Zeek | belly of the beast

belly of the beast, by Cullen Goldblatt

Jonah says:

I gag on whale bile. I shut my eyes and pretend that tumbling liquid is not stomach acid seeping through
my closed mouth. Does the whale ever sleep? I imagine a whale shit escape:
a quick propulsion to freedom through whale tubes like sausage casing out to brine. I cough up
acid in the red dark lonely and wish I could want to choke on sea.

I don't know if they threw me or I jumped, I don't know if I believe. Choking on salt water on the burning
acid of whale water either way I taste my own bile. I breathe to the beat of whale chest it is my sea it puts
me to sleep at night. I just don't think about being swallowed. I think about counting when I get scared of
god's faces and the seconds between my breath and its.

Cullen Goldblatt lives and writes and translates in New York. He learns from many writers, in particular, African poets Leon Gontran Damas and Patrice Nganang.

Image: Mosh Kashi. Mosh Kashi (www.nogagallery.co.il) affines his work to romantic modernism: Rothko, Nauman, and their 19th century European ancestors. Beyond the preoccupation withnature, Kashi's paintings bind the experience of the sublime-romantic with a postmodern allegorical consciousness.

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