Submissions by absinthe (Fats)
POEMS AND SHORT STORIES
Poet Introduction
I breed pigs, ducks and chickens on a small forest home farm on Bohol Island.
Norm
I
don't know how
normal people
survive.
don't know how
normal people
survive.
#depression
#PTSD
#apathy
858 reads
3 Comments
Closed Loop
When I arrived at Liza's backyard, the pig was already slaughtered. All fiesta events cancelled, I considered it feasible and sensible to buy the live pig, butcher it, take what we need and give the rest away. The setting is a little closed loop backyard farm. Taro, banana, cassava, are all growing wild, sparse under an extended dry season. These serve as food for the fatteners. In turn, the fatteners provide dense, nutritious meat for the village. Despite the masks and social distancing, it was like fiesta. People shared meat, cooked and ate. Liza has 5 children and 2 families living in her...
#inequality
454 reads
3 Comments
When Man Discovered Fire
It was nighttime. The darkness would hide what Denela was about to do. She brought the bucket outside and dumped its contents into a corner of the yard. There were several plastic containers from soft drinks, empty foil and plastic sachets from shampoo, vinegar and soy sauce, sardine and corned beef tins, plastic bags and paper. She squatted in the dark and in a few seconds, a small burst of light. There was no wind, so the light was unwavering and it grew bigger and bigger. The contents of the bucket burned. Black smoke billowed out of it. She quickly walked away, back into the house and...
#nature
515 reads
1 Comment
Happy Happy
That’s what they called it, happy happy, the alcoholic interludes
Tainted with nicotine delights, the pseudo-fiesta fares foraged from
The Gardens of Others, cooked over fires burning from sinful woods
Stolen – no – taken, from the old woman who died of a weak lung
Because they poisoned the country air with their happy happy.
They had lights that ran from the roof to the ground, like the rats
That infested the debris from their food and vomit, yet the decor
Was impressive, garish without pretense of poverty, tasteless ersatz
Of glittering plastic...
Tainted with nicotine delights, the pseudo-fiesta fares foraged from
The Gardens of Others, cooked over fires burning from sinful woods
Stolen – no – taken, from the old woman who died of a weak lung
Because they poisoned the country air with their happy happy.
They had lights that ran from the roof to the ground, like the rats
That infested the debris from their food and vomit, yet the decor
Was impressive, garish without pretense of poverty, tasteless ersatz
Of glittering plastic...
#consumerism
637 reads
5 Comments
Acts of Fashion
There would not be a few who could remember that elderly woman
Squatted at the door of her house, reciting the litany of evils
That was coming to the village, it was poetry, it was tradition, no one
Rebukes it yet no one shuts the window view to the glowing thrills
Of the progressive life, the many indestructible objects of our desires.
So we took the crone’s litany and we made art, we took photos of our
Selves making art, and we invented a lavish carnival we called Culture,
Conference, Festival, where our symposium papers are the sites of power ...
Squatted at the door of her house, reciting the litany of evils
That was coming to the village, it was poetry, it was tradition, no one
Rebukes it yet no one shuts the window view to the glowing thrills
Of the progressive life, the many indestructible objects of our desires.
So we took the crone’s litany and we made art, we took photos of our
Selves making art, and we invented a lavish carnival we called Culture,
Conference, Festival, where our symposium papers are the sites of power ...
#apocalypse
613 reads
2 Comments
An Introduction to the Short Poem
I am hunted and there is time to write a poem about it, here in the refuge
Of a forest thick with the calls of birds telling me there are too many of my
Enemies and too few of my kind still alive; might I be saved by the deluge
In the distance or the gun in my hand? For my legs are tired and they sigh
With the sway of bamboo in the wind, and the lights are hurting my eyes.
So I stop and between drawing my breaths and the bullets that pierce them
I think of the sea gypsy who sold me the faux pearls that decorate my ears
Whose name was Jilby, who was...
Of a forest thick with the calls of birds telling me there are too many of my
Enemies and too few of my kind still alive; might I be saved by the deluge
In the distance or the gun in my hand? For my legs are tired and they sigh
With the sway of bamboo in the wind, and the lights are hurting my eyes.
So I stop and between drawing my breaths and the bullets that pierce them
I think of the sea gypsy who sold me the faux pearls that decorate my ears
Whose name was Jilby, who was...
