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302 pages
perfect bound
$25
editors: Wolfgang Carstens and David McLean
exterior concept and design: Pablo Vision
a bellyful of anarchy is an absolute monster that will leap from your bookshelf and kick the shit out of every other book in your library.
comprised of nine monstrous limbs - corresponding to the major themes found in Rob's poetry.
each hideous branch is twenty-five poems carved into the reader's skull with hardened salt. these are poems for a blind man, poems to "jumpstart a dead man in his tiny room" - hell, these aren't even poems at all, they're verbal demolitions.
smoking a cigarette in the womb
an hour before i came
into this world
i struck a match
on the placenta wall
lit a cigarette
& gathered a cloud
in my unborn lung bags
like an after sex smoke
then my skull crossed
the door jamb of the womb
& i screamed in my
coat of blood
when second-hand air
of the living
hit my nostrils
the hands of fools
babies arrive
in the birthing room
as blank slates
eyelids closed
but still screaming
sensing the cold
light & air
of the world
if newborns knew
more about
the hands of fools
that deliver them
if they had dexterity
they'd reach for
the umbilical
& try to
knot
it
into
a
noose
hang themselves
at the lip
of
the womb
cut the ropes
the umbilical cord
is snipped
but never really leaves us
as we grow older
another rope ties our hands
to money
to bosses
to the calendar
to the hands of the clock
etc...
& it gets tighter & tighter
& it grows thicker & thicker
until it’s a python squeezing out
what little soul juice
we have left
then one day it finally becomes a noose
& we dangle by it
& then we are cut down & dropped
in the ground
& then more little rope-like things arrive
wiggling & alive
w/ mouths
to eat us up
demons squat in the squalor of my skull
the demons have breached
the housing
of my brain once again
they tie up my angel
& pistol whip it
into unconsciousness
they jump on the table
of my self-love
until it collapses
& drum barbaric beats
w/ the loose broken legs
they cackle while cracking
the glued unsturdy chairs of my sanity
over each other's backs
they eat the splintered sticks
the splints of my life force
then the demons squat in the
squalor of my skull
& reaching behind themselves
catch their shit in their claws
& scrawl anti-life slogans
across the walls
the one great non-bully
when yr young the bullies
are in the schoolyards
as you get older
you realize they are
in the court rooms
in the squad cars
behind the pulpits
then you get older
& there's a switch -
the bullies are inside you
yr organs become the bullies
pinching you & kicking you
from w/in
& then death comes
the one great non-bully
to rescue you
from this bullying
existence
playing 'simon says' w/ death
one day you'll play a game
of 'simon says'
w/ death
death will be a bully
of course & be simon
death will begin
w/ easy demands
"simon says breathe in
& out..."
"simon says walk
across the floor..."
etc...
but he'll gain speed
& you'll finally get confused
& fuck up
& then you'll step out
of that strange suit of skin
& you'll let go of
yr organs like you let
a sack of apples & oranges
fall to the floor
& roll in many directions
& you'll stand w/ the other
losers
a crowd of shapes stripped
down to the bones
but no worries
nobody ever wins
before the blood is pulled from our vessels
at the end of our lives
it's strangers that bury us
that clothe us in our suit or dress
of death
someone who never held our hand
pulls the blood from our vessels
someone who never heard us speak
sews our mouth shut
what if everyone who actually knew
the dead intimately
helped do these tasks?
maybe our embraces of the living
would be warmer, tighter
forgotten
it isn't the tumors
it isn't the heart attacks
it isn't the strokes
it isn't AIDS
it isn't our own blood
& organs betraying us
it's the complete vanishing
that is offensive
that it will be like
we never were
here at
all
loitering in my own place
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
“if Charles Bukowski had a wired, weird bastard child, Rob Plath would be it. his poetry crackles and hisses with a life of its own. this poetry doesn't take you for a walk down the mean streets. it grabs you by the hair and drags you there.” – John Yamrus
"With a body bag full of bloody memories, broken dreams and tormented visions of the future, American poet Rob Plath trudges through the darkened alleyways of your moral high-ground. His “a bellyful of anarchy” is a tour de force dissection of a world gone rotten." – RD Armstrong, publisher Lummox Press
Rob Plath, a former student of Allen Ginsberg, has seven chapbooks of poetry out: ASHTRAYS & BULLS ( Liquid Paper Press 2003), AN IV BAG FULL OF BILE (Scintillating Publications 2007), WHISKEY & 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 2008) & NICOTINE SCRIBBLINGS FROM A HAMMOCK IN THE VOID (Good Japan Press 2009). A BELLYFUL OF ANARCHY (epic rites press 2009) is Rob's first full-length feature book.
Rob lives in New York City with his cat Daisy.
- a bellyful of anarchy reading by Rob Plath here.
- online book launch here.
- anarchy broadsides here.
- anarchy press release here.
- purchase a bellyful of anarchy through Small Press Distribution here.
