Words:
- Tentacles
- Burst
- Study (as in a room, not the verb)
- Mysterious
- Wings
- Explosive
Injustice
The Thing in my study that whispers and sings,
that giggles and snivels, that tickles and stings,
a tangle of tentacles, ankles and wings,
is burbling with ardor.
It stirs with a whirr from its Chippendale chair,
to comb its mysterious, copious hair,
then bursts through the doorway and thumps down the stair
to enter the parlor.
The world, it proclaims, is corrupt and unfair:
its knees are unshod and its eyeballs are bare;
it hasn’t a barber.
Its rage is explosive: your humanoid kings
with little regard for the feelings of Things
have emptied the larder!
Mild-mannered philosophy professor by day, poet by night,
Ray Briggs teaches at Stanford University, where they also host the syndicated radio show Philosophy Talk. They are the author of the poetry collections Common Sexual Fantasies, Ruined (Cordite Press, 2016) and Free Logic (University of Queensland Press, 2013), as well as the co-author of the zine Modern American Gods, Volumes One and Two (2018, with Anna Zusman) philosophy monograph What Even Is Gender (Routledge, 2023, with B. R. George).
Anna Zusman immigrated to the United States from the former Soviet Union when she was twelve. She currently teaches drawing and illustration at Southern Arkansas University. In her artwork she questions stereotypes and conventions. Anna regularly participates in zine festivals and exhibits her art around the US. She is a creator of many art books and zines including Mermaid Heritage (2014), Men from Dating Sites: Volume 2 (2019) and Modern American Gods Volumes I and II (with Ray Briggs, 2018).
http://www.annazusman.com/
