by dylan krieger
orlan or what
little lamb electrified by elective procedures jigsaw muzzle
mosaic nymph myth venus europa mona lisa
who is your face today? kept wide awake on the operating table
she reads the world aloud, like a greeting card
something to be poked and pressed until the flesh falls out
squeamish? me? perhaps yes, but what arrests
is her agency, the choice to sheer herself to canonize a patchwork
mess, cooing hypnotically in french, la la lavinia
what works of art does the disfigured damsel harbor?
with pilfered hands, philomela’s plucked tongue, to whose surprise
is it her masterpiece is a performance pantomimed in blood
her busted lip, cartoonish horns a thorn in the side
of the porn-fueled implant industry corseted morgue
botched conformity saint orlan, pray for us
with your cruella-may-care glitter add-ons two-toned hair
feed me the anxious sacraments of your pitchfork propaganda
stare suture-eyed into the camera blow the scalpel
a sticky kiss, drop your lips right where you want them
whisper amen and mean a woman shedding skins
sideshow lizards & lions
the tattooed patterns of raptorial mammals have always spelled rebellion. this is the origins story circus performers evolve to self-camouflage. why get a grown-up job when you could be a sea-god? a jungle king complete with whisker implants, claws installed by lurid surgeons. when finally the last eye tooth is sharpened, what strange dust rides the wind—your bones a pollen, a simple allergen. the belly pelt elongates, tongues fork or roar, the skin an afterthought of scales or fur. some may call it “unnatural,” but this is what the body’s for: to meddle in the shape and pantomime of every organ’s lurching gore, to point at what you were before—an alien returned to earth. the constellations can’t perceive the beasts they form, but you’re a horse of a different curse: in the swing of milky orbit, you can swap one shoddy star out for another, try on a horde of spetial costumes and choose which predator to rocket toward
Dylan Krieger is a transistor radio picking up alien frequencies in south Louisiana. She lives in the back of a little brick house with a feline reincarnation of Catherine the Great and sunlights as a trade mag editor. She is the author of ‘Giving Godhead’ (Delete Press, 2017) and ‘dreamland trash’ (Saint Julian Press, forthcoming). Her more recent projects include an irreverent reimagining of philosophical thought experiments and an autobiographical meditation on the Church of Euthanasia. Find more of her work at www.dylankrieger.com.
Art by featured artist Osmyn Oree
Ever since I started photographing nudes I noticed a troubling pattern within the community of photographers in my hometown. Nudes and especially the nude female is often portrayed in a sexual or objective way. Fetishistic beauty and making women look ‘good-enough’ was something I believe detracted from photographing nude bodies. My photography aims to reclaim the nude body from such fetishizations and show that bodies, especially female bodies are far more important than just objects of beauty or intrigue. Each shoot I set out to make my photographs less about the nude and more about the meaningful portrayal of a person. I want to tell a story about the person through the photographs or give the viewer an insight into who the person is and make the nudity less about the eroticism or shock value and more about the universal sense of rawness and honesty.