Joyful Noise

"Every bullet was for you." --Brian Azzarello

Joyful Noise

the masks are bizarre
&
my angel needs tuning
Come on baby
Touch the sky.

LoVE
a subtle Knife
a Moth
Feathers mouthed.

Every where a man journeys.
Story is left.
I'm just trying to live
(with whistle/song)
a Good one.

--Lucindo Anthony is a poet. And a myth.

Plato's Cave

Plato’s Cave

In your shadow world

You might take me as a prisoner

For I do not believe in the duality of

                        perceptual reality

Or the ‘thing’ of/in itself.

 

Protoplasmic molecular conjunctions

Ephemeral constitutives

Conceptual, sentient contortions.

 

You challenge my

Incomprehension of Form

                             of Idea.

 

But all you do is verify

You never loved.

--Constance Stadler has been writing, publishing, and editing poetry from the ‘prehistoric’ epoch of print journals to modern e-times. She was a former editor of South and West and is currently a contributing editor to the e-zine Eviscerator Heaven. She has published over 300 poems and three chapbooks in her ‘first manifestation’ as a poet, and has just released her first two chaps in 20 years, Tinted Steam (Shadow Archer Press) and Sublunary Curse (Erbacce). A new full length manuscript, Paper Cut is in final stages for publication. Her most recent work appears in such 'zines as ditch, ken*again, Pen Himalaya, Rain Over Bouville, Clockwise Cat, Hanging Moss, Calliope Nerve, Neonbeam, and Gloom Cupboard. She was recently “Featured Poet” for the Guild of Outsider Writers. Her website is www.conniestadler.blogspot.com. As a political anthropologist specializing in North Africa and a violinist, her influences are multiform. Work in formative years with the late poet Gwendolyn Brooks was seminal, but no less so than Sufi Dervish dancers, and the challenges of mastering Bruch's first concerto.

Contrariwise: Literary Tattoos

"Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt." --Kurt Vonnegut

Contrariwise: Literary Tattoos. Tattoos inspired by books, movies, music, etc.

Days of Destruction Preview

"stir the silent tomb
unmarked
on which I sit..." --Gary Beck

As both an editor and fan of Gary Beck, I've found his work both formidable and conscientious--a perfect fit for my ultimate editorial goal of lit without pretension and Gary's new book is no exception. Days of Destruction puts vividly into words the world we live in, events both personal and societal in scope...

I am a firm believer of letting the words speak for themselves. Consider these pieces from the book:

I am Thirty

Surrounded by the ripped visions
of my futile dreaming
and the fading intensities
that lingered for a few hungers
and no longer crave glory,
but before my embalming,
endures the hope for completion,
Poetmen, I still may join you.

Amaryllis

Voluptuous blossom that could consume
all our lust for beauty with one bloom
that unfolds for a brief sharing,
in natures sexual surrender to man
with exquisite delight, compelling attention,
quickly reaching the delectable climax,
swiftly dwindling to brown, fallen petals,
an ache of remembrance, a gift departed.

Out Of Thy Dark Hand

L.K., where gone?
That friend I had
I lost to death
who never pausing to explain
moved on.
And the fervor that gave him breath,
empowering the young hunger,
dreaming of a better life,
vanished with a distant traveler
into another land.

Never meeting him again
that flashing smile of exuberant nights
become remote.
Yet sometimes,
catacombs of thought,
sudden collisions with the past,
a stranger met for a moment,
who touched my soul
a distant life ago,
stir the silent tomb
unmarked
on which I sit,
making me dream of some small plot of earth
where lies a friend.

We Interrupt....

Many mistakes allow correction,
wounded human feelings top the list,
but accidents that cause catastrophe,
car crash, train collision, airplane down,
leave little leeway for apology,
since numerous fatalities
often disturb tranquility
and hurts relatives and friends,
who never find consolation
in stories on the evening news.

This Message is....

Sociological phenomenon
attract more attention
when registering information
on the public awareness
when presented by our friends, the media.
Nothing makes us better understand
crime, poverty, disease, drugs,
the moral aberrations
that destroy the social fabric
with violent conclusions,
that never seem to result in
revolutionary change.



Days of Destruction is published by Skive Magazine Press.

Three Pieces By Ashutosh Ghidiyal

BLINK

The world is not the word
The word is not the world

The lamp burns all night
The flowers bloom stealthily

But soon the many colors fade
And light comes under a shade

Money and Youth
One day disappear

Moments of joy and pleasure
Are momentous

The whole world itself
One day comes to an end

Three days of life
Pass away in a blink

Only love lasts longer

POETIC PLEASURES

Poetic pleasures her soul craves
The lyrical winds pound and roar
As the ashen sun shines bright
And purple rains of sorrow pour

The lone poetess through her darkling glass
With spinning worlds spins words numberless
Enchanting the suffocated love hungry eyes
With the lurking shadows of known monsters

The high mistress and priestess of rhyme
Brings forth from her many layered bosom
The shadowy constructions of filch cabbage
Mesmerizing unready hearts with hated flowers

Weaving unrehearsed melodies of verse
She dazzles the nescient passerby recent
Breathing poetic airs into uninitiated ears
Triggering umpteen waves of poetic pleasures

STEP LIGHTLY

Step lightly, O friend
On this aged worn earth
Oh step lightly, live as a guest
In the world of men, live abundantly
In the world of nature
Where many unsung beauties
Nurture the ever-new blossoms
Of the ever-present now

Let your senses flower
Beyond the accumulated dross
Of the centuries of civilization
And wash yourself in the clear light
Of pure perception
And let the barren holds of tradition
Be loosened in the fresh air
Of selfless abandon

Let your ears hear the unheard melodies
Let your eyes see the mystical colors
Of the ever- present, ever- new reflections
Scattered all around you
Let your heart and mind move
From their fixed base
And throw open the illusory gates
To let the waiting immensity enter

--Ashutosh Ghildiyal was born in 1984 in Lucknow, India. His work has appeared or been accepted for publication in the following print and online magazines: Houston Literary Review, Oak Bend Review, Taj Mahal Review, River Poets Journal, The Storyteller, Cantaraville, Fear and Trembling, Calliope, Indite Circle, Mad Swirl, Word Catalyst Magazine, Perpetual Magazine, Cynic Online Magazine, and Calliope Nerve.

Quoteable

Mister rabbit says, "A moment of realization is worth a thousand prayers." --Mickey (Natural Born Killers)

Untitled

Untitled

our gray pigeons perch out the chipped white
painted window frames:

they push their entire weight forward and fall
towards the ground,
catching themselves with wide wings suddenly stretched.

the two buildings are close together,
red brick by dark cement and piled between them rotting wood
and crumpled papers.
faint voices float up toward the open space.

