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Dan Shawn


universal acid

my father was a
veterinarian
a lazy one at that

and when I was born
he simply stood by and
watched as my mother
circumcised me
with a carrot peeler

the trauma left its mark so to speak

mom and dad split up when I was five
she ran off with the butcher's wife
he patented universal acid
a liquid that no container can hold

we don’t talk much these days
and the earth is slowly dissolving

Heirlooms

you once dreamed
of a melon
and the boy
who butchered it
with a ballpoint pen
as though he was carving out
the back of the neck
of the white man
who killed his father
long ago on the
Nebraska prairie

but now those
melons
sit neatly in a room
under the glow of
ultraviolet lamps
aside the petri dishes

and you watch contently
as the whirring meters
pump plasma into them
and yes
you can feel it inside

an eyeball can be peeled
you say
but not like a grape
and anyway
melons should not be tampered with
those small citadels of virtue
wisdom and power
much too much
like us
when we sleep
​

plastic baby corn

parasitic
poached goats
are not for
petting zoos
but that has never
stopped them
before
and of course
there’s cream
in a little hollow
place tucked
so very deep
inside them
(almost like custard I’d wager)

they know
all about
the lobster
and how she
prefers
to lay her
eggs in a
tight cluster
all grape-like
on the
underside of the
algal frond
 
where I dream
that we too
might someday
find cool shelter
from the plastic bits
that rain down from
the tortured sky
the 3-D printers
that spit
out pink toes
and little
baby corn
holders

metamorhpic

she
came into
my bedroom
holding
a fishhook
and a plastic glove
and
in her
calmest voice
explained that
yes
it would
have to
come out
that
mass of
shrimp
pulled 
from deep within
my ear 
bloody
left me
barren
and a little 
giddy

but 
there are times
when i still
feel 
it

blue veins
tail flapping
scent of 
algae
salt

my back
sprouts
a fin 
and the wound

heals

End of the Millennium:
​An Oral History

i came across
an unknown tribe
in a forest of steel
and cinder blocks
they drank parsnip soup
from police helmets
raised chickens
and purple hollyhocks
 
they taught me that
the cockroach emits
a piercing scream
and when Ghenhis Khan’s
head appears
not to lose my self esteem
 
together
we split apart
the vacuum cleaner bag
reaped the dust
for our tortilla flour
suppressed the urge
to gag
 
but those fine souls
they’re gone for good
now spineless yes-men
roam the Earth
pumping blood
into the Linzer torte
hawking neck cheese
and afterbirth
 
they argue
about the walrus
how its horn’s not
bony after all
but instead encased
in leathery skin
like a salami
or a football
 
they snap it off
watch and wait
soft liver spills
into their boots
rotten pears appear
and then burst open
inside their birthday suits
 
their senators
and corporate fish
have all but stopped evolving
they secrete universal acid
no bottle can hold it
and the earth
is slowly dissolving

Mistakes

my mother
always
said
consume only
the most
digestible
of oils
and
not the ones
that congeal
or cake up
in the back of
the throat
or go
clump clump
as they
descend
 
but old
habits
die hard
kinda like that thick
pulvinus
at the base of
the oak leaf
 
indeed
one must be
careful
not to
gag on
its cellulosic
rigor
 
and yet
foolishly
i still deposit my
leftover coffee
grinds in
the kitchen sink
 
a bad move
but apparently
not
an uncommon one
said
the plumber
who tried to
console me
 
“people are forever doing
things they later come to regret”

Pickles

There’s a road sign that
one sometimes passes
on the country roads of Quebec
a child lying still on his side
next to the road

And the words read
“This child could be your own”
though of course
they are written in French

But you’d rather add brine
to an overabundance of peas
peppers and zucchinis
stuff them safely away 
in a dark spot
in the kitchen cabinet
in a mason jar and 
wait
for the lactic acid tang
to bring out 
the pickle

These pickles 
are living things
you know
and you can 
almost taste them
with their garlic
and dill

