‘Written Before Flour Became a Death Sentence’ & Collected Works
Matthew McCain is an author and fine artist with 3 of his novels reaching the top #10 on Amazon Kindle Unlimited. His fine art paintings can be found all around the world from London to Las Vegas with Bar Rescue’s Jon Tafer and Alice Cooper’s Teen Youth Rock Center in Phoenix, Arizona. McCain has developed a style he calls “extreme contrary”, which is meant to generate hidden meanings behind his pieces along with the titles.
Written Before Flour Became a Death Sentence
Author’s Note: The First Flour Massacre occurred on Feb 29, 2024. At least 118 people were murdered and 760 more injured while waiting for flour and other aid. A minimum of three other subsequent attacks have been accounted for on March 3, 2024, March 14th, 2024, and March 23, 2024.
Two passages from the diary of the Palestinian Minister of Culture, published November 4th, 2023.
“Oct 22nd: According to the head of the Bakers Association, seven bakeries have been hit by Israeli missiles. Two nights ago the one near my sister Asma’s house was destroyed, along with the lives of most of those queuing outside.
…
Oct 24th: …thousands of Gazan families are no doubt teaching themselves to make bread again.”
This is a recipe for bread.
Ingredients:
Flour
Yeast
Salt
Water*
*Tears are not a substitute
1) Preheat your oven to 475.
If all you have left are flames,
keep one eye one the dough
and the other towards the skies.
2) Combine all ingredients until
the dough is “sticky”.
Sticky, adjective: Used by Westerners
to describe “the situation” because they
do not want to introduce the word
“slaughter” to their children’s vocabulary.
Slaughter, verb: another sibilant sound,
whistling through the air; Schrödinger's
onomatopoeia until it makes contact.
Sibilant, adjective: when air is forced through
the teeth’s biting edges.
3) Kneading is not needed. Atef Abu Saif
told me through a screen “Everyone
who dies here dies by sheer bad luck.”
I wanted to give you a recipe
that respects the seconds
you have left. May you
always have seconds.
4) Let the dough rest, long enough for
a REM cycle. You will both need it
to come out the other side of this.
5) The only thing left to do is:
Wait.
And bake.
And wait again.
Tap on the newly formed crust.
It should sound as hollow as
American Prayer, only then
it is ready for your biting edges–!
6) May this recipe keep you alive
in whatever small ways it can.
7) May your time stretch like gluten.
8) May the first bite bring you
to your grandmother’s kitchen,
if only for a second.
ShowBiz
Every day, I collage myself
out of mattress. Paste: Smiles,
newspaper clippings, whatever
found objects will synecdoche me
out of the house, into the job market.
All for the audience.
I seek applause for the smallest
of moments: brushing my teeth,
drinking enough water,
sharing a joke with the cashier–
I leave my four walls in the hopes
the director will have no notes.
My closet does not know I
am the Costume Designer,
Props Master, Best Boy–
When will the Academy
acknowledge my life’s work?
A one-woman-show in the purest form.
Who trained out of me a theatre
takes a troupe? We once called
this farce a play– it was fun, back then,
under our “yes, and” philosophy.
Yes: we get to be here.
And: we get to enjoy it.
The whole world a stage
Late-Stage Capitalism stole–
verisimilitude and the suspension of
belief; hand in hand. As natural
as my need for rent money.
Now, I trade sunbeams for spotlights.
The fresnel is a star, I tell myself.
If only I could believe it.
For Boxer
“All animals are equal, but
some are more equal than others”
The market is an animal:
A bull. A bear.
A boar (piggy bank).
A bore (apparent).
Read: Abhorrent.
The capital needs:
Corpses. Coins.
Cabbage. Cattle:
a bull, a bear, a menagerie.
Read: a fucking zoo.
Index should mean
“Alphabetical”.
Instead, it masks
securities.
Names them
instrument.
Not indulgence.
Not indolence.
Not insolence–!
Morals and Morale
often hold hands
at the gallows,
the weight of greed
a swing, a pendulum, a cross
to bear, to bull, to pool,
to pull us apart–
Too many homonyms.
Too many synonyms.
They do not antonym here.
Ut is not cowardice
to grow something
outside of a portfolio!
A yield. A harvest.
They have the same meaning
They do not have the same cruelty.
Incite and inspire
have the same meaning, but
only one is a crime. Both
get the punishment.
Dostoevsky tried to warn us.
Chekov wrote “The Bear”
Mike Bartlett wrote “Bull”
and yet, here I am,
three CENTURIES later,
left to wonder where
the words of men got us.
Syntax. Diction.
Prediction:
Derelict buildings
hold the same ghosts
no matter how
they are demolished.
Destroyed.
Destitute:
an adjective.
But the banks
call that word
a noun: A high risk loan.
A foreclosure is
a net positive–
ask any teller
and they will tell you,
“All we want is change!”
We have a shortage of the supply
It is how the demand is created–
I possess no quarters,
only QR Codes.
There is no barter
no trade, no exchange
except for stock;
an inventory none of us
have access to, and yet are
considered a part of–
“The Most Dangerous Game”
A novella where we
are hunted for sport.
Read: stock
Read: animal, but
not Big Cat.
Not Horse.
Not Bear.
Not Bull.
Read: this is a circus.
And we all know what they do
when they take the animals
out back.
Don’t we?
Briana Grace Hammerstrom has participated in the National Poetry Slam, Individual World Poetry Slam, the Southwest Shootout, Flagstaff Poetry Slam, Bigfoot Poetry Festival, and earned titles such as Haiku Deathmatch Champion. She has been pubished in Red Orgre Review, Palette Poetry, Clepsydra Magazine, and other publications. BGH's work is a journey through queer joy, sheer outrage, and the enchantment of everyday language. Discover updates and upcoming performances at bghpoetry.wordpress.com.
