Up is Up

                Up, that pornographic literary dream of Carolyn DeCarlo and Ras Mashramani, is finally here. Right in time for the holiday spirit, Up celebrates Santa’s love of all that is wholesome. And what could be more wholesome than the cover, with quad-breasted beasts? Miguel Rual did the cover and it looks festive, with half-torsos, knives, and eyeballs. That is what Christmas is all about, lower torsos of women just chilling. 

                Bone/Bone is the first section. ‘First Kiss’ starts the collection off in style. Cecilia Pavon discusses her first kiss. For her first kiss, she wore a cute bathing suit. Her boyfriend wore nothing. They were on drugs. It seems pretty intense for a first kiss. My first kiss didn’t involve anything of this nature. She does care for this emaciated boy skeleton. It is a surprisingly tender beginning.

                Spencer Madsen uses a really long title, one I cannot repeat, due to laziness. The poem is charming. He wants to feed popcorn to his lady friend; he wants to be affectionate with her. Only in the last line do we discover he googled ‘Homemade Fleshlight’ the day before. I like the ending; it indicates something more is going on in his head. 

                xtx is one of those writers writing anonymously. Not sure why she does it, maybe it is because her poems have lines like “how when you were eating out my ass” as shown in ‘Can I get a witness?’ That is the first of many insane lines. Apparently somebody, eating out of her ass, wore a crucifix and made Jesus feel bad. ‘I am trying to imagine what you smell like’ has a LOTR reference. Her final part of the trilogy deals with getting pounded, in the most subtle way possible. ‘Capital P, pounded’ she writes. 

                Jordan Castro ejaculates words onto a screen to create ‘It is my fault that I feel alone’. It is the only thing he ejaculates. According to the poem he has not masturbated in days. Whenever someone hasn’t masturbated for a while, it usually indicates sadness, sadness so bleak you are unable to even create a fantasy in your mind. I feel for Jordan and I hope his life improves, becomes more encouraging and positive, and if this poem is about him that is I hope he finds true masturbatory pleasure in life. The second part, the story, is all about him and his need for someone else. The story seems too realistic, like how people think, and it makes me uncomfortable since it reminds me of how I used to think, before my transformation into my current internet presence. 

                ‘Let me see you’ feels hot. It feels like the summer. Erica Yeager creates this hot, bloody mess of sexuality. ‘Kiss your split lip right open’ sounds excellent. I really enjoyed this economical poem. Each word gets used in precisely the right way. 

                Benjamin King is Rollerfink. I have met him before, virtually, not otherwise. I like the ways the stories work with each other. The first one is foreplay, the second one is tension, and the third one is the release. How Benjamin puts these three together is like a chapter book. Each chapter the tension increases little by little. 

                Michael Hessel-Mial has fun with ‘please deterritorialize me’. He wants to be made less. Right now he is whole and needs some breaking. He invites you to either break or fuck him, though he prefers fucking. ‘my beloved’ is a soda can, a boulder, of love, that wants to talk to you. Michael comes from Wisconsin, America’s heartland, and is an upstanding citizen. 

                (h)arm begins with Daniel Knowlton’s ‘Hook’. There are so many wonderful foods mentioned, along with the best kind of eating, eating alone at a restaurant. For me I enjoy eating alone, watching people pass me by, listening to everyone else’s conversations. ‘Hook’ deals with the smallest snippets of conversation, of the diner who wants more attention. 

                Meghan Lamb’s ‘peroxide’ celebrates the pain of soft skin. Some people get lucky. Some people have perfect skin. Others need to use peroxide. In this piece, the narrator suffers for a softer skin. They are willing to feel more pain for a greater pleasure later. This is a perfect fit for most of Ras’s and Carolyn’s objectives for Up. 

                ‘Food Anxiety’ goes over the stress of feeling new weight. Mallory Whitten lives healthy now, but she used to eat junk food and drink beer. Now it appears to be catching up with her. I feel everyone at some point experiences this, the disappointment of bad decisions catching up. Lately that occurs with me, I hope one day to defeat it. 

                ‘the holy highway’ discusses finding Jesus on the side of the highway. Actually it is where you are the keeper. Derek Lessard’s descriptions at the end are unusually sweet, considering some of the harshness that proceed it. My favorite part of the piece is

“Afghanistan’s just south

of backyard gated burbs,

inhaled fumes evaporate

north Mexico’s mass graves.”

To me, that is the best part. 

                Jackson Nieuwland is thinking about his penis all the live-long day, Jackson Nieuwland is working on his penis, just to pass the time away. I feel bad about his pimple, glad he beat it away. He wonders aloud about circumcision. He wants to know why he is a grower. These are the sorts of questions a man with the deep thoughts has. I like Jackson’s honestly. I like how he admits he is a grower, not a shower.  For the last part of his three-part poem, he tells us the ultimate secret. He mentions the ego of the cock and the inability of anyone to ever measure their cock. ‘I am a virgin’ is the most confessional Jackson Nieuwland piece ever. I love it. It is amazing. 

                ‘When we kiss’ by DeWitt Brinson is tender. DeWitt uses extremely simple language and phrases to get his meaning across. There are orders. I like how awkward the two characters act, how they aren’t very good at what they do. How people interact is always less than perfect. Most of my life involves some form of awkwardness, hence why I’m anonymous. 

                ‘two more poems’ by Michael Hessel-Mial end the collection. Both of these use repetition, probably one of my favorite things. The first poem discusses all the ideas one has about sex. He thinks about all these random thoughts during sex, not all of them about sex. ‘when I think about sex’ mentions the insecurity associated with truly exposing yourself to another person, both physically and emotionally. The second one has a more direct, personal approach, of the constant failings of dating. 

                All of this is simply amazing. I am beyond happy with what Ras and Carolyn accomplish with this selection of these writers. I want to hug them, I want hug all of these contributors. Great job!