I perch on the chipped white painted window frame:

smoke burning my eyes, the cigarette clenched between my teeth shrinking,
my eyelids lowering.
I lean forward, testing gravity
and catch myself quickly.

--Ariel Lee writes from Portland, Oregon. She would rather live in the southern United States. Her hobbies include people watching, reading and being a recluse. This piece first appeared in Calliope Nerve X: Natural Born Poets.

Quoteable

"We have to steal back the hallucination..." --Grant Morrison

When A Star Twitters A Ghost May Be Lurking

When A Star Twitters A Ghost May Be Lurking.

Creep of Wheat

Creep of Wheat

a-over-b gets the gluten

one of you take-n-bakers
better slide me some of that

thin-crust

here comes the wheat wolf --

bop, bop, bop --
he's going for
the banana pancakes.

SLAM!

I have my star-sandwich
w/ Saturn sprouts (grown
on my midnight windowsill)

--J.D. Nelson experiments with words and sound. His poems have appeared in many small press publications, both print and online. Visit J.D.'s site: MadVerse.com. This piece first appeared in Calliope Nerve X: Natural Born Poets.

Quoteable

"Where's the one that ordered me to kill Snow White? In the moment before we awaken screaming, we will always hear our own voices saying: We did." --Milbre Burch

Lost Alan Moore Comic Book Found

From Scifiwire:

Lost, never-before-published Alan Moore comic book found. So rare even Alan Moore doesn't have a copy.

Painters' Exhalations 104

Painters' Exhalations 104

--after Josef Albers' Study for "Steps"

The leading without hands, blue
alabaster master. Man follows
wood and concrete elevations
pulling wants connecting mystical
subjections an artist could document

via abstract myriad voices
where a brand of normality: unawareness

will not conceptually stand, knowingly. Man
in need of fashionable memories

wanting to wear a history snug around the waist
and ankle/wrist combination. We are lead,
the saddened phase of phrased voices
guide. Back down when the higher plane
disappoints, a different form of following,
fundamental to the anti-self.

--Felino Soriano (California) is a philosophy student and case manager working with developmentally and physically disabled adults. Felino edits the online experimental poetry journal Counterexample Poetics. He is the author of two chapbooks Exhibits Require Understanding Open Eyes (Trainwreck Press, 2008) and Feeling Through Mirages (Shadow Archer Press, 2008), as well as an e-book Among the Interrogated (BlazeVOX [books], 2008). A chapbook is also forthcoming Abstract Appearance Reaching Toward the Absolute (Trainwreck Press, 2008). The juxtaposition of his philosophical studies with his love of classic and avant-garde jazz explains his poetic stimulation.

Painters' Exhalations 103

Painters' Exhalations 103

--after Cragie Aitchison's Sunset and Bedlington - 2nd Version

So many skies like cloth shoved
into drawers with fumbling hands.  The
                                               unforgotten
rhythms of clouds fingering tonal keys,
               wrinkles'
                       elaborate textured
tones breathing mood into its flattened
blue.  Today an unpeeled orange hangs
around the collar of skyward flesh.

Domesticated dog hugs the presence of a drunken
tree, contagious lean apparent if night workers
awakened prior to alarm time thrust.

Flowers could not organize a more legitimate bouquet.

This is existence, concrete rendition
diving with day into the hiding trunk of dusk.

--Felino Soriano (California) is a philosophy student and case manager working with developmentally and physically disabled adults. Felino edits the online experimental poetry journal Counterexample Poetics. He is the author of two chapbooks Exhibits Require Understanding Open Eyes (Trainwreck Press, 2008) and Feeling Through Mirages (Shadow Archer Press, 2008), as well as an e-book Among the Interrogated (BlazeVOX [books], 2008). A chapbook is also forthcoming Abstract Appearance Reaching Toward the Absolute (Trainwreck Press, 2008). The juxtaposition of his philosophical studies with his love of classic and avant-garde jazz explains his poetic stimulation.

Painters' Exhalations 102

Painters' Exhalations 102

--after Jeffrey Scott Holland's Conversation with a Television

The skull of ideology hollow. The lingo
lies, purposeful shaping past apparitional
sophists, cunning as when Athens
evaporated into an after emptiness,

Socrates absent from his choke hold dialectics.


News dies in smoke prior to reaching the wandering eyes.

Commercials relay an asking to the conditioned
promising recollection of prior happiness,
childhood riding wind,
climbing the smiles of a prideful
dad. Education

inexistent. Though persuasive polls
posit knowledge lies behind the abstract
screen forming lovers of self of celebrity of scandal

dancing across the age of empty information, distancing
the mind from prearranged, positive
realities.

--Felino Soriano (California) is a philosophy student and case manager working with developmentally and physically disabled adults. Felino edits the online experimental poetry journal Counterexample Poetics. He is the author of two chapbooks Exhibits Require Understanding Open Eyes (Trainwreck Press, 2008) and Feeling Through Mirages (Shadow Archer Press, 2008), as well as an e-book Among the Interrogated (BlazeVOX [books], 2008). A chapbook is also forthcoming Abstract Appearance Reaching Toward the Absolute (Trainwreck Press, 2008). The juxtaposition of his philosophical studies with his love of classic and avant-garde jazz explains his poetic stimulation.

Painters' Exhalations 101

Painters' Exhalations 101

--after Asim Butt's Contempt

Contempt for self requires death of
a specific body echo; the gray

winding S which hooks in cane
motions hanging on necks of burgeoned
want of permanent replacement. As

those with forgetful faces
undergoing the asked knife
to carve a pulling lift into sag. Here

though the disdain which leaves
the tongue with sprinting thighs

runs toward the head of a stilled
cow. Unknowing

soon an S will no longer wrap its
obese neck

as the hater transforms living flesh
into meals for man, hovering

buzz of whimsical fly wings.

--Felino Soriano (California) is a philosophy student and case manager working with developmentally and physically disabled adults. Felino edits the online experimental poetry journal Counterexample Poetics. He is the author of two chapbooks Exhibits Require Understanding Open Eyes (Trainwreck Press, 2008) and Feeling Through Mirages (Shadow Archer Press, 2008), as well as an e-book Among the Interrogated (BlazeVOX [books], 2008). A chapbook is also forthcoming Abstract Appearance Reaching Toward the Absolute (Trainwreck Press, 2008). The juxtaposition of his philosophical studies with his love of classic and avant-garde jazz explains his poetic stimulation.

