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Thursday, October 20, 2011

The Book of the Red King: Fool's Sacrifice


Photograph: courtesy of sxc.hu and Ulrik de Wachter of Landskouter, Belgium: a rooftop fool next door to St. Nicholas Church in Ghent. After poking about a bit, I believe that the building is the Masons Guild Hall.

* * *

Another poem from The Book of the Red King is up in e-print and audio at that unique organ, The Flea, brainy brainchild of poet and editor Paul Stevens.  Here's a taster:



He’d expected something clever and strange—
Business suit made of the thread from golden
Orb spiders, clownish robot-dress with gears,
Caddis-fly concoctions of spit and shells,
Maybe a seductress with breasts so tart
And green they almost rode her collarbones.
But there he was, lantern-jawed, in rusty

And you'll have to visit that strange being, the Flea, for the remainder of "Fool's Sacrifice."  You may also fly over to the  Broadsheet 20 Contents and find what the Flea hath suck't for its blood meal

5 comments:

  1. Your magical poem seems right at home in The Flea, a fascinating middle ages style broadsheet!

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  2. Isn't "The Flea" interesting? I wish that other people would come up with the sort of things that pop into Paul's brain!

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  3. Oh, he also invented "The Shit Creek Review," of which Wikipedia says: The ezine was originally started by Stevens as a joke based on its name Shit Creek Review, which is a not-so-subtle ironic allusion to the many literary magazines which use the formulaic title "X Creek (or River) Review", as well as incorporating a play on the Australian colloquialism "Up Shit Creek in a barbed wire canoe without a paddle" (meaning to be in serious difficulties), made famous by Australian comedian Barry Humphries through his persona of the ocker "Barry McKenzie".

    And he is also a founder of "Chimaera." Wiki: The Shit Creek Review spawned a subzine called II which was somewhat more text-based (rather than emphasising the art component). In October, 2007, II was detached from The Shit Creek Review and renamed The Chimaera, now edited by Paul Stevens and Peter Bloxsom of NetPublish. The Chimaera is a literary miscellany, publishing verse, short stories, articles, essays and interviews with prominent or rising poets...

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  4. Love this poem. I wish I had something right for the Flea. Has Shit Creek come up with a new theme yet?

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  5. The current one is the end of the world! Check for deadline, though...

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Alas, I must once again remind large numbers of Chinese salesmen and other worldwide peddlers that if they fall into the Gulf of Spam, they will be eaten by roaming Balrogs. The rest of you, lovers of grace, poetry, and horses (nod to Yeats--you do not have to be fond of horses), feel free to leave fascinating missives and curious arguments.