4 poems by John Lowther

Your theory is very good, I’m not trying to disprove it.
Your mom put it on you.
You will get a candle on the table.
You will receive two billing statements, one for the exam, and one for
the interpretation.
You look good in orange.
You can look forward to having someone to go shopping with you, or
help you fix your leaky roof.
You have no power over me.
Your goodness must have some edge to it — else it is none.
You can't be idealistic in this world and not be crazy.

*


What kind of genetics you got there is beautiful.
Suggestion for them is not an option. 
The more complex verbal support there is for a concept, the easier it is
to critique.

I don’t think that I would have learned to see myself as beautiful had
punk not taught me to value things that aren’t traditionally beautiful.
I went from extrovert to introvert.
Do not hold in hand after lighting.

I must get this crack mended.
That's just too kinky for me.
But in conversation you have the chance of not being. 

*

Lend me the part of your body that will give me a moment of satisfaction
and, if you care to, use for your own pleasure that part of my body
which appeals to you.
The other strategy is to actually challenge the institutions, and
challenge the dominant ideology and the status quo because it isn't
working.
Anybody can be a candidate for this therapy, depending solely upon
whether his languid loins can be, so to speak, activated in no other,
simpler way.

*


Most men enjoy having their taint (also known as the perineum)
stimulated, and that can certainly be incorporated into this process.
It might be a bad idea to talk to persons with similar interests, as you
would probably confirm yourself instead of making it better.
This was its viral method, set against hippie heterosexual idealism,
performed on a daily basis through subcultural social life.
A political stance, not just a money laundering scheme. 


​


Note on the Text 

These 555 sonnets are made with found lines and precise measures, a database and text analytic software. I crunched Shakespeare’s sonnets for word, syllable and character averages and these are my new measures. The lines’ oddities are their own, the arrangement is mine. After the text analytics and data entry, many ways of assembling are found. I hold to the turn (when I think of it) and that sonnets are poems of a certain size, but little more. Something in excess of the lines pass through, it’s that I’m chasing.

 About the author: John Lowther’s work appears in The Lattice Inside and Another South and Held to the Letter (with Dana Lisa Young) is forthcoming. He works in video, photography, paint and performance. His dissertation seeks to reimagine psychoanalysis with intersex and transgender lives as foundational.

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