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  How To Swallow A Pig

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  How To Swallow A Pig

  Robert Priest

  Copyright © Robert Priest, 2004

  Published by ECW PRESS

  2120 Queen Street East, Suite 200, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4E IE2

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any process — electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise — without the prior written permission of the copyright owners and ECW PRESS.

  NATIONAL LIBRARY OF CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

  Priest, Robert, 1951-

  How to swallow a pig / Robert Priest.

  ISBN 1-55022-649-5 I.

  Title.

  PS8581.R47H69 2004 C818’.5407 C2004-902603-8

  Editor: Michael Holmes/a misFit book

  Cover and Text Design: Darren Holmes

  Author Photo: Robert Priest

  Production and Typesetting: Mary Bowness

  Printing: Marc Veilleux Imprimeur

  This book is set in Goudy.

  The publication of How To Swallow a Pig has been generously

  supported by the Canada Council, the Ontario Arts Council, the Ontario Media

  Development Corporation, and the Government of Canada through the Book

  Publishing Industry Development Program.

  DISTRIBUTION

  CANADA : Jaguar Book Group, 100 Armstrong Avenue, Georgetown, ON, L7G 5S4

  PRINTED AND BOUND IN CANADA

  TO MY BELOVED, MARSHA KIRZNER

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Over the past 30 years, my prose poems have appeared in numerous publications, including the following books: Sadness of Spacemen (Dreadnaught Press, 1980), The Man Who Broke Out of the Letter X (Coach House Press, 1984), The Mad Hand (Coach House Press, i988), Scream Blue Living (The Mercury Press, 1992) and Resurrection in the Cartoon (ECW Press, 1997). Some have also been broadcast on the CBC.

  Thanks to the editors of those books: Albert Moritz, Linda Davey, Christopher Dewdney, Bev Daurio, and Michael Holmes.

  The author also gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance of The Canada Council for the Arts, The Ontario Arts Council, The Toronto Arts Council, and the George Woodcock Fund.

  Thanks also to Mendelson Joe, John Lennon, Lillian Allen, Allen Booth, Marsha Kirzner, Eleanor Kirzner, Eleanor Cruise, my parents, my brother and sister — and to my children.

  Some of these poems are available as videos online at www.poempainter.com

  How to Swallow a Pig is Volume 2 of Phormacopia. Volume i, Blue Pyramids: New and Selected Poems is also available from ECW Press.

  CONTENT

  BOOK 1 VENTRILOQUISM FOR DUMMIES

  HOW TO SWALLOW A PIG

  INSTRUCTIONS FOR LAUGHTER

  COLOURS OF BULLSHIT

  PEACHES

  MANGOES

  SWEET AND SOUR ANGEL WINGS

  SECRETS OF PAPER

  PAPER

  THE SCHOOL BEHIND THE SCHOOL

  SUBSTITUTE TAG: AN IDEA FOR A CHILDREN’S GAME

  EGGSHELL CHILDREN

  HOW TO VISIT ME ON MY CLIFF TOP

  TEXTUAL DIFFICULTIES

  HOW TO CATCH A DEITY

  THE CUP OF WORDS

  INK

  BOOK 2 FROM THE INTERSTELLAR LIBRARY ON ARCTURUS

  THE EARLY EDUCATION OF THE NUM-NUMS

  FALLING IN HATE

  THE ARMS RACE OF OBBAGGA

  BEAUTIFUL MONEY

  THE ZELGS

  PSANTHOSIANS

  REPORT ON THE EARTH-AIR ADDICTS

  THE ENVIRONMENTAL LEAP FORWARD

  SADNESS OF SPACEMEN

  BOOK 3 ADVENTURES OF MY HAND

  CANDLES

  THE RETROACTIVE ORPHAN

  THE ANCESTRY

  MY HUGE VOICE

  HALTERS

  IN STUPID SCHOOL

  ON THE ASSEMBLY LINE

  AT THE DOCTOR OF FLAWS

  ADVENTURES OF MY HAND

  MY THERAPEUTIC COCK

  PRECAUTIONARY CHANDELIERS

  SILENCE IS COMING

  ALL THE SOUNDS A SCARED MAN HEARS

  JACK THE INSOMNIAC

  PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST

  BOOK 4 UNSTABLE FABLES

  LIVES OF DAH

  THE UNFORTUNATE GENIUS AND HIS “WINKLE”

