Oft times have I dragged a long white filament through my skull,

To pluck from nestled bones hunks of useless sinew

To hang like dripping trophies from a spider’s silk.

This procedure learned I from strangers’ faces

Seen during lengthy studies of certain pieces of electrified glass.

The voices that seemed to emanate from them spoke of wondrous creatures,

Appalling in their ubiquity and malignity,

Unthinkable in our conceptions of them.

Imagine, perhaps, strings of throbbing magenta sausage,

Porcupines mated to jellyfish, hornéd snot.

These conceptions are metaphors, only,

The actual creatures being invisible to us as we to them.

Nevertheless, our two worlds interpenetrate and are at constant war:

The one seeking to annihilate the other.

And though never so stated by the strangers’ faces –

Their goodwill evident in their smiles –

These creatures have no emotions we can name,

(How could they, being as they are?)  Not faith, nor hope, nor charity,

And, therefore, and this is what gives our struggle such alarming clarity,

The outcome will determine not life, but everything life is for:

Art, God, the Scientific Method,

And the Approval of a Beautiful Woman.

The Poet Attempts to Explain Dental Floss to Readers in a Different Century

by man martin

Although Man Martin has never published any poetry until now, his fiction, nonfiction, and reviews have appeared in The Kenyon Review, The Alaska Quarterly Review, McSweeney's Online, Pleiades, and elsewhere.  His debut novel, Days of the Endless Corvette, is in bookstores now.