Sunday Service

Sunday Service: Anthony Madrid Poem

GIRLS WHO ARE UNFAITHFUL AND AT THE SAME TIME RELENTLESSLY HONEST

Girls who are unfaithful and at the same time relentlessly honest
Are not operating in accord with the Darker-Than-Any-Mystery.

Only she who is relentlessly faithful and meanwhile full of lies
Can be said to be in accord with the Darker-Than-Any-Mystery.

The madness of love takes many forms. In me, it’s the illusion
I am Abul-Majd Majdud ibn Adam Sanai Ghaznavi.

Hé wanted the whole universe to be an unconjugated verb.
I won’t say which, I’ll let you guess. Ha!—right on the first try.

Yet, to me, “love” is not even a noun; it’s merely a case inflection.
Any name in the D-L triple-X can be inflected for Ishq-e-Majazi.

So, don’t say “God is great.” Say “God is glamour”—it’s what you mean.
The Almighty bottoms the bhakti. God is the ultimate top. And that’s why

The Tibetan Fuckmaster King says if a halt were put to all coupling,
The human race would end, not after a generation, but that very instant.

And if I am impenetrable in this and my other verses,
It is only because you can’t penetrate | a wall that is not there.

I am the poet Mardud; I had no childhood. Whoever wants
To get at my meaning will have to turn her back on her childhood.

Anthony Madrid lives in Chicago. His poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in AGNI Online, Boston Review, Fence, Gulf Coast, Iowa Review, Poetry, and WEB CONJUNCTIONS. His first book, called THE 580 STROPHES, will be published by Canarium Books, spring 2012.

October 9th, 2011 / 11:00 am
Sunday Service

7 Comments

  1. WeedOnBooks

      Hold on. This poem rules, but I thought THE 580 STROPHES was already published in chapbook form? That’s one of my favorite books of the last however long its been since that came out, but what happened to THE GETTING RID OF THAT WHICH CANNOT BE DONE WITHOUT?

  2. Melissa Broder

      Maybe your fave chapbook is about to get a hard-on?

  3. Melissa Broder

      Update: Madrid told me the chapbook (2009) and the book/book (2012) have the same name. He allows this is a strategic boo-boo. He says, “As for that other title, yer not supposed to know about that.”

  4. PANK Blog / It Was Strange—The Sky Just Opened

      […] Service at HTMLGIANT brings a poem from Anthony […]

  5. WeedOnBooks

      He put the other title in all his bios for a while; I thought it was ill. 

  6. MichaelRobbins

      Partly he changed the title because no one ever got it right (because it is insane): even WeedOnBooks, who likes it, gets it wrong (he’s missing a “the”).

  7. Suckwad

      Listen suckas. MARDUD is coming with something EVEN better than The 580 Strophes. What say yeez to the title I Am Your Slave Now Do As I Say? Likee or no likee?