Two poems by Gary J. Shipley

 

 
 
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Two poems by Gary J. Shipley

02/02/2011

YEVGENY YUFIT'S SILENT DEATHS

time started again in documentary
a snowy epidemic of blackened anomalies
crawling suicides through an immortal white idiocy
werewolves
sticklers for tradition and silver
heads in moving pictures
a sepia species set to war
with sound and colour locked away in forest bunkers
playing to hearts and eyes in putrefaction
up from the white ground
black arteries feeding on errant soldiers and sailors
punk zombie materials from the automatic landscape
hauled along by ropes
by filmed humans struggling along train tracks
away from some stoic wife
the sky in pursuit
eyes erupting
nature reborn in mutant claymation
as airplanes tramp the concrete earth in bare feet
and the hedgehog
unable to read
moves on
the viruses of memory wear beards drawn in blood
screaming chimp nostalgia at amplified angles
we brush our teeth with badgers
and remain supine but for suicide


----------------

SIXES

1.

His legs betrayed him
on dark streets
with groping kerbstones,
and dogs
smeared along the bottoms of low walls.


2.

Prone, unable to plug his ears,
forced to listen to robot songs of unseen birds
lamely resurrecting
yesterday's forgotten dawn.


3.

Jolted rebirths into fractal conversations,
scuffed phrases and suggestions
dressed in scuffed shoes
and damp trouser bottoms.


4.

Shop windows turn away,
back into their airless reaches,
their plastic faces fading in the sun.


5.

Soulless scatter patrols
of tiny black machines
retreat into the chromed earth.


6.

His face
squinting like a prune,
pinched eyes clearing
on a speech-bubble,
its lines traced with rainbows,
its words drowned in lifetimes
scorched in perfumed howls.


----------------

Gary J. Shipley's first novel, Theoretical Animals, was released last year by BlazeVox Books. His second novel, Necrology (a collaboration with Kenji Siratori, appendix by Reza Negarestani), is forthcoming from Paraphilia Books in Feb 2011. His work has been published in various philosophy journals and literary journals. He is on the editorial board of the arts journal SCRIPT.