Unlikely 2.0


   I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we are reading doesn't wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for? ...we need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us. —Franz Kafka


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Two Poems by Robert Louis Henry

Untimeliness

The hologram had friendly features, and a firm yet relaxed grip for the shaking. But his or her superior and lord had slipped-through life, like being punted outside for gnawing drawer handles on the glass-topped antique rendition.
And in said lordship's untimeliness—so inconsiderate—he hadn't time to see his child's deformity, which is it only had a right appendage to greet with.
A motif of untimeliness: society's skyscraper-suited personalities were right-side positive, a general advantage of the timely fortunate individuals. (I myself am envious.)
So what promised a genius more than single sigh of life turned out to—well, house rats.




Best friends

We hang arms over shoulders,
Death and I, howling our rough notes,
A restlessness seething in growth,
Cracking hairs split in full fists,
Thinning and fraying,
In bitter impatience,
Waiting for a doctor's vacation,
(I am going to rob his home.)
Death to do his part on a patient,
(He has a bitchin' stereo.)


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Robert Louis Henry lives in Tennessee where he's studying music production. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Madswirl, Night Train, and The Commonline Project. He supports a fancy for nihilism.


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