Stick Figures Increase Cautious Limbs

Debate a rag
into a frayed jacket,
            boundless shade
            structured around a colleague.
                     Yet grin.

Misses function until a baron avoids
bleeding that bestows a process beneath a pulp,
                             shoes CRATER earth
                             ,     from chaos Meek neck.

Pedaling mysterious takedowns in a pot
delivered as a battered orange motion
processing an ignored hive:
                          Pockets Swell,
                          express floundering
                          rough draft translation.

     chemical leather strap. Last bit
                                             of a crumb,
                                forthwith blemish
                                of limitations – – –
                menacing forlorn vistas, vibes,
                                                      instantaneous verge.

Tug & tackle & twilight
                             white noise.

Vague Threatening Ideologies

not a tongue animating stick
but the present tense sneezing
of a formaldehyde trapdoor
cinching ventriloquist dummy
less than
          OR equal TO
a fetus protected
                      more than
                      an idea
     , as if communion wafers
       were nourishment, tho
the insteps perform
matter of fact hexes
                              UNTIL
               all abandoned possibilities
               become the summation
               of     a
                           Nation.

 Made to Fail

faster strutting
                   cipher,
          analysis
glowing
              disembodied.

     eagle birthing

                       one
                          by
                            one
a murder of crows.

               all worth
         monumental
                       chicanery
of a liver,
            plush.


                 imaginary
                 centre,
       symbolic genealogy.

regulatory effects,
           this last
           of luxurious empires:

all that crumbles
and fades and
burns
        from resisted
        needs.

warbly ounce of rosary

portray miniscule trouser snippets
cough   cough   cough   cough   cough
        machine          HITS     sound    FiLe
                      escape:
    ‘harder than a neon empire sweatsuit’
& cylinder EXITS bellow cruising chop
                                               , whoosh
                                                      WHOOSH ,,
                         whiffing weapons of
           MaSs        discontent     – – –   ‘shower & join us
                                                            on the boot farm’ – – –
bona fide fourth trench of the industrial circus
window shipping vampiric snapping flask
                   ]whosoever blanched meeting martini shades[ ,,,
    AdDeD       bUrSt     of    yearly    stipend.

circumstantial assertions avoid

heretics assent outlining caricatures
lack distinguished section V further addressed
disease of profound anemic limping
all due wounded apprehension species

                     glow certain forms
                     common integral list
                     proper pooling arguments

of each
     of giving
          of ultimatum lungs

                               provided oxygen hampers
                               an end a functional virtue
                               wither substance however
                               such skills lacking weapon
                               existence assigned wholly

            destroy communal controversy
            the hollowed void of partial citations
            resisting the logic of common sense

Joshua Martin is a Philadelphia based writer and filmmaker, who currently works in a library. He is member of C22, an experimental writing collective. He is the author of the books automatic message (Free Lines Press), combustible panoramic twists (Trainwreck Press), Pointillistic Venetian Blinds (Alien Buddha Press) and Vagabond fragments of a hole (Schism Neuronics). He has had numerous pieces published in various journals including Otoliths, Version (9), Don’t Submit!, BlazeVOX, RASPUTIN, Ink Pantry, Unlikely Stories Mark V, and experiential-experimental-literature. You can find links to his published work here.

You can find more of Joshua’s work here on Ink Pantry.