Dead Snakes Preview

Preview from David Mclean's Dead Snakes:

THE DEAD SNAKE

is brushed with stardust
and the wooden steps are slippery with ice
so i walk around beside them through grass
and stone and mud; just like i do not listen
today to what philosophy says so much
when it is winter, and i would shoot a politician
like a mad dog or a screaming
Swedish prime minister. man is a liar
and worse than any animal, mostly,
but i noticed dead snakes here in the woods
tend to get brushed with stardust

TIME SOMETIMES

throws absent-minded
rice at us, there are things worth a minute’s
confabulation again, what went down
approximately means something to me
then, and time has forgiven
all of them

and yet as i sit here there are children
in sweat shops in countries whose names
i scarcely know, putting coffee on my table
and cheap t-shirts on my back, so i sit here
unforgiven whining that memory cheats
us, and man is a lack
perhaps the children mean more than that
(we are white and they are black)

--David McLean is Welsh but has lived in Sweden since 1987. He lives there in a cottage on a hill with a woman, five selfish cats, and a stupid puppy. He has a BA in History from Oxford, and an unconnected MA in philosophy, much later, from Stockholm. Details of his three available full length poetry books, various chapbooks, and 850 poems in or forthcoming at over 340 places online or in print over the last couple of years are at htpp://mourningabortion.blogspot.com. He never submits by snail mail since he has little money and he loves, or at least doesn't have anything against, trees. There's a new chapbook of dead snakes at Rain over Bouville, another is coming from Poptritus Press in the summer. A novella Henrietta Forgets is forthcoming from Isms Press. Round the beginning of next year a large 250 page anthology of his poetry called laughing at funerals will be appearing with Epic Rites Publications, as well as a 50 poem chapbook called Hellbound which is appearing sooner. For Epic Rites he edits the chapbook series and has recently begun to edit the e-zines lines written w/ a razor and the thin edge of staring as well as selecting work for the radio network. Submissions guidelines are at http://www.epicrites.netsubmissions.html.

Quoteable

"Writers are born to write and doctors to heal. You can't run away from what you are, Slade, especially if what you are includes the legs you run with." --Grant Morrison

Painters' Exhalations 100

Painters' Exhalations 100

--after Jaroslav Valečka's The Moonlight

The moonlight draws specialized angle
deceits comparable to skaters
etching conceptual numbers onto ice's
veined lumbar.

Woman leans in orange

an autumn visual developed
between creases of a forest's
fabricated congregation. Her face

missing emotion, translucent
attire draping where eyes would
scour any being crawling on
estimated time.

Somewhere, distance cannot find
accurate reliability

those, the worshipers of positional stars. She remains
broken at the waist
of crave

though the moonlight cradles her in infant
style coating, attempting motherly
language coaxing self into
subtle relaxation.

--Felino Soriano (California) is a philosophy student and case manager working with developmentally and physically disabled adults. Felino edits the online experimental poetry journal Counterexample Poetics. He is the author of two chapbooks Exhibits Require Understanding Open Eyes (Trainwreck Press, 2008) and Feeling Through Mirages (Shadow Archer Press, 2008), as well as an e-book Among the Interrogated (BlazeVOX [books], 2008). A chapbook is also forthcoming Abstract Appearance Reaching Toward the Absolute (Trainwreck Press, 2008). The juxtaposition of his philosophical studies with his love of classic and avant-garde jazz explains his poetic stimulation.

Quoteable

From Stephanie Chandler's How To Start And Run A Used Book Store:

"You just never know what you're going to find in used books..."

The Old Story

THE OLD STORY

A soft whisper knocks on my heart
Beseeching me yet again to take heed
Of the swirling whirlwind of newborn
Emotions: the new-sprung sensations

While unprecedented, my old heart
Captures the immense impression
Pervading the universe once again
Conveying: the world is full of sorrow.

--Ashutosh Ghildiyal was born in 1984 in Lucknow, India. His work has appeared or been accepted for publication in the following print and online magazines: Houston Literary Review, Oak Bend Review, Taj Mahal Review, River Poets Journal, The Storyteller, Cantaraville, Fear and Trembling, Calliope, Indite Circle, Mad Swirl, Word Catalyst Magazine, Perpetual Magazine, Cynic Online Magazine, and Calliope Nerve.

Accident

Accident

My chin opens and out falls confetti and candy into my lap and I tell myself it’s funny because I knew I was a piñata.

My jaw pieces in two and when I shake my lettuce head my loose-skinned cheeks flap and slap against my neck like wet pizza slices and I spit salt and maple syrups splash and trickle down my shirt and congeal in the folds and seams of my clothing and slowly dry in broken glass.

Frosting pumps volcanically from my deviled ears and crusts in my moosed hair and sideburns like cheese sweat and tastes like chocolate fudge lava and I lap my ears and smile and think about trying to get someone else to taste the incredible flavor malting from my earlobes.

My forehead sticks to an airbag with cherry fruit roll up skin and my arms are cherry stems and my hands are stripped cherry pits and I touch my tongue against the bag and my taste buds pucker and squeeze themselves shut and piss vinegar drops that wash against my corncob teeth and the glass wedged between my corncob teeth.

My jalapeño nose is a banana split sprinkled under coco shavings and bleeding Hawaiian punch and my tongue is a full-bodied Cuban cigar burning slow and balanced and waters my eyes raining espresso tears that dribble and stain my cream cheesed pants as veined as wild mint leaves.

One cheek is an onion on the dashboard steaming like waffle maker baking buttermilk batter and I find my sausage shins straddled in the passenger seat and I see a hole in my stomach open and a mushroomed tongue rolls out onto the floorboards sucks the oil and juice from my gyro calves and my lox lungs inflate and deflate.

The walnut steering wheel cracks and bounces like a spring coiled like a candy cane and I smell the evergreen sap from the Christmas tree it hung and I can see the tinseled branches glitter in soft candle light and I taste the wax melt and creep from my eggnogged nostrils and when the sirens bite like whiskey when they come and sing like sleigh bells and feel like snow on the wreath of my neck.

When my eyes roll out of my head they are replaced my melon flavored gumballs which my sockets chew and drool and saliva runs down my funnel caked face onto the Popsicle stick shift bent to the side and sticking through my chicken thigh like skewered Easter ham honey-baked in caramel and gourmet pepper marinade and I can feel my peach-fuzzed heart bristle.

My face plum rolls from the dash and prunes on my planate feet and my popcorn eyes wave at my shrimp-curled body cocktailed behind the seatbelt and baking like yeast around twine and my head rests between my sneakers curled in balls like scoops of strawberry yogurt swollen with orange pulp melting in an oven sun.

