From 'R' by Peycho Kanev, Felino Soriano, Duane Locke, Edward Wells II

Painters’ Exhalations 142

—after Amanda Dow Thompson’s A Long Sigh


Such is the thickened waist of fog disposition
lying heavily atop the wounded
specialized species of a funeral’s
appearance.
This open door to the dead escaped
into, across a threshold’s secret code
explains voices of terror blinding hyperbole
hiding within the exhale emotion of a sigh’s
excreting energy.
Say a window eye looks into an outside
brimming with a form of brilliant color
allowing for a shape to follow a horizon’s
finger traced straightness, too, splaying
among a contemporary reason to understand
distance—
but this window’s lifting to reveal the atmosphere of
calling, occurs as a never,
and the watcher maintains amid stomach
deep beginning, climbing throat into posited breath
a speech of discontent absent of verbal positivity,
the sigh, the body winding slippery around
its comprised, apathetic prey.

From 'R' by Peycho Kanev, Felino Soriano, Duane Locke, Edward Wells II

The Poetry Is Nothing To Fuck With

Well, let me explain to you:

the bum on the street, with
the bottle hanging in his maddened
pocket,
retching his hand to you
is poetry
all the f-male creatures of the night
dressed in cut skirts and sucking
cigarettes in their colored mouths
are poetry
all the girls in the punk clubs
with their anger and their beauty
and their stamina
are poetry
the bombs that falls down in the trenches
and tear up bodies and transform them
into piles of useless organic junk
are poetry
the demented men in the madhouses,
strapped to their beds, foaming, cursing, shaking,
their heads full of pills and visions
are poetry
the bars full of quiet, sheltered, beautiful,
little people, staring down at their glasses
filled with hopes for something better
are poetry
Hemingway’s shotgun was poetry
the bullet too
the booze is
poetry
the drugs are
poetry
the dead trees
the wasted lands
the knife in your
hand
your girlfriend lying
in the bed
everything and
everyone
is poetry
and at the end
when this world
explodes into the nothing
it will be poetry too
no more
no
less.

Preview from 'Expectations' by Gary Beck

I SING MY LAND


America, gape-mouthed tourist
of glass and concrete crypts
where millions swim together
in ambition;
whose barns of plenty
overladen groan
not so loud as children's bellies.
You rutted span of highways
linking great oceans and countries
defiled by proclamations
to buy cigarettes and beer;
whose streets lurk pale men
awaiting black men
hated by shotguns.
Your streets of shattered derelicts
farms of restless visionaries
ever-naive wanderers
who lust the world with cameras,
are the disposessed
the refuse of rejection
the infinite mongrel
returning home.

Preview of 'Expectations' by Gary Beck

REVOLUTION


The time has come
to put the knife to wrinkled throats
and tell old men they are not Pharaohs.
When their fingers, ringed and palsied,
gestured in command,
young men coveting purple couches
rushed to obey.
Let us name the serpent hour,
when merciless coils entwine
around ancient, obese limbs
whose only pleasure is destruction,
and throttle their piteous whine,
while we start reconstruction.

Preview of 'Expectations' by Gary Beck

ETERNAL YEARNING


 Unprotected
naked beats the night.
In fluttering city
a young sparrow regains the nest.
The whore, the junkie,
where are they?
Who are they?
They are me,
helpless.
Sinuously twines the night
slithering serpentine,
twisting throttling coils,
choking, choking.
Long nights neon loneliness
flashing on off, on off.
What am I?
Lost weaver,
mad king of opiate visions,
blind captain tasting the fog
slinking past Hudson midnights.
The heart pounds, stops,
pounds again.
Come home, come home,
dream ancient as the earth.

Index Librorum Prohibitorum

Private Library: Index Librorum Prohbitorum.

From Private Library:

For a little over 400 years--from 1559 to 1966--the Roman Catholic Church proscribed what could and could not be read by the Catholic faithful in a series of lists of prohibited books, the infamous Index Librorum Prohibitorum.

The Illusion

The Illusion

You punish me to provide 

a spectacle of excess—tamp 

my testicles with affirmations 

of your power. Your mannequins blow 

and breathe urgency like naked 

bald-hydras morgue 

between Santiago and Lima 

where desert sands are voiceless. 

What is different between us 

is the intensity of our attraction. 

Oh, how many nooses 

I've stretch around the necks of gigolos 

at cul-de-sac social clubs 

where cellos moan 

and mouths wilt as I listen 

to tangos and pick up sugar 

dropped on the table 

trying to ignore the blood 

on my recently buffed shoes.



