issue89observations

                                                              ZYGOTE IN MY COFFEE.COM

***BIO*** KARL KOWESKI: I'm a 32 year old displaced Chicagoan, now living on top of a mountain in Alabama for reasons that involve a woman. I was the lead singer/banjo player of the now defunct country/punk/disco band The Screaming Shits. Now I just work in a machine shop and write articles for porno mags.

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Cuntly’s Dilemma

by Karl Koweski

Cuntly put on the leather jacket his life partner bought during a three day trip to Sturgis with her "cousin". He poured a glass of 1997 vintage Asti from the box wedged in his mini fridge and set his Ipod on Miles Davis. He lowered his sunglasses over his eyes and sat down in front of his Sears Selectric manual typewriter.

There was a poem brewing, the MUSE stirring the cauldron of his MIND. He knew the POEM was going to be about a HOLE in his shirt and the concept of salvation and damnation and it was going to be awesome and likely garner some Pushcart Prize consideration.

At the very least it would get him into Nerve Cowboy for the fourteenth time in a row. Which had to be some kind of record if you ignored every other contributor. Cuntly always ignored every other contributor.

He placed his fingers on the home row.

He whispered "magic time".

And nothing happened.

All he could think about was that idiotic, round-faced Polack CAVORTING hither and yon, calling him an ass clown. What would say about The LAST POET’s metaphor? Would he be able to grasp the concept? How a comfortable shirt’s holes are salvation, but with time the growing holes become its damnation! Would he laugh? Of course he would. It’s all he ever does.

Cuntly picked up his Garfield phone and dialed.

"Hello," b.j answered on the first ring.

"B.j, little buddy, it’s the last poet."

"I was just thinking about you. I just reread your poem ‘summer streets slicked with petroleum rain leads me back to my animal cracker youth’. That poem just keeps blowing me away. I especially enjoy your extended metaphor of the crumbs at the bottom of the box of animal crackers signifying the wasted days spent going through alleys, searching for empty soda cans for your drunken father to recycle."

"Thanks, little buddy. Let me ask you something. When you went through that six month dry spell a while ago, how long did it take you to realize the MUSE was seriously CONSTIPATED?"

"No need for the past tense usage, my friend and mentor. It’s still going on. It’s been almost a year, now."

"I thought you wrote a poem a couple months ago."

"I did. Come to find out it was the same poem Bruce Hamilton wrote a few years prior. Just a couple word difference. So I trashed it."

"Trashed it? You never let a little homage stop you before."

"Meh. I don’t know. I’m just waiting back on the PPP to make us famous. Then I know the flood gates will open up and poetry will be worth writing again. Anyway, to answer your question, I realized immediately. I rolled the sheet of paper into the typer and the MUSE vanished."

"Yeah," Cuntly said. He could imagine the beautiful MUSE and the unconventionally handsome POLACK frolicking hand in hand through a field of daffodils.

"Why do you ask? You’re the most prolific poet I know. And you know I think you should be poet laureate of this forlorn nation. Your poetry inspires me to continue living."

"I appreciate that, little buddy. And I’m sure you’re aware that I think your POETRY is sensationally adequate. I wish you could get back on track."
"I will. Once I start seeing some monetary compensation for my poetic pearls."

"It’ll come, b.j. I promise we’ll achieve literary immortality before all is said and done."

"Thank you. Thank you. You don’t know the profound effect your words have on me. When you said immortality I shivered. By the way, another broadside was found. This one in Arthur Nersesian’s Chinese Takeout. That gives us almost eighty."

"GODDAMMIT! That book’s not on the list."

"Well, it could’ve fallen out and been wedged back into a different book."

"It could’ve. But it was probably placed there purposefully by an uncooperative operative. Those books were carefully chose. Not abiding by the MANIFESTO I wrote is unacceptable. The success of the PPP rests on the operative’s ability to follow my commands to the letter. Otherwise, you all are just a bunch of dreamers with fancy dog tags."

"At least it got found. Not that I don’t agree with you. I totally agree with you."

"If you haven’t told anyone else, I’m gonna go ahead and count it as six broadsides. I’ll write in the blog that a whole STACK was found right next to each other by one person. We gotta hit a hundred by our one year anniversary."

"It’s gonna be real cool once we hit a thousand."

"So long as operatives quit doing what they wanna do and start sticking broadsides into literature that matters."

Cuntly hung up the Garfield phone and slapped his elfin fist into the palm of his hand so hard the wine glass trembled. He sipped the Asti and swished the liquid around in his mouth before swallowing as he considered b.j and both their problems performing lately.

Writing poetry used to be so easy. It was as though he were an antennae translating CHAOS from the COSMOS into mesmerizing poetry that swelled the reader’s hearts with literary ecstasy and more than a little envy.

Now it seemed his antennae had been neutered by a hacky Polack who couldn’t quit writing about the magical capabilities of his cock.

It shouldn’t have mattered what that... that... troll had to say. His opinions didn’t define the LAST POET. His snarky comments couldn’t sink the PPP. Hell, six broadsides had just been located in one day!

Yet, somehow, it did matter. The egomaniacal pornographer had somehow managed to deflate the last poet’s EGO. Just a fraction. Just a fraction. It wasn’t like anyone else placed much stock in his clever stories mocking the PPP. The small (independent) press had long ago realized who the Prince of Poetry was! And it wasn’t some two bit Polack with a smart ass mouth and a myspace page. It was the LAST POET. The LAST POET!

He felt a slight stirring in his dainty groin. The butterfly kisses of the MUSE. Cuntly rushed to the typer. Fingers on the keyboard. Shirt. Holes. Salvation. Damnation. Holes. Shirt. Damnation. Salvation.

His fingers froze. In the back of his mind he could hear the Polack chanting "Latin inscriptions are gay!" and "‘the sands of your ambivalence will turn to the smooth glass of devotion in the thermonuclear explosion of my talent’ was the worst chapbook ever".

"That chapbook was my mom’s favorite!" Cuntly roared. The sound of his own voice startled him. Spooked, Cuntly reached a foot and a half to his right and caressed the pile of chapbooks he’d managed to publish over the years. Feeling the grain of the cardstock covers soothed him, reinforced his SELF-WORTH. His fingers fondled the staples. He breathed deeply, released, opening the top chapbook titled ‘days of easy grace, nights of pounding the typer in light of cool monolithic jazz baby - the early poems’ spread-eagle; smelling the musty scent of vellum, so sweet and lovely he wanted to bury his nose in its rich folds. And there on the cover, so beautiful and precious and erotic... his NAME.

Seeing it, he shuddered and sighed, his groin suddenly wet and sticky. He mewled and groaned, a sound recognizable only to the PPP inner circle.

Feeling the tension relieved, he reached for the bookcase withdrawing a tome of Bukowski poetry. Opening the book at random he picked the first word that registered every time he dipped in. After five minutes he had: green, shadow, shits, alley, horses, boils, whores, beautiful, longshot, cats, Hemingway, vomit.

I can work with this, Cuntly thought.

He set his fingers on the home row and typed: We’re all longshot horses in Hemingway’s shadow when the beautiful whores vomit cats in the green alleys of boiling shit.

"A great title and a great start," Cuntly whispered. "I am the LAST POET. Magic time."