Issue 24: Billy Cancel

your Password to SUPERSTITION MOUNTAIN

will expire in 3 days     assimilate internalize

this     fringe your Throbbing Void     with

dunes     cliff footpaths

river mouths         hands

     up who wants to reconnect

with something     that barely was

established?     in such unmelodious

cow horn there’s still     i promise some

HYPER-MEDIATED POST-TRUTH REALITY         sure

     we all caught feelings in Bread ‘N’

Cheese Land became     synonymously

blurred which explains our unenviable

position in this METROPLEX POPULATION

SURGE         many of our cheerful frolics are

     becoming restless self-critical reflecting the

fading influence of rock’n’roll & so wrongly often

associated with TROJAN SYSTEM FAN ZONE         do you

     want to change it now?     given that

i’ll look good a block away     you’ll

be 10 minutes ago &     Carnival Cruise Liner

shall establish itself as BASE CENTRAL METAPHOR

The Little Book Of Flaking Out Too Early

tells me     across town The Goddess

steps from a volcano     starts

to dance with her worshippers     that

not everyone who died by the hedge

in forest of debt was once Something

In The City     how in any bizarre

cheerful alien atmosphere there’s SHITE

AT THE BEND OF THE FUNNEL     so 

spoil me dear i’m section 8.         The

     Little Book

Of Flaking Out

Too Early suggests

despite me bleaching plague

hymns upon the shore of some grey

white lake     and you leading an oddball

parade through The Binary (overload

repeat) BLEAK PRAIRIE EXPANSE

stretches out towards the horizon oblivious

to our work.         The Little

     Book Of Flaking Out Too Early states

kopophobia

is the fear of

exhaustion.

DAB! DAB!! DAB!!! He said Smashing my face in

drip drip drip i went through     negative

positive real imagined space     Double

Entenders had already given me the

Wiffle-Waffles round     the same

time i tried to reach     a less playful

level.         “at the Dead Finish there’ll be a

     great deal of weather about     but this

matter would make     a cat laugh & shall

keep     cold” the Paramedic confirms.         tom

     thumb     admiral dot     commodore

nut     don’t much     stand out     in A Crowd

must be in The Wrong Show     sparkling

mirrored stars hardly         forthcoming though

     with a cod’s head &    

a mackerel’s

tail at     the Left-Over’s

Expo i’ll be     there before

the maggot bites         we

     must reach the Business

End of the

THUMB TACK

in this APPLE PIE ORDER is there A-Place-For-Us?

Scan Cluster / Scan Scatter Matinee so

under The Sign Of The Headache     we spit white

broth in the House Of Waste to some tune the old cat died of    

certainly a place for us elusives…         critical intense

     Reflector     pours over     draws upon     cuts out     layers    

THE INFINITE UNREALIZED yet     still hears distant

church bells     keep off the grass     discuss.         because

     it’s possible with you     it’s possible

with you     to have     

an European Morning    

an European Morning     where the Chicken     got the AXE!

Billy Cancel is a Brooklyn based poet/performer. His collection Mock Trough Rasping Crow (BlazeVOX Books) was published in 2018. His poetry has been widely published (in Boston Review, PEN America, and Bombay Gin amongst others.) With Thursday Fernworthy (Lauds) he makes up the noise/pop band Tidal Channel who performed his noise poetry piece Buttercup Tantrum Mutton Encore at Ravenna Museum of Art in November 2019 as part of the Transmissions VII Festival. In 2013 he appeared in Marianne Vitale’s Missing Book Of Spur at the Performa 13 festival.

His contribution to ‘4 Words’ was broadcast as part of the 2016 Liverpool Provocations Art Festival. He has read at the Poetry Project New Year’s Marathon and regularly performs in New York and beyond. In December 2019 Billy and his work was featured in London based culture/fashion magazine HERO as “New York’s new poetic voice.” Bio and links at billycancelpoetry.com

Copyright © 2020 by Billy Cancel, all rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of Copyright law. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the notification of the journal and consent of the author.

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