the outlaw poetry network

A BELLYFUL OF ANARCHY By Rob Plath | 302 pages | $25.00 | Epic Rites Press

birth is
an evil
kidnapper
who
snatches you
from kind
mother nothing
& sticks
yr innocent
nothingness
into a
human meat
straitjacket
called a body
& then
for decades
you are
slashed by
the horrible
machete of
consciousness

(from life is a bad slasher flick)

One of the dominant themes in Rob Plath’s a bellyful of anarchy is birth portrayed as a kidnapper. It was birth that kidnapped the poet from his “cosmic couch” in the abyss where he enjoyed “baking out on black holes & spiral nebulae.” For the poet, his “hideout in the void” becomes his private Eden: the place where he existed prior to birth, and the place he will return to when he dies. In the meantime, his “soul” is imprisoned within a human shape, and that shape, in turn, is imprisoned within a cold, lonely world.

now i writhe
w/in a shallow
bucket of a body
until death picks
me up & tosses
me back into the
beautiful black ocean

(from my soul flip flops like a fish out of water)

The only escape from consciousness, for the poet, is to get lobotomized drunk on booze, cigarettes, music, anything to be “empty as billowing laundry pinned on white lines.”

last night
in a drunken rage
i murdered my birth
again
& slept my
hangover off
while peacefully
passed out
on top of its mangled
corpse

(from at war since i was a single cell)

Here a magical transfiguration takes place. The poet in anarchy is neither consciousness (mind), nor is he meat and bone (body) – he is nothingness. For the poet who was nothing before being born and who will be nothing when he dies, his short minutes here upon the planet are as empty and meaningless as a dream. Birth and death are portrayed in anarchy as two crimes: kidnapping and murder. The poet is an innocent victim in this “sick marriage that birth pronounced.”

maybe the morgues
& maternity wards
should be not only
on the same floor
but operate w/in
the same four walls

let the newborns
in their hot coats
of blood
scream into the frozen
mute morgue drawers
until the dead sit up
& wave them back
into the womb

(from wave them back to the womb)

The poet who was kidnapped from the abyss and then sent off into the world to be “ambitious” and “responsible,” invests himself in trying to recapture the warmth and security of the womb.

from a single seed
we grow w/in another’s body
slowly uncurling
like a flower in a belly
then birth arrives
& we roam
uprooted in a world
where demons dangle objects
from the tips of hooks
that promise belly-likeness
but no worldly things can
recover that old warm place
this is where even the gods fail

(from pull the hooks from your flower mouth)

For the poet in anarchy, birth is portrayed as a villain. It is fitting, therefore, that his mother and father are portrayed as accomplices in the crime. Their act of “selfish fucking” was the catalyst for kidnapping the poet from his “cosmic couch”. What angers the poet more than birth, however, is that he was dragged from the abyss and thrown into a cold and loveless home.

i never touched the buttons
of my mother’s tiny spine
never pressed my ribs
against my father’s
same w/ my sister & brothers
it was like each family
member was coated in amber
soaked in singularity
each of us dipped
into five murky vials
of unlove potion

(from the amber family)

The majority of the poet’s wrath, however, is reserved for his father, who was not merely “an asshole” but “an ogre.”

it wasn’t enough
that he had to mumble
& curse at the table
b/c what he really
wanted was to eat alone
it wasn’t enough
that he had to serve
himself first
slam the salt shaker down
toss the pepper mill
after he’d finish
his meal my father
would blow his nose
hard into his napkin
then use it to wipe
up the crumbs of food
around his plate
while we still held our forks
& knives in our hands
then he’d push the table back
not his chair
& leave the kitchen

(from dinner w/ my father)

The atmosphere of loneliness within the poet’s household is portrayed brilliantly. It’s a loneliness that hatches like an egg in your stomach.

once in a while, instead of passing right
by my table covered w/ drawing paper & pencils
my father would stop & grab a writing
utensil & paper & draw
what he thought were artistic images
of fighter planes, battleships
parachutes falling from the sky
submarines, nosing up from choppy waters
sometimes a tommy gun w/ rat-a-tat tat
written next to it or a bridge w/ its many cables
when he was done he’d stand up & fart loudly
after he left the room i’d sketch
a lonesome house in the middle of an empty field
except for one ancient tree arching over the roof’s peak
& although it was daytime in my picture
i’d fill the sky w/ lots of tiny silver asterisks

(from starry days)

poor wasn’t no vacations
poor was no words for a year
poor was never coming up from virginia
never coming down from westchester
poor was alone in one’s own skin
poor was coke, alcohol, horses
failure, fuck-up, bum, no-good
poor was complete silence
a face hiding in newspapers, racetracks
poor was crying in a dark room
poor was a knife at throat, a fight at a funeral
poor was knuckles thru windows, doors
poor was another women
a hard smack on a cheek already bloody
poor was not one kiss ever
poor was only touching shoulders coming & going
poor was never reading yr son’s poems