Sergio Ortiz is an educator, poet, and photographer.  He has a B.A. in English literature, and a M.A. in philosophy.  His photographs have been published or are forthcoming in: W5RAn.com,  The Neglected Ratio, and The Monongahela Review.  He was recently published, or is forthcoming in: The Battered Suitcase, Poor Mojo's Almanac(k), WTF PWM, The 13th Warrior Review, Dark Lady Poetry, and Writers’ Bloc.  Flutter Press published his debut chapbook, At the Tail End of Dusk (2009).  Ronin Press will publish his second chapbook: Topography of a Desire, due out in May.

The Rival

The Rival

We picnicked in the death stench 

of ripe West Indian cherries;

the long eared fox, his Catalina swimsuit 

princess and me, the occasional need for 

a secret gesture—a hand full 

of blind seeds—yes for yeses.  

She’d fall asleep on thin sand covered 

in suntan lotion.  I’d watch you try 

to woo her with your boa, yet it was me 

whose tinder cage you’d lit.  

I pretended to be the windshield wiper 

blowing out the flame in your large green eyes.  

Yes, I wanted you horizontal,

our heads in the interior of mirrors 

escaping down cobblestone alleys 

full of heavy sculpted women diminishing 

our perceptions, borrowing light from the Big Dipper.  

But when your eyes singed the air between us

she’d awaken and strain my lungs

through a conical sieve.

Your lips would parch and bleed.

We dropped her off at the guesthouse.

I wheeled silence the rest of the way home,

trying to avoid the ruts full of anger.



Sergio Ortiz is an educator, poet, and photographer.  He has a B.A. in English literature, and a M.A. in philosophy.  His photographs have been published or are forthcoming in: W5RAn.com,  The Neglected Ratio, and The Monongahela Review.  He was recently published, or is forthcoming in: The Battered Suitcase, Poor Mojo's Almanac(k), WTF PWM, The 13th Warrior Review, Dark Lady Poetry, and Writers’ Bloc.  Flutter Press published his debut chapbook, At the Tail End of Dusk (2009).  Ronin Press will publish his second chapbook: Topography of a Desire, due out in May.

On My Own

On My Own

¿Will there be a change 

in your voice next winter?  

—I prefer to shelter it with rum,

Walk through the monkey-puzzle tree route 

in the Andes.  Their leaves are as thick 

and tough as my hands, scale-like 

with sharp edges, heaving like my heart.  

The winds coming from the Pacific

fan out my reptilian branches.  Black-faced 

Ibis fly overhead.  At least I know 

they will return next spring.



Sergio Ortiz is an educator, poet, and photographer.  He has a B.A. in English literature, and a M.A. in philosophy.  His photographs have been published or are forthcoming in: W5RAn.com,  The Neglected Ratio, and The Monongahela Review.  He was recently published, or is forthcoming in: The Battered Suitcase, Poor Mojo's Almanac(k), WTF PWM, The 13th Warrior Review, Dark Lady Poetry, and Writers’ Bloc.  Flutter Press published his debut chapbook, At the Tail End of Dusk (2009).  Ronin Press will publish his second chapbook: Topography of a Desire, due out in May.

Sorcerer Bulbs

Sorcerer Bulbs

So I horn the ribbons

Towards the nail-dead alley..cluster of headfield hash

Creepers flow through the demerol screes

Fierce to step weird and cat and bleeding reptile

I’m on mirror..she’s for a box

Laddered on hemispheric snakes

I shuffle the prolific cards

Acidic they growl for the fire-bugs all around

Fox fox ache my teeth my robe

I lie everyday..

Bonnet flies beyond the attic

Fiddlers.. broken off

Melting like a postman

Rambling for the ribbons all autumn rust..



Swadesh Misra is a poet,photographer/graphic artist who lives in Calcutta,India. He has been working mainly on alternative & experimental literature since 2002. He has published 11 issues of a literary magazine called PRATISHEDHAK(Antidote through brain-blade nuisance) & is involved in the new age indie literary-creative movement in Calcutta. Misra published his first book 'Laal Panshala(Read Dead Ginmill) in 2009. He has his own independent blogbook called ANATOMY GROOVE. His next book will be published by the end of this year.

Anaesthesia Litter

Anaesthesia Litter

How the horns for a worm

Gurgle tonic beyond the table

For ash ..

Latex nerves I burn..burn

So immense wombs  buffoons  all  balloons

Loss of ice..stomached under  my theatre balls

Rust I am

Reeds I blow..kill the clothes

Anodes she passes through the ugly autumn..