My bones poke through cotton like hollow shoots of sugarcane and I get frightened and start to scream but my throat is full of warm cookie dough and I think with my cabbage brain this is okay because it happens all the time and I have trouble swallowing and tasting the sun’s lemon zest and I feel my grape toes wiggle and I watch the wine tumbler glow the shattered glass casts and the wasabi sirens sound and remind me of the jingle from the ice cream truck in summer in the afternoon and I will listen to for a few more moments resting like relish in my sardine can.

--Adam Moorad’s writing has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Underground Voices, Titular, DOGZPLOT, Thieves Jargon, and Pear Noir! He lives in Brooklyn and works in publishing.

Tryst

Tryst

prearranged,
in secret,
for it could not be otherwise,
to meet,
in that garbage-strewn lane,
in that dingy cubicle,
more a hovel,
filthy, stinking, dark,
to remain undiscovered...

for luke-warm tea, a day old,
in chipped, mismatched, unwashed mugs;
for bug-infested burlap bedding
on a rudely-planked floor;
for anonymity, for silence, for a separate peace,
to be timed, accounted for, paid for
in every way imaginable


then a coin, a shifting of eyes, a yielding nod,
to the thinly smiling landlord,
collaborator,
master of your soul,
now imprisoned in the trysting cage

time borrowed, or snatched, if need be,
cost-be-damned,
for a love like a lily in the slime:
tentative, out of place, alien.
impermanent,
alive only in a shame belittling...

yet in whispers urgent,
rationalizing, justifying, assuring;
in murmurs bitter-sweet with kisses sere;
in coaxing and cajoling,
the vows are renewed,
for yet another assignation,
to be dared,
in weakness and in doubt,
at the very edge
where twilight dreams of a better time
lie just beyond,
out of reach,
there, forever taunting...

--Cat Roberts (no bio provided)

Masquerade

Masquerade

(i)
We're fascinated with the mask.
Behind one,
we can appear so very differently:
a secret inside out,
reinvented,
to suit whatever is our purpose --
though more as Hyde than as Jekyll,
if the truth be told

Behind one,
we play dangerously,
as if around a fire unrestrained,
teasing, taunting, daring us
to deceitfully pledge ourselves,
irresponsibly, recklessly, impossibly,
to claim the forbidden fruit...
And like water caught in lakes,
reflecting any image that comes
seducing,
we're shown for who we are
But do we really care?

(ii)
Swirling, rippling, leaping,
we're taken to that other shore
by the gusting, wayward wind,
where boldly, recklessly, radiantly,
we masquerade,
so that we shimmer and glow,
sparkle and flare,
like the fragments of a flaming star,
falling,
come to blind, to claim, to take
the foolish in our lust,
the sacred in our lie,
the astonished in our wake...

--Cat Roberts (no bio provided)

Quoteable

"...beauty was not only skin deep sometimes it was everything." --Marie Phillips

Coffee

Coffee

By Norbert Luciano

Let's be truthful: Coffee is an addiction. But so what? It's a decided add to our diction at any time we have to communicate verbally. If you don't believe me, try making sense to anyone (including yourself) in the morning without at least some caffeine in liquid form. Utter nonsense. Worse, gibberish. Example: "Gud Maugin! Huzit'gunin?" -- for "Good Morning! How's it goin'?" But with coffee you become, in an instant, articulate, even eloquent. You want proof? Ask yourself the reason for the ooh's and aah's you hear, the nodding of heads you see agreeing (to even nothing of worth you may say), and the smiles to demonstrate the willingness to come together, unbidden... You want harmony? Unity? Universal Brotherhood? Or call in some favors? Get that coffee going early, fresh, strong; and keep it going!

I know a sales director who'd thought the world of himself: Clever, able to inspire, develop and build successful salespeople. But he was soon disabused of the idea. It wasn't him but the coffee the company was providing, something called Calliope Roast.

A revelation!

Coffee is miraculous, healing, transforming. With a freshly-brewed cup of the stuff in hand, you can as casually entertain the anomaly you find in your office as shrug off the familiar nagging of your wife; smile a welcome at the appearance of a banshee; raise an amused eyebrow at the antics of a trio of harpies... In short, you can hold your own in today's economic transformation -- with coffee.

[Incidentally, coffee in you makes for that attitude that declares, "Let 'em morph and see if I care!]

With coffee, you can face the chaos of a manic morning: Insane traffic and road rage; feverish office memos on what you've failed to do the day before, and sales quotas you're to meet -- today; and, people you have to win over to your side, relationally, like your daughter, your guardian angel, your Doberman, and your pint-sized, combed-over boss.

Without coffee, you immediately suffer from a debilitating, combined assault: A migraine headache, disorientation, and severe dementia. You can't see or hear or speak properly. You stutter, then you stammer, then slur (unintentionally). With back to the nearest wall, you slide down to a sitting position, hug your shaky, weakened knees close to you, and go into a crying jag.

You miss your mommy, your patched-up teddy, "Tiki-Poo," your cup of java.

But people passing by understand. They take pity on you. They toss what change they can spare, notwithstanding the economy we're all experiencing these days.

Of course, soon, with the handful of quarters tight in hand, you struggle to your feet, stagger down to the coffee cart right across from your office, and buy yourself a cup of the black elixir.

"Black!" you croak. "No milk, no sugar, no nuthin'!"

The coffee guy understands. He's seen everything. The most extreme cases to do with caffeine deprivation. An authority on the subject. He hands you a styrofoam cup filled with the dark, oily liquid -- no milk, no sugar, no nuthin' in it. Just like you asked.

"Bokar," he tells you.

You don't care. Bokar, Colombian, French, Sumatran -- whatever. It's not about people. It's about coffee. As long as the infusion is fresh and strong and black!

Gratefully, you receive the cup in both hands, shaking; and you sip. Ahhh! Soon, you're slurping away, gulping down the stuff like there's no tomorrow.

"Coffee," you explain to those anxiously lined up for the same stuff you're drinking.

They nod. No need to explain. They, too, understand. They matter-of-factly forgive you your pig-like, trough-jumping conduct of a moment ago, your glistening sweat, your pitiful addiction. They move on up...

You go to work, no longer blind, deaf, mute.

There's coffee in your veins now.

You smile. You straighten up, throwing back your shoulders.

You walk confidently.

You're okay.

You're ready.

Come what may.

Even your pint-sized, combed-over boss!

--As a young man, Norbert Luciano was a news reporter for publications in the Philippines and Hong Kong; and a news correspondent, based in Macau, for an American news service. While in Hong Kong, he interviewed, researched and wrote, Early to Rise a well reviewed satire on the Chinese commune system. He has also taught English in Hong Kong and in New York City public schools.

Quoteable

"The last Chrysanthemum some say their petals endure the winter frosts. I find their beauty... heartbreaking."

