There Will Be No Arseholes & Berlin Pride 2018 by Michael Louis Kennedy

There Will Be No Arseholes

A carbon-fibre world is waiting
just around the corner,

except that in the future there will be no corners

only rounds, because the corners
will soon be rendered obsolete.
Beyond the bit-horizon,
they’ll be smelting svelte and sensual
limbs; addendum to the person,

and I’ll research all my options,
with trial runs in Autocad
until I buy a bicep
off the shelf at

Bang an Olufsen.

In the future everyone’s attractive

but I will be slightly more attractive,

because I will pay for the most expensive

upgrades using the fortune I acquire

from investing in Bit Spheres.

The currency of the future will be Bit Spheres.

They are like Bit Coin
only coins have edges,

and edges are the meeting
of two planes, which is like a corner
but in three-dimensions,

and in the future there will be no corners,

only rounds.

In the future there will be no stress,

there will be no pain.

Compatibility is an algorithm

and I will have a cybernetic arsehole that opens

and shuts like an expensive camera shutter.

Or maybe,
there will be no arseholes.

The future is green;

There is no waste, no wasted energy,
nothing ever lost, only retained;
only in, never out.

A slick, slick silicon system.

Ergo, no need for arseholes.
No external genitalia either;
the future is ergonomic, digital, symmetrical,
conceptual.

Perhaps we’ll all fuck with pay wave.
Perhaps we’ll fuck like a digital synapse,
and pay through the teeth
for a premium connection
speed.

Berlin Pride 2018

On Schlesisches Strasse the pavements shine
like the sweat on the back of a nubile dolphin.
On the streets of Kreuzberg every tree bares apples
but most of all the orange trees.

This is the way in Berlin,
even the trees reject the social norms.
In Berlin every day is pride,
except the 14th of June,
which is straight pride,
for all the filthy heterosexual scum
to celebrate how they drink their coffees
with cows milk
and produce offspring

who contribute nothing
to the local art scene.

In Berlin it is not cool to be gay.
To be gay is to be straight.
The gay is the new oppression.
Your sexuality is an office job.
You sit at the desk of life and order paperclips.
This is not Berlin.
In Berlin you must be queer.
To be queer is to have group sex on a park bench
and take shots of ket out of an egg cup.
To be queer is to start an anarchist commune in a super market
and rub your genitals with a Bauhaus cheese grater.
To be queer is to witness tremendous human suffering
and not change your facial expression.

In Berlin the couples say I love you
by slowly becoming identical twins.

If you can tell them apart they are not in love.

But also it is not cool to be in love.
It is not cool to love things in Berlin.
Pride is about casual disinterest.

It is cool to have multiple partners at once
and not like any of them.

Polyamory is very Berlin.

So is BDSM.

So is licking batteries and wearing khaki.

Here are some things we say in Berlin

to prospective sexual partners.

1. You can catch the U-Bahn to my heart
but don’t get comfortable
because romance is fiction
and I don’t like you.

2. Your face belongs on the East Side Gallery
as you are very beautiful but also
like the East Side Gallery
this arrangement is limited by space and time
and will require abolition in the near future.

3. I appreciate your buzz cut,

Now let us engage in the sexual intercourse.

It is good to be proud of who you are.

Especially if who you are is unique.

Everyone is unique in Berlin,

And your uniqueness can be expressed
through the universal symbol of black tee-shirts
that end at your shins,
and beanies that are too small for your enormous head.

In Berlin, you can come as you are,
but also if you haven’t had a padlock
locked around your neck since you were
a small child then don’t even speak to me.

If you buy property then you are not queer.
If you don’t go clubbing then you are not queer,
but if you do go clubbing and you enjoy yourself

The you are also not queer.

Fun is not queer; only indifference.
If you take time to appreciate small things like the song of a bird,
a cool breeze in Summer, or freshly baked bread,
then also you are not queer.

You should be proud of being different.

But different in a Berlin way;
enjoy nothing,

consume narcotics,
have dangerous group sex,
and dissociate regularly.

Otherwise you are not queer
and you are not Berlin,
so you should leave,
because you’re gentrifying the neighbourhood.

Find more for Michael on Instagram.

Executive Producers

Sue White

Daniel Henson

Karolina Ristevski