TWO POEMS BY CASEY GARFIELD

flarf was a "wrong, awkward, stumbling, semi-coherent… offensively bad" genre/movement of extremely online poetry i was occasionally on the fringes of a mid 2010s wave of and there are maybe three men from that scene that don’t make me sad to think about now

every time i go to write a poem
i get anxious i might plagiarise the plot of the song 'pinball wizard'
which i’m pretty sure i’ve never heard

every time i see a fire
it's cause i’m having a great time
sorry to hear about your house tho

I don't know what to call flarf
now flarf is dead. I don't know how
to like art with all the artists

it's too late to have another coffee
too early to loot a pharmacy
what's a country mouse to do

there's a conspiracy theory about me
i'm on cnn news baby
i promise i'm interesting

i don't think the genre died
i think maybe it moved past me
i can never tell what losses need mourning

i'm making flarf make a comeback

i dont want to write the great american novel
i want to pioneer the great american guitar solo

but here i am, despite my wants,
british, in my thirties, never a novelist of any quality,

having chopped my fingertip off with an oxo goodgrips mandoline
squeamish about the thought of re-investing in my calluses

i'm living for the thrill of being the first applause in a round
i'm dying to join a conga through the city no one's steering

i'm working on a crossover between gilmore girls and girls
which, if my math is right, will be called gilmore

i'm working on a crossover between my head and my heart
which, if my geography is right, takes place right here

bio

Casey Garfield runs I MISS FLARF