it's cloudy outside, but just pretend for a moment

it's cloudy outside, but just pretend for a moment

sunlight floods into the cubicle aisles.
but that was yesterday. today the sun really is out, but I’ve quit my job.
so it seems I’ll never see the sunlight in the office. maybe it was all a dream anyways and there are neither clouds nor sunlight, as the clouds of yesterday disappeared,
like clouds, and even if they ever really were now they’re just a fiction of clouds,
as the sunlight flooding in is just another story.
I’m sorry for all this tangled thought, but goodbyes tend to make one think like this,
don’t you think?

and soon everything
–rainfall.
a wet black bough
a thousand leaves move –
makes one melancholy, and reminds me of you, because you were here yesterday, and now you’re gone, and maybe yesterday was all a dream anyways.

january 2008. 12 pages. written and illustrated by ian sullivan cant

you were born yesterday.

you were born yesterday.

I cried when he raised his hands up to the sunbeam for the first time,
and again when they closed the window and returned him to the shadows.
wouldn’t you? because he is all of us, isn’t he?

look how big and strong you are, and how happy and sad orbit in and out of your grasp, beyond your power.

and you do have power, don’t you? but it’s always a problem, isn’t it? with those arms of yours that kill when you reach to embrace. your father had the same problem when he made a monster, and, you know, power is a problem for everyone.

it would be best for you to try to understand that,

because all parents will hurt their children.

is that sound a barking dog? or is it just you? and that’s how it comes out when you’re trying to speak, to say you’re no monster, but just the same as everyone else.

don’t you wish that life was simple enough that all you needed was the sunlight to be overcome?

or maybe I presume too much. it seems that is a danger, because when I approach, you see I’m ugly, but you always fail to recognize your own eyes in my features,

and maybe I’m the only one who wishes life was simple.

alas that it’s not.

now there’s a mob,

a little girl has been drowned while playing in the daisies.

ladies will faint, and gentlemen will shed a tear.
even the clouds break on the hills,
because everyone loves when an innocent virgin is wrongly hanged for murder.

august 2007. 24 pages. words and illustrations by ian sullivan cant.

this is the last poem

this is the last poem

it has no meaning.
I am writing it for the money.

this line has no meaning.
I am paid by the word.

cha ching is two words.

cha ching!

this poem is a lie.
I will make zero dollars,
and it is really very deep.

it is about the death of my father.

my father is still alive.
nor is he dying,
except in the way in which we all are,
which is to say
not.

this is a meta-poem.
it is about what all poems are about.
it is to make you think
that I am smart, and that you like me.
even though I have no money.

16 pages. words and illustrations by ian sullivan cant.

bela lugosi is speaking

bela lugosi is speaking

I hear you have a beautiful fiancée. a real angel, with eyes like the moon
and fingers so delicate they should handle only ivory and crystal.

that’s nice.
I wish you the best, and I truly hope, for your sake,

that Dracula doesn’t drink her blood.

Dracula is really a funny guy. he’s a joker who takes shit to the next level.
he destroys who you are, like pulling a chair away as you sit down.
he makes your beloved into a walking mockery of living,
and of your life,
and the lips you thought were the sweet flower petals of your life are red and laughing at you.

maybe in your fantasies you want a demon not an angel, and those ruby lips and lust filled eyes turn you on, but Dracula ‘s no fantasy. he’s no scooby-doo villain to be unmasked when the movie’s over.
Van Helsing wasn’t mad at all, he was just a guy who knew
“vampires are everywhere. they’re leaning over our bedsides, and lurking beneath the light of day, and Dracula is laughing, because you believe that life is real and vampires are dreams.”

but I really don’t want you to lose your beloved.
there’s a hole in the universe shaped like my beloved.
now, with time, it’s grown very small, and I think of it seldom anymore.
it just aches a little sometimes like a phatom limb when it rains outside,
and I am drawn to think of the past, but that’s okay.
these things only serve to make you stronger in the end
(though I think we all know I’d rather have her back)

if you look long enough it becomes hard to tell vampires from unicorns,
and unicorns from vampires.

blood is pouring out and stains the white sheets, mirrors don’t reflect,
the wolves are howling outside the castle walls and bela lugosi is speaking

“listen to them, children of the night, what music they make!”

24 pages. words and illustrations by ian sullivan cant.

traps

traps

Blood Mills Road

-
center lane
turn left
past deteriorating husks of strip mine carcasses
and fields ablaze with all things allergic
-

down and around pasteurized dairy farms and fallen ash trees
chopped and brought
to the hearth of the last home without cable

-
amid eras of dust-speckled, dark brown brows
beaded and wiped with the back of a hand


fists clenched, knuckles white
(as the leather eats into palms uneatable)

20 pages. words by christopher bussmann, illustrations by ian sullivan cant.

