Subprimal Poetry Art ● Home
Submissions are currently open. See the guidelines for more info.
Aug 13, 2018: Summer 2018 Subprimal Poetry Art is now available.
Prose, poetry, art work from around the world. Some of the pieces have the author's reading set to a custom musical composition. Some have video. Take a look!
Bar After Bar
by Anjie Seewer Reynolds
A man walks into a bar—but it isn’t a bar: it’s many bars. It’s bar after bar of a ten-page score that in the next eight minutes will loosen a pinched city man in the front row clear through the folds of his skin, like steam from a mare’s lips penetrating the deep creases of an outstretched pale palm. The boy slouched at the exit will pull his hands free of his pockets, tuck his long purple bangs behind his ear, and lean his head against the door frame with his eyes closed. The fat lady with too much perfume and eyelashes like spider legs will cry tears that dig channels down her cheeks, parting the layers of powder and rouge, trickling at long last into the forgotten delta cleavage of her heaving chest.
The man in the bars leaps from the treble clef and begins. In the score’s opening bars, he walks the quarter notes…
Science Says We Can Live Forever
by Ayame Whitfield
there arrives a day when we all
grow old at the pace we choose.
split the winter days open like
blackberries between gleaming
teeth, thread them together like
pearls or pills to swallow down.
death, they say, is optional; like
the lilac bush, we can flower in
every spring. unlike the blossoms,
wilting has been forgotten. come
sunday, we dance in the rain, skin
paper-thin and running translucent
with water. outliving the sun will
be like this: an exhalation that does
not end, the dirty copper taste of
pennies minted a thousand years ago,
an eternal grave in the white sky.
After The Movie
by Brad Rose
Just finished yelling fire in the jam-packed cineplex, when Peaches said, What are you trying to tell me, Eddie? Of course, I wasn’t at liberty to divulge any trade secrets, so I said, I prefer it when my stove cooks itself. While we were being escorted to the parking lot, Peaches reminded me that there’s nothing more beautiful than a fat man who can dance, but the angry satellites continued to circle overhead like a pack of jackals orbiting a nest of fire ants. Nothing good happens when your back is turned. I was just about to take a swig from my weekday flask, when I remembered a lawyer may not assist a client with a crime. So, I asked Peaches if, after she threw the bodies into a shallow grave, she would mind lighting them on fire? She didn’t say no right away. Hurry up, I said. We haven’t got all night.
Googling for Natives #4
by Janne Karlsson
Regarding his work, the artist says:
I rarely draw out of inspiration. I draw because that´s the only thing that keeps me sane. Describing individual pieces is hard. As I recall this particular piece was taken from one of many strange and bizarre dreams I’ve had. Hell knows what it means. Your guess is as good as mine and I thank you for viewing it.
