We have a few locations here in Albuquerque and Santa Fe (Range Cafe, The Standard Diner, Meow Wolf) that have Art-O-Mat machines, converted cigarette dispensers made into cigarette-pack-sized art dispensers.
For $5 you can buy art objects and I have an office shelf half full of them because I can't pass them up. In fact, I will panhandle five bucks if I find myself near one of these machines without cash.
About six months ago at the Range Cafe near the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center I came across a poet in the Art-o-Mat selling poetry scrolls in his cigarette box.
This poet calls himself Reverend Stray Toast (a.k.a. Max Toast) and his creative packaging includes nutritional information (Total Fascism 0%) and the warning that "poetry has been scientifically proven to have the ability to, under certain circumstances, Change Your Life."
The box contained three scrolls.
"Show Love" (click to enlarge) is about getting back what you put out with lines like "I will stay until I become the depiction of I love I miss in the world" and "being alive is harder than being intelligent."
This is mostly a poem of fragments and ramblings about abandonment, competition, self-hate and inauthenticity.
He stays in the realm of abstractions a bit too much but he's putting it out there on little scrolls…so enjoy it I say.
"Sequentialism" is a complete free association poem where one word in one line rolls into the next: "history story teller/teller at the bank/Banksy at Gaza/gauzed wrapped strip nude" and some lines even repeat a word like "miss your face face your fears/fears of commitment meant it/the other way."
The final scroll contains three poems: "Class," "Resonate" and "Go Figure" which tells us to "Figure something out/with your hands./Now fix it."
Leave a Reply