Mr. Raven

I have much enjoyed your unkindness. Too many people in the world trying to be nice and even more folks trying to be unkind, or as they say "cool". But there are not enough genuinely unkind folks around with their sincere unkindness overflowing out of their compassionate heart-minds. I hope this unkindness comes out in your readings. In fact, i think this unkindness suits you quite well and hope you make the most of it.

Personally, i prefer the unkind meanness of degenerate crows. But that's just me. I swear i have heard the chortling of a raven twice on the mountain, but i have no proof and have no sightings and have no idea why one would be there. Perhaps it was only you.

the black crow
perches on the window
of the windowless bus

This edition "it's too bad we can't read each other's minds" works quite nicely unkindly. The text and illustrations compliment each other well and i like the subtle buddhist themes in the background -right where they should be. Especially "don't cling" - without the illustration it would be conventional, flat, one-dimensional buddhist rhetoric. But with the images of fire, passion, attachment - it makes it real and human and more like something zen.

Also the lotus pedastool (huh?) cinema booth is an unkind and ungenerous touch. Fuck art isn't quite found in the zen tradition, but there are many poets who enjoy putting down poetry and words and their own poems.

with unkind regards,

Black Crow

(web only by chris byrne)

it's too bad we can't read each other's minds

it’s too bad we can’t read each other’s minds: a poem about three things

number one: neither cherish life, nor hate death.
and the same is true if your job sucks, and don’t worry if you’re Shakespeare, or just no one in particular.

number two: don’t cling.
you’re gonna lose it all anyways. is that really so bad?

number three: fuck art.
put art in a headlock, and give art a noogie, because I don’t think you really need a poem, just someone to talk to.

number four: I know I said there were just three things, but I still need to tell you to stop fighting.

I know your life is nothing like it’s supposed to be,

and I know you’re trying, but you fuck things up all the time,
like when you keep falling in love.

it seems like all you’ve got is shopping lists, rent to pay, loneliness,
and this Aria inside you that no one hears,

but it’s just like everyone else.

and it’s too bad we can’t read each other’s minds.

.


16 pages. words and illustrations by ian sullivan cant.

why another troubled soul story?

why another troubled soul story?

Local psychologist asks poignant question:

“Are you attracted to picking fuckups off the shelf or are they all the shelf offers?”

Local grocer on psychologist’s take:

“Chicken or egg? Eggs are cholesterol bombs and chickens are the tasty dead.”

Local poet takes a stand:

“Sad is not beautiful. Sad is sad. Night is night and day is day. Forget dawn and dusk—Don’t be a word DJ.”

Local citizens speak out:

“Not in my backyard! and Not on my bookshelf! I don’t care if you’re sad, but don’t throw it in my imagination.”

“I got better things to do with my money then waste a $20 on your sadness.”

“Reading about pathetic characters is like watching Jerry Springer. I feel better about myself knowing I’m not as fucked up as those losers.”

“Get some therapy, work it out in a diary, take some meds if you have to—whatever—then sit the f--- down and type me up some inspiration. If I read about one more tortured soul, I’m gonna come over there and personally whoop your soul.”

march 2006. 12 pages. words by catherine paquette, illustrations by ian sullivan cant.

...and so this is how it all ends.

…and so this is how it all ends.

excerpt:
you wish that it was raining outside your window tonight, so you could find some comfort.
at least your pain’s like a tragic Victorian novel.
you need it all to wash away,
to see the rooms flood,
the floor planks swell,
your mattress to rise on the surface and float out the second story window.
wouldn’t it be nice, you do believe, to see the asphalt and cement torn by the dandelions,
and to walk through the middle of the streets downtown and see the sunrise in silence?

bird calls in the alley. traffic in the road.


and it’s all the same all the same.

you’re all there is, like four bare walls
and all the time a job a home a sink to leave the dishes in and go to bed at nine.
no one’s breaking through the palace gates to shoot the royal family.

january 2006. 16 pages. words and illustrations by ian sullivan cant.

ian sullivan cant

ian sullivan cant is a montreal based writer and illustrator of no real significance. he has never been published in any prestigious journals, won any awards, nor distinguished himself in any way at all. his entire artistic career can be seen in the low-quality photocopied publications of the unkindness of ravens press.

he is ostensibly a poet, but if you’ve ever read his words you know that’s a stretch. his writing is neither intellectually challenging, nor particularly beautiful. He has an unsophisticated mastery of the english language and literature, and explores a highly limited thematic range with the subtlety of an ape.

he attempts to distract readers from the shortcomings of his words by overpowering them with drawings. it is a cheap ploy, but he’s doing his best with what he has. anyone can see he lacks any formal artistic training, and although his drawings look like the stuff they are, they are unoriginal, and of mediocre composition.

he doesn’t really have anything to say, he just wants people to listen.

his readership is pretty well limited to friends and acquaintances, but they seem to really like what he does, and I don’t think they’re lying, so he may not suck as bad as all that, but merely fears it.