Monthly Archives: January 2020

PERFECTION IN ACTION // No Niceties

“Oranges! No apples!”

She was angry. He, of course, tried not to smile at her pouty determination.

“Don’t worry, dear. Oranges then.”

He stroked her head musingly. He’d give the apples to their neighbour down the street. They had a donkey that’d be only too happy to eat them all.

“And Death! ‘Oranges and Death’!”

“Of course, dear. I will make preparations for the sacrifice tomorrow, first thing.”

With that, she ran to the kitchen where the nanny was fussing with dinner. He picked up the crayons scattered about. Maybe they shouldn’t take drawing lessons in the kindergarten so seriously?

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2019

Open-Source Poetry Four #3

Our Dearest Readers,

We have an important question for you. It’s so important that we must lean close and ask it in hushed tones. You’d best lean in too, lest you miss it! Ready?

BOO!

Okay, are you scared now? Yes? Now you know how we felt. We were so scared when we saw how many amazing submissions there were for the previous instalment of Open-Source Poetry! How on earth were we going to pick just one to add to this new lyrical masterpiece? It wasn’t going to be easy.

So, after a great many incantations over blood-soaked prayer beads ripped from the entrails of a satanically depressed gerbil, we eventually settled on Munira Ezzi’s sparkling contribution. Well… we’re kidding, of course. How could we rely on silly bloody incantations? Only a coin toss would do. (Although we do find it rather strange that the results matched.) Anyway, her lines felt like such a logical progression from what had gone before, so we ended up agreeing with the aforementioned incantations and coin toss outcome. How could we not use her contribution?

Now, if you would like us to agonise over your contributions for the next part of this poem in a similar fashion, we suggest you pay attention to the following rules:

1) Read the current version of this communal poetic effort below, and marvel at how scarily good it is (or is that goodily scary?). Then submit your own line or two for our consideration.
2) If we like your line (or two) the best, we’ll add it to the poem, then we’ll publish said result in a follow-up post.
3) Then you keep submitting frightening wordage aplenty in an attempt to chill us to the bone some more!
4) And so the whole process of submission and rejection is repeated until we finally have a horrifying new masterpiece!

PS: For those who may still be recovering from their New Years hangover, we remind them of the topic to the poem… It’s in the style of a good ol’ horror movie!

Вензель

hm, what should I draw?
maybe a hairy monster with a furry claw
or a demon crow that sticks in the craw
or a huge bloodstained saw

hm, what should I write?
maybe a slow growl will stir up a fright
or a girl will be twirled by a meat-eating kite
or grandma pole-dances in a bikini too tight

Вензель_нижний

by TETIANA ALEKSINA, TONY SINGLE, TOMAS MANKUS & MUNIRA EZZI
© All rights reserved 2020

the day after

there are many things
i just cannot comprehend
why give them head space
why enshrine them in my heart
go ahead and call me fool

i wish only peace
serenity for the soul
merely do my best
i don’t need to beat a drum
nor have any notice me

someone conquers mars
someone sells bad bananas
someone invents worth
none of this matters to me
remember? i am a fool

you can laugh at me
but when you’ve become bankrupt
(i don’t mean money)
i’ll be gone, so far away
basking in another day

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2019

Ink Cocoon

You’re a word whisperer. I think that makes you dangerous.

You have an otherworldly gift. You can whisper the text from your pages and drink them into my soul. A strange transference of meaning. And you’re unafraid to become a blank clutch of paper as a result. I don’t know how or why you do this. Frankly, it scares me.

I think you know, don’t you, that I can’t help but lean into your presence. Your whisper is like a tocsin in the deep stillness. Too loud. It’s tearing space apart. I feel the gaps between molecules widening. Again, how do you do this? Sorcery’s too absurd an idea to entertain, surely, but how else can I possibly explain this?

I touch your spine. Are you trembling just now? Oh. It’s my fingers. My hands. Okay. It makes sense that you wouldn’t be the fearful one.

Something’s changing. The text is vanishing before my eyes, and with it all sense. And when my eyes skew across you to the pages that follow, it feels as though some inevitable prophecy is being fulfilled. If words can be so effortlessly erased then I don’t know what to do or who to be.

Your gaze is a dare. Stop looking at me! You know very well that your passivity is a challenge I cannot rise to. So… I give myself over. We deep kiss until time runs backwards. My caressing lips. The roughness of your page. Your words continue to fade off the paper into me.

I open my mouth in silent agony, but my voice won’t obey. I hiss. I croak. I dry heave and suffocate. And just at that moment when I realise I’m dying, your words begin to spill from my mouth like ink. They splat everywhere in great, vile, Rorschach patterns.

“What do you see, Herman?”

The doctor’s voice is soft and calm. She keeps the Rorschach test steady in her hands. She’s looking at me with unfeigned patience. I’m grateful, of course, but then I’m distracted by my reflection on a glossy table surface. My face has a deathly pallor. Those crazed eyes. A mouth smeared with black ink.