Music and Listening

MUSIC AND LISTENING

"Music – everybody listens to music these days. Is there anything surprising in that? If we look backwards in time, we will see that it was not always so. Music then was music – not the good music-bad music, rock music-classical music, this music and that music. Music can only be music – neither good nor bad – whatever else there is, is non-music. Music in the past was not merely a form of entertainment but something more. Moreover, only the few used to listen to music, as was the case with all art. There were few pretences in this regard and it was not a means of achieving fame or success. It was life for some, means of worship for some, and for some it was a means of great expression, beyond words and images. The tones, the sounds employed, the instruments were all a very personal medium for the musician to reach into himself and go beyond it,” I said to my friend Virendra, one day after listening to Bach.

It had been a year since I started taking music seriously and found great pleasure in doing so. Earlier, all I used to listen to was some Hindi film music and some of the latest, most popular English and Hindi pop music. It was always a means of entertainment for me, a means of passing time, a means of having some activity in the background while doing something else so that I didn’t get bored. I had never actually paid attention to it before.

Virendra said, “Like all other arts, music has declined in the last 30 or so years. Music has now become associated with images, ideas and for entertainment, partying and all the rest. Most so-called music these days is nothing but empty sounds, put together by a lot of people, using all kinds of artificial means to manipulate the sounds to achieve one end – popularity. That is what popular music is. Moreover, a division has been created, probably on the basis of outward form – between classical and popular music. But if one listens, actually listens, what one hears is only music. If one simply listens, without comparing what one hears to his or her idea of music, only then one can see what music is.”

I was new to Mumbai and Virendra was my only friend here, so usually on weekends and whenever I had a day off, I went to his place to stay over. He was an old friend of mine, from the time when I was in Delhi. We used to stay together at a paying guest hostel. Our rooms were close by and we often used to spend time together.

I said, “In India, only classical forms of music have survived, probably because it has been not popular and most of its exponents have not succumbed to the motives of personal ambition or fame. In the West, the same is the case with classical music, though there the quality depends upon the interpretation of the performer or the conductor. In popular music, several good attempts were made, in rock, punk, and jazz in the years before the 80s. Since then, there has been a gradual decline in popular music. The decades of the 60s and 70s were especially productive for music in many ways – there was a regeneration, a breaking from the traditional forms, but soon afterwards, it collapsed again.”

At first, I used to resist anything new, since it was not already known to me. I used to remain content with what was familiar since it gave me a certain degree of comfort. Now I was realizing how small my world was and how vast were the unexplored territories. Music was what helped me realize this more than anything else. I couldn’t follow the music; it always seemed to be so complex, moving so fast that I couldn’t keep up with it. I would try to interpret it, give it my own meaning. At first, I tried to concentrate, focusing on it, thinking about it, and so I could never really listen. I could follow the idea of music but not the music itself. I used to feel that there is something much more than this which I’m not able to get at. I couldn’t get it totally, completely. There was always an intellectual barrier; there was always this division between the “me” and the music. I could never simply listen with ease and attention.

I had been finding myself becoming more and more intimate with music lately. I saw the beauty, the importance of music as a part of human existence. I started listening to it openly, afresh, with no expectations whatsoever and found that by listening without an idea, I could listen so well. Music was teaching me how to listen.

“Music, like life, is a movement", he said, "It’s not a static thing. The “me”, which is the idea, the knowledge, is the past, and so can never follow the movement which is taking place in the “now”; it can only follow its own shadow but never the actual, what is happening. This “me” is time. And the "now" is always out of time. It's pretty simple, lets not complicate it. It is always the part, the fragment that listens, and therefore there is no listening at all. Listening to music is the same as listening to another, to the birds, the trees, the wind. If there is any effort, any conscious attempt to listen, then there is no listening. Only in freedom from self-consciousness can there be listening.
I understood, but it was still not clear; clarity was what I wanted; it was as if I was trying to see a distant object in a thick fog.

"One can’t define what music is – any attempt to define music physically does not suffice. One has to hear, with clear senses, untainted by expectation or comparison to see the beauty of music,” he said, as if reading my thoughts. “Music is always out of time. If you are actually, attentively listening, there will be no sense of time. It is this quality of music that has made so many of the great composers exalt it as a divine virtue. Music has an effect on the body and the mind – not as two distinct effects but as one total effect. It affects the senses in various ways, and when one is in harmony with the music, then it ceases to be something separate, something outside of oneself – you become the music. Music is harmony and music is beauty. Music has the quality of expressing the inexpressible. One can’t approach music with one’s own peculiar likes or dislikes and tastes, which are all a part of one’s own conditioning. Music is something both extraordinarily complex and simple at the same time. We are not used to listening to anything except our own thoughts, therefore we can’t sense the beauty of music. Because we are always trying to do things according to our own peculiar tastes and likes and dislikes that we have built up, we become deaf to all other sounds. But when we drop all that and simply listen, then sound becomes a most wonderful thing – the complexity of it, the depth, the clearness, the penetration, the opening of many doors it leads towards, is inexpressible and beyond words.”

How well he could put it all into words! The things that I had faintly realized and which were not so clear to me became clear as light on hearing him.

--Ashutosh Ghildiyal was born in 1984 in Lucknow, India. His work has appeared or been accepted for publication in the following print and online magazines: Houston Literary Review, Oak Bend Review, Taj Mahal Review, River Poets Journal, The Storyteller, Cantaraville, Fear and Trembling, Calliope, Indite Circle, Mad Swirl, Word Catalyst Magazine, Perpetual Magazine, Cynic Online Magazine, and Calliope Nerve. This pieces is extracted from Ashutosh's "Music and Intelligence."

I WAS PRESENT AT THE BIRTH OF THE CHILD OF SUBJECTIVITY AND OBJECTIVITY

I WAS PRESENT AT THE BIRTH OF THE CHILD OF SUBJECTIVITY AND OBJECTIVITY

To go again into the social world
Would mean leaving an ancient oak,

The change would require
The packing with ice of platitudes, stereotypes, and the lies
People speak and believe their spoken lies are truth, into

Styrofoam box, white.

The ice would slow the decay when I was alone.
With others, no ice would be needed.
Their presences would freeze and preserve.

I paint contrary to the laws of perspective. Uccello
Would understand
And remain sober.
I gave up the outline so to abandoned myself to chaos
And feel reality.

This close-up cup pressing its contours against lips
Is in the closet of a far-way vacant, abandoned
Termite-eaten house.

Illusions have been painted for so long
That people believe illusions to be real.

I will paint without understanding,
So I will be freed from the inherited
And prevalent lies that form the foundations
Of our times.

