Asylum, Spring 1988 by Greg Boyd (editor)

Greg Boyd collects over two dozen pieces of experimental prose and poetry in this collection. If you would like a change of pace from conventional writing, this little book is for you. Here's a bushel basket of snippets to serve as a sampling:

THE VISIONARY by Kieman David
He said that he's seen things, visions, because of a weakness the shape and size of twin acorns in his brain.
These small pockets of tissue rested behind the heavy bone of his forehead. Queer, snug kernels of an offending inner eye, they had been skull wrapped, protected, from fingers that would have pucked them out long ago.
"He fell off the disker," his mother said, pointing a thin arm to the potato field. "He's better now."
She used the same arm to guide her son to a stack of greyed boards inside the machinery shed. She sat him down. With her fingers she probed beneath his stubble hair, tracing the lines of scars sun a quarter inch deep into his head. His lips curled.
"Gone now," his voice was thick tongued. "Must have crushed them acorns, made them leak or something."

ALLIES by Gregory Burnham
When he was six years old things weren't going right, So Carter strangled his imaginary friend, Bud. With each twist of the rope Bud couldn't believe it was happening. Fearing that Bud's friend, Jim, might tell on him, Carter strangled him, too. All this in the playroom while the TV was on; Captain Kangaroo. Carter felt no remorse about putting them to rest, especially since they could be resurrected at virtually any moment, unhurt, healthy and alert. Carter's mother was in the kitchen talking on the telephone to Bud or Jim's mother. Carter was sure she'd be pleased when she heard his imaginary friends wouldn't be eating meals with them for awhile. Bud's mother, however, would be very upset at the news. Not that he and Bud and Jim went around being subversive, but they did break small house rules, the ones with the big ramifications.
So carter grew up that was, knocking off Bud and Jim whenever he felt like it. He could hang them, shoot them, run them over on his bike, blow them up, push them down the stairs, light them on fire, stab them (his favorite), slug them, beat them, starve them to death. All with impunity. All without batting an eye. It was great fun. They never protested, no matter what. They were good friends, the best.

IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD by Richard Martin
A man sits on his porch counting to infinity.
No matter when i pass, what the season, he is there
whispering numerical sounds in the air.
Sometimes his wife appears beside him
holding a sign that reads: HE'S BEEN DOING THIS FOR YEARS!



FRIDAY NIGHT by Jeffrey Zable
Outside my window a woman is being raped by a six foot centipede. Her screams make it difficult to concentrate on the television. Finally I notice she is able to escape and is running up the street. A huge florescent butterfly swoops down from the sky and lifts her off her feet. Slowly I rise and turn to another channel . . . wondering what I missed.

ODE TO JOY by Lee Nelson
My death was confirmed when the morgue-nurse lowered the sheet and showed me my own body.
"It's not permitted to touch the corpse," she said.
The eyeglass pinch-mark on the bridge of my nose has already faded, and the lids were closed. I asked if I could look into my eyes, but she refused.

PROOFREADER by Tim Hensley
"The stock is smashed repeatedly by type and travels along a back conveyor belt under heating ducts which back the ink dry. An employee inspects the product and discards imperfections. The rest fall into a cardboard box and are then placed in a different cardboard box," the overweight woman said.

She took a look at his application and offered him a rope of black licorice from a plastic tube on her desk. He was applying for the position of proofreader of wedding invitations. He wanted a part-time job while he went to school.
 

THE HEAD by Andrée Chédid
What am I doing here, lying on the nape of my neck in the corner of a doorway? I try to move and rise, but nothing around me stirs.

where are my arms, my chest, my stomach and my legs? I can't find my body. My neck leads nowhere.
Yet I'm here, certainly here, and I'm still seeking, but finding nothing, no further trace of myself. Only this head. I'm only there, in this head. Only a head! Is it possible?
Through my hair, I can feel the hard and rough surface of the pavement. If I raise my eyes, I can see a balcony jutting forth, overflowing with a few green plants and vines. I'm therefore out in the open, a lead lying on a sidewalk and that's all. I'll have to get used to it.

MINIATURE STORIES by Tom Chao
"I love you!" he screamed to the fat woman. "I'm a robot!" And sure enough, when he opened up his chestplate, we could all see the components inside.

It was only their first date. But when the car in which they were riding went over a cliff, they knew it was all over.

In the future I've got a microphone hooked to a machine which projects whatever I say as ten-mile-high letters of orange tongues of flame, in the sky. In the future, no one can escape the tyranny of my existence.

Her voice sounded apologetic on the answering machine. She really was sorry that she couldn't come to the phone and answer it right then. But she was out with her boyfriend. And I called about something else.

TAKE YOUR FIRST LEFT by Joel Dailey
I'm never happy
unless I'm depressed

I fill out the necessary forms
before choosing my socks

I've ruined my life
for an interesting biography

Mornings I spend growling
like a pitbull trapped under a porch

Evenings I rip the night sky
into bacon scraps

Hey! You scratch my back
& I'll scratch my ass

LIFE STORY by Glenn Russell
The bold letters on the cover read: Harold Blackman – Life Story. The book looks quite ordinary. One is required to make a special inspection to see a queer spring-like device along the spine. Harold Blackman opens the book before him. The title page is completely blank as are all the pages. He runs gnarled fingers, tips calloused and slightly trembling, lightly over this ghost of a title page and reflects on the long agonizing nights when he tried to pen the fire of his youth and the spume of his manhood without success. What he saw when the ink dried always left him feeling flat, unsettled. Closing his eyes, he repeats an incantation learned from a half-crazed Argentine, then opens them slowly, very slowly. Harold Blackman, weary adventurer, is now standing on the writing table, shrunken to the size of the book. Lying down on the title page, the back of his legs, buttocks and backbone relax to the paper’s slight give. He released a catch on the spine, the leather cover snapping shut with the vengeance of a mousetrap. But for a muffled groan all is silence. Over time, the blood seeps through the pages, forming, words, sentences, paragraphs.

SONG FOR A DICTIONARY by Pillippe Soupault
Philippe Soupault in his bed
born on Monday
baptized on Tuesday
married on Wednesday
sick on Thursday
deathly ill on Friday
dead on Saturday
buried on Sunday
that's the life of Philippe Soupault