Prepare

to

A poetry chapbook by Jess Jenkins

Brought to you by Cartridge Lit

Die

Table of Contents:

Each of these walls is grander Under hypnosis eyes spinning My shoulders curve like elbows in a nutshell encasement I am the callow partner My brothers are NPCs Fleets of labor made this marked infrastructure Sharpen your weapon, swing two hands Hunch girl, and the crow will carry you out Who was the Magellan that cartographed this place? You must also have a mineral nature The cat lives behind Now a note on the world economy He is willing and fervent he teases Demon is a stupid word Ghosts are where the bodies bled out Here, the frame rate chugs processing a deep black Evil does not work like a network Acknowledgements

E

ach of these walls is grander

than most walls I’ve seen,

they’re very long & low grade

stone | stamps till it aliases at the

vanishing point, no memorial in

the gigs | of mythology for the

men who built these walls, planted

uniform turf as tiles of popcorn

stucco | her movement is not that

of an athletic woman, her face is

one that empties itself when the

wreath | of the camera settles be-

hind her. It fills with a sterile anger

when the corporeal toggle rodeo |

leaves her, leaves my, midsection

open to anyone blood spatter

rotated some degrees. I’ll | Press

X to Read: Try jumping down/

beware the imminent danger

treasure lop | barrels, fill buckets, a

prize always awaits when you join

the club.

U

nder hypnosis eyes spinning,

two cardboard tokens taking

you down a bleak caribou |

trail take a look at how she’s doing

exactly what you do, she’s doing it

| too. Even so, I poke through the

thin papery shell of the Argonaut |

when my hands are cold & boxing

glovelike. Each is curled like a small

cashew | hardly able to do more

than hang there as an impression

of a hand on a warpath | Fingers

at least trying to do some- thing

with the buttery marble slabs,

this hoof | still unable to twist the

tiny screws & unpin the claws of

tiny gem sets on rings. | Subtitle:

A pathway to riches. “Certainly

there is a set of infinite wonder

in hand”- “Who said that?” Oh,

just boas | playing their infinite

role as the snakes who talk man

out of the ocean, up | into some

opaque-r place to walk, on frozen

egg whites to call “taxi, taxi!” then

“taxi, taxi!” | when we all know the

taxi never picks up, because that’s

something we all know.

My shoulders curve like elbows in a nutshell encasement, hammered in cuneiform

marks for small bones, set deep in rendered tallow and overlain with vellum.

Mind these small movements, a yoga with the injection mold plastic in my palm.

My avatar, she’s fitter, breathes fire has a denim,

Moony blue glow, I’m myopic in the moony blue of a monitor casting plasm

murk on my standard and predictable living room.

I

am the callow partner, green

and spraying electrical

weather like graffiti | as

a primary means of world

building. These men move freely

like planaria | regenerating for

the axe, the plough, to farm –

your bean counter | is progress

percentage or fraction? Doesn’t

matter, we’re only wholly

satisfied with the ennui.

M

y brothers are NPCs my

brother’s ghosts, stand

on a patio platform |

to praise a blooming sun,

old heroes phase in and out | the

armor stainless, & all that’s

good, gilded to the hilt | my

sword, the merchant giggles

in his isolation ‘yes’m | thank

you very much “Ah, yes, very

much” splayed out on a ghat |

clean slit through dorsal see

identical keystones on arches,

the structures – arc | only the

structure’s shape. Later you

will return to | this altar brick

lain by stout | men doing

grunt work across a bitmap’s,

hem | water beads onto pig

twine, helm hood padded with

straw | really is spirit the only

difference between a soldier

and a warrior?

Fleets of labor made this marked infrastructure. Who are the slaves-in-cuff

forecasting our respective VRs? I only wonder, was it built fireproof?

Facades, they must be. They come pre-apocalypse-d, the grimes a prop-bluff

For what, might I ask, did all these citizens once live then? Where are their Sheriff

Fables? Their children, chickens and sleepy boats mooring at the wharf?

Faith then, is a prop too. Like myth it is just stone and arches. Here is History’s rebuff.

