Editors,
My girlfriend and I have been talking about our poem, and we believe that to be effective as a meditation on the subtle natures of disbelief and the horror of flesh and the effluence of time, certain formatting guidelines must be accommodated. We’ve discussed this, like, forever. You really must understand.
First, the seven sections of the poem must be printed in a circle, each with its title in bold. The titles must be red and set at sixteen pixels. We will need to have an exchange with the editorial staff about italics sometime soon. We’re generally available.
All fonts must be sans serif. We will discuss no serifed substitutes.
The topmost section will be DYING PHARAOH HAND. There is no other choice from what we can tell. This of course means that to the left on the circle must be the section MANY DIMENSION HAND, and on the right, BALD LADY’S LAMENT HAND. The other four sections of the poem may be placed anywhere on the circle. Please refrain from telling us beforehand in what order the remainder will be printed because this would make us feel too in control of the process. Our poetry is feral.
Moving on, it must be arranged that after the poem is read for twenty seconds, the circle of seven sections will become a wheel. More specifically, the text should slowly begin to rotate clockwise, accelerating x .75 with every seven revolutions until the words become blurred into a single mass. The mass will appear as a wheel, and the true meaning of our poem will now be quite obvious.
Oh, also, Illustration 3.1.b (enclosed) will stand in for the text we provided for the section, DEFEATED SUITOR HAND. The excised text from this section should be printed in a future post under the title “What a Wise Guy!” We’re sure you can see how this new arrangement will more effectively incite emotion in the readers over time.
Now four seconds after the readers understand their connection to the spinning wheel of text, suited businessmen must come rushing out from its center, bursting from the computer monitor in a nonstop stream. At their feet? Hairless cats. Hundreds of them. The addition of these cats and suits will make the original wheel seem like a sick joke and the previously understood meaning will be angrily rejected. If you could figure out a creative formatting solution that might intensify feelings of betrayal in the readers, that would be great. (Maybe the addition of a laugh track that gets louder as it plays with no way to turn it off? We’re open to ideas).
Finally, when their rooms are filled with strangers and the readers turn away from their computers in disgust, my girlfriend and I will emerge from under a black satin veil the readers had yet to notice (it was right behind them the whole time!). We will rend our clothes in mourning and cover ourselves in ash. We will beg them to forgive our wild poem and the mess we’ve made and ask if we can poke around in the fridge for a bit and see what the possibilities for dinner might be.
Five seconds after they have made their choice, we will cover ourselves again in the black veil and quietly depart. Please make arrangements to have our clothes and the cats returned to us as soon as possible.
Of course you are worried about limitations, and we understand your concern. Anyway, we’re soooooo excited to see our poem in print!
Sincerely,
R. Martinez and K. Kunar