the AUTOCAUST
by Daniel Joshua Nagelberg and Zebulun
Issue 710
"BURPING SEVENTEN BISHOP
'I’m a streetwalkin’ cheetah with a heart full of napalm,' hissed a young Iggy Pop in the opening verse of the Stooges’ anthem 'Search and Destroy'. 'I’m the runaway son of the nuclear A-bomb.'
And there it was, on acetate. An aural testament to the inevitability of broken dishes, to the toll taken on a world with the power to end everything in its next heartbeat and knew it. No more apple pie, Ma. We’re stuffed. Thanks.
But the world didn’t end – yet – and the reality of those kids has (d)evolved into that of their own kids. Enter SevenTen Bishop.
'Nothing represents SevenTen Bishop but SevenTen Bishop,' Daniel Joshua Nagelberg throws down in the 'Mission Statement' which opens THE AUTOCAUST (Digest; 48 pages; www.seventenbishop.com), a poetic collaboration between Nagelberg and SevenTen crony Zebulun. 'Waking up in the dark, asking the floor if we were invited to stay there. The floor just smirks and shrugs.'
'What are we supposed to do but write?' comes the plea, when the floor finds no answer.
What else, indeed, though there must be something – the boys of SevenTen Bishop can smell it. But be careful what you think of; you just might get it.
'Well son/Grab some wall/I smell some illegal/Ideas on you,' Nagelberg writes in 'Stung by a Swarm'. 'Lieutenant Hoffs/Get the probe/This guy says he saw something/There ain’t nothing to see here/Or anywhere.
'Damn that voice,' Zebulun grumbles in 'What We Need Here'. 'Damn that sensation/Damn those maddening fingers/That long independently to create/When there is only time enough to/Make a living/Plow that field/Plant them seeds/Pull dem weeds/Fill dat sack right quick/Present yo comins to de boss when de sun go down.' He’s looking hard for an end to the day that will never come from a clock running widdershins.
THE AUTOCAUST pulsates with intangible feeling that might drive into the hills those who returned from the Tropic of Cancer laden with wonder of just what the whole trip was about. Or worse, those without any wonder at all. Which is fine, in a sense, as Zebulun suggests in 'He Stuck Out': 'He asked every question we had no interest in/We tried to close our eyes when he spoke/To demonstrate that we had had enough.'
Though it’s sometimes life’s darkest hours in its most foreign lands one must visit to remember what is good, to laugh at what’s funny, THE AUTOCAUST makes more than one pit-stop of threadbare sunshine. As Dan Nagelberg notes in the holiday-themed 'Apple Pie Full of Grandma’s Eyes': 'Ain’t it great that we can all/Be together/Alone.'
Amen. Now go read."
-- William P. Tandy, Eight Stone Press.
And there it was, on acetate. An aural testament to the inevitability of broken dishes, to the toll taken on a world with the power to end everything in its next heartbeat and knew it. No more apple pie, Ma. We’re stuffed. Thanks.
But the world didn’t end – yet – and the reality of those kids has (d)evolved into that of their own kids. Enter SevenTen Bishop.
'Nothing represents SevenTen Bishop but SevenTen Bishop,' Daniel Joshua Nagelberg throws down in the 'Mission Statement' which opens THE AUTOCAUST (Digest; 48 pages; www.seventenbishop.com), a poetic collaboration between Nagelberg and SevenTen crony Zebulun. 'Waking up in the dark, asking the floor if we were invited to stay there. The floor just smirks and shrugs.'
'What are we supposed to do but write?' comes the plea, when the floor finds no answer.
What else, indeed, though there must be something – the boys of SevenTen Bishop can smell it. But be careful what you think of; you just might get it.
'Well son/Grab some wall/I smell some illegal/Ideas on you,' Nagelberg writes in 'Stung by a Swarm'. 'Lieutenant Hoffs/Get the probe/This guy says he saw something/There ain’t nothing to see here/Or anywhere.
'Damn that voice,' Zebulun grumbles in 'What We Need Here'. 'Damn that sensation/Damn those maddening fingers/That long independently to create/When there is only time enough to/Make a living/Plow that field/Plant them seeds/Pull dem weeds/Fill dat sack right quick/Present yo comins to de boss when de sun go down.' He’s looking hard for an end to the day that will never come from a clock running widdershins.
THE AUTOCAUST pulsates with intangible feeling that might drive into the hills those who returned from the Tropic of Cancer laden with wonder of just what the whole trip was about. Or worse, those without any wonder at all. Which is fine, in a sense, as Zebulun suggests in 'He Stuck Out': 'He asked every question we had no interest in/We tried to close our eyes when he spoke/To demonstrate that we had had enough.'
Though it’s sometimes life’s darkest hours in its most foreign lands one must visit to remember what is good, to laugh at what’s funny, THE AUTOCAUST makes more than one pit-stop of threadbare sunshine. As Dan Nagelberg notes in the holiday-themed 'Apple Pie Full of Grandma’s Eyes': 'Ain’t it great that we can all/Be together/Alone.'
Amen. Now go read."
-- William P. Tandy, Eight Stone Press.
This review from Xerography Debt published by Leeking Inc.
read the work
Messages in bottles in the Chicago River
an article in the Chicago Reader