H. Mark Webster


Mensa devouring her young

kinship coordinates, imprecise, but with he, exemplifying, nonetheless that combination of freshness, and despicability, that a great many, of his friends, had coveted in the past truly, wholly never, wholly, when he had them, and preceded always, at Powys, by the nonanterior niggles, at Powys, where, in potato spirit, early, and barley wine, late, a barmecide feast, of sorts, holus bolus, pittance-friendly, against the wind, for him, or his, in spite of everything,

was laid on, and in the colourings, of those heavyhanded, negations, proximate and ever-sensible, well-rehearsed, and flippant, eyes glued, to the box, and markings, marked out, in balustrade-hugging obsessions, with the just, the pious, the atrabilious, the void, the merry, the infrequent, the cunctipotent, the lax, the lax, the curse-laden, the pivotal, the oblivious, the fissiparous, the seemly, the righteous, the bothersome, the jaundiced, the resigned, the

lawping, the agelastic, the hunchless, the festive, the besottedly, rightness-averse, that, that, and of it, sanely, roundly, he partook, such that, the destitute itself, remained throughout, hardy, salutary, and plump, throughout, which is to say, that the blighter fed, and was fed upon, that, which made him, no longer be, no longer, even resemble, the guts of what, it was, to become, inside, namely, the grisly, accoutrements of piss-take, and self-flaneurship, the

postponement, certainly, in the flesh, of that very flesh's, satisfiability, given its limbmeal, sequentiality, not of being, nor of being consumed, but rather, of knowing together, that a plate could, safely, be put aside, and that to it, safely, reliably, proof-text sympathetically, pubwise, nondocetically, scandalously, pertinently, something approaching, the sublime hollowness, of eating, of being eaten, of prescinding thus, edibility's theoretical, expansion, at

table, within, first would stay, and then, would come, first would stay, and dwell, fireside, tableside, none-too-clever, all-too-clever, and then, would come, and dwell, fireside, with both hands, napkinless, to gorge, to scavenge, to massacre of oneself, the body, what one was, before one knelt, dwelt, before the body, the nothing of, the body, devoured, at Powys, or, for that matter, anywhere else, besides people, all souls, no brains, all teeth, no

brains on Monday, through Mondays, redundant, granted, the little steps, first, encountered, at table, on parquetry, floor's blameless scraps, lazy bastards, to my right, simpletons, plafond-tending, as if, dollars down, tickets away, questioning the riot, the riot, the black peach fuzz, inside, the insides, of the provisioner's brain, swollen reminders, arse-focused, argal, of worse to come, precisely because, if you catch, my drift, this gluttony, here, stands

at risk, at risk, of being neglected, stored away, for another day, when there is, no other, bounty withstanding, persimmon to ant, grasshopper to ant, the pernicious mouth, cocked, the little, henscratch bulletins, the Venn diagrams, diddums, the frontal lobes, inklings perchance, there, of men drab, of the Santé, nowise, off-message, climbing the walls, lackeys all, schtum, wholly never, wholly, he partook, such that, the destitute itself, throughout, fed, upon, worse

H. Mark Webster's previous publishing credits include poems in anastomoo, printout, elimae, the Blackmail Press, and Poems Niederngasse. Webster teaches at IPU New Zealand.
 
 
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