  THE VANISHING BRASSIERE

  HIS LITTLE MOTHER

  LITTLE HURTS

  TEXTUAL PLEASURE

  FABLE OF A FABLE

  BIRTH OF A TREE

  THE MISUSE OF CRADLES

  THE LITTLE SINGER

  A VERY LEAKY FAUCET

  THE PIG WHO DISCOVERED HAPPINESS

  THE LITTLE PIG OF SELF-RESPECT

  THE VIOLENT MAN’S HAND

  THE MAD HAND

  THE ESCAPED COCK

  THE MAN WITH THE NITROGLYCERIN TEARS

  THE MAN WHO BROKE OUT OF THE LETTER X

  THE WISE MAN

  POINTS

  THE MAN WHO THOUGHT A WOMAN WAS GOD

  THE UNCATCHABLE MAN

  POET’S PROGRESS

  HIT SONGS FROM HEAVEN

  SULTAN OF THE SNOWFLAKES

  EGO-ANGELS

  QUIET CAPS

  WANT THE WATER!

  BOOK 5 COMIX

  CURLY’S REPORT

  WITNESS REPORT

  WITNESS REPORT II

  THE STOOGE BY-LAWS

  THE THREE DISCIPLE STOOGES

  MY THREE STOOGES

  THE THREE SEXUAL SURVIVOR STOOGES

  BLADERUNNER STOOGES

  THE IMMORTAL STOOGES

  CURLY, LARRY, AND OSWALD

  THE PRESLEY TWINS

  PARALLELVIS UNIVERSE 2003

  THE NEW CRUISE MAN

  THE COMBINATION CRUISE MAN AND WOMAN

  THE SURREALIST AIR FORCE

  ORDNANCE IN SODOM

  WMDS

  THE EXECUTION OF MALNUTRITION

  HATING OUR CHILDREN

  THE STARVED MAN

  THE STARVED MAN GOES TO AMERICA

  POETRY RULES OK

  PEOPLE WHO LOVE US

  JESUS AND THE PLUS SIGN

  PSALM I

  THE NON-VIOLENT BOXER

  INTERVIEW WITH THE NON-VIOLENT BOXER

  BOOK 6 LOVE AS THOUGH

  THE KISS I JUST MISSED

>   SINCE YOU LEFT

  PROPOSAL

  MORE!

