove from St. Louis to grand woods, AK
with
a precious wisdom he told her,
stop
passing me these fucking papers before
I
is another but you are she & we're somewhat
together
with the pen
are
touched by a fleshy tentacle and
fulfilled
1.
The original ms. is untitled and unsigned. Probably created at the
gumbo party.
2.
At this point, the corpse is discontinued on the front side of the
page and resumes on the back. While this was probably accidental,
there is a marked difference in the tone and style of work.
3.
sic. Possibly intended as unbehooved, but the original misspelling
is plainly preferable.
Untitled
(You can tell by the contents of her glass cabinet) 1
You
can tell by the contents of her glass cabinet, everything
about her and garlic. With garlic she approaches music, like
a butcher, a tailor, a silly girl's mother and fourteen
angry dog leashed to it's 2
tether
the dog to the lamppost beside where
she
touched herself in a very private place that was
not
her clitoris, but clorets he was chewing.
Importunately
we spelled words, inexplicably we opened up the
beehives,
or so they say, walled in with glass trinkets
like
disillusioned housecoats--you know--those that were used to
gardens.
Ferns
and rhodendron 3
bulbs. Profuse was not the word for
it.
Jungle, tropics, palms like overgrown, long hands
gesturing
with his two front teeth which, coincidentally, were
filed
his thoughts in an urn and pissed in it
enthusiastically,
euphorically, eclesiastically 4,
ennervating
ecstacy
of the insect world bright blue metallic
motorcycle
vrooms it's red it's chrome I twist the handlebars
and
skim, all the sidewalk down, bump cracks, and rattle
on.
for. that. if. not. past. with. sport. mescaline.
toad
in walnut oil
the
moil circumsises you with his teeth and you
sing
sweetly
sing it sister.
Blue.
1.
The original ms. is untitled and unsigned. Probably created at the
gumbo party.
2.
sic. Doubtlessly its was intended.
3.
sic. Rhododendron.
4.
sic. ecclesiastically
Untitled
(Generative left field polychromas)1
Generative
left field
polychromas,
arrythmia and dusting of
20
foot high
philodendrons
you flowery philanderers whose
pollenophrenia
infests the rain gutters - they sprout
many-headed
mushrooms
totally aroused so that their caps
logointensify
the spores that get into my hair
I
brush my hair with
staticky
like Molotov but hard like Stalin
the portophallogenic 2
dispiritely 3
slipped halfway down the steps of the botanical gardens.
Slip.
Slap.
No
PhD.
July
30 1997
[signatures]
Andrei
Codrescu
Laura
Rosenthal
Jenny
Smith
1.
The first line on the original manuscript is not underscored as
on the other corpses, leaving me to believe that this piece was
intentionally left untitled. The use of white space above mimics
that of the original manuscript, although the staggered lines and
stanzas may have been accidental.
2.
Portophallogenic is simply my best guess, although the word
here could also be porno- or portophollogenic.
3.
The original manuscript is largely illegible. Possibly disparately,
definitely or dispensibly
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