This year, I swear, I’m gonna wear my body camera at Sea World to see Pip jump ship (and all of the consecutive sequels that’ll inevitably perpetuate through God’s internet). This year, I’m gonna spit off the witness stand, switch the “p”s and “q”s in Pequod, confuse prepositions and conjunctions, jam Susan Howe and Amiri Baraka, be even slipperier speaking, face fear-ward, go ontologically overboard. Can you fathom being sentient contraband fallen to the bottom of this mysterious energy drink or the most existentially tenuous ink bottle? Can you even begin to begin to scratch the surface of your swallowed Ouroboros tongue? Or draw from your weakened lungs any mutinous iteration of a future tense, not-capitalist, not-racist, Atlantis? We’re here at the tail end of our land-lubbering, ailing and wallowing, wailing and blubbering. Hey wailers, says Chaun, dip in your tears. Sink into thinking, trouble the water, follow the wake. Wail Song by Chaun Webster (Black Ocean, 2023).
