FOAMGHASTby Paul Cunningham© 2012 by Paul CunninghamImages by Paul Cunningham, Rauan Klassnik & Adam Moorad.Chapbook by NAPnaplitmag.com

FOAMGHAST

foam (v)to emit foam; esp. to froth at the mouth; also with out. often as a hyperbolic description of vehement rage or wrath.

ghast (n)arch. or poet.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the editors of Thrush, in which “Edenic Language Suburbs and Holograms” first appeared and to the staff of Dislocate: A Minnesota Journal of Art & Writing for publishing “Autopsy of a Manta Ray.”

i saw nothing, i spoke with the lights off, i spoke calmly . . . tried coaxing myself to sleep

i closed my eyes, i opened them, i closed them, i continued in this fashion . . .

i eventually screamed out, could not discern if my eyes were still closed or if my eyes were still open

through narrow slots in a large mass of dark tissue—a thick musculature—i saw intelligentsia—visionaries—through the slots in a large mass, slashed as if by knife, the mass, steaming as though recently gutted, and i had not imagined this, i swear i had not just imagined this, i had come to life, eyes open, an autodidact and what else would please me so?—what else, if not hope for a belief in purpose? i sought a belief in a purpose beyond hymns, beyond this mass—its flowing musculature—

its sorrow

PASSAGEPASSAGE

i closed my eyes for a really long time

and then i opened themcould not discern if my eyes were still closed or if my eyes were still open

i have heard so much aboutour ruined ocean of manta rayspillaged phrasescapitalistic languagedadaist amputations gliding,gliding, contrariant amputationsgliding, gliding the blue where the last manta dwellswhitegarbed againstfloors of deformed coral—a collection oftwitching cephalic lobes(slowing movements)

artart, with and without itsruined sex-partswithering cavernous mouth upholsterychomps the oceanfutureplankton-emptythe task of the false and final manta

AUTOP-AUTOPSY OF A MANTA RAY

one last cavernous mouth(and stomach)exhausted, the contents:soft segmented bodiessocial forces of the epochswallowed insidea veined magician’s cape(slowing movements)

EDEN-EDENIC LANGUAGE

SUBURBS AND HOLOGRAMS

cloud after cloud, we sway on porchswing. watch the sky replace itself. i fear we’ll become a timeless cartilage—without shine, brownrotten’d. i fear gruesome’s lightning. i fear the hologram made to bury our beautiful faces.

Eden, calm berries sprout our heartbeat thickest creased with red torment. i rumble for those i love, but i can feel my small, small heart denied so much. i wear this metropolis ill-relinquished—memories at gasps and fond. my script to follow, mocked.

a laughing wingspan,sting-feathers over poorly perceived sleep muscles and constitutional history

the sun hangs on our birds and mythologies, she believes we have become a technical procedure

life’s praxis, your eagle grasps only one side of the contradictory process of historical development

EAGLEEAGLE

Flesh-animal stands in its apartment feeding it—a primal scene. Flesh-animal feeds it—floor—double foot. Flesh-animal, the porcelain ectomorph—muscles tagged with urban paints and salve—dancing soft to an ancient boom box. Softer, harder. Flesh-animal is the only painting in the city—a sheet of x-ray images: well-decorated worn-in cushions. It wants to dance a massacre across its couch its apartment interiors. It moves twists winks at itself in a nearby mirror. Scenes of its dance-massacre reach the nearest window. Skeleton, it moves toward the window dripping scenes of crawling torso, gasping ribs, exhausted heart, . . . smoke.

Flesh-animal, dancing, obliteration, moves across the floor—double foot. It takes the window by looking, changes it by hand. Open, the window allows it much: a view of a terrifying city. Among its terrifying skyscrapers—moist negatives—flesh-animal confronts a creature bursting—wind through oil-silk drapes of rain—a smear of excess:

FOAMGFOAMGHAST

Manta Ray, wired to the sky, dips and recedes—spreads its immaculate darkness.

Flesh-animal moves backwards from the window. The floor passes slowly under its shoes. Its dance-massacre has reached a conclusion. Flesh-animal’s boom box, . . . flesh-animal’s false prophet. The music has no longer its flesh of quickening flower—flesh-animal collapses to its knees as the Manta Ray oddity soars slowly toward the apartment window.