S

harpen your weapon,

swing two hands | grip san

shield, take muzzled stone

men’s blows, pause to defrag |

I’m warned be wary of charmer

THE PARDONER is here to

sell her “temp auto counter”,

miracles proffered by an AI |

worldwide boys ring the Parish

Bell too, ground through,

running down cornrow | wall

walks. Radial garden lights

say “go forward!” to a cheery

soft hollow. | She meditates a

boreal glow, diegetic invisible

crickets, | churning water like

buttermilk. Above is something

tonic | green, a helical fly

propelled by dial croons an

operatic swansong | a new brute

on the outskirts lobs his blade

surprised, she breaks like terra

cotta. | it’s not wise to equip

during battle but murder is like

shopping, a kind of satori.

H

unch girl, and the crow

will carry you out, what

stealth | passing as an

armored egg, shining, I bargain

too: you fail/I quit. It’s only

a leap, | simple, and you slip

anyway on moss, under the heft

of your heavy shin guards. | I’ll

admit for you, those hulking

crystal men are pretty I | will

shatter them and you can take

their entrails, draw | your sword

and set their heads on rings

or diadems in clay. | Imagine

running numbers, so much

data pulsing is like shining,

talks like libretti.

Who was the Magellan that cartographed this place?

How was his timing? Naming the Elm, Maple, Main of our streets but Ash, Darkroot, Hollow

What King signet sealed his passage papers what escrow

was on hold between the delivery of gold and land with fields to grow

what the old world wanted; tobacco, silk, new colors, new men to cut a straighter hedgerow.

Y

ou must also have a

mineral nature, your

composite is all polygon so

your double is pearly? | Secret

ladder to shortcut kill. Archers

raining bows and small fires

| from a main bailey clipping

one dimension like children’s

art. If | these unilaterally armed

men are waiting on the parapet

walk, a boss fight | should be

waiting on the barbican, camp

here and grind till she dissolves

into useful constituent parts

| longsword, fang, helm,

proof of victory, armaments

extolled, iron, thin interlinking

rings, fine, blue stone, pail. |

Big Pilgrim’s poison dogs are

imminent anywhere this dry

rub | is made of gold pine resin,

oily mastic stone, lead strip

death rattle. She never speaks,

I | speak though. Good luck.

Trap. Good luck, trap ahead.

| she carries with her an eerie

headlamp, forever backlights.

T

he cat lives behind the

King’s Seal find the crest |

to unlock it, costs you 20k

to find her crouching in the

window, to join the covenant | a

blue phantom bandit summons

us to protect the truly neutral

trees, Shiva | of the East in

eastern armor (a complete set

can be found just beyond the

big door to the East, at the cliff)

is a second-in-command man

drops a Murakumo | which

cuts like a katana, requires no

stats we have to wield, keep on

with your saw | here’s an NPC

bug that you can’t anticipate, I’ll

stop these men from barreling.

No, there is no known patch |

but the AI goes haywire, throws

itself from a height and will rob

| you of your progress. Be wary

| of 1v1, 1v2, 2v2, or 2v3 go to

| the bridges only wide enough

for one fight at | a time, the cat

will hate the evil wolf, the cat

will hate the evil wolf with a |

ring you need, please the cat,

kill the wolf, get the ring. You’re

the runner.

Now a note on the world economy, currency in the lit up souls of dead men

Never has cash money paid for goods and services been taken to so literally mean

Numerals to mark the spoils of violence, there are perks to being human

Not the natal state of your journeyman but progress simply comes in

Netting a profit, I say what’s dreamlike about it is retry ad infinitum, very modern

H

e is willing and fervent

he teases, hopping over

islands of water hyacinth,

| sword in jaw yielded to the

left, inexpert neck swings |

paint long exposures, space

light bubbles and steps, he’s just

a pup | and this, a happy game

inside some Roman arena. |

Those eyes are not cut from

the same facial kit.| VICTORY

ACHIEVED stamps with the

sound of jail doors closing, I’m

locked into a posture of focus, a

rib a shiv, | and she runs forward

in a suit of muscle as the big

music draws to its coda. | These

temples are so, oh, patience, oh,

a loading screen is a virtue and

oh, we aren’t even on a kind of

foxhunt. | I’m even wary of be

wary of warnings. The toggle

hits the toggle shell; a clicking

timpani | rolling glottis as I

swallow, bearing on the stick

and she sustains a canter, | steps

susurrus.