Ruffles papers..worming of secretion to dial a railroad nimbus..in disguise

Loss of feet I paddle paddle down underneath

Kill her blood

Kill her frills

She’s on bones of submarine hues


Swadesh Misra is a poet, photographer/graphic artist who lives in Calcutta,India. He has been working mainly on alternative & experimental literature since 2002. He has published 11 issues of a literary magazine called PRATISHEDHAK(Antidote through brain-blade nuisance) & is involved in the new age indie literary-creative movement in Calcutta. Misra published his first book 'Laal Panshala(Read Dead Ginmill) in 2009. He has his own independent blogbook called ANATOMY GROOVE. His next book will be published by the end of this year.

Saint Layabout

saint layabout

i care more about

writing a good poem

than i could about

any kind of job

i have a lack of ambition

that startles people

they don’t know what to say

when i show it to them

i have a lost testicle

i haven’t even bothered to look for it

i can stare at a wall all day

and do it again the next day

i see people going

to the movies or to a parade

and i think why bother?

i let the dishes go for days

i wear what’s laying there

on the floor

i don’t know what a mop

looks like

or a broom

my living room hasn’t been swept

in three years

i’ve never cleaned a window or a mirror

the very act seems absurd to me

i stack books

when they fall over

i think they make a nice display

i’ll drink a flat beer

instead of walking to the corner

to get a fresh one

i eat the same thing every day

i wipe my ass with one piece of paper

i don’t make the bed

i let the mail sit

i’m the american dream incarnate

and i can see perfection in

a ball of dust

casually rolling across the room

on a sunny weekend

with the sun aching to get through

my heavy, drawn blinds


John Grochalski lives in Brooklyn, New York

Quoteable: Warren Ellis on Comics and The Speed of Fiction

"…part of comics’ gift is in the pace of reaction. They sit between music and books in terms of the speed in which contemporaneous works can be brought to market or otherwise disseminated. As Paul Gravett and Peter Stanley said, more than twenty years ago, about the new photocopier technology and the emergence of an enabled and mobile small press: comics are fast fiction…" --Warren Ellis

The Art of Michael McAloran

--Michael Mc Aloran was Belfast-born, his family moved to the south of Ireland due to 'The Troubles'. He spent a brief spell studying Fine Art & Design, but left after one disillusioned year. He has traveled extensively throughout Europe, living for short spells in both Holland and Italy. His work has been published by Poetry Monthly International, Lines Written W/A Razor, The Gloom Cupboard, Counterexample Poetics, Full of Crow, Gutter Eloquence, The Delinquent, Writing Raw, Calliope Nerve, The Recusant, Eviscerator Heaven, and The Plebian Rag. His chap The Rapacious Night was published by Calliope Nerve Media.

Quoteable

"Justice.

Vegeaance.

Arseface." --Garth Ennis

The Art of Michael McAloran

--Michael Mc Aloran was Belfast-born, his family moved to the south of Ireland due to 'The Troubles'. He spent a brief spell studying Fine Art & Design, but left after one disillusioned year. He has traveled extensively throughout Europe, living for short spells in both Holland and Italy. His work has been published by Poetry Monthly International, Lines Written W/A Razor, The Gloom Cupboard, Counterexample Poetics, Full of Crow, Gutter Eloquence, The Delinquent, Writing Raw, Calliope Nerve, The Recusant, Eviscerator Heaven, and The Plebian Rag. His chap The Rapacious Night was published by Calliope Nerve Media.

Quoteable

"If you want to kiss Elisabeth Shue, you have to know the way of the fist. Strike first! Strike hard! No Mercy!" --Al Franken

Warren Ellis notebook 20apr10

notebook 20apr10.

Peer into the mind of Ellis again.

The Secret Knots: Clarence

The Secret Knots: Clarence

Comics about the things we do without knowing why... and Thomas Waite.

The Art of Michael McAloran

--Michael Mc Aloran was Belfast-born, his family moved to the south of Ireland due to 'The Troubles'. He spent a brief spell studying Fine Art & Design, but left after one disillusioned year. He has traveled extensively throughout Europe, living for short spells in both Holland and Italy. His work has been published by Poetry Monthly International, Lines Written W/A Razor, The Gloom Cupboard, Counterexample Poetics, Full of Crow, Gutter Eloquence, The Delinquent, Writing Raw, Calliope Nerve, The Recusant, Eviscerator Heaven, and The Plebian Rag. His chap The Rapacious Night was published by Calliope Nerve Media.

Quoteable

"Who would want a Saint of Killers?" --Garth Ennis

Walking With Cewsh

Walking With Cewsh

You want to go for a walk, now, don't you, Cewsh? One more walk, before we turn in. Fair enough. How could I refuse such a simple request? Let me just get my boots on. It's been raining heavily, I might trip and fall on the driveway. And you wouldn't want to see me break a leg, would you?

