My companion thinks she’s too good for me. Do me a favor, huh?
Put her down with some of your poetry. That’ll make her sorry.
— Petronius, Satyricon
Marcus Valerius Martialis,
invective extraordinaire,
your braggart swaggery
virtuoso ratbaggery
precedes you;
it’s savoir unfaire.Martial, oh Martial,
pillory maestro,
maligning the mammary gland-gifted,
casting aspersions
jocular jibes
rib-tickling burns
knee-slapping kicks in the teeth.True to your Mars-esque moniker,
you wage war with gut-busting barbs.
Catastrophic catchphrases
bazookas to bazooms
delight
tickle
humiliate
wound.Was Lesbia’s natis that humungous,
cheeks like Symplegades, really?
Tunic rump-clenched,
sodomizing her culus:
all hail the archaic wedgie!You’re not pinguiarius, but Flaccus
— poor Flaccus —
doesn’t measure up, either, does she?
Scrawny! Rawboned!
Hips dipped in cheese-grating
steel saw-like spine:
“Girl can’t be mine! Not with those shins,”
or that coccyx like a javelin.Your cock requires exquisite palpation
no amateur choking your chicken
like virago Phyllis
with snagging acrylics
thumb-strum-throttling your membrum virile.This inventory of misogyny
phallocratic obloquy
is hardly unabridged,
urtext extending far
longer than Martial’s mentula,
Lydia
Lesbia
Flaccus and Phyllis
paying the vitriol caust.Fella tore a strip off these ladies,
but who’s the real fellator here?
“My Lord and my God”
— Jesus what a slog —
flattering Domitian in the kitchen
sink filled with vomit as you
compare his locks to laurel tendrils
ad nauseum.Obsequious adulator
tormenting weasel calumniator
creep nogoodnik louse
swine slimeball SOB
scumbagging fraudator
swindling delator
ratfink pander
cock-sucking fucking ratbag!
In short:
nineteen hundred years dead bully
scurrilous bastard,
scurry, scurry!
I hope you get scurvy!
Well, surely,
blue balls stone ache and corpse.Forever cease your
epiglottal lip flapping
Martial, oh Martial,
you epigrammatist grump!
- 115: SPACE
with A Sometimes
114: NO THEME 13
with J Toledo & C Tse
113: INVISIBLE WALLS
with A Walker & D Disney
112: TREAT
with T Dearborn
111: BABY
with S Deo & L Ferney
110: POP!
with Z Frost & B Jessen
109: NO THEME 12
with C Maling & N Rhook
108: DEDICATION
with L Patterson & L Garcia-Dolnik
107: LIMINAL
with B Li
106: OPEN
with C Lowe & J Langdon
105: NO THEME 11
with E Grills & E Stewart
104: KIN
with E Shiosaki
103: AMBLE
with E Gomez and S Gory
102: GAME
with R Green and J Maxwell
101: NO THEME 10
with J Kinsella and J Leanne
100: BROWNFACE
with W S Dunn
99: SINGAPORE
with J Ip and A Pang
97 & 98: PROPAGANDA
with M Breeze and S Groth
96: NO THEME IX
with M Gill and J Thayil
95: EARTH
with M Takolander
94: BAYT
with Z Hashem Beck
93: PEACH
with L Van, G Mouratidis, L Toong
92: NO THEME VIII
with C Gaskin
91: MONSTER
with N Curnow
90: AFRICAN DIASPORA
with S Umar
89: DOMESTIC
with N Harkin
88: TRANSQUEER
with S Barnes and Q Eades
87: DIFFICULT
with O Schwartz & H Isemonger
86: NO THEME VII
with L Gorton
85: PHILIPPINES
with Mookie L and S Lua
84: SUBURBIA
with L Brown and N O'Reilly
83: MATHEMATICS
with F Hile
82: LAND
with J Stuart and J Gibian
81: NEW CARIBBEAN
with V Lucien
80: NO THEME VI
with J Beveridge
57.1: EKPHRASTIC
with C Atherton and P Hetherington
57: CONFESSION
with K Glastonbury
56: EXPLODE
with D Disney
55.1: DALIT / INDIGENOUS
with M Chakraborty and K MacCarter
55: FUTURE MACHINES
with Bella Li
54: NO THEME V
with F Wright and O Sakr
53.0: THE END
with P Brown
52.0: TOIL
with C Jenkins
51.1: UMAMI
with L Davies and Lifted Brow
51.0: TRANSTASMAN
with B Cassidy
50.0: NO THEME IV
with J Tranter
49.1: A BRITISH / IRISH
with M Hall and S Seita
49.0: OBSOLETE
with T Ryan
48.1: CANADA
with K MacCarter and S Rhodes
48.0: CONSTRAINT
with C Wakeling
47.0: COLLABORATION
with L Armand and H Lambert
46.1: MELBOURNE
with M Farrell
46.0: NO THEME III
with F Plunkett
45.0: SILENCE
with J Owen
44.0: GONDWANALAND
with D Motion
43.1: PUMPKIN
with K MacCarter
43.0: MASQUE
with A Vickery
42.0: NO THEME II
with G Ryan
41.1: RATBAGGERY
with D Hose
41.0: TRANSPACIFIC
with J Rowe and M Nardone
40.1: INDONESIA
with K MacCarter
40.0: INTERLOCUTOR
with L Hart
39.1: GIBBERBIRD
with S Gory
39.0: JACKPOT!
with S Wagan Watson
38.0: SYDNEY
with A Lorange
37.1: NEBRASKA
with S Whalen
37.0: NO THEME!
with A Wearne
36.0: ELECTRONICA
with J Jones