thee istsfor manity reader

the intensity in ur face scares me

u look right through me
when we argue now
u r supplanted by another
viper-coiled & ready to strike
ur venom ducts overflowing
when u used to look like alex chilton
it was tolerable
an eccentric & violent quirk i could abide
now that u look like tiny tim
u dont wear it well
u fill me with inert gasses
im bloated
& my heads in a fog

intertidal animals & intermittent
moments of flake
the pique
& the quake leave me blue
another earthquake shook
me up today in ma
as in massachusetts
is departing the mainland
before ca
as in california

i want to get back in bed
the world is no longer remotely
tolerable either
i feel like a pavlovian cur

these dreams
to live among the scorpions
in the desert is akin to mothers milk

my mother was a goat
she tried weeding me out
of the litter by hiding me
under a rock
then she kicked me
off the edge of a cliff

why do u sink so discretely
she yelled down as i fell
u think u r wile e coyote
bout to disappear in a puff
of smoke down in canyonland

u gotta another thing coming

“And nobody gets out of it, having to
swim through the fires to stay in
this world.”

—Mary Oliver / “Dogfish”

karate nuns in madras

a leap of faith
into the snarling madras night

karate nuns in madras
daughters & sisters

a lurking shadow’s nightmare sect

sororal floral saris hide
a vengeful knife
a sharpened crucifix
bared fangs for pathological
testicles

karate nuns break boards
with calloused hands
smash 100 lb slabs on 90 lb sisters
an ascetic niz-nil-limbo

cant be
wont be
touched
or raped again

plunging cruciknives
into unsuspecting scrotum

karate nuns
thrust the chop to crack
the male rib
jab the gouge to blind
the male gaze

karate nuns in madras
a mean mean sect

This is Fall at 3:33 p.m. on 11/21/20. Jamaica Plain, MA. (3/4)

“I only write when I’m inspired, so I see to it that I’m inspired every morning at nine o’clock.” 

— Peter De Vries

Zilch

Try the face of a social media influencer
on
and you shriek
at the gutting void
behind the mask
a headpiece filled with maw —
stare at the gaping blackness
of obliterated cognition
pulverized and sifted
like a fine toothless sand
made of the choicest grains
of zilch.

“Everything faded into mist. The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth.”

— George Orwell / 1984

bugbears & ballyhoo

watching pandas not watching us
during the pandemics

dying hours

70 lbs of bamboo please
appear
in the dark every night

pandas are as pandas do
& so on & so forth
& panda this & panda that
the opiate of the moment

a pandemic
oblivious
rages out of control

a national zoo soldiers on
while the rare pumpkin war pig
breathes pure oxygen
& monoclonal antibodies course
through oxidized pipes built on slave labor
& dirt cheap h2s

hail caesar

eat ur salad boys & girls
this is how we do
now

strive for narcissism
sink to megalomania
wallow in egocentrism
get high on ur own supply of solipsism

dont play nice
no amends
go to church
dont say please

demand
obfuscate
create ur own reality

kids

have you ever wanted a reset

ever wished upon a star

or that a meteor would hasten
the sixth extinction

it can
no it will
happen again

let it be loosed & hurtle toward us
today
let us not cry & lament
let us not go gentle into that good oblivion

let us rage at the angels
after weve dispensed
with each other

we wait with pounding hearts
for the cosmic rock to hit

let us not regret & not regret
& not regret
what we inflict on ourselves
& our planet

ringed in ocean trash
lapping at our chins
& space junk gyring by our heads

the hole in the sky
opens ever wider

extremists
the uber rich
the dirt poor
& all the rest of us growing fat
& stupid on the teat of technology
& ideas alien

we look upon one another
& perceive dangerous strangers
monsters

please bring the grand cosmic rock
we need the reset
now

“Just cuz you get to the end doesn’t mean you know what happened.”

— Karen Tei Yamashita

Clean-up on Aisle Semantics

Its so far removed from the truth he said. This year has withered before our eyes.

Doesnt the rice pilaf smell like baking bread she said.

No. I think youre smelling the yeast from your crotch he said.

She snapped an open-handed chop to his side.

He fell sending a pot of rice pilaf fanning out in steam on the slate tiles.

Aw kidney sucker punch he said.

Welcome to my world move over and move out cuz you piss me off she said.

Clean up on aisle semantics he said.

I feel myself breaking through the husk that contains me she said.

Run spirit run. Hit the north hit the snooze button slap yourself slap yer mammy he said.

Stop this record stop your baseless simpleton self she said. Stop stop stop.