(from poor)

For the poet, unable to return to his “cosmic couch,” he dreams of a primal existence where children have “unlearned how to tell time” and have “forgotten their own names.” He dreams of a new way of living, where “the cowardice of movement” is crushed by “the bravery of stationary-hood.” Here the poet becomes visionary and imagines his creation, “horizontal man”:

who has long forgotten
the alphabet

who ignores sunsets

who pisses on the dust
of ambition

(from ignoring sunsets & not admiring stars)

Modern existence, for the poet of anarchy, is meaningless. Instead of discovering who we are and what we believe (the only point of existence), and then living up to our highest potential, we are trapped in a world contrary to our beliefs. As parents, educators, consumers, congressmen, etc, although we know how superficial and pointless our world has become, rather than work towards change, we shut our eyes and accept “stock answers” to sincere questions.

just as we learn the language
well enough to ask the questions
we are diverted

we are sent on
a sad assed detour
away from the miracle
the ‘why are we here’s’
the ‘who are we’s’
etc…
are slaughtered
by cheap, stock answers
given to us

plugged in as easily
as prongs into an electrical outlet

& they construct dark places
for those who consider
alternative answers
until the only question
challenging the majority
is how to make
a fucking buck

(from detour until death)

Death is the only guarantee in this existence. Rather than pray to imaginary deities in hope of some imaginary afterlife, the poet in anarchy advises us to keep death at the forefront of our thoughts.

you frighten me
little man

you should really
be praying
to the god of maggots

you’ll be made in that
god’s image soon enough
fucker

(from the god of maggots)

There is no afterlife. There is only now and death. The sooner we accept this, the sooner our brief minutes here upon this planet will gain perspective. Be mindful of death always: “live to the point of tears,” as Camus put it. Say “yes” (as Nietzsche suggests) and embrace everything. Tattoo “mad to live” on your heart and never waste your brief minutes alive.

be 1/2 horizontal man
& 1/2 vertical man

keep practicing
for the 6 foot ditch

but make it that
yr compositions
still play on
as you lie decomposing

(from straddle both road till you hear death rattle)

Plath’s anarchy is the literary equivalent of screaming “bullshit” in the face of tradition and established norms. The concept behind Plath’s anarchy is portrayed brilliantly. It is the unborn child inside a mother’s womb, as well as every man, woman and child alive today. The poems in anarchy grow like seeds of dissension within our bellies – until there is nothing left to do but vomit all the bullshit back upon the world that has been crammed down our throats. Unlike the poet in the poem that follows, Plath’s a bellyful of anarchy will play on long after his human shape lies decomposing – and this planet will not soon forget Rob Plath.

i step outside to smoke
& i get this feeling like i’m
loitering on my own property
as the pines shake their thick
brushes at me
the wisps go up into the sky
like gray mute tongues
& whether we accomplish something
or nothing, this planet
will forget our names

(from loitering in my own place)

Rob Plath’s a bellyful of anarchy is available now through Small Press Distribution at www.spdbooks.org, as well through the Epic Rites bookstore at www.epicrites.org.

Rob Plath

is a 39 year-old poet from New York. A former student of Allen Ginsberg, he has published hundreds of poems in the small presses. He has seven chapbooks out: Ashtrays and Bulls (Liquid Paper Press 2003), An IV Bag Full of Bile (Scintillating Publications 2007), Whiskey and Clay (Pudding House Publications 2008), Squeezing Blood From The Alphabet (Erbacce Press 2008), Tapping Ashes in the Dark (Lummox Press 2008), There’s A Little Hobo In My Heart Who Forever Gives The Finger To Humanity (d/e/a/d/b/e/a/t press) and Nicotine Scribblings From A Hammock In The Void (Good Japan Press 2009 ). His first full-length book is A Bellyful of Anarchy (epic rites press 2009) . This is a monster 300 pages in length. His next full-length book is forthcoming: There’s A Fist Dunked In Blood Beating In My Chest (epic rites 2010)… please visit his web site by clicking here… or just click the photo portrait.

some related articles are listed below:

1. wolfgang carstens | lost in america: a review of the broken and the damned
2. wolfgang carstens | spitting in your face: a review of laughing at funerals
3. wolfgang carstens | pirouetting like a mad ballerina: a review of doing cartwheels on doomsday afternoon
4. wolfgang carstens | blood, energy and darkness: a review of dead reckoning
5. wolfgang carstens | 4 poems
6. wolfgang carstens | for todd moore
7. wolfgang carstens | todd moore | boom
8. wolfgang carstens | vince’s dad
9. todd moore | glistening with blood | a bellyfull of anarchy by rob plath
10. tony moffeit | sleepwalking in the void: a review on crudely mistaken for life
11. paradise in distress | for Allard and all the rest of You
12. rd armstrong | dead reckoning by todd moore | a review