A multi-media artist living near Washington, DC, Jeff Bagato produces poetry and prose as well as electronic music and glitch video. Some of his poetry and visuals have recently appeared in Empty Mirror, Futures Trading, Otoliths, Gold Wake Live, H&, The New Post-Literate, and Midnight Lane Boutique. Some short fiction has appeared in Gobbet and The Colored Lens. He has published nineteen books, all available through the usual online markets, including Savage Magic (poetry) and Computing Angels (fiction). A blog about his writing and publishing efforts can be found at http://jeffbagato.com.
Eat Your Own Dogfood
the bigmouth singers
lapping at the edges
of human decency
waiting for an in
like a tweet autocorrected
into daydream reality,
a twilight world
at the tip of remembrance
where dogs eat dogs
and jello makes a main course
for the barking millions—
why not push all
the choco bars
into the middle of the room
where anyone can
grab one on a whim
like plucking diamonds
in the sunshine,
‘cause the sparkle
makes a diamond real,
like taking a banana
from a bartender
and hoping for booze,
like rubbing a lamp
and expecting a genie
to appear with three wishes
and a bag of hamburgers,
all fat free and smothered
in peanut butter;
you got your can of mollusc stew,
a propane stove and a case
of Budweiser, so you’re ready
for anything, just not
the things you’re supposed
to do, or those that come
with a deadline
Resistance to Extinction
Mars plays with a plastic
eraser as the sun goes down,
which he eats, and then is ready to hit
the bars, ‘cause he can’t listen to non-existent
radio; he won’t nod to the dollar man;
he doesn’t carry false teeth
in his hand—and is stopped for
running without identification;
“Things are getting worse,” Mars
says, “First it was the candy
tax, then the smile wars,
broken radio, the castrated
muse, and now false teeth
requirements; well, I resign;
I refuse to carry a badge,
walk the straight line, recite
the alphabet backwards and
forwards, step in time to virus
rhythm like a chokehold on the
American mind—there’s a whole
world out there where nothing
is true, not even the cocks and
pussies of the tight-lipped
millions, and if I can’t shake
the tree till the apple falls,
then you have no choice
but to kill me,
America
Plastic Love by Design
Aesthetic plastic radio waves for goodbye
Charlie on the dime, his last two
nickels rubbed raw in the phone booth
and answer from Rhonda not forthcoming—
she’s tied up with anaesthesia
on a stainless steel slab, laying
like hair in a pile, like an old lady’s wig,
ass in the air for another blade,
a better love, a figure
retired and aspiring
to the surgeon’s knife and the heat
suture of the blood-free work zone—
sorry, babe, it was you
piled there like the moldy grapefruit
I found in the refrigerator rear—
and maybe while my hand
was up those ass cheeks like in a seatcover
loose around styrofoam peanuts, I left
the fruit behind and got to carry a silicone
bag home to my baby for a teething
lesson—a little schooling in all that’s pretty
and bright and free to love me
better death—
We’ll never
work again after we face alone
the destruction of the gods—
stitches across the mons, up the back and arm,
like a teddy bear’s vomit in a flea
market stall-
ing
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