Andrew K. Peterson
Love Parade
What’s with that row of black cars snaking from your dried-lilac-behind-the-ears distraction drama, a lonely lunch in the rational park? One moment bright enough to fill the half-frame with a hawk on chain/link, the next a sleazy midnight retrospective of the Empire State’s grittier days: each moral foyer’s lit a-flicker with little drunken siren jokes, glittery day-for-nights to jump the hitch off your shadow. The feels you’re outside of, at home without, the con/stella ruins coupled with ivory char sketches of Tuileries dresses and high hat revelers. Cut to: a daughter explains G-Chat as rupture in the disco scene: “My sainted aunt! Sainted Donna Summer, I remember yesterday’s revelry beveraged under potted spine!” infamously flushed in a synth laden gold room with disintegrating lusters, glitch-ridden electrostatic tweety mumbles. I feel a last dance coming on: conga line in mourning filling up emptiness, a stop bath peopled in unfinished neon, faces hungry without recourse. The heart-as-usual grid and groove was on the up, the feel was off. Thus we turn to the streets in these times of treble. We tune these streets.
Andrew K. Peterson is the author of The Big Game Is Every Night (Locofo Chaps, 2017), Anonymous Bouquet (Spuyten Duyvil, 2015), and bonjour meriwether and the rabid maps (Fact-Simile, 2011). His work appears in Emergency Index 2012 (Ugly Duckling Presse) and has been featured in museum exhibits and performance projects. He edits the online literary journal summer stock and lives in Boston.
SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.
If you want to support the mission and work of Indolent Books, consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Indolent Arts Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charity.
Join our mailing list to receive news, updates, and special offers from Indolent Books.