|||

Poetry by Mike Bagwell

At the Mercy of Rectangles

Small machines look like history. They say ok ok
ok
and only kind of mean it. Your job
is to be consistent
with circles. First task: transcribe the secant
of the god-other in triplicate.
ASAP, and no, you cannot use your personae.

What I am doing now is developing horrible habits.
I say this to my roommate when he asks and he says
I believe you.

The next technique involves watching
the skypenis youtube commercial
and mouthing exactly that famous
final phrase: Think about what skypenis
can do for you
.

I’m going to dig out all of the e’s
from our mud-cased thoughts and build a factory
that will put us at the mercy of rectangles.
We can all hide there, for a while.

A real horse runs in circles around the god-other.
A real horse kicks the god-other in the skypenis
and says ok ok ok I’ll stop when you do.

Please, tell the story that is not this one
which pretends it is not, but actually is
the story of my becoming,

tell the one about your brother
and the bird with a hole through its ribs.
Please, tell me that one again.

The Great Film Reel Highway in the Sky

All my friends on television
are dying violent violence deaths
which can look like cancellation or
a motorcycle chase with bullets
and sun flares.

Today, the moon is a unicycle
and it is supposed to be a joke.
We take off west and invent forgiveness
using each other’s pale light.

God shapes murmur on the horizon—
they want to put a t-shirt in my prostate.
I am okay with that. I’m just not so sure
about the Mickey Mouse choice
they’re keen on.

The big big bloody.
I untie knots of road and they retie elsewhere.
I put watermelon bullet holes in the inner inner
where everyone will know to find them.

Mike Bagwell

Twitter: @low_gh0st
IG: @low_gh0st

Up next "Just Keep Swimming" by Hana Carolina Two Stories by Steve Gergley
Latest posts Tape World: Evil Spirits S/T Cassette [Anything for a Weird Life] "Warpig" by Anthony Neil Smith The Thanksgiving Truce Holds...for Now [Anything for a Weird Life] Two girl poems by Anna K. Crooks BRUISER ZINE 001: girl poems by Anna K. Crooks "Eve's Inner Witness is Not a Monster" by Dipti Anand "The Stupid Railroad" by Addison Zeller "Vicus Cracti" by Some Fool When Should Your Band Break Up? [Anything for a Weird Life] "Tutto Passa" by Carson Jordan "White Mercedes/Faith Healer" by Sy Holmes "Goddess of fire" by Cait Quirk "Shit We Don't Need" by SH Woodgeard See You at The Bean: Impressions of Tripper's EP Release Show [Anything for a Weird Life] "After not dying" by Alex Shiflett "Four Men" by Noam Hessler Two stories by Sean Ennis "First World Problems" by Jon Doughboy Tape World: Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation [Anything for a Weird Life] All This Time You Thought I Was Good: Devin Lunsford and Mark Wadley in Collaboration "The Tamp Trader" by Felicia Change "In the Outlet Mall" by Jon Tuttle "Under the Influence" by bedfordtowers Why Bandcamp Matters [Anything for a Weird Life] Three poems by Jordan Blanchard "Targeted ads" by Lin Elizabeth The Brink by Janel Leppin [BRUISER APPROVED] "The Perfect Lawn" by James Callan "Superimposition" by Rebecca Gransden "Complacency’s in the glove box of the 1959 Chevrolet Impala parked in the deep end of Nabokov’s swimming pool" by Lucas Zhou When should a band record in the studio? [Anything for a Weird Life]