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
