Home > Archive > Issue 26

Are You There, God? It’s Me, DJ Spinoza.
Eugene Ostashevky

posted Jan 8, 2008

Are you there, God?
It’s me, DJ Spinoza.
How are you doing today—
okay?
What? You don’t exist?
Oh, don’t start that again!
Who am I talking to, then?
Who?! What number is this?
The number of what? Sorry,
can you speak louder,
you got some kind of screaming going on in the background—
Hello?

Hangs up the phone.

What was that?! “The Number of the Yeast”?
It sounds like an all-girl metal band from Scandinavia.

Dials.

Hi, is this God?
It’s me, DJ Spinoza.
Nice to hear you, too.
Hey, I wrote a new poem
And I want to share it with you!
What do you mean you already heard one today
and that’s plenty? What kind of thing is that
to say? Who called you, anyway?
Morris Imposternak? That fake Russian poet?
Like, he read you from his book,
My Third Cousin Twice Removed—Life? Man, that guy!
I saw him in a coffeehouse this morning,
trying to attract girls by looking pensive.
Hey, do you mind calling me back, this is kind of expensive?
Hello?

He sits down. Nothing happens. The poem ends.

© 2008 Eugene Ostashevsky

© Northwestern

Eugene Ostashevsky is the author of Iterature, a poetry collection released in 2005 by Ugly Duckling Presse

He is also the editor and main translator of OBERIU: An Anthology of Russian Absurdism, published by Northwestern University Press and containing the writings of Alexander Vvedensky, Daniil Kharms and others.

The DJ Spinoza poems are from his new book, The Life and Opinions of DJ Spinoza, forthcoming from Ugly Duckling Presse in 2008.