Flesh-animal waits in its apartment, waits for antagonistic Manta Ray. Flesh-animal stretches its arms until they reach the ceiling. Tippy toes, painstaking calculation—its body tall. Principles of construction in music, the boom box, . . . agitated skull. Sonnet. Trinket. Pouring out.

Flesh-animal stares down as his dance pours out his golden dance his massacre romp his deep meaty veins the apartment interior—a thick musculature—a beastly Manta Ray a source a generation a multiplicity of artists

a dwindling autonomy aesthetic a declining number the loosening the loosening the wealthy city and its Manta Ray—the dark, dark city of surplus a source of corruption a cavernous wound in a cavernous mouth, . . .

Flesh-animal stares down and sees its soul go moist. Negative.

an x-rayed mouth:ledging, sighs of choirpatterned digest—repeated

a lonely x-rayed mouth and a lonely x-rayed mouth:newcomers, a foaming bouquetstretches, adopts

a lonely x-rayed man masturbates:column, floating, stream

a lonely x-rayed woman masturbates:half-turning fingers, fixingswung

an x-rayed wound in an x-rayed mouth:salted gasp, bloodestablisheda meat of violent plum

an x-rayed cavernous wound in an x-rayed cavernous mouth:one of those tastes you’re forced to taste

MOUTHCAVERNOUS WOUND IN A

CAVERNOUS MOUTH

geographic tongue,proceeds recedinglyexpressionless into fortified roomsinside heads

(eel noisesclogged the spacearound our teeth)

our entrance,a hole into a cavern

(eel noiseswhisper us tighter)

geographic tongue,no lines or X’s

just throbbingflatland

GEOGRA GEOGRAPHIC TONGUE

carry your flesh-animalacross discandied blushmounds

paint itpaint it

what it has in its hand…

your hand

you decide to stay close to it

HER ITGATHER IT

maybe one day sex organs will resemble hashtags

#we’re afraid of the instructions printed on our ‘evil parts’

want no more heated skewers

want no more shame-bruises

want no more skin

TRENDINGTRENDING

i am afraid,i say

my twentysomething neighbor(the one who collects guns)

he wakes up alonedrives off

scans the populationcrocheted, outlines too calculated

i am also afraid,someone says

a life is longripples, unthinking

FRAIDI AM ALSO AFRAID

flightcut night

eardrum soft, . . . catching voice-ripples blackest a contact from this side-less biter—Manta

the biter moves forward—Manta tailthrusts: foamghastsmears the drifting homosapien artists

smearsthrustssmears

with its darkest muscle

Manta seeks a goddessto conquer(any cheerful cattle to drag in its chains)

MANTA RAY MANTA RAY

Will we survive the tongues of old worlds?Delusion-producing monoliths?

the memories, . . . they scratch

a pale hooked sociological approachand the functions of art eat us down

modern privilege“mister president, oh joyful mouthful . . . ”

narrow squeals muffledaudience-gauzed

no bard-float“mister president, lead me into crammed corporate tombs . . . ”

no bard-floatto tack the sky with illusions of freedom

GRENEGANGRENE

a mouth vomiting knotted sheets(too many coughs and white spiders climb out)

a fever of cheap seasonal tableclothsplastic itching scars: poinsettias, fireworks, etc.

you cut pieces of your family from your dining roomand compared them to everyone else

silence is a woodpile offamily tables

NATIONAL NATIONAL ANTHEM

looks way different than yours

way moretongue

way moretongue

STUMEMY STATUE OF LIBERTY

COSTUME

FOAMGHAST

foam (v)to emit foam; esp. to froth at the mouth; also with out. often as a hyperbolic description of vehement rage or wrath.

ghast (n)arch. or poet.

Paul Cunningham currently lives in Pennsylvania where he manages Radioactive Moat Press. His first e-chapbook of poems was Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Pangur Ban Party, 2010) and his other work has appeared in or is forthcoming in publications like Aesthetix, Esque, Dislocate: A Minnesota Journal of Writing & Art, Dark Sky Magazine, Thrush, and DIAGRAM. You can read more of his work at

http://pecunningham.tumblr.com/