Fall of 1990

Death Angel and Violence could gild their speech with a bag’s contents – pair of sinus puppets spray-painted alive – another atmosphere smashed present behind the eyes, carcass-colored buzz flattening dimensions beyond sound where nothing exists other than a goliath evisceration timed by the clouds as they fell.

“Dude. Before us has arisen an ever-prevalent fuckton of shit that sucks, harbinger of every loose-stool tune to come, stacked empyrean on this AIDS-infested evening, each parapet stood immense, abrim with radio-friendly disco butthole syncopation slowly crowning to supplant anything killer, quality licks shred by the neck, subverted in turn, mutual enfeeblement over the course of a decade, before we’re hoisted upon an endless trend. Not just the toluene talking. I read it in the leaves of my barf.”

“Where the fuck is Metallica’s next album? They busy signing contracts, eating Anne Frank out of her attic? More Suicidal Tendencies fruit boots need to be cracked with their skateboards to relieve tension.”

“Clash of the Titans. What a bloodletting. Vast damage brought to the lackadaisical streets of LA.”

“Crossover MTV gangbanger dance band.”

“I confess to digging Vio-lence. My battle vest bears their back patch. Pardon moi, to test a Muppet Babies vernacular. Sure, mongrel genres are the very foundation of creativity. And giving the devil his due is our theme here. Yet, I repeat, a great sanitization is upon us, Satan’s lair extinguished, bands stuck, by success, to groupie-fluid flypaper. How long can we last nurtured on silicone, breastfed a cadence? It began with the Titans tour opening act: another fledgling, quality, alternative thing that will quickly become soft in facsimile. These kids mince about en masse like Morrissey at his therapist, while the rest of metal’s left spit-shining the castration. Our era of ballads must end.”

“It is foreordained that what we love will disappear beneath its advisory sticker.”

“Ready to bottom at the burn ward?”

A poseur decorticated of his glam band t-shirt, plastisol rags trussing Death Angel and Violence by the bicep – trophy scalps warding off anyone too scene-pleased – failed to shield the remnants of his outfit from a crack lighter and a hairspray can.

“You look like you were born to laugh at your own taxidermy.”

“The poseur announces his arrival from the periphery of mom’s labia, afraid a doctor won’t slap him.”

“Bountiful disembowelment for poseurs. Limb by limb dies in operation.”

“Eyeliner’s how he seasons a sidelong glance.”

“Headband’s getting damp. Is it a tiara?”

“Whoa, heh, decimating primo Sam Goody? You guys tolerate glam…sparkling all over. Right?”

“We’re huff hobbyists with a palatial varnish, two inhalant fiends fresh outta appetizers cuz the glue and markers from your sister’s pink pencil box couldn’t repair her cherry. Now we’re looking to wring this hamlet of its glossiest critters.”

“We killed everyone’s cat for axe string. Gotta gut you in their stead.”

“He already strummed his viscera from its tiny container.”

“Done air-guitaring with your bowels, little dude?”

“Won’t be the first Motley Crüe fan we autopsied.”

“Fork over your crank. My nose is never full.”

“Holy shit! Don’t explode my hair, man!”

“Pour some Pepsi on our spritely Miss Jackson.”

“That the dance people wearing spandex do when they wish they had a zipper?”

“Procure crank. Pronto!”

“I’m giddy for crank.”

“Make a run for the border. Chased by a mule-length log.”

“Of crank!”

“Arghhhh!”

“…where’d you meet that golden retriever of yours? Love Connection?”

“Don’t mess with my dog, man.”

“Warm for your pet’s form?”

“Kid. We’re going to make you fuck that animal. There. I said it.”

“Please, no.”

“Top stock bitch. She’s over here ovulating into her bowl. We breed poseurs.”

“Golden retriever’s a poseur breed if there ever was one.”

“Not Tammy…”

“Jesus. It’s called Tammy? Why?”

“Don’t wanna catch fleas at the peepshow. But the body will be inspected for splooge once she’s cut in half. Better finish, dude.”

“We’ll sew your lowers to her upper so you can both hork sac in Franken-drag.”

“Alright! I know where there’s crank!”

“Crank, you say? …never touch the stuff.”

“When will we partake of crank?”

“How is it not instantaneously here? Explain the physics of that.”

“Bury us in the taste test, Heartbreak Station.”

Sinuses charred to the same vapor as the ocular scoop where the poseur’s eyes were, Death Angel Violence sample their spray in the powder’s rundown.

“When you snort a dose, does Satan ever flash by talking like the Micro Machines guy?”

“Dude. His fine print never ceases.”

“…(Very fast) We must take a lesson from abdabatae gladiators, condemned criminals who were led out wearing helmets that covered their eyes to fight blind to the death, pushed close with long poles, tigers released on the winner. The most elite lute player used to be fed to a competing arena of bears, leopards, and wolves. Tasked with quelling them by melody, the lute was eaten first, fangs plucking quite an experimental jingle. As animals played tug of war with the limbs, virgins laid upon a barge sang mockeries of his plight. And when their derisiveness wasn’t clever enough, alligators, hippos, an apes were loosed, slithering to mount. In celebration of their deflowering, foxes with firebrands tied to their tails were released into the crowd. Carpopohorus trained animals to rape by distributing mating spray torn from a bitch in heat between a young lady’s legs. Onlookers raped their whores under the stands in solidarity. Dead from a busted cunt at the preshow for Circus Maximus!”

Sean Kilpatrick studied forensic photography, holds a Master's in writing, is published or forthcoming in: Boston Review, Columbia Poetry Review, evergreen review, NERVE, FENCE, LIT, VICE, BOMB, DIAGRAM, Expat Press, New York Tyrant, Sleepingfish, Obsidian, berfrois, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, The Quietus, Hobart, young mag, forever mag, The Collidescope, La Petite Zine, Pindeldyboz, tragickal, fluland, Terror House, NOÖ Journal, Jacket2, Exquisite Corpse, MiPoesias, Tarpaulin Sky, Forklift Ohio, Arsenic Lobster, Melancholia's Tremulous Dreadlocks, Sixth Finch, Epicenter, Skidrow Penthouse, The Lifted Brow, Black Sun Lit, maximus mag, elimae, The Malahat Review, Alpha Beat Soup, Safety Propaganda, Misery Tourism, Animal Blood Magazine, Apocalypse Confidential, Countere, 30 Under 30: An Anthology of Innovative Fiction by Younger Writers, Dzanc Best of the Web Anthology 2010 - and wrote several books. https://linktr.ee/seankilpatrick