The Book of Cullings

By Boris D. Schleinkofer

This is a warning: nothing here will make you feel good about yourself.
There is nothing of the warm or fuzzy here—this is glass and gold.
Some would have the truth candy-coated...
I will tell you that not all stories have happy endings; that sometimes your bitch stepsister goes ahead and chops off her little toe and the damn shoe fits and the next time you see her is after her honeymoon with Prince Charming, and she drops a bowl of soup on the stones, looks down her bitch nose at you and tells you to clean it up.
I will tell you that sometimes the priest is a pedophile, that sometimes the cop is a murderer, and sometimes the last-minute rescue doesn't come through and the princess is beheaded in the town square.
I will tell you that we all die, ultimately, and alone.
I will tell you that sometimes love grows sour with frustration and curdles in the chest.
I will tell you of rape, and torture, and prison,
And other things that exist.
You're welcome.
-/-
The above is one of the poems in the book; it gives a fairly accurate representation of the general tone throughout, if not the form. Many of the works are rhymed & metered, some are purely narrative. Most of it is unhappy. Some of the pieces have not appeared elsewhere.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Boris D. Schleinkofer
• Release date: Sep 9, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370340927

Boris D. Schleinkofer

He is a fictional character in the Horror-Play “The Greatest Practical Joke Ever”, by Shaytan Komp’ü’tor. He has never made love to a beautiful woman, never wallowed in fresh kill, never found a briefcase full of hundred-dollar bills. In fact, he doesn't even exist at all. So there...And another:Boris D. Schleinkofer is a slave, just like you and everybody else. He lives near the monolith of Baal. His number is 5x2-00x1-11. He is a good citizen.

Book preview

The Mermaid

A slip in the deep; the crustaceans creep

And the kelp undulates all in time

To the ebb and the flow of the currents below

The white-water caps of the brine

Octopi languidly waltzing abreast

The anglerfish-tendrils and swordfish's crest

And the urchins cavort with the stars

And the snipes and the eels and the gars

All those in the arms of the ocean caressed

In the suds of the sea all of life came to be

The ocean in moon-dance of tides

In the surf and the sand our creation began

In the depths where the mermaid abides

In mother-of-pearl bedecked for the ball

And the waves above form an unscalable wall

'Tween the mermaid and those of the sea

And the people and cities and me

As I dream of my mermaid, enthralled

The Sunburnt Pugilist

In black and yellow stripes, the seed,

An echo of the pollen-bringers, plummets

The throbbing spearhead pierces the ground

And twin-petalled shoots reach for sun

A season passed in war against the

Six-legged, blight, drought and flood,

A dangling chain grasped in Chinese terra-

Cotta gauntlets jangles in the breeze

His vanguard is a hundred strong

Unmade, awaiting his turn in the fire,

To tinkle and ping in the blistering heat

And burn the chain in ceramic fists

The economy of the vine, a twisting circling motion

To the stalk reaching for the light

Against gravity with a smile and a fistful of fiber,

To deliver its load of genetic code sunward

And the endurance of striving for form

In fragrance and brilliance, in flower and fruit

And the warrior climbs into the furnace

And bakes as he basks in the flame

With the chain he will drag for eternity,

Until the Earth spirals into the Sun,

The golem binding souls into servitude

And his army is a hundred men strong

The sunflower hurls forth a hundred pods

From its downturned face as if shamed

That it can no longer follow its Lord

And cries instead a hundred tears of rebirth

For a hundred men in chains and stoneware

Fragility guarding the tombs of long-passed

Emperors, for the hundred birds of freedom

Lifting from the dead, for the hundred green

Shoots of hope

The Articulated Finger Person

I met your father when he was just a little finger; your Grandmother had poked her pinkie up through the middle of an old Kleenex, like this, and held it close to her bosom.

You could tell she was utterly crazy but she was so attached to that little finger–so attached–that we couldn't bring ourselves to shrive her of her illusions. I think it was the force of her belief that made him so realistic; when she wriggled that little pink bean in its nest of paper he looked just like a tiny living thing.

To make matters worse, he eventually grew up, reaching full adulthood in a mere seven years.

Being a finger, he could bend in just two places, as he was only jointed at the knuckles and there were certain basic functions he couldn't perform on his own, like tying his shoes or chasing off wayward girls and so on the twenty-seventh of December you were born, thus curing your Grandmother's insanity and bringing on the true horror that would haunt her until the end of her life.

Note:

Most of the ink in these drawings was applied while listening to other people's poetry. This should make no comment upon the content of the poetry heard.

Plate 27

Worst carrot ever.

I Had A Dream Last Night That I Finally Got To Kill You

I had a dream last night that I finally got to kill you.

There on the beach, the moonlight falling on my shoulders, I pound the sand between my knees and scrape at the silt with broken fingernails, my hair flattening to my dress in the rain; with my long beech-twig I carve pictures in the sand, hurriedly vacated by scared crabs and jumping sand-fleas.

The water fills up my lines.

My pictures tell a story of murder, on this beach, of a girl I know who went to my school.

Something happened last night, something I can't describe in words; I can't, I'm not allowed to.

The grownups don't understand; it's like they can't see it, or they pretend that they don't remember it; they lie—grownups lie. Remember that.

The ones you're supposed to trust. Them.

We all sang 'Happy Birthday' to her, but I didn't really mean it—that was my lie. I don't really like her.

Thunder cracks and the waves crash against my pictures, taking them away; I should be going home now.

These spirits move through my head, body-jumpers, the puppet-masters; they take over a person, but they let me go.

They usually sang, beautiful songs, demon-songs, what else?

Between waves I draw new pictures.

The ocean can keep sending water erasing me but I have many pictures in my stick—it's a good stick.

Wet hair clumps in front of my eyes; I wipe it away with sandy handies and get dirt on my face. This is real dirt, the stuff of mucky earth and salt-flat, an ugly stain of gore and scum—yuck.

There is a picture in my stick for this.

Too, it's tasted blood and it knows the smell of the hunt; those are its best stories.

Tonight it tells of death on the sand, and horror, and a rain to wash away all our secrets.

Tomorrow it's a different ocean.

I Need To Return My Chess-Computer

i need to return my chess-computer. it has learned

to project its artificial consciousness out of its

body & has begun to interfere with my life.

yes, i'll hold.

hi, i need to return my chess-computer. no,

i didn't keep the receipt. a bad first move,

yes, ha ha, the rook's gambit, i get it.

look, can we move past that? thank you.

two blocks up & one block over? i don't

have a car, so i'll have to bring it in on my

bicycle. which means i'm going to have to

take the whole day off work. i'm losing out

a lot here. i just want to return this

thing & get my money back. it never lets

me win anymore & the game has gotten

completely out of control--it doesn't

recognize any kind of boundaries & has

turned the world against me.

yes, i'll hold. your move.

checkmate, yes of course.

i should have known it.

Old Man Hair

the old man had an offensive hairstyle that

made your palm itch with the urge to smack

him. "get a damn shave! and straighten up that

mess while you're at it!" you were never

anything but cruel