#despair
538 reads
1 Comment
Absent Without Pay
Sorry, I was distracted by the windfall of hog plums and did not realise the time
Spent on, wasted on, the observance of the beautiful shape of spots on my lover’s
Face; so now I am full of fruit and grace, antihelmithic and adoration, both supine
And upright, depending on where you are coming from; never mind, whatevs,
I am here, aren’t I, and nobody died while I was away, congratulations, my dears!
Spent on, wasted on, the observance of the beautiful shape of spots on my lover’s
Face; so now I am full of fruit and grace, antihelmithic and adoration, both supine
And upright, depending on where you are coming from; never mind, whatevs,
I am here, aren’t I, and nobody died while I was away, congratulations, my dears!
#redemption
540 reads
2 Comments
Update 2014-2016
1. It has been a while, I don't write a lot of poetry anymore, just because I have become more preoccupied with the urgency and necessity of farm life. I have 3 sows and 2 boars.
2. What happened to one of my favourite poets here, the cockroach from The Vatican? The last I read from him, perhaps 2 years ago, he was going on about the Nazis. Does anyone know if he has returned?
3. I enjoy reading poetry again, and enjoy the lightness and laughter. Thank you.
4. Thank you, friends who read my writing. I would like to experiment more with the computer-spoken poetry but...
2. What happened to one of my favourite poets here, the cockroach from The Vatican? The last I read from him, perhaps 2 years ago, he was going on about the Nazis. Does anyone know if he has returned?
3. I enjoy reading poetry again, and enjoy the lightness and laughter. Thank you.
4. Thank you, friends who read my writing. I would like to experiment more with the computer-spoken poetry but...
789 reads
8 Comments
The Café
The café was where he saw her again, the place familiar to them both
a place expected but unwished, for only a matter of time to be stricken
of the rigor mortis of his arteries, he wondered did she not, did she see
did she ever but he will never really know until the blood starts flowing
once more, and he walked home as if his feet touched glowing coals
and as the sweat gathered between his breasts, swelled and trickled
to his navel, he wondered, was it real, was it not, was it ever going
to come true in the light of day, how can an apparition drive him mad!
...
a place expected but unwished, for only a matter of time to be stricken
of the rigor mortis of his arteries, he wondered did she not, did she see
did she ever but he will never really know until the blood starts flowing
once more, and he walked home as if his feet touched glowing coals
and as the sweat gathered between his breasts, swelled and trickled
to his navel, he wondered, was it real, was it not, was it ever going
to come true in the light of day, how can an apparition drive him mad!
...
838 reads
13 Comments
The Hovel
His house was a hovel, a permanent reservoir of the scent of
cheap wine and wild berries chewed, the seeds spat on the floor
with the butts and foils of cigarettes, the fire outside a permanent
encampment of fish, game and some time hock from the market
when there is money to buy, otherwise, there is enough in the
woods to gather for a meal, a clay pot seals a hoard of fermenting
fruits, and in the evenings he is never cold, there is always room
This inheritance from a spinster aunt, she was a seamstress from
the first Chinese encampment in Kuala...
cheap wine and wild berries chewed, the seeds spat on the floor
with the butts and foils of cigarettes, the fire outside a permanent
encampment of fish, game and some time hock from the market
when there is money to buy, otherwise, there is enough in the
woods to gather for a meal, a clay pot seals a hoard of fermenting
fruits, and in the evenings he is never cold, there is always room
This inheritance from a spinster aunt, she was a seamstress from
the first Chinese encampment in Kuala...
970 reads
8 Comments
My Golden
There is a woman currently in psychiatric ward number nineteen hun
dead and famished is her heart, her prostituted heart, the cardiac ar
rangement that take place between patron and prostitute, that trans
vestite in her mind, the sins she should never be guilty of, endless mir
age of miracles and the many years back upon which she gazed
I tell you -
A hundred cardiac arrests will not transgress the mirror of the schizo
She is a friend from the bitter and grey winters of northern Asia, ambi
tious and determined to survive, born with a...
dead and famished is her heart, her prostituted heart, the cardiac ar
rangement that take place between patron and prostitute, that trans
vestite in her mind, the sins she should never be guilty of, endless mir
age of miracles and the many years back upon which she gazed
I tell you -
A hundred cardiac arrests will not transgress the mirror of the schizo
She is a friend from the bitter and grey winters of northern Asia, ambi
tious and determined to survive, born with a...
745 reads
5 Comments
931 reads
3 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by absinthe (Fats)