But instead
you think about 
snake urine
and how it 
might smell

The child will be fine you say
He’ll grow up to be an insurance broker
Get a divorce at 43 
and when he’s eighty-four
his toes will be like gherkins
his nails infected with fungus
and he’ll remember 
that day 
when he
played dead.

rust

when i was a boy
we’d climb
the suspension bridges
 
hoist ourselves up
to the cables
and grab on
 
gloves always helped
 
we'd grasp at the
cold metal
look down
at the roadbed
the icy water
300 feet below
and never think
about falling

or maybe
it would be
the boom
of a construction crane
suspended above
the top of a
sixty story skyscraper
hawks diving past
our ears
 
but now
i only watch
as the bacon grease
congeals
and wonder
about its lustrous sheen
as it forms a plug
that you can swallow
if you like

and think
how did I get to be
so old?

cause and effect

i threw a battery
into the fire and
it exploded
 
i ate too many prunes and
my intestines
hung down like a
garden hose
 
the dog knocked
over the Christmas tree and
the living room
went up in flames
 
i miscalculated and sent
a staple through my thumb
 
he pressed the button and
the missile began its neat
parabolic arc

just as it was always meant to

Space Food

i’m the guy
who labours
late into the night
to invent the
synthetic meat
 
you know
the kind that grows on
Petri dishes
 
Big Science
has this quest
to replace
the cow and pig
with cells
that crawl about
like grains of rice
on agar
 
we'll herd them
like pink worms and
train them
not to invade your liver
 
don't forget to wash your hands
it smells “down there"



Picture
Picture


​Dan Shawn's Profile

roots

a kidney bean
once became lodged
deep inside
my ear canal
 
and i don’t think
i need to remind you
how a sweet polyp
like that
will sprout roots
among the white axons
grow throughout the squid
and drink in salvation
from the brainpan
 
god knows
i’ve tried what i can
even
turned to the
purgative artillery
strong medicine for sure
but
my throat muscles
only strained and expelled
a bulky stool
so gassy
 
and when
the shaman
sat atop me
with his covey of broken clam shells
scraped the flesh from back of
    my neck
wouldn’t you know it
the beast only sneered
from the hole and spat
 
so i guess
i’m resigned now
to co-exist with my friend
and no
as you’ve gathered
it’s not a symbiosis
 
but i’ll get by

a second chance

if they were to
strap me down
upon the concrete bed
aside the
polished steel 
of the
Dairy Queen
machine
modified just for me
with the carnival calliope
and that special
polyethylene
hose
the "new car smell"
threaded
with such care
from
the
spigot
to
my
gullet

would i bear it well?
would i fight back
when they threw the switch
and the warm
slop 
began
to 
flow?

i’ve heard
it said
they sometimes
fill these machines with
medical 
waste
but
this tastes 
different
today

oh sure
i might struggle
even as 
my abdomen
distends
my fibres 
unravel
the tar 
seeps out from me
and
wets
my
spine

i might 
risk
everything
anything
for
a second 
chance

i might
but then 
again
I haven’t 
before

so why start now?

take out

that thug
in the subway
eating his shredded pork
out of a cardboard box
with a white plastic spoon
and you
on your way
to the hospital
you should have known
not to carry your prostate
out in the open
like that
it slipped from
its greasy paper wrapping
and tumbled out

little giblet
and he would have
barely noticed
as he bit into it
had it not been
for the spurting
buttery decay

Potato

Oh, Lord,
why be there jelly between our toes
so sebaceous and scaly?
why these flakes that
pour from our scalps
enough to bake a dinner roll with?

why can we not be constructed
from gleaming steel and
chrome?

enamel paint on the
souls of our feet

and if we are so perfect
made in thine image
why
these
middle age
gases
like moldy
potatoes
rising from the sheets?

not to mention the
pasty tartar
between our teeth
white manure?

Believe me
I've tried hard not to ask
these questions

But the skull meat
(with its pleasing and nutty aroma)
always seems to win out.





Picture

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