I wont respond in kind Ill respond in Greek tragedy he said

Respond by crunching the piles of fulvous leaves on your way out she said.

The bulbous affairs of men he said like monticules of litter and scrap iron are the only landscapes left to us.

The fall will come after the fall the fall will precede the fall the fall is there for you to take this fall may be your last she said.

“The people eat sick fish
because there are no others.
Then they get born wrong.”

— Margaret Atwood / “Frogless”

Thanks For Reading

Hello, and welcome to year two of thee istsfor manity reader!

Thanks for dropping by, or thanks for following the blog and being a regular reader — or if it’s your first time here: welcome to the best cooking and child care tips website on the net…

No.

But seriously, thanks for dropping by and reading during year one, anything after this past year is bound to be an improvement.

Thank you,

Istsfor Manity
(j.i. alvarez)

(left to right): istsfor manity, j.i. alvarez

“Concentrate on what you want to say to yourself and your friends. Follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the madness. You say what you want to say when you don’t care who’s listening.”

— Allen Ginsberg

Snivel Bingo

Most of it unfurled under the moon of twin pandemics
All of it challenging
Most of it bare
All of it raw

There are no terpsichoreans in drabble
The angels in the firmament made of cheap tin

Rain and wind continually eats the land
Reshaping it
Creating a coruscated landscape
Flash in the pan

Pointless concordances
Citations and indentions missing
Erosion errata

(come now see it now
then come see it later
and later even again
and yet some other time and compare
the canyons are scored

if it — whatever it is — doesn’t catch
and you don’t know what you intended
it may be lost forever)

Open your pipes
Eat the acid
Swallow the sky

“How privileged you are, to be still
passionately
clinging to what you love;
the forfeit of hope has not destroyed
you.”

— Louise Glück / “October”

Photograph: Dr. Ed Uthman. Public Domain. CC.

terra incognita

the third testicle
teratoma

terra incongnita

a life unformed
a life imbibed in errant teeth & muscle
hair missing its natural head

imperfectly formed world
impostor globe of skin

a sibling incised
excised

space in absentia
a world unknown

“Beginning a novel is always hard. It feels like going nowhere. I always have to write at least 100 pages that go into the trashcan before it finally begins to work. It’s discouraging, but necessary to write those pages. I try to consider them pages -100 to 0 of the novel.”

— Barbara Kingsolver

Empty Water

Don’t let that giant Meyer lemon out by the well anymore.

The lemon is taking all the minerals and nutrients out of our water by a process of reverse go-go-frugging — and I ain’t talking about no telemarketing research malfeasance and such.

No, I’m talking about that giant lemon playing The Trashmen’s “Surfin’ Bird” — and acting out the final scene from Pink Flamingos by our well out back.

Don’t you hear that song like clockwork at 6:09 every morning?

Oh, and don’t you think it’s a coincidence that the ubangi bangi car drives by just after we hear that song every Monday thru Friday?

Don’t you see how we’re depleted of calcium and magnesium? Don’t you see how withered we look?

Our water is full of empty water, Madge!

No minerals.

Ain’t you been feeling pekid? You certainly look it!

Looka’ that lemon out there dancing like it’s 1963!

This is Fall at 6:42 a.m. on 11/14/20. Jamaica Plain, MA. (2/4)

“Teaching writing is a hustle.”

— Cormac McCarthy

Hypnopompic Chronicle 111320

Traffic outside and garish colors swirl.

Shattering glass above our heads.

The cat runs from underneath the bed and stands sentry below the window.

Crunching glass at the top of the window behind the blinds.

A squirrel?

No an otter.

A tree otter? you say.

Errant, from the gnarled oak, I say.

We have a backyard that is simultaneously outside and inside the house.

This otter scurries down the tree and up on the bed.

The otter tunnels below the bed, behind the blinds, and up and out of the house.

The cat, stupefied and seconds late, jumps up swiping at air and catches its claws on the blind — hangs there — nonplussed.

Hey! There’s a hole in Thee Window where the outside world flows in and out.

A tall lanky man jogs through the edge of our bedroom, out for his morning run with his equally tall and lanky greyhound, and right out through the hall.

We have leaks in the house.

Holes.

The otter is back, but I stand firm and stare it down from the other side of the window.

Now it’s a groundhog.

Now it’s an otter again.

You complain. You don’t want kingdom animalia running through the house.

The otter and I stare each other down.

A standoff.

“Commit yourself to the process, NOT the project. Don’t be afraid to write badly, everyone does. Invest yourself in the lifestyle … NOT in the particular piece of work.”

— Frank Conroy