D

emon is a stupid word |

evil crawls out from rocks

and brings with it orange

fire | that doesn’t smoke, too

hot | instead it rolls, it rolls us

back to see instead he isn’t one

but several, together we don’t

come close to virtuosi | this

polybody centipede covers all

directions, he’s an angry sexless

fractal bowling lava at | us. Are

you afraid of his toothy chest

gnashing? Because I am not.

Ghosts are where the bodies bled out, they are now in stereoscope coaching

gestalt methods on circumnavigating a throng.

Grainy replays throw strikes in air and shield up steps into depths or fog

garroting themselves on set traps so I can see before befalling

geographic fates, too. The ghost is a useful sprag

giving footstep followers ample time to rerig

H

ere, the frame rate chugs

processing a deep black

and round ceremonious

rooms, she slow walks on

brackish | teak wood cat walks,

load bearing and shoring,

occasionally a torch in a

cachepot. | Do they sense your

heat? Are you programmed to

reverb? To disturb their baking

of beebread? | With hands like

yours and mine, from thin

proboscis, gross bugs arrow |

popping boba pearls of blood

colored the poison green and

yellow of oxlip | flowers. No

boots can help you here, no

poison proof | advisement just

passing, ignoring the elderly

drake expelling a miasma,

insects buzzing like a caxirola

| at the entrance of a deep

serration in the ground, like

crustacean labra. | When does

it become more error than trial

how | can those opaline lily

pads be so be so pretty in this

shit salicylic?

H

ere, the frame rate chugs

processing a deep black

and round ceremonious

rooms, she slow walks on

brackish | teak wood cat walks,

load bearing and shoring,

occasionally a torch in a

cachepot. | Do they sense your

heat? Are you programmed to

reverb? To disturb their baking

of beebread? | With hands like

yours and mine, from thin

proboscis, gross bugs arrow |

popping boba pearls of blood

colored the poison green and

yellow of oxlip | flowers. No

boots can help you here, no

poison proof | advisement just

passing, ignoring the elderly

drake expelling a miasma,

insects buzzing like a caxirola

| at the entrance of a deep

serration in the ground, like

crustacean labra. | When does

it become more error than trial

how | can those opaline lily

pads be so be so pretty in this

shit salicylic?

Evil does not work like a network, it can not be tossed, even if you make it so big, this is stupid, I still see

each fishing line

ease it like a puppet. This swing set like a dinghy

elbowing its way through all the docked boats at the pier. Tease

enemy in their words, do not load your own file.

Prepare to Die

A poetry chapbook by Jess Jenkins

JESS JENKINS hails from Southern West Virginia and currently lives and works in Chicago, IL. She received her MFA from the University of Arizona. She is the winner of the 2013 UA Foundation Award and the 2014 Margaret Sterling Award and her work has appeared in journals like Jellyfish, Sundog Lit and Banango Street. As a student of leisure, she plays, thinks and writes about games in every sense of the word and takes delight in technology, surveillance, symbology, systems and the promise of a post-human world. Right now she is still playing Eufloria (4 years later) and has made lots of progress in Dark Souls 2.

Special thanks to: Charles Crawford, Terrence Quinn and his entertainment system, and Ander Monson (for the constraint that started it all).

The author gratefully acknowledges Sundog Lit for previously publishing the piece referred to here as "Sharpen your weapon, swing two hands."

Web design/layout by Joel Hans, co-editor, Cartridge Lit. He is extremely grateful for the opportunity to showcase such an amazing collection of poetry.

All images (except "Who was the Magellan who cartographed this place") courtesy Duncan Harris and his website, The Art of Gaming. The art of this chapbook would not have been possible without his hard work and willingness to let others freely use the images he captured.

Did you enjoy reading this chapbook? Why not show your appreciation and send a few dollars the author's way? Help make more work like this possible. All funds will go directly to the author.