The organism logs its accomplishments into a marketable curriculum. Educational background and publication record should be arranged according to a narrative of inevitability. This organism will be hired! says the CV of the organism. The organism graduates from a private institution of moderate prestige in 2009 C.E. In 2012 C.E. the organism graduates from a respectable graduate program housed in a public institution with excellent marketing. The following year, the organism’s thesis manuscript is rejected for publication 14 times. After several months of unemployment, the organism receives its first eviction notice. Three poems are accepted for publication in an online journal of moderate prestige.
The organism wails without meter, a sputtering symptom of its stray alphabets. They sag from an abscess without desire or intention, unable to mimic the lyre’s contingent figures, the cold voyager’s pusillanimous signal. Formal characteristics such as linebreaks and meter become vestigial on the open market. The poem’s generic topology sags, a foggy star. It burns between each of the organism’s ribs, fighting the elimination of its archaic practice. It may be reactivated, however, through therapeutic procedures as prescribed by a licensed practitioner of the art. The organism’s transcripts show a 4.0 GPA. Its diploma reads “The board of trustees by virtue of the authority vested in it by law and upon recommendation of the university faculty does hereby confer upon Charles Edward Gabel the degree of Master of Fine Arts Creative Writing With all the rights and responsibilities pertaining thereto.” The organism wails without meter, participating in an outmoded genre with a small but dedicated audience.
The manuscript swells with capital, profitable literary procedures. Step 1: scrape back the text only in oracular motions. This will delineate various tissues, pulling sublimity from interest rates. Step 2: name your gods. This will dictate your influences until no relevant prayer can be found in the arrangement of text. While its cellular composition may not be determined, certain human qualities become apparent, including political symptoms and aesthetic values. The organs bloom in your throat, Charles, but this address finds little solace in gravity’s nouns, the uneasy arrangements of its chariots. Infection blooms under text. The poet is a tangle of organs complicated by gravity. The poet is a lyre. The poet is a dead thing, overwhelmed by the vibrations of its music, $39.50 paid monthly for a High Deductible Health Plan. Capital’s slow rite turns solar proxorbital, and the hymn’s knotty speech knots among its speaker. Cold voyager, behold my Apollonoid function! The slog of participatory song! The deer’s spoiled bloat commands the attention of nouns. Bacteria builds, gains purchase on consciousness as a finite thing, inviting inspection. Count each bacterium and imagine its materials. The materials bloat in discrete interests. The skin flaps back to reveal its subliminal text. I am with you in gravity and in petty flesh, Charles. (I am with you)
CHARLES GABEL was born in 1986 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Other pieces of his manuscript Oracular Organism can be found in New Delta Review, Dreginald, and The Journal Petra. Charles co-edits Coast/No Coast, a print journal of writing and art, and he lives between Cincinnati and Cádiz, Spain.