Day 20: No Moral Center

Indiana writer and editor Alec Cizak looks at Amy Pollard's "Aftershock" on Day 20 of 30 Days of The 5-2.

Day 18: Women of Mystery

Voice of The 5-2 Clare Toohey features Alec Cizak's poem, "Ed Gein", at Women of Mystery on Day 18 of 30 Days of The 5-2.

Clare read R.A. Allen's 5-2 poem, "On Car Theft", last year. She returns next week, reading Aig'ner Wilson's debut poem, "Christine", inspired by the 1954 Parker-Hulme murder case.

Alec Cizak

ED GEIN

He folded them open, from their legs
to their shoulders, peeled them like grapefruits,
thinking, the prize in the center would better
a Mickey Mantle mini-baseball card, found
in a box of Cracker Jack, purchased,
at the same convenience store
he picked up his last victim,
Bernice.

Preparing a human was no different
than preparing a cow; meat is (basically) meat,
and old Ed figured out the brutal truth—

Meat is Art:

Lamp shades made of human skin,
soup bowls made of human skulls,
the tapestry in the shed, decapitated Bernice
Worden,
hanging upside down, split and gutted;

Foreplay.


Alec reads "Ed Gein":



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Alec confesses: "The story of Ed Gein has been told so many times, I figured a poem might provide the final word on the matter. The trick was including the historical frame, the man's aesthetics, and sexual dysfunction. Hopefully, the result provides a fresh understanding of the man and America at large."

ALEC CIZAK is a writer from Indianapolis. His work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. He is also the editor of a print journal called Pulp Modern.