  POEM FOR A FISHERWOMAN, 1983

  TALES OF A DOMESTIC HEART

  DOT AND DASH

  DIFFICULT HEAVEN

  SOMETIMES THERE IS A WAY

  LOVE AS THOUGH

  BOOK 1 VENTRILOQUISM FOR DUMMIES

  HOW TO SWALLOW A PIG

  Because of the shape of its face, a pig is actually one of the easiest animals to swallow whole.* Still, pig-swallowing is a very difficult and potentially dangerous activity. If you have advance notice, a certain amount of jaw-stretching and lip-widening prior to the event is always helpful. Your greatest enemy is self-doubt. You have to look at the pig’s head and tell yourself that you can do this. Once you have greased the pig, begin by letting the fine, tapered end of the snout proceed through your lips. The first obstacle, if it is not the back of your throat, will likely be your front teeth. Unfortunately these will have to be broken off. This clears the way for the full face-taper of the pig snout to zero in on your gullet. You have to be thinking “Outrage” when this begins to happen for it is entirely violating and painful. But your throat can take it. Allow the gorge to widen as though it were a fluid, thinner with each stretch. Your throat is a powerful python, infinitely elastic and accommodating. Once the entire pig head has squeezed by your gag reflex and entered your gorge, you are fully committed. You will not be able to vomit the pig out safely. Nor can you wait long to continue, for at this time your trachea is entirely blocked by the pig’s head. You are unable to breathe. Do not panic. Do not attempt to gasp or retch. Concentrate on swallowing. Having the wideness of the pig’s bulky shoulders in your once-narrow throat is perhaps the most violating thing you will ever experience. But you can do this. Just tell yourself, “This is possible.” Swallow and stretch. Keep your lower jaw loose to prevent the bone from snapping at the hinge. Suck with your guts. Use your lower diaphragm to draw the fat pig ever further down the gullet. Let your thick and lucent saliva lubricate the way. Saturating the pig with your juices will allow the ciliated gorge to usher the pig deeper and deeper into your being. You may now need a friend with a stick to stuff in the pig’s back end. This is the most crucial period. You will have been without oxygen for quite some time. You are probably blue in the face, but if you can widen to your most extreme limit, your throat cracking like wet bark, you will be able to slide your blue lips over the bare buttocks, and with the last kick of the back trotters, the curl of the pig’s tail will be gone. The entire pig is in your throat. Your intestines are stretching. Peristalsis has begun. The glottis is finally released and the first, terrible new breath can come with a gasp. You’ve lived! You’ve swallowed the whole pig. And now that it’s entirely in your stomach, ask yourself: “Is this not a most familiar feeling? Is this not the greatest feeling on earth?“

  INSTRUCTIONS FOR LAUGHTER

  It is not proper to go “Ha! Ha!”, open-mouthed, squinty-eyed, pointing. Laughing can be executed with perfect grace, elegance, and still be 1OO per cent expressive. Laugh with a straight spine. Let the kundalini energy come straight up and have its own little dance in the beauty of your face. Don’t use laughing to shiver out disgust at your world, yourself, whatever lies are coiling too tight that night. Don’t use laughter to sneak out some grief. Don’t make hollow “Aaaw-aaaaaw” or “Eeee-aeee” sounds just to rattle some subterranean bit of the unused muscle of love. Don’t stuff your laugh with terror bits. Don’t push up a ragged laugh at outrage, or half-turn a laugh that ends in shock or shame. Don’t laugh in a high voice like a puppy when you don’t mean it. A laugh is not a bag you carry out the psychic trash in. You must not laden it with death-dread and toxic, boxy bits of brokenness. Let your body be a tickled trumpet-tit to the laughter. Let the giddy laughter play you like a tongue in the heart till you’re undone. Laugh till your genitalia are laughing too. Let each vein mouth laugh. But do not brazenly bend over with your hands on your knees and scream. Real laughter can occur at volumes well below 12 to 14 decibels. It is uncommon for evolved laughter to continue into weeping, but this on occasion can and will occur. In such instances it is proper to wipe tears with only one hand $$$mdash; the funny hand. (Decide which hand is funniest and let it do the wiping.) It is considered vulgar to seek out laughter. It must come in the accidental course of living. Only this is true laughter. And so it is not proper to attend so-called comedy clubs, church services, or any reading, anywhere, of sacred vows.

  COLOURS OF BULLSHIT

  Out of the brain pan, then, let us spread wide the colours of bullshit like a fan, and examine them one by one. First there is red bullshit. Red is the colour of the ardent bullshit of love that is always speaking. This is the kind of bullshit that gods listen to when they need a good laugh. As a matter of fact, gods get together in groups and laugh until they are rolling when they hear the words of people in love. If they hear an exclamation such as “O my love, my love!” it will cause them to howl. If this is followed by phrases such as “I won’t ever leave you” and then a “Never?” followed by a “Never!”, the gods will all shriek the word “Never!” together, almost hurting their throats with the intensity of their mirth. Then there is blue bullshit which is the viable bullshit of the day. This is the bullshit of scientists, statisticians, and psychiatrists. This kind of bullshit carries its own little tag but is nevertheless hard for the unpractised eye to detect. Listen for phrases such as “experts agree” or “statistics prove.” Next in the total rainbow of bullshit comes green bullshit which is unhealthy and has lots to do with the bragging of young men in change rooms, business banter, and the sickly words of deliberate seducers. Green is the colour of advertising bullshit. It is the underlying tinge of World War II bullshit. It is the green of the goiter, the fungus, and the gangrene infection and is bottomed out only by that most despicable of all bullshit — white bullshit, which is of course the colour of recorded history. White bullshit is actually a very highly priced lubricant. The very one that keeps all those young bodies sliding into uniforms and all the pistons and gears of arms factories in motion. You have to be very careful with this kind of bullshit for it is a highly toxic, slippery, and explosive substance.* When you see it, recognize it. Call it by its name which is its shame. Say “Bullshit! Bullshit!”