No, no need to fuss over me. I've got them on. I'm not incapable of doing things myself. Just insane. Insanity doesn't mean I can't tie my own shoelaces though.

Right, they're on and I'm ready. Any particular way we're heading? You thought I should decide. Very well. Let's just walk out the door and see where the muse will take us then. Is the Judge coming with us? No, he stays here. Very well. Stay. Stay. Sit. Good boy.

He's staying. Though he'd rather come.

I named him after my own worst enemy. As a coping technique, it failed horribly. But then, isn't life just full of attempts to conquer your demons? That's what I try to do. Not my fault I was no bloody good at it.

Cewsh, can you remember where I left my keys? Ah, yes, they're hanging by the door where I always put them.

You know me. In one ear and out the other. I've got a mind like a sieve. Good place to leave a key though, by the door, I'd have thought. Not the type of place you're likely to forgot. Unless you're me. There's always a flaw in my plans.

Right. Boots. Key. Cewsh. Door. All set? Is it still raining? No, seems to be clouding over, but the drizzle's away. Just as well, really. I just washed my hair. Two washes in the one day is bad luck, I hear. I heard that from someone. Can you remember who? No, me neither.

Now, how is it you get beyond the door again?

One step forward!

We're outside. You can tell. It's warmer. A Glasgow November night is always a warmer climate than my house. We've not had the central heating working for years. Too expensive, you know. Too curmudgeonly to work. Who needs to pay extra to the gas board when its a pound for an extra blanket from Barnados, eh?

One step forward, going down. That's the trouble with having steps outside. They got very wet and slippery in the rain. I'm sure the plant in those pots over there would love the wet weather, if it wasn't for the fact I'd not really looked after them all that well in Mum's absence, and they'd died. Died of dehydration. Now it's always raining. Is that irony?

Going further down those stairs. Watch out for the crack in the third step down, Cewsh. I'd hate for you to trip and fall and break your neck. I'd hate to see anyone suffer, really. At least, to suffer as much as I have.

We're nearly there. Watch out for the dogs. No, not my dog. The neighbours dogs. But they're both dead now, aren't they? Such a shame. I liked them. I like dogs. You might have already guessed that. People who do not like dogs do not tend to own them. If they do, they're a sadist, and I am not a sadist. Of that I can be glad. No, whatever s on my conscience, sadism there isn't.

You'll need to give me a helping hand, Cewsh, so I can get up this drive way. Its awfully tricky. I remember when it was just gravel. Much easier on the feet. Fallen arches you see, I don't grip too well. This tarmac is easy enough for cars, but I never drove, so its a nightmare for the pedestrian me. Thanks, just pull me along slightly: it's just so you can catch me if I fall over.

Thanks, Cewsh. You are a star. What would I do without you looking after me in these moments?

Come to think of it, not only are those dogs dead, but so are the neighbours. Well, of course, there are new neighbours now. I mean the ones who owned the dogs. That was nothing to do with me. Them over there, they had a gas leak. Very sad. And him, well, he had a heart attack. Old age induced. Nothing to do with me. Both very sad, but I guess that's the one truth in life. People die. People always die, while people like me get left behind. People like you and me, eh, Cewsh?

Do watch you don't get a bramble thorn in the face. Those can sting like a right female dog, if you'll forgive my allusions to the manner of swearing there. And watch out for boy motorists – they can flying down the hill at hundreds of miles an hour, so it seems, in their manhood machines. Course, the jokes in them when they get to the speed-bump by the school, but still, bloody nuisance, the lot of them.

There used to be lots of squirrels. And foxes. Around here. Not so many these days. Nothing to do with me, I can assure you. The animal life just sort of went elsewhere. I blame the Council building on the flood plane.

We're on a flood plane the now, can you believe. I've never seen that river get this high, and I've see it flood every other month for the whole of my life.

I'm sixty-four. Do I look it? God bless you, Cewsh, you are too kind.

It is important to keep a little faith in one's life, I feel.

At least I hope it is. That way, when it comes to the Rapture, you've done a bit of lip-service, and that'll give you a head start.

At least, I think that's how it works. Those books tended to use too fancy language to describe it all. Picked up some of it here and there, but that's what happens, isn't it? Osmosis? Aye, that's the word for it. A word, anyhow.

See that house over there? Haunted. Very haunted. So I hear. No families lasted a year in there. Up for sale every other month of the year, so to speak. Madness. I don't believe in ghosts, of course, I'm a rational man, but still: you wouldn't catch me in a night in there. I got my insanity, that's all I need. The only spirits I like are Jack.

There's the school too. I think that's still open. Would you know? No? Shame. Never went to it of course.