I wipe this off and smile at her.

“It’s a death’s-head hawkmoth, doc.”

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2019

BUT IS IT ART? // Stheno

1265542358_ornament

TATI: It looks like you’re obsessed with Gorgons, Tony.

TONY: Only insofar as they’re fun to draw. Especially this one!

TATI: Yes, I saw you had a lot of fun with this. Is this a man or a woman, by the way?

TONY: A woman. Stheno was the oldest of the three Gorgon sisters. She was immortal too.

TATI: Hmmm… so, it’s not a bunch of penises here…

TONY: Nope. Just a bunch of pubic snakes that would be very unfriendly to one if it ever got close.

TATI: Now it’s getting interesting, Tony! So, do you have a theory about Gorgon physiology? Every hair is a snake? Not only the hair on their heads?

TONY: Exactly. Everywhere there would usually be hair, are snakes instead. So, it stands to reason they wouldn’t have any form of hair removal. No Brazilian wax for Stheno!

TATI: I had hoped for this answer, Tony. Now I’m going to have fun!

TONY: That sounds… ominous.

TATI: Hee hee hee…

TONY: Now you’re scaring me.

TATI: Question number one. Her brows. Where are the snakes?

TONY: Oh, she plucked them.

TATI: Plucked? But plucking doesn’t get rid of all the hair. It only makes the brow a different shape, or thinner. There would still be snake heads there.

TONY: Okay, then Gorgons don’t have eyebrows.

TATI: But I see them on your drawing!

TONY: Oh, shit. Erm… Those are cosmetic tattoos!

TATI: And what about the lack of armpit hair?

TONY: Laser hair removal!

TATI: But moments ago you said something about no Brazilian wax for Stheno!

TONY: Next question!

TATI: Hm. Okay. Your wish is my command. What kind of black liquid is that dripping around her feet?

TONY: That’s blood from a… well, penis. It got too close. Can you see it lying there in the middle?

TATI: Oh, so this blob is a penis? I was sure it was her reflection in the water. Or a part of her left leg. I dunno.

TONY: Nope. It’s a penis. A willy. Man’s bouncy ball buddy. A one-eyed wonder weasel. Hitler’s salute. A salty pube kebab.

TATI: Okay, you can stop phallomorphologising, Tony. I got it. It’s a penis.

TONY: Well, I didn’t want there to be any ambiguity.

TATI: Where’s the head?

TONY: Erm. What?

TATI: The head, Tony! The man’s head! His noggin. Pate. Bean. Dome.

TONY: Oh! I thought you were still referring to the penis!

TATI: Sigh. It’s plain to see where your thinking centre is located. I’m referring to the upper part of the human body that (usually) contains the brain.

TONY: Are you saying that there should be a man’s severed head at Stheno’s feet?

TATI: Of course! Let’s speak sense, shall we?

TONY: Well, I could have put one there, but I felt that a severed penis would be a more powerful statement of her independence and ferocity.

TATI: But a man approaches Stheno with an obvious intent to copulate. (I don’t comment on his taste though. They say never speak ill of the dead.)

TONY: Perhaps he was attracted to thickset women with unmanageable hair? I don’t know!

TATI: Obviously, his head was equally as close and important a target as his penis. Agreed?

TONY: Well, yeah! What’s your point? Are you saying I should have drawn a severed head instead of a severed penis?

TATI: No. I’m just trying to be logical. At the same time Stheno’s lower serpentry was busy with his penis, her higher serpentry would have been busy with his head. But, for some strange reason, the snakes on her head look clean and pretty relaxed. Do they have a different attitude toward men?

TONY: Maybe her ‘higher serpentry’ was tied up in a neat little bun at the time? I don’t bloody know! I just drew the damn thing. I didn’t think too much about the logic of it all!

TATI: It’s evident that you didn’t think at all, Mr Artist. Let me tell you how it should loo—

TONY: Oh. Fucking goody.

TATI: The serpents on her head should be dripping with blood also, and the man’s severed head should be laying somewhere around.

TONY: Somewhere around, huh? What if it’s just out of shot? Did you think of that? Huh? Did ya?!

TATI: Of course! Her posture, actually, can point to the possibility that she has just kicked the head off his shoulders—like a soccer ball—and her happy expression can mean that she scored a goal.

TONY: See? I didn’t need to draw a man’s severed head after all. There’s a perfectly legitimate story behind its absence.

TATI: Well, I’ve just explained it, Tony. What would you do without me? Those angry art critics would tear you apart with their tricky questions!

TONY: Really though? It’s not like they’re even paying any attention.

TATI: Yes, they are! And we need to invent an explanation of why the snakes on Stheno’s head are clean. Only then will I allow you to post this picture on your Instagram.

TONY: Oh, I’m sorry, your highness. I didn’t realise I needed your permission!

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2019