I avoided the ready-mades that the ignorant
Mistake for what is impossible--
Originality.

I listen to no criticisms of my work,
For all critics are fools, and criticism
Is their opium, has nothing to do with truth,
Or the work that is supposed to be criticized.

I have discarded all the dichotomies
In which fools still believe, feeling and thought,
Emotion and reason, inner and outer, body and soul.

We are not cameras; we are not anti-cameras,
We are something else, something not known to anyone.

--Duane Locke lives by an ancient oak, an underground stream, and as an osprey’s home in rural Lakeland, Florida.

Future: A 400 page book of his poems, YANG CHU’s POEMS, to be published in April, 2009 by the Canadian publisher, Crossing Chaos.

Present: Featured poet and Interviewed (23pp.) in “Eviscerator Heaven #4."

Past: 6,198 poems published in print magazines and e zines.

The entire issue, Vol. 10, No, 1 of The Bitter Oleander contains his poems
And 92pp. Interview.

For further information, click Duane Locke on Google Search, 138,000 entries.

Quoteable

"If you like the idea of a country where comics are the mainstream media.. you'll be checking out the new Lone Wolf and Cub." --Carl Custav Horn (Pulp Magazine)

INTERRUMPERE

INTERRUMPERE

The car, the color of
Urban al fresco café espresso coffee,
One-eight cream filled, grappa corrected, or

The color of overcooked home cooked bread, or

The color of scroll paper on which an apology
Was written before the writer was stake-burned,

                                                                 The
Color
           I respond to depends upon the tallness
Of the umbrella pine that segments the sun, or
The scene processor
                                 In the Council of Trent’s red
Cloaks that are cartoons inside my skull,

It all seemed baroque with painted angels
Becoming solid  and lifelessly flying as they became
sculptures when they broke away from
The ceiling’s flat fresco,
                                       It seemed I was
Leaving Italy, not France in this 
Fiat, but it was France I was leaving.


The Fiat, or Fate, or a Fiction, crossed a
Fiction,
             A border, a boundary, 
A
Demarcation of separation and sovereignty,
As her separation was her sovereignty.
Now with her power she rules me.
A shower of holy water from her eyes
Drowned our grotesque togetherness,
Put an end to being etherized and epiphanies,

The end of collocation and the collusion
Of a wedding cake’s funeral march and an initiation
Rite, ritual into adulthood at age fifty-five.



Now in Alsace-Lorraine, the raw-board table
With a bowl of soap, the soap a fiction
As it is novelistic, not real, the type of soap
That drunk authors have their peasants drink,
Although no such soap exists.

--Duane Locke lives by an ancient oak, an underground stream, and as an osprey’s home in rural Lakeland, Florida.

Future: A 400 page book of his poems, YANG CHU’s POEMS, to be published in April, 2009 by the Canadian publisher, Crossing Chaos.

Present: Featured poet and Interviewed (23pp.) in “Eviscerator Heaven #4."

Past: 6,198 poems published in print magazines and e zines.

The entire issue, Vol. 10, No, 1 of The Bitter Oleander contains his poems
And 92pp. Interview.

For further information, click Duane Locke on Google Search, 138,000 entries.

“THE OSCURE REGION WHENCE COMES INSTITUTED LIGHT,” MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY

“THE OSCURE REGION WHENCE COMES INSTITUTED LIGHT,” MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY

1.
Leaves fall, spin subito
As if in Italy with her, the
Falling sends out destabilized scintillations
Of Scarlatti.

The UPS is carrying a slab
Of stucco to someone who
Is not a home. A mistake,
Styptic pencils were ordered.

As the cooked-lobster-
Colored leaves spin in their fall,
I turn. The fall is too high an octave
To be heard by the
Ears on each side of my head,
But are heard by the ears of nerves,
Too many violins
Have broken strings.
Too many aural bodhisattavas,
Are with scissors shaping
Flowers from paper.

2.
Probabilities
Like upright nails in tossed-
a-
Way
Boards are puncturing
The inner tubes of the brain.
The leaks are prisms and prisons,
rain bowed bars moving like
Chrome-hub-capped wheels.
The traveling is a cameo,
A profile sculptured from a
Bleached shell.
The destination is an empty
Rowboat shadowed
By bamboo and a bobolink.

3.
In the motion, the mobility of
Leaf

Falling, there is a lost of momentum.
The accumulation is acorns.
The future trees
Are minus signs.
The spatial sense
Is unpaid rent.
Della Robbia sculpts
A scorpion by a
Basalt arroyo in Asia.
My bathroom mirror
Reflects a chorus
Kicking in a can can.
Their garters have
Portraits of Cesare Borgia,
Separated by blue nails.
She is in a canvas-tent,
Sawdust tabernacle;
I by a grotesque table,
Two glasses meant
To be filled with Armagnac
And shook, but still
And filled with Either-Ors.

--Duane Locke lives by an ancient oak, an underground stream, and as an osprey’s home in rural Lakeland, Florida.

Future: A 400 page book of his poems, YANG CHU’s POEMS, to be published in April, 2009 by the Canadian publisher, Crossing Chaos.

Present: Featured poet and Interviewed (23pp.) in “Eviscerator Heaven #4."

Past: 6,198 poems published in print magazines and e zines.

The entire issue, Vol. 10, No, 1 of The Bitter Oleander contains his poems
And 92pp. Interview.

For further information, click Duane Locke on Google Search, 138,000 entries.

THE INAUTHENTIC THEY SELF

THE INAUTHETIC THEY SELF

The daughter by the water
Watched
Her quiver;
She, a dance on a river.

The cloister in her was covert.
It was built by bar talk heard by
her father
Who existed as vapor, and
Drums in dust.

The mother sat on the lap
Of a Gothic desert
With gallops, spun
Around in the yin
And yang of gin.

The daughter’s hands, amputated, gestured
According
To the gazettes of invisible,
Geometric puppet masters, far-away,
Reading tip charts, tabloids,
Horoscopes at race tracks.

Her hands’ shadows twisted across
Membranes, the
Gold eyes of a frog who wrote
With his voice love sonnets
While adorning a lily pad.

The frog heard splashes,
Heard approaching
Frog
Foot tracks on water.

--Duane Locke lives by an ancient oak, an underground stream, and as an osprey’s home in rural Lakeland, Florida.

Future: A 400 page book of his poems, YANG CHU’s POEMS, to be published in April, 2009 by the Canadian publisher, Crossing Chaos.

Present: Featured poet and Interviewed (23pp.) in “Eviscerator Heaven #4."

Past: 6,198 poems published in print magazines and e zines.

The entire issue, Vol. 10, No, 1 of The Bitter Oleander contains his poems
And 92pp. Interview.

