Get Over Here So I can Kiss You, Pynchon

Logan Murphy

737 by Roger Leege


And one more thing if it’s not too much trouble, Friend
quote for me from that French philosopher
who said that God is a lobster
and that we need to surgically remove our organs
to gain enough speed to get away
figuratively speaking
Who also said that everything is connected
not like a cosmic oneness or some kind of touchy-feely thing
more like a root system
where we can each grab the closest thing
and that thing is grabbing something else
it can get a little claustrophobic down here
in the dirt because we are all just particles
aching to become animals
or was it nomads looking for lobsters
anyway you get the idea, Friend
you can already imagine the holes in my face
becoming those restrictive ports closed to ships
even a lobster god encircled in the holes
and honestly all I want to know is what really
is there for me to glean from all of that
other than I should really be paying more attention
is that it, Friend?
Sure we have fun with it but will I really need to know
how to turn striated to smooth or organs to organisms
and oh goddamn please don’t make me recite any of this from memory.

Get Over Here So I Can Kiss You, Pynchon

if a rocket paints a rainbow as it falls
can there be gold at the end or would that be in poor taste

because it might be a nice touch
to you know soften the blow a bit

but maybe that doesn’t hold much water
when there’s an octopus forcing itself upon a woman

just a few paces away from a man being funnel fed
human feces but really what do I know about art

dominatrixes (dominatrices?) are a way to shock a point into people
and really I get that I really do

something about the commercialization of love
and revulsion going hand in hand
i guess to answer my own question all i know about art
is that it can make me feel stupid when i see it
and i know when i see it

when i see scenes like that one

it makes me want to kiss you, Pynchon
but please just not on the mouth.

Logan Murphy hails from the University of Tennessee's MFA program in fiction and has since conducted an experiment to see how far away from home he could make it before going mad. He made it as far as Northwest China's rural Gansu province, where he teaches English at a local college. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Masters Review, Pithead Chapel, Star 82 Review, Corvus Magazine, and others.

Roger Leege, writer and visual artist (MA, Goddard College), draws on his past as a lawn boy, meat cutter, storyteller, trucker, EMT, poet, carpenter, bass player, painter, embalmer’s assistant, printmaker, analog photographer, journalist, videographer, educator, computer scientist, and bohemian family man to create words and pictures that question comfortable assumptions. His recent exhibits and publications include galleries and print and online journals in the US, Canada, and the UK. Portfolios reside online at, and serves for custom printing, framing, and online sales.