Right, well, I'm shattered. We've walked to the edge of the street, so we have, Cewsh. The forest is coming up before us. So many memories. So few good ones here. Let's turn back. Please?

No, we can't? So is this the moment, the moment we've been waiting for? A nod for yes. You nodded. Oh well. So it goes. Is this why we've walked to this place? Hang on, you can't answer that, I walked this way down the street, and you merely followed me.

There isn't a forest at the end of my street is there? We've walked much further than I thought. That wasn't the school either. Lost in thought and walk. Walking with you, Cewsh.

And we're here. I recognise it. So far a walk, and so close it seems.

This is the moment, I can feel it.

You had my confession, and now here's a piece for you, to set the grieving at bay. Her daughter, well, she's buried over there, by the brambles bush. Hell of a job getting a spade in there, it was. But that's where you'll find her. That's where I put her.

Hell of a bit of bad luck, that DNA fingering me. Else we'd never had this chat. Nor this walk. I enjoyed the walk, did you Cewsh? I'm tired now though, aren't you Cewsh?

So very, very tired. Like I could sleep forever.

Well, you know where she lies, forever eternal. You have the confession. You have the piece of mind. And you have your orders.

Thank you for walking with me, Cewsh. It put my mind to restful peace on a few matters.

Now, Cewsh, my beloved executioner, you have your orders, I believe. I believe it's time to carry them out.

--Michael S Collins and I am a member of GSFWC (the Glasgow Strange-Fiction Writers Circle). I have been published in several countries (including Literature E-zine websites, ad writing for Bob Furnell) and do book review for magazines such as The Fortean Times. My short fiction has appeared in magazines such as Aesthetica, Clockwise Cat, The Short Humour Site, MicroHorror, TBD, and was included in the DemonMinds Anthology in 2008.

The Art of Michael McAloran

--Michael Mc Aloran was Belfast-born, his family moved to the south of Ireland due to 'The Troubles'. He spent a brief spell studying Fine Art & Design, but left after one disillusioned year. He has traveled extensively throughout Europe, living for short spells in both Holland and Italy. His work has been published by Poetry Monthly International, Lines Written W/A Razor, The Gloom Cupboard, Counterexample Poetics, Full of Crow, Gutter Eloquence, The Delinquent, Writing Raw, Calliope Nerve, The Recusant, Eviscerator Heaven, and The Plebian Rag. His chap The Rapacious Night was published by Calliope Nerve Media.

Dust

Dust

A tiny spot of
Dust,
Plain, unremarkable,
Similar to others.
Something
Strangely familiar
In it,
Dear, nostalgic.
What it is, I wonder,
What is it...

No wonder
It looks familiar -
It's me, beloved!
All that is left
Of me after
Millenniums of
Non being.

Don't know what
I expected...
Something
More impressive,
Tangible,
A bunch of bones,
A stretch of genes
In a living body...

Was it vanity or
A positive thinking?
Doesn't matter.
I have no regrets
All the same.
Let it be dust,
I'm no longer
Allergic.

--Irena Pasvinter earns living by software engineering and happiness by writing. She is interested in a lot of totally unpractical but extremely amazing things, anyway her kids make sure she has never a dull moment.

The Art of Wayne Hogan

--Wayne Hogan has made numerous appearances in places like Spinning Jenny, Abbey, Rhino, The Quarterly, and The Christian Science Monitor. Visit his website at waynehogan.com.

FACT-oid

According to legend, the great Chinese poet Li Po died while drunkenly trying to embrace the moon's reflection in the Yangtze River. Li Po (a.k.a. Li Bai) fell from a boat into the water and drowned.

Tall Tale

Tall Tale

Dusty dusk drags me down,
Nasty night nags me numbly,
Misty morning mocks my mumbling,
Dripping day drifts to drown.

Windy words whisk my wisdom,
Limping life leaps to laughing.
Sulky sloth sick from stuffing
Lusts for life of limpid lizard.

Search for sense seems so stale,
Freaking forms fill formations,
Mind melts monstrous mansions
To a tasteless tall tale.

--Irena Pasvinter earns a living by software engineering and happiness by writing. She is interested in a lot of totally unpractical but extremely amazing things, anyway her kids make sure she has never a dull moment.

The Art of Wayne Hogan

--Wayne Hogan has made numerous appearances in places like Spinning Jenny, Abbey, Rhino, The Quarterly, and The Christian Science Monitor. Visit his website at waynehogan.com.

Enchanting Crowd

Enchanting Crowd

They reside in a hotel,
Somewhere in LA,
Black and white,
Neatly framed,
They hang on the walls,
Radiating glamor
Of the days long gone
But never forgotten.

