Asylum Annual 1993 - Greg Boyd as editor does his usual fabulous job collecting dozens of works of experimental fiction and poetry. So cool. Books like this underscore offbeat writing is out there; it's just a matter of interested readers seeking it out. Here's a sampling from ten authors, some names will be familiar, some other not so much.
FACT: by Charlie Mehrhoff
to think that god had to become me
in order to throw his cigarette out the window,
to write these words.
LAST CALL by Charles Bukowski
the chair in the center of the room with
nobody in
it,
everything waiting for the silver sword
without the hands,
a piano playing somewhere,
one small note at a time,
a bluebird on each key,
my 5 cats asleep in the other room
waiting for me,
death only means something to
death,
it's late now
and the walls kiss me and hold me
and you
and you
and you,
this terrible glory
as the frog jumps over the moon,
as the Hunter himself almost wearies of
the hunt
but not
quite,
not
not
quite.
THE DECAYING MAN by Russell Edson
I am decaying just for the heck of it. I don't know if I shall make it through the night. Do you care? And more, do I really care if you care?
Should I beg?
I am decaying just for the heck of it. What if I don't make it through the night? Would you care? And would I care if you cared?
I won't beg.
I am decaying just for the heck of it. A man cannot just sit on a dime and do nothing. He must one way or the other. Movement is everything; for lack of, a man decays . . .
SOLDIER by Jessica Treat
Once she had let a soldier in a train compartment love her. She kept this experience in a small tin box with a closed lid. But now, without wanting to, she dimly saw the tin box float out of blackness, into view.
PENIS STORY by Sally Bosco
When the alarm blared, it was so black outside I thought it was still the middle of the night. Derry's warm body was pressed up against mind and I hated like hell to get up. But I had to since it was the morning I was to fly to New York for a structural engineering seminar. I needed a block and tackle to raise myself out of bed.
I quickly showered, thankful that I had packed the night before. Since I had a few minutes to space, I got in bed next to Derry for a quick goodbye. "Is it time for you to go so soon?" His eyes were barely open as he raised his head and looked sideways over the pillow.
"I'm afraid so." I leaned my head on his shoulder.
"Here, Lissa." He reached down below the covers. "It's going to be a long trip, and this is really the first time we've been apart. Take this with you."
He took off his penis and handed it to me.
I looked at it. It was a sweet little thing, sort of half hard and rubbery. When I stroked it, the skin reacted and it stood up a bit.
COLDLY by René Daumal
Watch out, there he is with his pen,
watch out, he's going to explain himself,
he's going to cry out, he is alone.
Hold your tongue, hold your tongue, I say to him;
-to who? Words lose their skin,
they are naked and cold in my hand.
Ah! my most frozen knife,
my most deceptive pretense of murder,
those words: to whom?
I do not speak to anyone,
I sprawl under lamps,
I tear myself open on river banks.
THE ANTIDOTE by Elliot Kaloidis
i saw a sculptor i knew standing on a street corner. he looked so content, peaceful even. he head the eyes of a new mother when she sees her son for the very first time and cradles the warmth of possibilities in her arms, in his palm, which was veined like marble, he held a very small object which was as hard and black as a bean. I was accustomed to seeing him tormented and had thought more than once of his love for his demons, but that was something new for him.
I asked him what the object was.
"it is the fruit of my life. My life's work in a nutshell, so to speak. it is a self-portrait and contains the mystery of my being."
CITY OF MAZES by Cynthia Hendershot
I keep getting lost in a tunnel. I stumble, grasp at the curtains, then fall, bruising my knees and hand. Veins swell and I'm sure they'll explode, but they only turn purple.
There is so much passion in my veins. I've moved to a city of mazes where I lose myself every night in a different room. I move through this city like I used to move through your interior, only now I'm cold.
At first I couldn't feel anything. I thought I was losing my heart to a bandit who would sell it in the silver courtyard of the city of mazes, but when I ripped the mask from his eyes, I saw the bandit was you. I couldn't comprehend that you were stealing part of my body. I sat still with my blouse unbuttoned.
A MAN AWAKENS AT DAWN, STEPS OUT OF BED, AND RISES TO THE CEILING by David Henson
He forces himself back to the floor, and showers with no further problems. But at work he develops an embarrassing spring in his step. Then he's riding upstairs with the boss, and when the elevator stops, he doesn't, but instead drifts up like a balloon. As his boss runs to call the authorities, he frantically pulls himself out of the elevator, bobs across the ceiling and somersaults through an open window. The officers find him in the park -clinging to a treetop - dangling upward, a clear target stretching toward the sun.
CHICKEN DREAMS by Kenneth Bernard
We don't know that chickens do not dream. We do know that there is heightened brain activity in chicken brains at night. A graduate student in veterinary medicine once noted that in a thesis, but he had no idea what to do with the information. Probably, like me, he felt uncomfortable even bringing the matter up. There are some things we simply do not feel worth our notice, even in the realm of pure science.
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