  PEACHES

  Who remembers eating his or her first peach? Nobody! Why? Because peaches are for amnesiacs. In fact, the peach is a huge hallucinogen — a round tab of sunlight that induces visions of Utopia. To eat of it is to dream that humankind can, by well-directed will and intellect, move closer and closer to a state of“divinity.” Repeated eating of peaches has led to some of the most benign leadership in all of history. Gandhi ate peaches. Mother Teresa ate peaches. Lennon ate peaches. When a bad peach is eaten, however, it is the whitest, weirdest side of the sunlight that slips into the mind’s long hallways and meadows, and there the dream of love — just as you reach for it — triggers some destruction. There, if you sing of love, towers fall and murders occur. In such a state the only way to preserve love is to be immobile and ignorant. But to eat of pure peaches — pure, radiant peaches — is a delight unequalled in all the known satisfactions of humankind and is easily worth the risk of going mad. Indeed, it is said that some, when finally tasting their first peach, have swooned and writhed in the ecstasy of mere taste. Poets fed peaches are fat with packed-in light. They glow from a centre in themselves that is totally luminous and willful. They eat a peach and they write another poem. They eat a peach and they glow in the dark. Poets eat peaches and forget. That is why they write poem after poem. That is why there is always juice on their chins.

  MANGOES

  In mangoes reside all the prime first kisses of passionate adolescence. These mango kisses are the purest, most uncontrived, unknowing kisses — kisses of forbidden love, red sunset kisses at dawn, hot kisses that bring down a pure glow of evening into the astonished mind. Mangoes preserve in a fine juice all that was best in everyone’s finest romantic
moments, and they leave the taster forever changed. If a man who has never tasted a mango tastes and shares one for the first time with a woman, that woman shall forever have for his longing all that is best of the world’s kisses, and in seeking her love he will seek after the love of all the world’s women. Likewise, if a woman shares her first mango with a man, she will see in his eyes all that was ever in the eyes of men and more. She will feel in his loins all the loins, all the lives, and all the loves that could ever be. Such a couple can never be parted and their happiness can only increase the happiness of all lovers everywhere. Nor is the mango itself reduced in this happy exchange, for in return for the wonder it has brought them, such a couple always willingly donates their best kiss to the mango’s ever-increasing hoard.

  SWEET AND SOUR ANGEL WINGS

  First you must set up a reading lamp and leave open a book of good poetry. You need the best poetry so that when an angel is flying by it will sense something and nip in secretly to read this curious dust — language. That is when, if you have put a trick ending on the poem, you can catch the foot of its spirit and slowly, with a blue buzz saw, cut off its wings. After you have removed the angel’s wings you can let it go. No need to kill it, for it is now just like a man or a woman and even though it is suffering agony and hating you for what you have done, it will prefer the long suffering of life again rather than another immediate death.

  If you are truly kind, there is a powerful ointment very helpful for the pain of wing-stumps!

  Now pick the feathers from the wings and when they are stripped, cut them into book-sized chunks. The wings at this point are very delicate and should not be handled too roughly, for the marks will show up later as bright blue welts on the steaks. You will notice that there are many streaks of colour in the delicate flesh of angel wings. If you can succeed in cutting your steaks along the lines of pigment change, then you can serve what is known as “The Rainbow Banquet.”