Batman's testicles

XII.

If we were told that Batman’s testicles

were “real” and “spectacular”,

we wouldn’t blink because we know

they’re rubber. And we’re sort of fine

with that.

 

"SELECTIONS FROM

EPISODE

THREE"

By Amish Trivedi

Beard of Bees Press

Chicago, Illinois

Number 59

February, 2009

 

Imagine the feelings of a whole continent

Imagine the feelings of a whole

continent, I said. A sheer blank

space of delightful mystery, its black

thoughts, its body

at rest in the middle of blessings.

If such is the meaning

of a French steamer, and it was, were

we who had pronounced a judgment upon

the whole population cleared into

the heart of an unknown planet? We could for a

while, of massacres, of

craven terror, of burning noble words.

It was very grave, were we

who had gone mad, completely.

 

 

 

 

 

"a light heart,

its black thoughts"

By Gnoetry & Eric Scovel

Beard of Bees Press

Chicago, Illinois

Number 60

March, 2009

*Gnoetry is an on-going experiment in human/computer collaborative poetry composition.
Gnoetry synthesizes language randomly based on its analysis of existing texts. Any machine-readable text or texts, in any language, can serve as the basis of the Gnoetic process. Gnoetry generates sentences that mimic the local statistical properties of the source texts. This language is filtered subject to additional constraints (syllable counts, rhyming, etc.) to produce a poem.

La arena que cubre la pirámide de Bronce

La arena que cubre la pirámide de Bronce,
es la arena de un desierto que aterra
—y cuando se levanta, pesa como una ola inmensa que aplasta—
y va subiendo hasta cubrir el bronce de la pirámide
—que no tiene espíritu—
Y su materia va sepultándose sin defensa alguna
bajo la fuerza de la arena de un desierto que aterra.
—De un desierto que ocupa un ínfimo espacio
en un enorme continente,
de un desiero que quema la materia que no tiene espíritu.
—La materia que va sepultando la arena que cubre la pirámide de Bronce.

Oaxaca, 17 de abril de 1922.

Nahui Olin

Desolation row

They’re selling postcards of the hanging  
They’re painting the passports brown 
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors 
The circus is in town
 
Here comes the blind commissioner 
They’ve got him in a trance 
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker  
The other is in his pants
 
And the riot squad they’re restless 
They need somewhere to go  
As lady and I look out tonight 
From desolation row
 
Cinderella, she seems so easy 
It takes one to know one, she smiles 
And puts her hands into her back pockets 
Bette Davis style
 
And in comes Romeo, he’s moaning 
"You belong to me I believe" 
And someone turns and says to him 
"My friend you'd better leave"
 
And the only sound that’s left 
After the ambulances go 
Is Cinderella sweeping up 
On desolation row
 
Now the moon is almost hidden 
The stars they're just pretending to hide 
The fortunetelling lady  
Has even taken all her things inside
 
All except for Cain and Abel 
And the hunchback of Notre Dame 
Everyone is makin' love
 Or else expecting rain
 
And the good Samaritan, he’s dressing 
He’s getting ready for the show 
He’s going to the carnival tonight 
On desolation row 

Ophelia, she’s ’neath the window  
For her I feel so afraid 
On her twenty-second birthday 
She already is an old maid
 
Now to her, death is quite romantic 
She wears an iron vest 
Her profession is her religion 
Her sin is her lifelessness
 
And though her eyes are fixed upon  
Noah’s great rainbow 
She spends her time peeking  
Into desolation row
 
Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood 
With his memories in a trunk 
Passed this way an hour ago  
With his friend, some jealous monk
 
Now he looked so immaculately frightful  
As he bummed his cigarette 
Then he went off sniffing drainpipes  
And reciting the alphabet
 
You would not think to look at him 
But he was famous long ago 
For playing the electric violin 
On desolation row
 
Dr. Filth, he keeps his world 
Locked inside of his leather cup 
But all his sexless patients  
They’re trying to blow it up
 
Now his nurse, some local loser 
She’s in charge of the cyanide hole 
She also keeps the cards that read 
"Have mercy on his soul"
 
They all play on the penny whistle  
You can hear them blow  
If you lean your head out far enough 
From desolation row
 
Across the street they’ve nailed the curtains 
They’re getting ready for the feast 
The phantom of the opera  
In a perfect image of a priest
 
They’re spoon feeding Casanova 
To get him to feel more assured 
Then they’ll kill him with self-confidence  
After poisoning him with words
 
And the phantom shouts to skinny girls 
"Get outta here if you don’t know  
Casanova he's just being punished for going  
To desolation row"
 
Now at midnight all the agents  
And the superhuman crew 
Come out and round up everyone 
That knows more than they do
 
Then they bring them to the factory 
Where the heart attack machine  
Is strapped across their shoulders 
And then the kerosene
 
Is brought down from the castles 
By insurance men who go  
Check to see that no one is escaping 
To desolation row
 
Praise be to Nero’s Neptune 
The Titanic sails at dawn 
And everybody’s shouting  
"Which side are you on?"
 
And Ezra Pound and T.S. Elliott 
Fighting in the captain’s tower  
While Calypso's singers laugh at them  
And fishermen hold flowers
 
Between the windows of the sea 
Where lovely mermaids flow  
And nobody has to think too much  
About desolation row
 
Yes, I received your letter yesterday  
About the time the door knob broke  
When you asked me how I was doing  
Was that some kind of joke?
 
All these people that you mention 
Yes, I know them, they’re quite lame  
I had to rearrange their faces 
And give them all another name
 
Right now I cannot read too well 
Don’t send me no more letters, no 
Not unless you mail them 
From desolation row

Bob Dylan