diode
archives spring 2009

 


MARK CUNNINGHAM

[specimen]

The articles featured photographs of the top-secret aircraft that was at the root of UFO reports.  The policeman told me to recite the alphabet backwards from Q to D and I could, so I knew I was drunk.  We need to tinker with the memory machine.  The first thing the patient remembered was that he didn’t know who he was.  She asked if I was frightened of uncertainty, and I was too scared to admit I never thought about it.  “Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow”—Helen Keller said that.

 

[specimen]

“Where did the spoon go?” he asked, so we knew his focus had changed at least twice.  If I start counting with my thumb as one, I often make it to six before I reach my little finger.  You don’t really understand the whole concept of April air getting cooler as we go up the mountain, do you:  I mean, oh, we’re going back in time?  Crossing South Georgia, Shackleton and his two crew members thought there were four in their group.  The portrait was so intimate, I didn’t recognize myself. 

 

[specimen]

The first thing I get from the bottle of vitamins is the coupon for the next bottle.  You know you’re in the country when you step outside and cast only one shadow.  I did some stretches first, because I was going to be sitting down for several hours.  Yes, Mark Rothko said, I am watching paint dry.  The sun is yellow and its light mostly white:  I’m not sure the cosmic egg has actually cracked yet.  She could be counted on to say, “That is so random.” 

 

[specimen]

I’d be surprised if someone named Bear hadn’t seen Gremlins at least five times.  “That it is able to be returned to makes something’s existence more probable.”  He said it wasn’t a hair; it was a special spice.  I had to agree with him.  It was the best tasting hair I ever ate.  My itchy ankles distracted me from my existential crisis.  I read about it in the super-secret lost book of lost super-secrets I bought at Barnes and Noble. 

 



Mark Cunningham has published three books: 80 Beetle, from Otoliths; Body Language, from Tarpaulin Sky Press; and 71 Leaves, an ebook from BlazeVox.