Music by Mike Castillo
(after The X-Files)
When I’ve felt casualty creeping toward me I’ve never reached for the gospel. Instead perhaps a fire or a dance. In this way I know I am heretic— a dirtier flavor watching bones and papers. I remove one rock let the whole thing fall apart at my feet. Agent Scully, listen to this song in the clay calling for you— and I’ll bring you records. I’ll bring you the gospel of my stereo. Curse it so and art exposes what it alone can explode— the dead are everywhere. Light a candle and press play. In a world where the dead dance I pull at the shrouds of saints. Doctor Scully, you pull back the sheet on another dead man weigh the heart before it escapes out the side door bandage your finger and have a vision lie in the bath indefinitely. The human animal is a spooky sister to carry the spirit. First we feast and burn and later we might revel in the reckoning. And Scully, we deserve this reckoning. Art is counterfeit even when it’s not and I swallow that absurdity praying for lambs. I listen to the window because the insomnia is sublingual and I know just where the record skips— some test of faith. I push my TV out the window again. Now I am become Hollywood avoiding the sun in black boots and I split an amalgam of myself. I’ll come back but for the love of God just let me dig this grave.
Based in Austin, Texas, E. Kristin Anderson is the author of nine chapbooks, including A Guide for the Practical Abductee, Pray, Pray, Pray: Poems I wrote to Prince in the middle of the night, 17 seventeen XVII and Behind, All You’ve Got (forthcoming). Kristin is an assistant poetry editor at The Boiler and an editorial assistant at Sugared Water. Once upon a time she worked nights at The New Yorker.
For over a decade, Mike Castillo has played with many bands in many historic and historically dingy venues, including the band Mourning Blues, which recorded three studio albums, countless live recordings, and was a finalist in the 2010 Battle of the Bands. From heavy metal to soul, reggae to punk rock, and blues to prog rock, Castillo’s music finds inspiration in many different genres and subjects.