Greetings unreal friends! It’s been crazy-busy over here at Magically Real HQ. Manuscripts and chapbooks and new heteronyms are emerging, not to mention the usual spring time mucous-filled allergies.
But sometimes the unreal inserts itself in that moment between sleep and complete, stressed-out awake-i-tude.
Here’s what came out. If you are familiar with the Marvin Bell “dead man” poems, the following may strike a gut-like resonance here.
belly
once upon a time there was belly.
belly said i will make a baby. it will be good and therefore not the messiah. it will be strong and therefore not god. it will be joyful and therefore the world.
halloween came and belly went as buddha’s belly, but not as santa claus’s.
belly came to a mountain top and did not climb it but had a picnic at the base, mocking the hikers as they struggled up in shorts.
belly said i will grow bigger not flatter and belly went on the talk show circuit about their new book.
belly made an hbo series which is more to the point than making a film. then belly made a film too.
belly dreamed of mouths and teeth, tits and tongues, and soft pink flesh expanding.
belly explored the world of video-games, and xboxed itself into new shapes of roundness by using the wii floorpad for ambiguous purposes.
belly drank wine and read porno of course. this is not surprising but belly must declare even the obvious, for it too must be proclaimed.
even in the mornings belly refused to lie flat let alone sink into concavity. belly perched between twin bones, rubbing itself against the consciousness covers, preparing to puff itself outward into the day that awaits lean mean but it’s no match for belly don’t you know that yet?
Stephanie Barbé Hammer Writing (Un) Real 
The dead man sees the resemblance and is pleased.
He is no judge of poetry, even the prose kind, but he knows what he likes.
The dead man doesn’t read porn, but he sometimes looks at the pictures.
—with apologies to Marvin Bell, and to you
Haha! Thanks, dead-man-impersonator!