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“Watching Fox News on Mute” by Austin Islam

I was watching trailer park boys. I cracked this open. I turned off trailer park boys.

Check it out

#first book i havent wantwd to put down in recent memory #and hes a homie of a homie #austin islam #watching fox news on mute #your book reminds me to live #thanks austin #my bookmark is toenail clippers #i havent met u but feel like ud appreciate that

‘daytrana 500′ by austin islam

every other couple weekends

2 day long oily smudges on glass

where we’re at now . here,

imagine wincing pain & longing

banging all down aisle 3

at the container store. trying

hard to sleep walk drafting

wish lists .

"(1) pint (2) styrofoam (20) no pad no pen" .

almost drool into a dream container:

glossy clear w platinum clasps .

poor wallet's empty but for identification,

card w 6 /10 punchouts, bus pass,

best buy staples rewards,

itemized hotel bar receipt, matte

business card: jessica legg .

imagine rearranging strips

a dozen pages wildly in manic fever

until suddenly looking up to recall

how insincere a clock will be .

tend to stinging eyes, parched

tight throat, gums receding

like good times .

then

imagine: what's better than street tacos,

we ask the street . nothing !

nothing and we’re back inside . staring

into the mirror w a polished smirk

shout something that goes w out shame .

"no one nearer to here than houston

has got any thing done

quite the way we done it ."

out front of the house all of history

gathered to loudspeak demands and wave

signs made at Kinko's that read:

"Filibuster ."

"Orphan dogs ."

"Limoncello ."

suddenly and again night has fallen

as if you were the last to know .

austin islam ( austincharcoal ) is a person on the internet and may/may not live in the Chicago area. His book is ‘watching fox news on mute.’

#poem #poetry #austin islam #i can't stop thinking about diet coke #lit #writing

the last two months of my life have been spent as rachel pattycake bell's intern. the first was rigorous, demanding, and absolutely exhilarating the 2nd we've both been on vacay. feelin great. a lil under the weather actually. but cool. pls paypal austinislam gmail

#rachel pattycake bell #austin islam #quote austin islam #paypal #does this look infected to you

LIFT & OTHER NOISE by Austin Islam

Austin Islam is someone I vaguely know. I can never really grasp what he's like. We're Facebook friends and I'm pretty sure I follow him on Tumblr or maybe Instagram or maybe both, and his aesthetic is unpredictable. He'll post little stories and random comments and sometimes videos. He's friendly, and he told me that he liked this blog, and couldn't remember if he'd already told me or if he'd dreamed that. Isn't that sweet?

This ebook is from 2012. I have no qualms about reviewing slightly older things. I'll review the 1927 silent movie Sunrise if I ever see it again (and can stay awake this time) (actually maybe I didn't fall asleep before, idk, it's a very dreamlike, ethereal movie, so it's hard to tell.) So this isn't really that old in comparison to other old things. Like the Coliseum. Or the invention of the ice cream cone.

This ebook surprised me with its lyricism. It has a lilt to it, something alluring and enticing. It feels like a series of song-like poems about punk kids who don't consider themselves punk kids, or else non-punk kids who do consider themselves punk kids. It's a little bit clever but not self-aware, which adds a youthful quality. It's an uneven ebook, and it's not perfect, but it's charming.

My favorite part:

"you and I are diamonds on a vast bumpless beach that extends into next eon/ two of a handful few, invisible to the sand around us/ (and then we found $20)"

I like the image of a beach and the invented word "bumpless" (at least I think it's invented, my computer wants to autocorrect it.) And I like the parenthetical. I'm obsessed with parentheticals. You've probably noticed that I utilize them a lot. There is this incredible parenthetical in the poem "Absentia animi" by Gunnar Ekelöf, which I should probably talk about at some point, because it's this crazy phrase that changes the entire poem if you include or don't include what's inside the parentheses. You can do a lot with grammatical and syntactical tools.

Anyway. Back to Austin Islam.

Read this ebook when you are in class and can't pay attention because the professor screened footage from JFK's primary campaign and Bobby was there too and then you started thinking about their assassinations and also Martin and Malcom and even Harvey Milk, and you can't really handle it, so you decided to read something to distract you from the darkness and sadness and pain and evil of the world, and it worked, and even though you know that those are all things you must acknowledge and focus on sometimes and be aware of, you sometimes also have to acknowledge and focus on things that show that there's still good. And maybe this ebook doesn't stress the good in the world. Maybe that's not the point. Maybe it's just the simple fact that humans can create.

You can read it here.

#lift & other noise #austin islam #review #book #slam dance xxxx

how many interstate boyfriends

how many interstate boyfriends do you have i want a list with addresses and phone numbers i feel afraid that you’re going to disappear somewhere and you’ll be in a news story and there will be a cruise ship perth, australia we might never see you again your dear sweet mother with her arcing piano fingers will cry and cry for days and then breathe and then cry again where is the last magazine i sent you is it still in your diesel trunk engine with the spare tire and the painted red jack and a 12 pack of cokes i need to know that you’re enriching metals for me in the space between now and the alarm clock

_ Austin Islam

https://litonlit.bandcamp.com/album/lit-on-lit-2

#austin islam #poetry #lit on lit