Silent, motionless,
Frozen in time,
They tell so much
If you care to listen,
Their names ringing
Bells of brilliance,
Thunders of talent.
Cary Grant,
  Audrey Hepburn,
      Fred Astaire,
         Judy Garland,
           Clark Gable,
                Grace Kelly...

There are not enough
Walls in the hotel
For all the enchanting crowd
Of the legends long gone
But never forgotten.

--Irena Pasvinter earns a living by software engineering and happiness by writing. She is interested in a lot of totally unpractical but extremely amazing things, anyway her three kids make sure she has never a dull moment.

FACT-oid

T.S. Eliot's seminal piece The Waste Land was originally titled He Do the Police In Different Voices? Editor Ezra Pound asked for the change.

You can read more about the poem at Wikipedia.

Check the poem here.

Or better yet, support Calliope and purchase it and many other fine pieces here:

Madwoman City

Madwoman City

On McCallie, a hunched figure

and her secret stash of suet,

making tallow in a garbage can,

planning to bathe the city, or burn it.

Here, a woman in the fountain

among statues of spouting children,

kneeling, then standing and lifting

her skirts like luxurious sieves,

prospecting for treasures in silk,

distilling holy from water.

A soldier’s mother lays prostrated on the

lawn, collecting every seventh blade

of grass, a bouquet for Mars reeking

of violence done by domestic hands.

There, a leggy girl of seventeen rubbing

her cheek against marble columns

guarding the courthouse doors,

warming the stone, courting justice.

Colleen S. Harris works as an academic librarian at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. A 2009 Pushcart Prize nominee, her first book of poems, God in my Throat: The Lilith Poems, was published by Bellowing Ark Press in 2009, and her second and third books, These Terrible Sacraments and Gonesongs, are forthcoming in 2011. Her work has appeared in The Louisville Review, Adirondack Review, Wisconsin Review, Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, Tipton Poetry Journal,  and many others. She holds an MFA in Writing and an MS in Library & Information Science.

Baglady Jesus

Baglady Jesus

The baglady Jesus walks the city

ragfooted and fat, collecting

aluminum cans and rusty souls.

She says it’s easier than her first

time around, running water and fast

food joints, no donkeys crapping

everywhere. She doesn’t care

it’s a man’s name, that her sandwich

board spells salvation wrong, no one

lifting their eyes to meet her creeping

cataracts. Baglady Jesus says this go-round

when there’s no room in the motel,

she just sleeps on the ground.

She says it’s the same no matter

when she comes, folks too busy,

too guilty, too dumb. Nobody wants

what she sells, everybody busy living

like Oprah, fresh sheets on the bed

every day and five full plates for three

meals. Baglady Jesus walks north,

says she has miracles in her shoes

right between her little toes,

that her body is the bottomless bread,

and isn’t it a miracle she can share it

with so many and it never runs out.

She poses for a picture with tourists,

parts the sidewalk sea with her cart

and the baglady Jesus walks on.

Colleen S. Harris works as an academic librarian at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. A 2009 Pushcart Prize nominee, her first book of poems, God in my Throat: The Lilith Poems, was published by Bellowing Ark Press in 2009, and her second and third books, These Terrible Sacraments and Gonesongs, are forthcoming in 2011. Her work has appeared in The Louisville Review, Adirondack Review, Wisconsin Review, Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, Tipton Poetry Journal,  and many others. She holds an MFA in Writing and an MS in Library & Information Science.

Quoteable

"Never date writers, honey. Writers suck." --Garth Ennis

News

News

 My nightgown is torn, a slumber-rag

I wear for warmth, amusement.

I take to thread and needle, listen

to  reports about the Beirut massacre.

How easy to concentrate

on rips in the fabric, easier

to write words of quick dismay.

Somehow lamentation is a fad

and if I do not respond

there are clever words for that also.

What I do now is prick my finger,

assurance blood and pain are real,

bend my eyes over the tear

in my gown, striped, many-coloured,

cloth they’ll bring home to father, saying

“look, there has been a death.”

Kenneth Radu's work has recently appeared or is forthcoming online in Lacuna, Foundling Review, TH20, Black Lantern, and elsewhere. His collection of stories, Sex in Russia: Stories New and Selected, is being published this spring by DC Books of Montreal.

Tiger Tiger

Tiger Tiger

Something about Siberian tigers goes wrong

in a zoo. They come around a stony hill,

blown-dry ferocity tickling spectator nerves

and even the air burns mildly.

The animals pad about in patterned silence

to the electrified fence humming a song

of sinews slackened, teeth polished, fur combed;

they arrange themselves for photography.

