Pooch Karton

Build creative systems like reverse labyrinths

Sluice their faces
Wash them in water
In winter
Those who oppress us
We anoint you murderous motherfuckers
To crawl freezing away from
Our home.

Humans must enjoy seeing each other in cages
How else can I stretch morality around reality?
Absurd how easy it is to make breakfast for the whole dang house
Fallen angels are good dancers
Broken people are good guides
A pile of records
While I watch the bad men freeze

a lifetime of hurtin
on the inside can be
salved
by the tappin of a drum
and a finger on the e string
and a swoop to catch
the hand
of a girl you love

Pooch Karton @ High Desert Soundings, 2024. Wonder Valley, CA.

You should think about the descent
Of the anchor
It helps with empathy
Far more than scented candles
Those rank green etchings
Curving like my spine
Forged in flames
Microtonal
Dropped into deeps

Black mustache
soaked in affogato
I’m more fucked up
than you can possibly imagine
he says
But I can imagine a lot
Grief improvises like the weasel
who eats the nymph
who hunts the worm
Teach me then
How to ooze
Ask me a decent question

Dirty hands press against the peak
Sluiced by beaver mud
our toes hold onto the casing
of the bog that eats us
Standing up on a floating beam
calling out directions
That way towards the family
Standing in elegiac mud
It’s funny and fun and they slog
from reading maps
Smiling and still funny

𝒫𝑜𝑜𝒸𝒽 𝒦𝒶𝓇𝓉𝑜𝓃 @ 🄲🄾🄼🄼🄾🄽 🅂🄰🄶🄴 Madison, WI 2024

I don’t perceive repetition
Nude in cold waters and nude on the rock
The sun comes in
Strips argument and shines
Vibrating

I don’t perceive repetition the same as you
This is what it sounds like to hear from my head It’s our hearing our windy island we live on
Solar powered drink from the lake
This old clock gives me pause
As if a haircut was like felling trees
Shifting and dividing
Unlike the cedar grove

卩ㄖㄖ匚卄 Ҝ卂尺ㄒㄖ几 ㄥ丨ᐯ乇 @ ᐯㄖㄥㄒ卂Ꮆ乇 匚ㄖ几ㄒ尺ㄖㄥㄥ乇尺

Damn
I wake up on the dirt
moist
no sleeping bag
just this inferno
shirt
but i’m fuckin
COLD
You were a real asshole
in my dream last night
Good thing
that This
is a simulation

The midshipman’s
drone
is less talked about
than its poison
But can you
sing that long?

Here is a string tuned low

You may laugh
but if you are amused
you can buy the record

Call me crazy
But I like to feel good
I like when
Things
feel good
I have nothing
To say
With words
Sound is
My language

Black Rain Ensemble at Resource, Minneapolis. November 1, 2025.

Mothership is green
Fathership is grey
Smothered in fog
Like melted mozzarella
A fat finger points
“Magnetic North”
Where Grendel splinters
Where ink lines
Gone to sea
Would rather be fishing

Synchro slime
Drips from the maw
A beveled edge
Glints with nostalgia
No telling how
Or when
A captured voice
Breaks from its
Heart

𝔓𝔬𝔬𝔠𝔥 𝔎𝔞𝔯𝔱𝔬𝔫 LIVE at ⒽⓄⓊⓈⒺ ⓄⒻ ⒷⒶⓁⓁⓈ Minneapolis, MN 🥶 𝒮ℯ𝓅𝓉ℯ𝓂𝒷ℯ𝓇 2025

absurdity of leaving tracks in a wood
like this

no one will stop to read your scrap of paper

a grey fox curls in the lip of a ridge
it met a dog in a dream

there was a kite leashed to a finger
a steaming body opened the door

extinction and nudity on the same small square of the calendar

It was a car crash
I thought
Careening at night
Last flex
Thinking it was a joke
But time to sleep

Sense of urgency
In the October air
Let the fist drop
And enjoy the echoes

A tankard of purple froth
Tilts in my claw
Splishing fizz
While I push hot rocks
Opening my grey ears
To a molten din

Black Rain Ensemble, Nurse Betty, PV Glob - November 1, 7pm sharp. At Resource Minneapolis, 512 e 24th Street. Flier: @tombubul.bsky.social

Today at 3🌀👀🌀

Beyond Wednesday, this very night. Come to House of Balls and hear us play. 7pm. 1504 S 7th St Minneapolis.☮️

Playing this dope series hosted by Logan aka Lowgain Electronics and Dawn. This Saturday. It’s free, so come on over and have a yuck or two.