exterior by Pablo Vision.

first thing we do

first thing we do let's sit and do nothing
and wait until we die,

drinking beers and watching sports
having opinions about indifferent things,

bored out of our minds –
let's pretend that that's a life

what we find

what we find will be bones
we once were filling the empty
coffin. they will fit us like
gloves do, like nightmares.

we shall dress ourselves
in them again, children again
in the worm's hard school.
we shall cleanse the bone

of the stinking meat simply
by waiting while he nibbles.
after our fleshy process
is complete we are clean

and nothing is waiting, not
for nothing. every song is
unremembered then, and long
since sung. thus we are

done

earth and blood

we are earth and blood,
no soul or heaven or stardust
in us.

and when time comes to rot,
if we before have resented our eternity
lying in the soil,

then may the earth spit us out
as unworthy her. i love my animality
and my animal mortality,

and when the trees, and the loving slugs who dwell
under them, carry the sky like a burden tonight
their burden i willingly share.

i am earth and blood,
and beyond that words and nothing.
there is fire raging instinct and sex in my veins,

it is not painful, nor is any temporary agony
like orgasm or other tortures, all that is humanity,
the short-lived man in me. and i am happy to be here

i shall die some soon tomorrow
i do not care –
just now the worms and i have an earth to share

"It may be early 2010 but ‘Laughing at Funerals’ is likely to be the best thing I’ll read this year. David McLean disturbs me the way I like to be disturbed - he is not in the business of making us feel better about ourselves. His work is short, sharp and addictive; his language not only slices through our lazy prejudices, but amputates them clean off." - Gillian Prew

"Once again David McLean has captured the voice of the disaffected and disaffection itself in a finely nuanced collection of poetry, "Laughing at Funerals." In this volume, McLean's most accessible, the reader is thrust into the surrealistic reality of existence and painful refractory ennui. McLean is at once melancholy and profound, an extraordinary writer with endless elegance, grace and talent, and a style quite his own. This is your first mandatory literary purchase of 2010. And if it is your only one, count yourself lucky." - Jack Henry, author of CRUNKED

"The thing that really strikes me about these mostly very short poems is the economy of language McLean employs.  He gets it.  He understands it.  He knows that it doesn't take a very long knife to kill... just a sharp one."  - John Yamrus, author of DOING CARTWHEELS ON DOOMSDAY AFTERNOON

"LAUGHING AT FUNERALS is, in my opinion, the very best work by David McLean. This book is gonna open many eyes, silence many critics, and establish McLean as one of the most unique poets of our generation." - Wolfgang Carstens, author of CRUDELY MISTAKEN FOR LIFE

1) Laughing at Funerals is a perfect title for the new collection by David McLean. Like the brilliant author, it is irreverent, surreal, with a Fellini-esque sense of the absurd. Why not laugh at funerals? – there is no afterlife, we don’t even know if we are in real life right now, or in some ungodly parallel universe – and does it matter, anyway?

McLean had me with the opening poem:

first thing we do

first thing we do let's sit and do nothing
and wait until we die,
drinking beers and watching sports
having opinions about indifferent things,
bored out of our minds –
let's pretend that that's a life

He continues, in his inimitable unsentimental, spare, manner to write of devils, suns, rats, and stars, fear, dread, flowers, and junkie landscapes, and, within the nihilism, somehow, there is passion, life, and a certain, measured feeling of hope, as exemplified in the final poem:

tomorrow

tomorrow smells like murder
but the sun is shining here
and nothing is interested
in the coming slaughter
so we sacrifice ourselves
tonight, to life, but breathe
a minute here, under the loveless
sunlight

It is the assurance, humor, and commitment to contradictory elements which makes this my favorite McLean book to date

- Puma Perl, author of KNUCKLE TATTOOS

2) There is an awesome review by Wolfgang Carstens at Outlaw Poetry & Free Jazz Network.

LAUGHING AT FUNERALS is available now from epic rites press at the bookstore as separate item for $15.50 as well as as part of The Lucky Bastards Club subscription. It will be officially released 12th March 2010 through Small Press Distribution.

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