Wildness is nostrils flaring in the breeze,

alert to smells from the deer compound.
The kill is now an intimation of desire dulled

by satiety and prime cuts of beef.

Their incarceration is the largest the world

has to offer, the sign, says, and the first

to mate in captivity. This is happy news.

I aim my lens at the joy in their eyes.

Kenneth Radu's work has recently appeared or is forthcoming online in Lacuna, Foundling Review, TH20, Black Lantern, and elsewhere. His collection of stories, Sex in Russia: Stories New and Selected, is being published this spring by DC Books of Montreal.

Quoteable

"The devil's kingdom was reprieved. The angel's burden, eons old, was gone at last. They cut him down and stood him tall and yelled with joy... When what they should have done was wept. For the World. And for the future." --Garth Ennis

The Executioner's Wife

The Executioner’s Wife

I have seen you
and your rough, rough hands
stained with gleaming red.

I’ve heard them,
how they speak of you:
a beast, a monster

in between whispers
like some kind of devil,
or a deity too hallowed
to be named.

Fame haunts you
like the artist, like the
singer on the stage,

but still they call you
a savage, and only I have
seen the methodical you—
the surgeon, the performer.

Your subjects look at me
when I witness their
defragmentation;
their role in your infinite jest.

And I am mute,
because you are only doing your job,
and I know you love only me,

but because you love me
I will never know the passion
in your hands. I will
never be your victim.

 

Aldo Amparan studies English and American Literature and Creative Writing in the University of Texas at El Paso. His work has appeared in Rio Grande Review, Breadcrumb Scabs, and Haggard and Halloo among others. Find out more about him at: http://amparan.weebly.com

Artificial Escapes

Artificial Escapes


We’re hiding behind walls of steel,
stashing our veins with liquid fire
so that our mouths are filled with candy
and our eyes convene wonders
different from the nightmares that plague us.
We’re dancing static inside ourselves
free of the worlds outside, cold and cruel.
These walls are colossal, strapping,
they cannot be held unbolted.
But now we can build invisible doors on ramparts
and windows to vast empires filled with sun,
where fear cannot reach us,
where we’re safe in our owned humanity.
And we can be free, unbound,
until the fire in our veins is quenched
and we can be held forever
in the safety of sleep.



Aldo Amparan studies English and American Literature and Creative Writing in the University of Texas at El Paso. His work has appeared in Rio Grande Review, Breadcrumb Scabs, and Haggard and Halloo among others. Find out more about him at: http://amparan.weebly.com

What’s in a Name

What’s in a Name

Before my freshman started reading Romeo and Juliet,
I asked them to write down everything they knew about the play,
then share with the class.
Activating prior knowledge provides the teacher a sense
of what needs to be taught.

“So what can you guys tell me about this classic piece of literature?”

“Isn’t Juliet like, the one that was really high up on the balcony and like, let her really really long hair down?” Diana asked.

“That’s from a fairy tale you moron. Rumplestiltskin,” Oliver informed her.

“Oh. Well who’s the guy that was gonna’ like, take the baby if the queen
couldn’t guess his name?”

“Oh yeah." He gave her three guesses. That’s Rip Van Winkle.”

I shook my head sickly, surrounded by their ignorance wanting to put myself to sleep. Better yet, climb Rapunzel’s boundless tresses to burst their aimlessly floating bubbles, so clearly riddled with gunk like their fresh pimples pleading to be popped; the intense pressure of forefingers compressing until insurgent pus shoots out exploding all over the mirror blurring their own definitions of all they thought to be right in life.

“You guys are killing me. I feel like pulling out my hair.

But then in addition to a bad haircut, my weakness would be exposed
and I’d be powerless!” I confessed, a temporary moment of vulnerability.

To which Diana meekly raised her hand and added,
“Like Sampson. Right?”

--Daniel Romo teaches high school creative writing, and lives in Long Beach, CA. His recent poems can be found in Praxilla, Connotation Press, and The Acentos Review. He is an MFA candidate in poetry at Antioch University, and will be featured this spring in an anthology of up and coming Southern California poets published by Moon Tide Press titled Pop Art: An Anthology of Orange County Poetry. More of his writing can be found at Peyote Soliloquies.

Lime Tree Cottage

Lime Tree Cottage


Handspun history
dimly shines on
slanted beams of
late twilight.

Casting shadow
of leaf and stem
surrendering
above.

Fifteen years ago,
Lime Tree Cottage
was ours.

Fifteen years ago,
my skin
your pen
our poetry.
Such perfectly
painted interiors.

Arching entry
into sleeping
gardens, such
fertile soil.

Youth seldom shares.

Delight arrives
as soft as it parts and,
I,
I stand detatched
in quiet desolation
among thatched longings.

