Two Poems By: Fawn Parker | The Quietus

Two Poems By: Fawn Parker

New writing this week comes to you — via tQ, of course — from Montreal-based poet and editor Fawn Parker

6 Holy Men on a Big Rock


The most important part is it’s all real.


We filmed for days, perched

and waiting for things to start happening.


We put cameras in the concession stands

and in shirt buttons and in a hydrangea

in the lead actress’ hat.

We went the extra mile

to get “the good stuff”.


400 audience members responded

to an ambiguous Come see! on Craigslist.


We conducted an audience-actor

movement class

during which the lead actor

had a real breakthrough,

rolling across the shore

in the back end of a horse

we borrowed from the

odds ’n’ ends bin.


We spent hours in the trailers

with the nervous few

saying, You’re good, You’re so good.


We strung up old bones and shook ‘em.

Shakespeare! Or

at least a man with a similar

cranial structure

For a scene in an old abandoned

lighthouse.


We put 6 Holy Men on a big rock.


The buffs came out in droves.

The women came out in droves.

And when the drinks came

they threw their hats and said

Triumph!


We handed out roles like they were free.

And on the subject of freedom

we rid ourselves of our budget

partway through week 1.


The script was 700 pages plus footnotes

with plenty of room for

ad-libbing.


The women were big-breasted

and the animals were untrained.


Four stunt doubles got into

tragic predicaments

and died, one death

resulting from an untrained

animal and a pair of

big breasts.


We wrapped up and

sent the footage to our

editors in gold foil

and they paired it down to


twelve seconds of

someone’s mother’s burnt shoulder

against the backdrop of

a boom mic

big breasts

and some

Pacific waves.




In Which A Small Item is Found


I was on a strip of beach outside the city with my friend Rose

when I found a small item that looked a lot like you.


"What the heck is that?" Rose said.

"It looks like my yoga teacher."


She had it all wrong.

She must never have seen her yoga teacher in her life.

The contouring and the depth of that ridge with all the dirt and wet sand in it!


It looked exactly like you!

I put you in the front pocket of my purse.



Fawn Parker is a writer from Toronto. She lives in Montreal where she studies creative writing at Concordia University. Her work has been published in Hobart, Headlight Anthology, The Void, and is forthcoming in Joyland. She edits fiction for Soliloquies Anthology.

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