Marc Kipniss

Marc writes: "Gratuitous Ph.D. in Comp. Lit. from the U. of Wash, with a chapbook available from www.brokenboulder.com." He can be reached at mkipniss@aol.com.

WHY KEEPING LIVE FLESH IS BETTER

THAN KEEPING DEAD FLESH

This is a specious analogy but some people

insist on having every question answered

so here goes:

First,

dead flesh starts to smell after a while

and have maggots thus it is inferior

in the long term and no one should keep it.

Second,

live flesh remains firm and doesn't liquefy

and is as such superior because it doesn't

need a cup or a pan to be transported in.

Third,

even if the dead flesh was kept in

formaldehyde so it wouldn't rot it wouldn't

taste very good.

Fourth,

sex with dead flesh is messier

and less satisfying for the most part not

to mention certain diseases.

Fifth,

you don't have to bury live flesh

or find a cup or pan to bury it in because

it's not dead.

HOBBIES

rain

animated film festivals

tissue paper

window sills

poems about ducks

collecting labels from canned food

scented candles

email

poems about duck ponds

lint sculpture (and mobiles)

lying in bed

time zones

rereading old newspapers

conspiracy theory

poems about ponds

self esteem

Norway

GOOD PARTY, BAD PARTY

I got to the party on Friday a little late and opened the door hoping I

hadn't missed anything but then I stopped hoping when I saw that everybody

had already thrown up. I tried to act like I didn't care as I closed the

door and left only on the way home I walked past a young couple throwing up

in a leafy bower and a family of four throwing up on a bridge in a moonlit

park and even a few dogs throwing up playfully on each other amid a patch of

honeysuckle and I was so full of vomit envy that I almost choked on it.

Saturday night I went to a different party and got there early enough to

participate in the group birthing. I had my catcher's mitt on like the rest

of the men and all the women shot their babies out at us and afterwards the

women put the babies in bassinets on one side of the room and turned down the

lights while the men put on some mood music and collected the leftover

umbilical cords for everybody to use to strangle each other with on the

opposite side of the room in an act of erotic asphyxia that we almost all

died of pleasure from.

Marc Kipniss