Sunday, January 9, 2011

SJ Fowler (1983) has had poetry published in over 70 journals & magazines, and is the author of two collections, Fights (Veer books 2011) and Red Museum (Knives Forks & Spoons press 2011). He is a member of the Writers forum poetry group, and an employee of the British Museum. He edits the Maintenant interview series for 3am magazine introducing contemporary European poets. www.sjfowlerpoetry.com www.maintenant.co.uk

{the letter I equal 1, N equals 50 and 50 again, O is 70, C a 100…Innocentius Papa, we are somehow not too surprised to learn, adds up to 666}

The Museume should frighten!

beyond comprehension & exalted as such!

return to the first!

the drowning of Rib!

neolojist monumunt bound!

yoke!

awwed!

dumb!

clean limits!

return to the Church of breeding

fasten the straps of their hour inside & capture it

Ould brack

denial of visitation permitt

the selected audience of unane who proliferate in luncheons & chatrooms

the rumour the Museum is ludden with objects

dinn spreads

& all the bell-eyed skin-peelers want to visit

holidays sparm

our gates are stunned

we are kneeled in gratitude

what a success for Rosenzweig!

there is no spate

plastiscene, polystyrene, made by the troll, yesterday evening, painted with spackle

they would only discover it in the developing room,

back in Cologne

when the elbo is not in complaind but flashing noyse?

they know I know

the most recent cohort is truly subtle

what better punishment than pretending they believe I am ded

they know as I know

let me live it eath day!

the dhin of amity



The Museum is the possible shift

spoken niiht at midnight

shakes the shoulders

cries narration

scale without comparison

utmost proper redukion!

wisdom!

the only site of recoverie

speak only with getherness intact

aglow!

deaf!

so vast to be unmissible, & yet missed

the sight of the turn

volume!

motter they torture me

‘Isn’t that horse pretty!

the monkey is playing a game!’

final!

geniA!

eep! close to ear

afflict!

me with quiet!

have me do their labour

touch the bones

teeming hive

‘t cannot be!

fowl! who are not silent violating!

napp!

watch the mapvendor!

selling schematics to a Museum

chemically unstable

hard to know position money

too resort to bartering

exploited both sides

is not a covered market

not a place for bargaining

it is, or it is not

only when something truly dead does it enter the Museum


{Chant of the Visitation rights, Song of the Visiting Wife}

oos aa leva leva

abe bah leva leva



oos aa leva leva

abe bah leva leva



repeats the word

so repeats the word

peels from dirty, bitten mouths

a hen. a hen. an admission from an animal



from the north, from Finland. from Lapland.

close our eyes tight, protrude our tongue slowly.

to the heartbeat of Liver.



make a huff. share our food.

remains, looking vehemently toward a carcasse.

reminded of a rat cornered



frothing teeth,

chipped and snapping & bent upon the lathe of shape.

trapped in a cardboard box - no scissors or natural gas



jump on the box with both feet to be picked by the black neck

& it asked a one word question in Depletion

Koosa Ta Specs Nokka ra Tow



do not admire survival per se!

the layered double dragon carved in lime.

a Cathoga bomb, the loose rivets of blood into wine.



exchange single form for eight limbs

tear again, most likely.

Juhakka



achievement in the stalk beating the snake if so.

- probably a soldier.

the smell of hay. ceased listening.



nose folds flat on lips like a limp beak,

the broken echidna seeks a restroom?

finally, the nerves are toiletry.


{the nafs al-hull or the aql al-kull? Neither pleases the perfidious Badr Al-Jamali}

but, Donald, dressed (not just dress’d) as Hassan-i-sabbah?

the women forced to hide in light, fasting??

the turned eye to the training, of baby coils. Drugs too xxx

the sacred kufic script, eastern kufic incantations to be neater.

square kufic which hides the proper name of “he” in corners.

they exploit the decorative potential of Spill to no End.

it is decoration, though musty, the Thuluth, the Nasta’liy wraps

around children’s necks. I am all for calligraphy, but we have a gallery for Nizaris

Kwarmazids. Zangids. Seljuqs. Mameluks. & my credit card devotee, Baybars

Thankyou Baybars, Saladin & Sinan. Thank you for killing Conrad.

all because they are nearly expired, but for once it wasn’t your fault

you lead the dawa to its dai

all sexual congress Filthy & punishable by eternal…

held fast to their end. Khurshah shouldn’t have trusted his Mongol bodyguards

as I do not trust the Curators here. How Museum’s scramble to service the dying.

what about us is left of those who believe? The gallery is centred by a square

with a cross. It is the Templars emblem. It is here I stand, honest.

SJ Fowler

Helpless I do not know if good intentions prevail among the elected, among the appointed, leaving me apprehensive that the fate ...