John Lowther’s work appears in the anthologies, The Lattice Inside (UNO Press, 2012), Another South: Experimental Writing in the South (U of Alabama, 2003), and Stone, River, Sky: An Anthology of Georgia Poems (Negative Capability Press, 2015). Held to the Letter, co-authored with Dana Lisa Young is forthcoming from Lavender Ink.
Note on the Text
These 555 sonnets are made with found lines and precise measures, a database and text analytic software. I crunched Shakespeare’s sonnets for word, syllable and character averages and these are my new measures. The lines’ oddities are their own, the arrangement is mine. After the text analytics and data entry, many ways of assembling are found. I hold to the turn (when I think of it) and that sonnets are poems of a certain size, but little more. Something in excess of the lines pass through, it’s that I’m chasing.
***
1.
This is a place for quiet reflection and relaxation.
I'm not into it, considering what comes out of there.
A common feature used is having multiple protagonists
giving different perspectives on the story.
Thank you for those people awesome advices and retain
on creating for all of us trustworthy readers.
Obvious scam, run away.
I don't want a lap dance.
Cat is pet.
Dog damn it.
Baby how I love it when you fuck me dead.
We all know this has an unhappy ending.
Compact fluorescent lightbulbs.
When they cried they cried pearls.
***
2.
Deliberate ambush offenses will be dealt with using
the full enforcement powers conferred on officers.
Biting off the eyelashes, the custom of mitakuku as it
is called, plays an important part in love-making.
Rival drug gangs used the confusion to eliminate their
enemies and further ratchet up the violence.
It works by blocking nerve impulses (or pain
sensations) in the brain.
The hardness of the butter is proportional to the
softness of the bread.
God is the only being who, in order to rule, does not
need even to exist.
***
3.
Do unto others as they wish, but with imagination.
I was thinking more of bloggers and podcasters who
feel the need to provide regular content and when they run out of content,
inundate their audience with cat.
A normative appreciation of stupidity, firstly,
locates the stupid in someone else, and secondly, works to trace this stupid as
the outcome of some kind of failure; a failure of thought, a failure of
imagination, a failure of agency and so on.
You know we've been noticing you've been having a lot
of problems lately.
***
4.
Like life itself, human intentionality has become an
internal variable of capitalist power.
The process determines how much bandwidth is available
and throttles data transmission accordingly.
In other words, continuity is seen as a reactionary
way of looking at history.
I'd appreciate possible explanations and theories,
particularly where I lack them.
Anyone who isn't confused really doesn't understand
the situation.
Creativity is an act of defiance.
In the result, we need not address this argument
further.
***
5.
It's so difficult to find an apartment.
The window opens and madness floods in.
It is poking and prying with a purpose.
A few examples are shown on this page; if you can
count three or more in your home, you may be over-propped.
No longer to be ashamed before oneself.
See also intransitivity.
Nastiest thing I've had in my mouth since the last
Hobo Party.
There is no possible rationalization for what you've
done.
Claiming a self lies close to the brink of
annihilating a self.
They are very very simile.
Being crazy isn't enough.
***
6.
Chill bumps appear and I am frozen in the wind.
This is a short clip, but lovely all the same.
I'm going to prescribe some suppositories.
The sixth sick Sheik's sixth sheep's sick.
The revolution will have been an accident.
Sex with anyone poses risks to your health.
Word of mouth is always wonderful as well.
He pounded me rough and with a final hard thrust he
shot his load (I could feel it).
Average foot speed over uneven ground, barring
injuries, is four miles an hour.
The greater the aesthetic distance, the harder the
fall.
***
7.
Sentences are not emotional.
My fake tan dries out and cracks.
30 Waiting for a ride in the cool shade.
Maybe my brain needed a wash.
That door get over here
yet.
Physiologically, perhaps.
Being gay is never an excuse.
Hurry up and finish your book.
I want a specimen of your urine.
There are always strings attached.
It's the American fetish with power.
Just apply at the end and blend.
I'm sure I mispronounced that.
Yes, she is prettier than me.
Probability theory is clear about this: if I am
thinking, most people on Earth should be thinking.
The joke is on us.
***
8.
I write to explore all the things I'm afraid of.
This is so totally white bread and you do not see it
at all.
I would rather poke some brain or poke some rib.
I see them all over the place, the walking dead.
The social in effect confiscates the natural.
My assigned partner was soon introduced to me.
What a real family is, is a mandate of the state.
Thank you for the offer but I have enough shoes.
The calculations come out way different here.
This was the totally most awful bad movie ever.
Pits and nipples to all, and to all a goodnight.
***
9.
Then the other guy there is fucking the one who’s almost naked and it's hot because
of the drive so sudden and intense but not because I'm attracted to any of the
guys I mean I'm not but that's okay I'll watch for a while and get hard and
think about nothing except this feeling.
And that goes on hours a day, every day in the year.
You have a problem with abnormal sexual desires.
I told a lie.
There must be more to life than having everything.
You can prove none of this.
What a charmer.
Take pleasure in the decomposition of yourself.
***
10.
I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a
word one way.
I choose death.
If I wanted to send a message I would have written a
sermon.
Believe me it's smooth.
I am with hungry.
I'm glad I ordered the four-legged chicken.
I am completely okay with this.
As a general rule, I don't like coincidences.
Morality—like
velocity—is relative.
Again, I had no idea.
I dislike modern memoirs.
Taxi drivers think I’m a boy all the time.
I can't do the cha-cha.
I want to be sedated.
Indecent is my middle name.
I may live badly, but at least I don’t have to work to do it.
*