This appeal for the allocation of government surplus money to pay for the execution of the following work, which will be staged in a warehouse marked for demolition and of the author’s own choosing, will be ventured via submission of the above-named work itself, a poem oftentimes troubled by an undetermined malaise, entitled »Poem with a Gun to Its Head,« in which the author, 23% of an unsavory person named Danniel Schoonebeek, 31 years of age and rumored to be a resident of an unincorporated village populated solely by a fringe network of radio hijackers (and hereafter known as »the client«), puts forth the following terms, necessarily on the grounds that, quote, »already a new death is here to bargain with you,« and, quote, »already this new death,« in the client’s own addendum, is, quote, »already already rebranding itself in your garden«: (1) that the client will be provided with a scrubbed work desk, scoured preferably by a machine that is capable of manipulating either steel wool or sandpaper in what will henceforth be known as its »claws«; (2) that the client will be provided with one single red ballpoint pen and a roll of third-generation organic toilet paper priced at $4.67 per unit, on which the client will undertake the writing of a poem entitled »Poem with a Gun to Its Head«; (3) that the rules, toxicity, patrolled borders, whiteness, stench, duration, blurriness, foul language, flammability, intolerability, subject-verb disagreement, and potential for insurrection of this poem will be determined under the following criteria; (4) that the client’s childhood friend, Nicholas J. Frandsen, a platoon sergeant of the United States Marine Corps (who will have served no less than two tours of Iraq, and wearing his Marine-issue fatigues, and rumored to have once beaten two men unconscious with his bare hands, necessarily on the grounds that they tipped their waitress below 5% on a bill of $117), will aim and press a military grade AK-47, purchased illegally with money earned via time served in the U.S. Marine Corps, at the back of the client’s skull, necessarily while the client writes, in red ink on a roll of toilet paper, a poem entitled »Poem with a Gun to Its Head«; (5) that the work in question must abide by at least three of the following terms; (6) that the client must include, at least once in the poem, and in the following rank and file, the words »only rifles have souls«; (7) that the client’s childhood friend, Nicholas J. Frandsen, while aiming a loaded AK-47 at the client’s skull and wearing his fatigues, may feel himself moved to speak the following words in rank and file: »you must work from yourself, like working a scarf of dried blood from a thistle, a morsel of sour bread that casts the world in copper light, a kind of penny-light that announces to the world, quote, ›I will meet death unafraid,‹« whereupon the client’s childhood friend, a platoon sergeant of the U.S. Marine Corps, will remember the following terms of his two tours of Iraq; (8) the tedium, the mess tent, the chemical burns, the gun cleaning, the new fish, the rank, the sleeping in holes, the fraternal, the smart-alecky, the choruses, the trap music, the religious boredom, the ague, the commandant, you kill or be killed, the flight home, a sunburnt cheek, hysterical laughter, the birthday cards, the gun cleaning, and whereupon the client’s childhood friend will be moved to (9) fire a single round of 7.62 x 39 mm ammunition into the skull of the client, necessarily on the grounds that (10) for Nicholas J. Frandsen, »irreconcilable« & »incontrovertible« are no longer words in the English language but rather the phantom pain of two claws, most likely those of a bear, impaled on either side of his ribcage, and what will hereafter be referred to as »the irreconcilable claw« will be described on the following terms; (11) that the governing body that started the war in which I fought is the same governing body whose morals and laws I took an oath to protect and simultaneously the same governing body who will decide, upon receipt of this appeal, if a poet who is free to make art in the United States, necessarily because of men and women who serve in the armed forces, will be allocated the same government money I received, the difference being the allocation of his government money will fund a work entitled »Poem With a Gun to Its Head,« a work in which I am necessarily cast because of time I served as a platoon sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps, simultaneously a role in which I dress in the same fatigues I wore while enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps, and hold an automatic rifle to the temple of my childhood friend so as to force him to create art, which is to say these facts are »irreconcilable« insofar as they pierce me away from the world in which I live, and what will hereafter be known as »the incontrovertible claw« will be described on the following terms; (12) that it is undeniable and indisputable that I learned to disarm, dismember, and kill human beings in order to defend the rights of artists to create works in which I am cast in the not unaggressive role of someone who will be taunted and also tested, necessarily because of my training in disarming, dismembering, and killing human beings, taunted not only to murder a poet out of irreconcilable disgust but also to murder my childhood friend because it is undeniable that I fought a war in order to allow him the freedom to create this work, which is to say I find these facts »incontrovertible« insofar as they pierce me away from the world in which I live and cannot be removed, whereupon (13) as stated above, the client’s childhood friend, Nicholas J. Frandsen, will be moved to fire a single round of 7.62 x 39 mm ammunition into the skull of the client, whereupon (14) the work will be completed and the above-named warehouse will be demolished by an anonymous third party (hereafter known as »the demolisher«), who will destroy the warehouse by means of finding a dead switch in the woods and pushing a red button, whereupon (15) any persons whosoever who find themselves in the position of witnessing this work entitled »Poem with a Gun to Its Head« (and hereafter known as »the audience«) will be given the option, by way of detailed instructions written by the client prior to the execution of the work, of robbing the nearest Bank of America at gunpoint and demanding the sum total of $90,000, which will effectively cancel all execution of this work, barring an act of god, and be divided among the client and Nicholas J. Frandsen as follows; (16) $45,000 to the client, necessarily on the grounds that this is the same amount of money that he is proposing to be paid for creation of the work entitled »Poem with a Gun to Its Head,« and about which he states, quote, »it’s more or less the number at which I price my life,« and this is subsequently the same amount of money, before taxes, on which the client survived for one calendar year in 2016, and thereafter $45,000 to Nicholas J. Frandsen, as this is the amount of money the client believes the United States government still owes his childhood friend, and furthermore the client is fairly convinced that, quote, »if it means not having to make art in the United States of America, any honest person can live off a meager sum and be happy.«
