Fall 2011

Table of Contents - Vol. VII, No. 3

 

Poetry    Fiction    Translations     Reviews

Ken Brownlow

 

 

Email home from the poetry war

Hi Dad
much has been written since yesterday.

The total lack of censorship here
allows me to report freely on our musings
unlike the other side
who are continually asking the mods
to delete one post or another.

Last night the sniping was intense
after which came a frontal assault
of sonnets to slit your wrists by.
Most of our emo poets went down

but we found some forced rhyme
just in time
and critted them off the board
in one strophe.

Then came the dirty tricks
they threw a barrage of haiku leaflets at us
powerful stuff the editor said

one read of those subtle little fuckers
and you’d throw down your pen,
but luckily we were able to roll in a new montage
and blew them away with a desyllablator.

sorry about the bad language dad
but this place gets to you after a while

Not all the news is good
a unit close to us
was completely overwhelmed
by a squad special ops abstractors
wielding a metaphorical allegory about
the echo of a heartbeat in an orphan
our side was left gushing clichés
on the importance of family values.

We spent the rest of today
working on free verse
and trying to show some new recruits
the benefits of polished articulation
in what is essentially a war of words.

Don’t believe what you read dad
we aren’t warrior poets or heroes
just an ordinary bunch of wordsmiths
trying to make the net safe for poetry
regardless of how the individual
chooses to write a poem.

Must go now, tomorrow is the battle of the tankas
and I really need to catch up on my zzz’s.

Your Son
Inverse

ps the good writes say that we’ll be going home
when everybody agrees that it’s ok to abbreviate xmas

 

© Ken Brownlow

 

            

Poetry    Fiction    Translations     Reviews