Germ Theory of Poetry by Mark E. Smith
I’m the father of poetic procedures
Here to warn you against all decaying poetic matter
Here to protect you from all poetic miasmas
Dunno bout you
But amidst a pandemic
I’m even more absent minded
Even more oddly excited
Beware of all shopping expeditions!
Beware of entering Sainsbury’s and Tesco!
Will a mask protect me against poetry?
Will a mask protect me against poetry?
Children, your assignment today is to write a poem
That makes me so miserably happy
Life seems joyfully worthless
I’m the father of poetic procedures
I’ve been described as the savior of poets
My one sole desire ’tis to excite poetic fever
All hail Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis etc.
All hail Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis etc.
Now ere’s something for ya:
Semmelweis means “bread roll” or “bun-white”.
The name Semmelweis is not spelled with ss as in weiss
But uses the shorter suffix –weis
(We omit the second s)
Welcome to the new Western word order
Welcome to the new Western word order
At the local me and the lads
Wash our tongues
In this thoroughly delightful chlorinated lime solution
It results in a pleasantly tingly sensation
A pandemic, how very provincial!
Don’t come anywhere near me
Don’t come anywhere near me
And on Downing Street blonde Boris ruminates:
I hope I never have to shake
Another hand again
N95 Reused Respirator Song by Kurt Cobain
Verse
All my short long life I’ve worn an isolation gown
He knitted a virus for me
Into a crown
Bridge
I hear it originates in bats
Chorus
Hand sanitizer
Don’t be a miser
Gimme gimme gimme
Some of your sweet sad hand sanitizer
Alistair McCartney is the author of two genre-blurring novels The Disintegrations (2017) and The End of the World Book (2008), both published with University of Wisconsin Press. The Disintegrations is the winner of The Publishing Triangle’s Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBTQ Fiction. TEOTWB was a finalist for the PEN USA Fiction Award and the Publishing Triangle’s Edmund White debut fiction award. His poetry and cross-genre writing has appeared in journals such as Hotel Literary Magazine, 3:AM, Fence, Vestiges, Nat.Brut, Animal Shelter (Semiotexte), The James White Review, 1913, Dream Pop, Five 2 One, XRAY Literary Magazine, Gertrude, and Bloom. He is currently working on a novel and a book of poems and hybrid texts. Originally from Australia, he lives in Los Angeles, where he teaches in Antioch University’s MFA program, and directs their undergraduate creative writing concentration.