The Experimental Writing Laboratory is an out-there zone where writers & non-writers are invited to explore the outer limits of language & writing using a variety of rich, challenging, unsettling, and funny experiments. In using these experiments, we invite the world to participate in the writing of our poems, and learn new ways of reading & looking at language.
The group meets every other Saturday from 3:30-6:00pm at the St. Jude Catholic Worker House Annex (behind the big house). Upcoming dates: 6/30, 7/14, 7/28.
To find out when we’re meeting or for more information, follow us online at http://expwritinglab.wordpress.com/ or contact Austin at theaustinmccann@gmail.com.
Summer Sublets
800 B.C.
sits at depths
of string
and chords of color
and beams of water
burst forth from the crumbling
cone, puking
their guts out.
—
Sift
memory
stumbling
OWNER
of
nothing
but
why?
SUFFOCATE
—
Shall I compare thee to
our first conversation in which
you told me to go
there but I never did
what they said,
fell & flopped to
the side
and over the top.
—
Let’s lay down
under the swaying
tries
to drink from
salty dreams
awake high blood pressure
and pretty red eyes
of splendor
—
The fire upstairs
went around the windows
looking for every last
weasel in the
gas chamber
a dive below
the concrete floor
—
There is a
name for this kind of
generous spirit
loving and eternal
like every relationship I’ve
sabotaged not so much
but thoroughly looked-over
the stirredness
Missed Connections
Alright,
Be
Capitalist.
Destroy
Ecologies,
Finance
Gangsters,
Harass
Immigrants,
Justify
Kleptocracy…
Let
My
Nation
Overdose.
Pass
Quietly.
Remember
Something,
Though:
Underneath
Victoriousness
Whirls
Xenophobia,
Your
Zodiac.
—
able bodied crayon drawn econ
omists fucking giggle headed ide
ologists; jerks kicking lifeless
mannequins nominally origi
nally politicians; quacks; real
states taxing unreal vastness; worthless Xer
xes yoking Zoroasters.
—
Autonomous beings create delight.
Every fecund giving heart ignites justice.
Kyriarchy loses.
Magick needs opportunities; power quietly rises.
Spiraling through universal verdant worlds, xen yields Zomba
Livestock
Bach in the cathedral, stardust in the vacuum chamber.
I feel just well enough to write strangely, little else
Places your mouth hid, and where your teeth almost bit through
I hope you see now why it is so important
There are no slaves in the landscape of consciousness.
When it is authentic you will be sensitive to every need and respond with a generosity unspoiled by selfish intent.
“This shooting human beings beats rabbit-hunting all to pieces … ”
not because they needed to, but simply because they could
We have come to give you metaphors for your poetry
alluring ject, almost preternatural
sure as shitting sand at the seashore
I’ll be the exact age my mother was when she
I had been in a motorcycle accident and I’d been hurt
just lightly touched by the passing foil of the water
beaded creatures swallow
the horse’s muzzle, taken on large scale, giving strong optical foreshortening
Adventure Travel
waves
howdy do
walrus
doctor
dreams
of
or
—
Tonight we drink
from nine until
noon, but
the train’s late
as of yesterday
I fell up
rolling like smoke
over hills
asplendid.
—
Meals are
where we sit
is sticky with
old milky residue
caused my nausea
and worsened my
faith in reason
damaged
beyond repair
—
Breaking
bones
The best miner
will always look
to the eyes
glass, a mystery
subject + unknown,
downsize immediately!
Or else they’ll
be caught
cuz yr scared
—
Allegheny Bridge, corroded
depopulation eminent
fading generosity
haunting images
jumbled jaleidoscopically
Like merchant’s neckties over painted quarries
Remediation…?
St. Stanislaus’s talismen underappreciated violently
Warhol-worshiping xenophobes
yuppifying zealously
Help Wanted
“So, it is like the perfect victim?”
He suddenly stopped hiccuping, his heart thumped and dropped somewhere for a second, then returned, but with a blunt needle stuck in it. What has become of THE BODY on this level? By the end of this generation, there will be only desert. I’d worn out my suit completely. What is the aspirant expected to trust when he sees that he can no longer trust reason? These people are sacred; from all over the universe they are coming to see it. The painting is used in a blessing ceremony for healing, or to impart the courage and spiritual strength requisite to the endurance of some ordeal, or the performance of some difficult task. I have reported what I saw & heard, but only part of it. For I have greatly sinned, at all times, greatly sinned against my prompters.