Poetry: Selections from Tobias Seim

sparks soaring through the air like harbingers of the end

and the only tingle

a lot of people

can still

experience

comes from the

electrical discharge

felt at their fingertips

once they touch

a door handle within a closed

psychiatric ward, the hand

of their divorce lawyer,

the metal of the treatment table

where their toy poodle

died

after munching laced treats,

scattered in a dog park

like seeds of doom.

and with each and every

one of those

currents

there is also a tiny bit of

resolve

escaping

us forever.

his destiny was to turn into hundreds of sausages

there was this fat guy

on television and he owned

a sweet little

cattle farm.

they filmed him prancing

around the pastures. toothpick in mouth.

fir green boilersuit. rubber

boots. heavy breathing

in the morning cold. sun illuminating

dewed grass and the occasional

butterfly. an electric fence

softly sizzling in the background, and so on.

at one point he got really close

to this gigantic ox,

slapped the beast

on his rear end and said,

“soon, this bad boy

will turn into

nothing more than

sausages. hundreds of sausages!

the people

demand it. preorders are through the roof!”

then he looked into the camera

overjoyed. the film crew

started to laugh while the ox

continued to ruminate

with this certain

nonconcern

on his elongated face, as if

all this shit was beneath him anyway.

afterwards they cut away to a commercial. the first

one was about car insurance. but who could

care about

that

after witnessing such a wicked scene?

what a statement. what a fate. what a universe.

fuck me.

Tobias Seim is some guy who was born and raised in Germany. He quit school, learned nothing, and now spends his time reading and writing. At least occasionally. He is the author of to hunt down dreams like rabid wolves.