Juliet Cook

Juliet Cook and Daniel G Snethen

Dystopian Cow Udders

He wouldn't talk to me again
until I apologized for being  
myself
and let him milk my teats.

But being  
myself
is being one who apologizes
for my own blood,
then drinks it down.

I am split pea soup inside a sarcophagus 
of thatched gypsy moth caterpillar silk. 
I can't get out.
I am turning into a cow.

He tries to monopolize  
my own space,
but does not realize  
my Mother lactated snot, 
and I was breastfed 
until the age of four. 

He thinks what's inside his mind 
is a royal flush 
that deserves to win. 
But instead it is Hickok's 
dead man's hand, 
and deserves to die. 

What's inside me is a hurling red disaster—
a Tasmanian devil twister, 
bent upon destruction. 

I need to be toned down, 
because I am  
the Harrison Bergeron 
of self-expression;
written before I was born,
growing into dystopian elevator music
partially created by the blood of slaughtered cows
rising up to a new planet.

Retrogradation of You

Another implosion of stagnation 
leads toward further deterioration. 
Metallic trash inside your head
replicates itself and now there are two 
of You hiding behind the trash. 

But the first You has succumbed 
to ferric oxidation of the psyche 
and the second You is bent 
against following suit and yearns 
to become one with a garbage can. 

Your mom is a hysterical burn barrel 
with complications during delivery. 
Her voice either sizzles at You 
or takes You out.

The last time she took You out, 
the garbage man picked You up. 
They tried recycling You 
but your zinc hide would not cooperate. 
You lacked both ductility and malleability. 

Somehow, You taught yourself  
how to glare at potting soil until it turned  
into rotting oil, then fish gills, then a living fish  
that needed a home in your bathtub. You locked  
your mom out, replaced her with your new catfish. 

Grey with whiskers but unable to scream 
and pluck the whiskers out like your mom did
with hers in the bathroom mirror. 
You know we all rot. You know you will rot too,
but you're trying to convince yourself that somehow

the other You will become immune or transform. 
And transform it does, into the Ticktockman, 
wearing red and black piebald leotards, 
and You scream, though you have no mouth
and two of your gelatinous eyes are stuck shut.

 

Juliet Cook and j/j hastain

Spitting Out the Drivel

One thing we are drawn to
is how far apart the goat's eyes are
from each other. Each eye
a different little planet
or a purple conductor.

Conveying there is no reason
to focus so harrowingly 
on a hole in one.

We need more than one.
The rabbits alternate
between praying and creating
new currents.

The silkworms conjoin
with praying mantises,
form detonating heads,
inside which glowing
photospheres will denounce all sycophants.

The silkworm mantises will enlarge themselves
into enormous succubae. Eat off
the emaciated heads of former leaders.

 

Build Your Own Quagmire 

Living is as simple
as how I manage to keep going.
Watch my fingers burn
into gingerbread houses. 

Frosting wrapped in freezer bags
will grow into new skeleton keys.

Wrinkles will expand under my eyes
and bark until the neighbor’s dog gets
jealous of light.

Moving through a morning 
moaning in such a human way
upset as the already condensed 
milk spills

under the bed

grungy insects hide 
so that my nightmare witch cannot
lock them up or throw them away
or serve them as chew toys

to unsuspecting Joes
hitting 
on traditional Janes 
dead set on lurking 
their throbbing tails
inside an old fashioned 
music box. 

Little did anyone know 
the ballerina inside the box 
wears men’s shoes 
and refuses to point toes.
Sings off key
whenever so inclined. Wails 
at skeletons. 

Scream inside your fishbowl.

Pour out and flush
the artificial intelligence
into countless clogged drains.

 

 

Juliet Cook's poetry has appeared in a peculiar multitude of literary publications. Her three most recent poetry chapbooks are red flames burning out (Grey Book Press, April 2023) and Contorted Doom Conveyor (Gutter Snob Books, July 2023) and Your Mouth Is Moving Backwards (Ethel Zine & Micro-Press, December 2023). You can find out more at www.JulietCook.weebly.com.

Daniel G. Snethen is an educator, poet and naturalist, native to South Dakota. He spends most of his summers studying the lizards, insects and birds surrounding him. Snethen has spent the last 27 years teaching at Little Wound High School on the Pine Ridge Reservation in Western South Dakota.

j/j hastain is a collaborator, writer and maker of things. j/j performs ceremonial gore. Chasing and courting the animate and potentially enlivening decay that exists between seer and singer, j/j hopes to make the god/dess of stone moan and nod deeply through the waxing and waning seasons of the moon.