For further information, click Duane Locke on Google Search, 138,000 entries.

THE OBVIOUS WITHDRAWS AND EMERGES

THE OBVIOUS WITHDRAWS AND EMERGES

There was in the parlor
The levitation of putti, a levitation

With

Closed wings.

The putti stayed gold,
As long as
The observer believed the putti were gold,
But
When
The observed actually looked at the putti,
They were the red, the red of
Of slab of meat found on hooks in slaughterhouses.

Each levitating putti had his wings
Tightly pressed against his sides of his flesh.
There was the suspicion
Their arms were missing.

We sit, she and I, sat still in the parlor,
Sit across from each other.

The putti leviated,
Bumped into each other.

--Duane Locke lives by an ancient oak, an underground stream, and as an osprey’s home in rural Lakeland, Florida.

Future: A 400 page book of his poems, YANG CHU’s POEMS, to be published in April, 2009 by the Canadian publisher, Crossing Chaos.

Present: Featured poet and Interviewed (23pp.) in “Eviscerator Heaven #4."

Past: 6,198 poems published in print magazines and e zines.

The entire issue, Vol. 10, No, 1 of The Bitter Oleander contains his poems
And 92pp. Interview.

For further information, click Duane Locke on Google Search, 138,000 entries.

Paranormal Ringtone

Paranormal Ringtone

My sad cunt
it's (Pretty pink curtains)
Lit by fireflies.

--Lucindo Anthony is a poet from Maine.

Quoteable

"I enjoy every moment for what it is and not what it could be. I find great amusement in consequences for my actions. I am not for this world, this world is for me." --Roger Dillon

Quoteable

“Shut me off cus I go crazy with this planet in my hands.” --Monster Magnet

Calliope Ears: The Music of Calliope, Music To Edit By

“We’re stuck inside our own machine.” –Matthew Good Band (Appartions)



There's a soundtrack to out editing.

A soundtrack to our life.

A soundtrack to our escape.

What is an Unbook?

Found via the Warren Ellis weblog:

The Book As Open Source Software.

And another The Open Intelligence Agency.

Quoteable

“I lost some time once. It's always in the last place you look for it.” --Neil Gaiman

Lightbulb Schnapps, America!

Lightbulb Schnapps, America!

Sweetened
puffed wheat
teeming w/ flies

(Doctor Who
mini-eggrolls)

brain-food
for the hawk-
headed scribe.

--J.D. Nelson experiments with words and sound at: MadVerse.com. This piece originally appeared in Calliope Nerve IX: Introduce Me to God.

Quoteable

"...each essay reveals its own close, personal musical affair..." --Steve Rostkoski

Big Star: Great Expectations?

BIG STAR: GREAT EXPECTATIONS?

Expectations are tricky things. A lot of the time, especially after anxiously waiting for something for a long period of time, our expectations are so impossibly high that when the real thing arrives it’s a letdown. On the other hand, when expectations are met, or even exceeded, it can be an earthshaking, memorable event. I remember thinking, when I finally tracked down a tape of Springsteen’s 1978 pre-Christmas Seattle show, that the concert couldn’t possibly be as great as I remembered it. However, the tape tuned out to be a whole lot better than I ever imagined. Even fellow tape traders who didn’t actually go to the show agreed that the performances (Bruce’s singing and guitar playing have rarely been better) and the song selection made the concert special. I’ve been thinking about how expectations have played a role in my discovery of some of my favorite music, specifically the music of Big Star.

My expectations could not have been higher for Big Star’s music. Around 1980, I noticed the name Big Star cropping up in the music press all the time. Power pop bands were sprouting up everywhere and many of them were being compared to this band called Big Star, and I gathered from what I read that they were a Beatle-like cult band that put out a few albums in the seventies. I’m an absolute sucker for Beatlesque pop if it’s done well, so I set out to find anything released by the band. I soon found out that all of Big Star’s albums were out of print and impossible to find. The closest I could get were albums by Alex Chilton, former member of the Box Tops and one of the founders of Big Star, but they were expensive imports and I wasn’t sure if they were a good place to start. Reviews of his concerts and LPs at the time said they were drunken, sloppy affairs and every write-up seemed to say that Chilton’s best work was behind him. Of course this best work they were talking about was the music of Big Star. The music I could not find anywhere on the face of the earth.

Finally, after at least six years of searching (with my expectations rising all the while) a small American label released Big Star’s third and final album called Sister Lovers. The album was recorded in 1974 and never completed, but various record companies around the world had released their own versions of the album using the tapes. Sister Lovers could almost be considered a Chilton solo album since at this point the band had deteriorated down to only Alex and drummer Jody Stephens. This was sure a strange place to start my journey into Big Star’s music, with an unfinished work by just two members of the group. And to top it off, my pressing of the record was awful.

Well, I ended up adding a whole new layer of noise to it since I wore the damn thing out! Sister Lovers is darkly beautiful, not unlike the Velvet Underground’s third album (the Velvets comparison is really quite obvious since Alex covers their “Femme Fatale”). There are traces of power pop on songs like “Kizza Me” and “Jesus Christ,” but most of the album is made up of bleak ballads like “Holocaust” and “Big Black Car.” The whole thing is more reminiscent of Lou Reed’s Berlin than anything like the Beatles, which sure confounded my expectations at the time, but Sister Lovers got me hooked on Big Star anyway.

It seemed like the Big Beat label in England was just waiting to satisfy my hunger for more Big Star, because they reissued the band’s first two records only a few months after I found Sister Lovers. I snapped them up immediately. I remember strapping on the headphones and putting #1 Record on the turntable for the first time and my jaw dropping in wonder a short time later. I can only recall a few times previously or since that I’ve been so floored by music so wonderful. I am still awed by the beauty of “The Ballad of El Goodo,” which just happens to be playing at the very moment I write this. The gentle “hold on” refrain and the tuneful guitar riffs always get to me.

#1 Record is the cause of all the comparisons to the Beatles. This is mostly because it is the only album that band cofounder Chris Bell was heavily involved with and his approach was more smooth and melodic than Chilton’s rough-edged style. Beatle influences certainly abound but I hear traces of other British too, especially on the song “In the Street,” which sounds like a marriage of the early Kinks and Who at their most powerful.

As good as #1 Record is, The next Big Star release, Radio City, is even better and is one of my all-time favorite records. Chris Bell had left the band by this time because of conflicts with Alex and frustration over the lack of success of the first album, so on this second album Chilton is more in charge. The sound is predictably rougher, led by Alex’s distinctive guitar, which is somehow incredibly distorted and clear at the same time. The songs are still melodic (I can’t think of a more melodic tune than “September Gurls”) but are more unpredictable. “Daisy Glaze” for example starts off soft and slow then kicks into overdrive with the best guitar hooks this side of Badfinger’s “No Matter What.” These two records are only about 35 minutes each, so I played them back to back the first day I got them and have done so ever since. I recommend that you do the same, especially now that both albums are now available on one CD.

