Los Exquisitors

A trio of exquisite corpses, from the Instituto juniors y yo. ECs, for the uninitiated, are collaborative poems: write two lines, fold the first down, and pass to the next poet. We wrote six altogether, and drew one as well (not the above illustration; for its attribution, go here).

i.

Young man said what he said when he said—
But, did he say what he meant when he said what he said?—
Or was it just an argument,
Bloody argument, bloody imbeciles reeling
Sun rises on the Reign of Terror
Don’t think about the meaning
(I wish I could punch you!)
“Green eggs and ham” mixed with “post secret”
The name is green.
Not the eggs mixed with a secret.
Possibly the eggs cooked by Shawn’s mom
Or a rotisserie chicken cooked by his dad Don
Juan, the cavalier rotisserie man,
A Father without legs, without arms, without
Train kept a-rollin’
All night long
They howl and scream and die and love
It’s truly terrible
That was quite a scene
She fed off her nemesis
The food of hate
She hates that food
But eats it anyway.

ii.

A peek inside, you or your charm,
The place of horrifying
Of mesmerizing
Thoughts unseen like night
There is a coat-hanger fetus
On that old computer
She was standing at my door
A jigsaw puzzle not completed
It is not as done as you are
It saved itself
With time it all became clear
Patience is a virtue
The virtue of vultures
Circling the latest corpse
I don’t want to stop
So let there be rock
Let there be light
Let there be “free will” with retribution—
The summer of 1997
Was two years before all the madness
Ever started happening
It wasn’t all madness
Or maybe it was, just depending on your thought—

iii.

The corpse next to me applies makeup
And next to her there is a corpse with a headset
At night you rub against the coffin fodder
And only the occupant of the hearse is
Perfectly human
Well, that’s up for debate
The crusades should’ve done their job
If they did a good job
The job was not well done.

[tribal exquisitors: ldm, adt, er, cm, zs, cn, pmb]