Map Literary: A Journal of Contemporary Writing and Art
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    • Martha Wiseman, "Loose Ends"
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    • W.F. Lantry, "The Strange Beauty of the Unfamiliar"
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    • Andrew Sunshine, "John Hancock's John Hancock"
    • Diane Payne, "3 micro memoirs"
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    • Isobel O'Hare, "Failure: A Love Letter"
    • Melissa Wiley, "Barbed Wire Fence"
    • Ashley Wilkinson, "fractional distillation"
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Picture

BILLY CANCEL


​with my Chameleon Diet

& your Keys To The Street     we’re

a little bit     on the GO:         greased

     my gills with something
not at all buttercup;     you
needed more
Humming October
to get off your
DIP.        we certainly don’t want a repeat 

     of Fuzzy Illusion     when i knew
the Inside-Of-Everything while     you couldn’t
see the Joe Cabbage-Of-It.         alright 

     up to now     but This Game     ain’t worth
The Candle     time to break
out in a     New Place:
more precise     full of piss ‘n’
tantrum;         justa kind of

     need to
make     Things
HUM.



​
Mock Sentinel vs. Consecrated Downer

with them it was either confetti bush or
toxic residue which is why     i much
prefer being on the Vag full of turnaround
porridge than         all dolled up ready     for the

     Scene ‘n’ Herd Crowd (any incidental lowlife
backdrop doing.)         Where will you get your

     SPECIAL INFORMATION?     at the Emergency
Museum?     in Bread ‘n’ Cheese Land?     or from
a comb with     teeth fine
enough to delouse hair?         Dynamic
    
     Region (of power lines
overpasses) don’t quite
come through         1st

     day of dredging season     got
showered in critter glitter
when i asked for

cosmic grit         not “The End Of
     The World” though     only
THE EDGE OF THE EARTH.




this Quantum Stuff is the STILTON

since then we’ve     used no other:
it helps me     jump cut to corn
fields so     we may lie betwattled with
your tray of moons far     beyond the
reach of the Usual Aggregate.         didn’t

     know What-Whose-Which from
Why’s-Where… bag of fleas sat     on
that     low drag full of empty     desperately
mashed     i never took salt     just a drop of
wet ‘n’     warm & to integrate with Harsh
Light bankrolled False Starts     if we ever looked
like     we hadn’t got our change right     they gave us a
moonful of mouthshine.         bear in mind down

     county road 106, but 30 minutes from THE HORROR
we now maintain 3 cows & a self-perpetuating
field         it’s just

     not the clean potato
to guzzle ‘n’ gulp
come     have
a Pickle!

​


at POINT NON-PLUS your Garret is Empty

we might as well plough with dogs     next
time in the tone of      a more playful “Hardly Mr.
Friday Night” & grapple with     The Problem
Of 2-Against-1 sometime tra la la.         sparse
 
     light clear symmetrical undisturbed     waiting for
the camera     during 1 bout of     introspection
i gazed hard enough into & found it most
bingeworthy.         thumb in bum     brain

     in neutral don’t blow my cover just sneak
off THE BASE after you     with the push     1 boot
to serve for either foot.         spruce forests cattle
 
     pastures are all subject to perspective correction it is
imperative nymphs & bacchantes realize
the nature of this situation & where they
stand.         cheating the worms ain’t

     he a Caution?     trying
to speak Holiday
where we can be licked
into Fits     or feel the miss
of the chill    
of It.

​
Copyright © October 2019 Billy Cancel

Picturephoto credit: Alexey Novikov
Billy Cancel is a poet/performer & sound/collage artist. His work has appeared in Boston Review & PEN America. His collection MOCK TROUGH RASPING CROW is out through BlazeVOX [books]. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife Thursday Fernworthy (Lauds) & together they perform as the noise-poetry duo Tidal Channel. Aberrations of all kinds at www.billycancelpoetry.com.

published by
The Department of English
College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences
The William Paterson University of New Jersey
Copyright © 2012-2022 Map Literary
Map Literary

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  • About
    • Masthead
    • Submissions
    • Rachel Wetzsteon Chapbook Award
    • NJ High School Writing Contest
    • In Print
    • Subscribe
    • Links
    • Internship Opportunity
    • WPU MFA
  • Poetry
    • Richard Ryal
    • Sherwood Anderson
    • Mark DeCarteret
    • Dennis Hinrichsen Poetry
    • Daniel Biegelson
    • Natan Last
    • Jim Daniels Poetry
    • Michael Chang
    • D E Steward
    • Benjamin Paloff Poetry
    • David Dodd Lee
    • Isabelle Doyle
    • Kathleen Heil
    • Leonard Kress
    • Lauren Tess
    • Cesca Janece Waterfield
    • Billy Cancel Poetry
    • Scott Minar
    • Greg Glazner
    • Bruce McRae
    • Maureen Thorson
  • Fiction
    • On Experimental Fiction
    • Mark Cassidy, "How I Met My Wife"
    • Emily Trachtenberg, "Plum"
    • Hector Donovan-Gonzalez
    • Christopher Linforth, "Zia"
    • Jenessa Abrams, "You Never Wish That Upon Anyone"
    • Eros Livieratos, "On Feeling"
    • Halsted M. Bernard, "Your Hands"
    • Justin Meckes, "The Gash"
    • Reb Livingston, from "Bombyonder"
    • Craig Foltz, "Without Stigma"
  • Nonfiction
    • Martha Wiseman, "Loose Ends"
    • Jan Jolly, "Through My Father's Glasses"
    • Kristina Moriconi, "Still Looking"
    • Wm. Anthony Connolly, "IGY"
    • Cal Freeman, "Loosestrife"
    • W.F. Lantry, "The Strange Beauty of the Unfamiliar"
    • Michael Roloff, "Accretion"
    • Andrew Sunshine, "John Hancock's John Hancock"
    • Diane Payne, "3 micro memoirs"
    • Luc Sante, "Flesh and Bone"
    • Isobel O'Hare, "Failure: A Love Letter"
    • Melissa Wiley, "Barbed Wire Fence"
    • Ashley Wilkinson, "fractional distillation"
  • Art