Mark Cunningham


Cecropia Tree

Neo-baroque: eating a pancake straight through from one side to the other just doesn't seem the proper way. Rubber cement does not bounce and, rather than a noun, "cement" can be a verb describing its action, though its action is to make sure nothing moves. This sentence not merely represents but it actually is an advance from the previous sentence. Space has no limits; my ashtray is made of space; my ashtray is five inches square.

American Chestnut

He flushes the urinal before he starts to pee. When I asked her if she recognized me now, she said, "No." I always feel uneasy the first evening after we set the clocks back and it stays light an hour longer, but I feel really fine, as if a balance has righted itself, the first evening it gets dark an hour sooner. Thank heaven for censors. If not for their records, many inter-titles in silent films, even Fritz Lang's, would have been lost for ever.

Sea Grape

Researchers have found that if I just sit and imagine I'm exercising, my body reacts and I get some physical benefit. The leaves in the sun turn even greener against the slate of the overcast horizon. Usually it's the lowest-paid employee who tends the flag. An amnesia victim will still recognize his reflection in the mirror.

Catalpa

I wonder who was the last person to "to make merry" with no sense of irony? The comparison that someone is or does something "like a jazz musician" is always specious. That's my riff on it, anyway. When he said "intervention" he meant "something to add to my resume." Cratylus corrected Heraclitus: you can’t step into the same river even once. "It’s out" does not mean the same thing as "it’s not burning."

Arizona Cypress

I got a haircut so I would look good when they took a picture of my hand. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with my arm, and then I realized it was static electricity. I switched to granola for breakfast to be healthier: a nut stuck in my throat and I was still coughing at lunch. "I" may start this sentence and be the acting force grammatically, but I know better than to wear yellow during the new moon. Space is expanding: I sit still and stretch marks appear in my flesh.

Mark Cunningham has poems in recent or forthcoming issues of Practice, BlazeVox, and e•ratio. Tarpaulin Sky Press will be bringing out a book tentatively titled Body Language, which will be a sort of diptych containing two separate collections, one titled Body (on parts of the body) and one titled Primer (on numbers and letters). Otoliths Books will shortly be publishing his 80 Beetles.

 
 
 
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