I’m a little envious of people who are just discovering Big Star today since all their stuff has been reissued on CD and is easily found. Ah well, this music deserved to be heard, so what am I complaining about? Rykodisc not only issued an expanded version of Sister Lovers a few years ago, they also released a live radio broadcast of the band from the early seventies, and Chris Bell’s solo work. The live album is wonderful enough (The rockers are tougher, the ballads more tender than on the studio albums), but the real surprise is Bell’s I Am the Cosmos collection. His work on #1 Record only hints at the pop greatness found here. Like Big Star’s first record, Beatles/Who/Kinks influences are apparent, but the songs seem more distinctive and focused on Chris’s own album. The title track is a classic bit of psychedelic Lennonism that could’ve, should’ve been a hit single. With the song “Speed of Sound,” Bell somehow makes the cheesy synthesizer sound that was so popular in the seventies heartbreaking, and I melt each and every time I hear it. I Am the Cosmos received good reviews when it came out but I doubt that very many people heard it. You don’t even have to wait years to hear it like I did, so check it out as soon as you can. It will live up to your expectations, I promise.

“I Am the Cosmos “ is also the highlight of the new live album made from the Big Star reunion concert that took place last year. Alex Chilton and Jody Stephens got together with two members of the Posies to play the music that Chilton has all but refused to perform for over a decade. Chris Bell was killed in a car crash in 1978 but this version of “Cosmos” is so nice that I’ve got to believe he can hear it as he floats about the cosmos himself. Sure, the performances are a bit rough and bumpy in spots, but they play most of the Big Star songs that you would want to hear plus a couple of covers (T. Rex’s “Baby Strange” and Todd Rundgren’s “Slut”). A fan’s expectations met again.

In the song “Thirteen” on #1 Record, Chilton evokes the magic that music held for people who grew up in the sixties. A new song by the Beatles or Stones wasn’t just a new record release, it was an event. An event that maybe could change the world. Yeah, music could change the world, right? Well, I’m older now and more realistic but that doesn’t mean music can no longer be magical. I am still floored whenever I listen to Big Star. Every single time I put on their music, I’m truly amazed at how great it is. All my expectations fulfilled. Every impossible time.

--Steve Rostkoski is a life-long music fan and studied recording engineering and library technology. He has worked as a library technician, archival cataloger, freelance journalist and publisher. His essays and reviews have appeared in Crawdaddy!, No Depression, The Rocket and other periodicals. This essay is from Rostkoski's Letter to the Vatican which began in 1991 as a self-published zine created for the writers' group APA Centauri.

Sleepless Piano

"Liar, lawyer, mirror, for you what's the difference? ...You must of been high." --Tool



Gabcast! White Rabbit - *BLACK HOLE* #1

Sleepless Piano

Another sleepless
Piano angel
Secret musing
What is word
When the world should
be dreaming...

Outsider (zero, zero)
On a Black night
Looking through my glass
Another Fault line mind.

Do you play piano too?

Rose resistance
--one petal at a time--
Shake.
Shake.
Can't believe
Machine.

The keys strike
The parlor grand plays
sound of my off tune lullaby
Barely audible
Behind the sound
Of Tortured
Soul.

Baby, baby, (please don't)
cry!
It's been
Two hours
Forty seven minutes
and counting....

And I gotta get some
rest.

--Nobius Black wears many hats. He’s a father-of-four, husband, Aikido black belt, martial arts school owner/instructor, independent book seller, freelance writer, editor, poet, APA Centauri Central Mailer, scrap dealer, gardener, obsessive reader, comic book collector, freight forwarder (by trade), and the creator of Calliope Nerve. He doesn’t sleep enough.

The Brightest Stars

The Brightest Stars

looking up at the satellites
bluffing space paste as diamonds

giving them far out names
and mapping new constellations

we came to realise we are just compass
wanderers lost for centuries

so we sat back smoking spliff
outside the disused factory

looking up to the sign that read
space to let

--P.A.Levy, having fled his native East End, now hides in the heart of Suffolk countryside learning the lost arts of hedge mumbling and clod watching. He has been published in many magazines and is an original member of the Clueless Collective to be found at: www.cluelesscollective.co.uk.

Dive Bomb Kites

Dive Bomb Kites

In a shop window
amongst discounted items
end of line cut price bargains
she studies herself,
as a see-through slither 
with a heart shaped box agenda
full of sad and lonely poems
and dried plum blossom
as seen 
from behind the ruins
of eyelid veins;
blue and swollen.

Standing under an umbrella 
(how those spokes make handy gallows
to hang buttercups
for the crime of being bright
and yellow) 
with a hand picked collection 
of thoughts
she’s as still as gloomy punctuation
knowing that this pessimism 
is only at a beginner’s level.

She vowed, there and then, 
to adopt a hobby; cloud fishing 
with sob shaped kites as bait, 
enough to bring a big black 
heavy 
thunder roar crashing down
upon her head. Cast off
for an overburdened nimbostratus.
Be dark: 
I will be beautiful in dark.
And that shall be the end.

--P.A.Levy, having fled his native East End, now hides in the heart of Suffolk countryside learning the lost arts of hedge mumbling and clod watching. He has been published in many magazines and is an original member of the Clueless Collective to be found at: www.cluelesscollective.co.uk.

Genesis

Genesis

Rubixed labyrinth
shovel my collection
of Question Marks.

--Lucindo Anthony is a poet from Maine.

Territorial Marks

TERRITORIAL MARKS

The orange sphere is visible
between two ugly buildings
as it's rays diminish to announce
the arrival of late evening

And the hustle and bustle
of people passing by in rush
as the honking horns amplify
the afflictive sounds of traffic

And the dustbins, the litter
lying around them alongside
the poor beggars beside the
traffic signals and the smoke

And as the neon lamps light up
the busy roads, the purple sky
I pass by a dirty wall which says:
Don't pee here you dog!

--Ashutosh Ghidyal writes poetry, short fiction and essays. He is a salaried professional and is currently based in Mumbai. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in various print and online zines such as Houston Literary Review, Oak Bend Review, Taj Mahal Review, River Poets Journal, The Storyteller, Cantaraville, Bewildering stories, Indite Circle, Calliope, Calliope Nerve, Mad Swirl, and others.

Quoteable

“What if your heart stopped but the music didn’t?” –Jonathan Carroll