Phin Gabrie
from THE PIG CYCLE:
A PIG’S DEATH
1 Welcome to Pig World said someone, too late. I had lived through a multitude of time-spans in the autumn in the company of a dying pig especially since eventually the pig did die. I survived, but very easily it could have gone the other way. Still today I cannot tell you which night death arrived. If there were nothing wrong with me, I would be able to tell you which night death arrived and how many nights I spent waiting for it with the pig. A pig in full bloom, you feed and a pig otherwise you cut up. Whenever it becomes decisively winter you begin to contemplate bacon and ham. But my pig was different My pig was never hungry and the fear. I realized suddenly I was the friend of a pig and also its doctor and my heart was going out to a pig. Inserting its body into a pit convulsed me internally. This loss was the loss of a pig. The pig had suffered sufferings in a world of suffering I had suffered pig-sufferings in a pig-world. A pig wants nothing more than a warm bed but my neighbor once said he thought a pig is better off on the ground. It was six o’clock. There was something off about the pig: Pigs don’t refuse food for one and I was gripped with fear “What does a sick pig need?” I asked “This pig is all backed up” I just wanted to keep being friends with this pig 2 We got invited to dinner, the pig and I. Hosts have evil powers they plan their dinners exactly when pigs are sick I have come to believe that there is in hosts a special power of That. Of that evil hour. I went to get the pig. The pig had come out from its house and was standing around on its front lawn, lethargic. It said hello with a slim voice. (The pig was probably several hundred pounds) It unhooked its jaws and screamed I looked at its mouth—a raw red crenellated region. The screams were in the manic dimension of pigscreech but shortly subsided: it was over. Back on its feet the pig recovered the uncanny grin that a pig has. Liquid spooled through its teeth while its sinister eyes, dusked by their long lashes, pointed at me intense loathing. I discovered dark small black spots around its tail. Very mysterious. With pigs any ruse will usually work but with my big diseased pig, tricks must have only depressed him. He would not go to dinner. I noticed that he had vomited under his tree I felt very depressed I knew I was going to lose this pig. From the health of their pig a person gets their own health; otherwise you live the life of a ghost 3 As we lost our luster, mine and my pig’s, the luster of my depraved old dog exploded. It liked to see us suffer. A dog will do anything related to mischief. Once you have seen a pig’s butt you are never the same, you cannot go back to your old life: My fate was now entwined with the pig’s and the dog laughed. “I don’t mean to frighten you” I told the pig “but when you have those spots we have to consider the possibility of pig disease.” We considered it, with frequent interruptions from the dog, who didn’t really know what was happening. “Can a pig with pig disease give pig disease to a human?" "Yes," insinuated my pig with long slow eyelashes. I opened a bottle of whiskey. I had thought that pigs could not be sick. My faith in the awesome power of pigs was too great. Pigs, I had thought belonged to me and were part of my noble plan. The revelation was brutal: what could be real to my pig could be real for the entire world. I desired to inspect the pig for further spots but was too afraid. I felt it was certain that I had pig disease. A car drove in and my neighbor got out. He had a pig with him. "This is my pig," he said. “We've been having a psychotic break on the beach, that explains why we are late." My neighbor stood in the yard and stripped off his clothes, In the back seat of his vehicle were an astonishing amount of pornography, which he soon extracted choosing a magazine, a videotape, some oil, a plastic tube, and other various objects. His pig said she'd see my pig. Along the orchard’s hot slope licking the path with light then we all three hopped the fence and sat with my pig. My neighbor turned the tube in the darkness. “It’s not pig disease." The pig screamed. I was starting to believe though that the pig was dying 4 He died the next day (the pig being the one in the dying). He came out of his house to die. I observed he was dead: I refused to admit to them that he was dead: I returned to my house and went to bed, and sobbed internally They were already digging the grave. And as the digger took a smoke break resting his shovel on the tree, a big red apple dropped from a branch and directly into the pit. So that the world that had led to the demise of the pig escorted him into his grave. The news of my pig’s death spread quickly and many neighbors and associates delivered their sympathies as the early death of a pig is, I found, a sadness that affects the entire community. I have transcribed this tale in remorse and grieving as a person who failed to save his pig and to justify my departure from the ordinary course of pigs. The pig’s grave is unmarked, I have lost its location but I know I shall join my pig in it, someday, and forever.
Jean Bingham
Untitled
What goes around comes around And they wrote "It works" In the dust on the TV screen
P. Dreare
A HISTORY
I was fast and I enjoyed the game but the shadow of fascism was waiting the flowers of victory fertilized by the blood of horses, covered in golden wheat the fields of Spain are covered . . . In regard to his personal life he always was accompanied and even in a discussion he said he preferred all things find a heart that was beside her and there in the blue cage of her bodice a tremor of dying pigeons!
Jeremy Weber
he face
milk open fields Once wheat the low to and ground almost flattened there is no body spider-eyed muscular full a great a bursting circuit speaking not a clock
Artemus Pallour, circa 16th century, trans. Craig Smisher
“COME, LIVE WITH ME”
Come, live with me inside my small shack and we will ten thousand grand pleasures then grab! I’ll show you the stars are a pack of cheap bastards, I try and to kill them whenever I’m plastered. With the set of the sun we could head to the docks, that’s the place where I go when to polish my smock with the blood of some rascals – we’ll get in a fight! – For your viewing pleasure I’ll knock out their lights! Of course my shack it was mostly destroyed in the flood So we’ll really be living outside in the mud; the raccoons are a bother but for you I’d consider chasing them off if you’d rather I did or I’ll drink a whole lot since I love to do that I’ll hide in the leaves when they’re there to be had Autumn’s our season, you’ll chop us some wood while morosely I’ll murmur in one of my moods. The tirades I’ll go on! You’ll love them, they’re endless. It never pays not to be angry when friendless. We’ll smash in the heads of some pesky wood critters, You’ll use them to cook us fine curious dinners.
Fee Guire
A LIFE STORY
The same as what is wrong the blank pallor: Deciding, while riding a bus, to not think in specifics. Years later “What exactly is worthwhile” ; to not know the answer