Excerpts from O Rotting Sun
i.
Shutter as the bulls throat is slit I
take photographs of the hydrogen
o throne flare, when I O
stare into the tumultSunn amplifier the temple—top-
ples over—I O I drink gold
mouth tequila Salud Bataille! R
O Mancers of the shown I O
I eat the bruised
flowers we are
the last two drunks
around the fire you and I
or phans of flame at worldend
O You O I Jet O
the fuel captured in the sacrificial bowl.
ii.
With crane
dneck we can not look upon you—dire
erectily this woman lays standing
on the wall where it meets the bedher 3 hand—some
flat preedst two eyes create patterns pixelstab from the peripheral vision
nooncorolla our lot—chain linked & vacant gol’sanguine
gold piston pumps circles insistent Mr. Mr. I O I Mr. Mr.
E? Ellipse. Eyes peeld new patterns new skin reveal
Look. Look. I O I Look. Look. E! The scaffold strung and buul
bluud Leaps! In to O Golden mouth! O Golden Mo—No! No! I O
I No! No! E!
“The same goes for the cock . . ] [. . suddenly doused
in hotblood!” (Bataille 57) The sky is antlered my fri
…end. Stag, we rush at eachother, with covered eyes, to what…
continues:
“who’s horrible solar cry” My lover once
described her idea of a zipperless fuck. Tokyo burned from
fireflies dropped from 5000’ the B29’s lost one, unzipperd
we reveal shinbones stone phalluses the bodies of jack the rippers victims
stakt end to end what was shown what decomposes why the white crane whickerd
her midnight gorged moved on.
iii.
no talking it is the flash—ejecta wakizashi red
you snowblack gash bank
greywhite it is not what you think around the water cooler
sacrifice
it is slow, dull they all said
emulsed. they liked you
it’s a signal yellow police cordon, keep out, no talking, 37 stitches per pocket a
locked door, you in the cold. An ejaculate. The queen took the buul in her mo
uth for 27 minutes of every half. Red licked Euros, a ring of dancing forms as
ses thrust at you—no talking, please—the pink slip served for quoting Farrakh
an in an intra-office memo
outside and the wild the wyrdling
hunger the flung tundra of the phoneconference rooms—Joey endured your “fin
gering”—No Talking Please 1817 shirt pockets s
own—for 10cents a day it is the skin of your feet that slough off like whet
cardbored appetites.
Your snowshoes worn by your warm sons, in memory
The yurt you
built dances on chicken leg stilts
it is not what you think Baba Yaga howl No Tall
Kyng Please! No Talking.
Is it time you were the buul? Leap Leap No Talking
No talking please.
iv.
o headless o heedless o man
with endless hands upon your balls
you who reel at the raised geldingblade high
to hack for hound for
hyena’s cackle
o slain cock cry for your sunrise
your son so self-impotent
cry! cry! o cry!
cry! pull
meaning from your split guts from splitlip!
of course you see the sun unspoilt between your legs, dangles, o cosmic
dangly bits of men you foolspirit burn!
power virile opine opine—suggest some spinemaker
or did you forget? not one of you fell
from man, but,
from Circe were you spat!
most foul bastards all! usurp! usurp!
o sun from all spat, woman, most dear
woe, dear woe.
the sworddancer’s circle blue paint skin blood clumped her hair
o frenzied eye defy you man entry we stardusted
stand cackle rend fury deprive you
of your head
o suck suck o self suckle suckle you suck here
no more among these starborn. you you who hold the blade
to your own throat.
Michael Cooper is an MFA student at CSUSB who is fascinated by the fragmentation of language. His work plays with diction and polyphony in an attempt to shock us back into a critical awareness of how frail we are. He feels we are at our most beautiful at our point of failure: orchids in the same vase of water.