Two Poems By: SJ Fowler | The Quietus

Two Poems By: SJ Fowler

New writing this week comes via interdisciplinary polymath artist, poet and editor SJ Fowler

SJ Fowler is a poet, artist, martial artist & vanguardist. He works in the modernist and avant garde traditions, across poetry, fiction, sonic art, visual art, installation and performance.

He has published five books, the latest, Enemies, published by Penned in the Margins, and has been commissioned by the Tate, Mercy, Penned in the Margins and the London Sinfonietta. He is the poetry editor of 3am magazine and is the curator of the Enemies project.

The liver fluke cometh

though I’m dead & so very game from you

there are tugs on the seastrings running from the sea

stitched gut goggles to swim through in order you

inherit the next breathing please on in

to the next so I’m still keen as a mountain

as quick up as quiet falling off wood bars between

two quiet high points in space shuffling

rivalling the tory in the actual event, the manmade

is fielded with fat burs & begins to crank until stop

the liver fluke cometh, pack the ready bags


Though it hasn’t gone very well

pity gutted in the hotel built on a wall

& though it hasn’t gone very well I am afraid

if I go out my tail will freeze in pre-penicillin

wars with crows cawing in the forests

were this the past where the male version

& the not born children should elicit sympathy

sad I am to not remember that perfect line

for this poem that I had dreamed oh well

on with the end of the german basics

the lean to a spider you are afraid to become

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