Week 26: Lucas Baisch

June 25 - July 2

Chicago

Anaphora

Engraved text on found furniture

a gaggle of men are nude and gyrating, occupying an epoch marked by fragility.

more importantly, the sprinkler system’s down and no one will fix it.

i watch one man, a father, feet planted, labor day, shooting his toddler with a nerf gun in one hand, a beer in the other.

i hear one man writing about mother’s old cell phone, a hand-me-down, containing sex dream journalings about a former lover.

i see one man who enters a coffee shop, orders his “regular” and the man at the counter has no idea what he’s talking about, and that first man is dejected and the whole world thinks: “wow if that’s what you have to feel remorse about, you oughtta be pleased.”

one man remembers shoving pickle spears up his asshole in celebration of acidity.

one man is a piece of shit with a chicago skyline tattoo.

one man wears a blonde wig made from the sinews of his fallen enemies; rib cage threading, heartstrings, the like.

one man remembers playing on the cinder blocks next to the east side projects, and now they’ve become a pretty okay dive bar.

one man was a tree, dying at a glacial speed.

i remember one man who sold his soul to write the “greatest think piece of 2012.”

i spit on one man who lies back-flat on the alleyway gravel, broken glass shards biting his back.

one man wants to not be a man, not even a person, and makes himself a tome upon a flat surface. a bibliography made up of tree rings, revealing small histories in circular breaks of pattern.

a gaggle of boring men in a boring place, lucid in the face of their wooden hearts