Horses graze on
sage green weeds,
the curving bleed
of meadow

Lichen lined
vows
Vacant as daffodil spring
reunion.

This boarder country.

The tweed sea
still steel grey
gazes and
beckons me on.

I look Westward
into the dusky
air of dissonant
departure.



Renae Freson has been involved in the creative arts such as repertory theater, photography, and creative writing for most of her life. In November, 2008 she devoted herself to developing her art as a poet and author. Her works have been published in various zines such as Counterexample Poetics, Zygote in my Coffee, and The Plebian Rag. As well as writing poetry, Renae is currently working on her first novel.

Dinner at the Whitest Restaurant in Long Beach Or… Latino in an MFA Poetry Program

Dinner at the Whitest Restaurant in Long Beach Or… Latino in an MFA Poetry Program

Bordered by people of pigmentation
Minus melanin/skin that looks like mine,
Pseudo-sonnet of self-preservation

Or unabashed Latino way I dine.

My tastebuds hunger for differences

A hearty meal of substance and some spice,

Meat and potatoes sure stickstomyribs,

Pero not authentic like beans and rice.

Francisco save the shiny silverware,

Órale fix me a fresh tortilla,

“We’re looking for the next Frank O’ Hara.

Who admitted this here Pancho Villa?”

Stir the melting pot, let the shock simmer,

Food tastes better when the lights glow dimmer.

--Daniel Romo teaches creative writing, and lives in Long Beach, CA. His recent poems can be found in Praxilla, Connotation Press, and The Acentos Review. He is an MFA candidate in poetry at Antioch University, and will be featured this spring in an anthology of up and coming Southern California poets published by Moon Tide Press titled Pop Art: An Anthology of Orange County Poetry. More of his writing can be found at Peyote Soliloquies.

Chiron in Los Angeles

Chiron in Los Angeles

The stuck homeless horseman bled

roughshod over our distressed terracotta

tiles and we kept the gates locked,

jacaranda glue raining upon our unwanted

intruder. His wounds were self-inflicted bites,

campaign tattoos, rent calluses, lost

red mouths beyond all soothing arts.

Now daily specials plagued his tongue,

and coughing convertibles writhed beneath

the godlike underwear models who sneer

at jousting, the meeting of gravid lances.

Our Sir Onan slaked his own thirst for honor.

The collision with a neon dragon fused him

to his metal beast, a blessing as he already

slept behind the wheel, below constellations,

beyond condemnations. For years we witnessed

horsepaths burrowing below Highway 5 to Griffith

Park, and desperate men crossing six lanes

of traffic to mount equine grace. We shivered

at the first joining of shoes driven into hooves

and questioned the man magic, the iron u

and blacksmith sweat keeping witches at bay.

The crash, the beeps, the barbs of laughter.

Dead man, dead horse, hammer swinging,

spear nailing its message into heathen hide

as the wedding band played “Mustang Sally.”

And so the last centaur circled Cedars-Sinai,

licking poisoned shanks in palomino flanks

to hasten the escape. Arcadia beckons

to him across the baked San Gabriel Valley.



Raised in Michigan but now living in Southern California, John F. Buckley and Martin Ott began their ongoing games of poetic volleyball in 2009. Poetry from their collaboration Poets' Guide to America has been accepted by multiple periodicals, including the Bryant Literary Review, Center: A Journal of the Literary Arts, Confrontation Magazine, the Evergreen Review, Splash of Red, Untamed Ink, and ZYZZYVA.

in break formation

In Break Formation

The indications used to come

like movie fighter planes in break

formation, one by one, the perfect

plummet, down and out. This time they’re

slower. But after supper, when I hear

her in the kitchen hum again, hum

higher, higher, till my ears are

numb, I remember how it was

the last time:  how she hummed

to Aramaic peaks, flung

supper plates across the kitchen

till I brought her by the shoulders

humming to the chair.

I remember how the final days

her eyelids, operating on their own,

rose and fell, how she strolled

among the children, winding tractors,

hugging dolls, how finally

I phoned and had them come again, 

how I walked behind them

as they took her by the shoulders,

house dress in the breeze, slowly

down the walk and to the curbing,

watched them bend her in the back

seat of the squad again,

how I watched them pull away

and heard again the parliament

of neighbors talking.

Donal Mahoney, a native of Chicago, lives in St. Louis, MO. He has worked as an editor for The Chicago Sun-Times, Loyola University Press and Washington University in St. Louis. A Pushcart nominee, he has had poems published in The Wisconsin Review, The Kansas Quarterly, The South Carolina Review, The Beloit Poetry Journal, Commonweal, Revival (Ireland), The Istanbul Literary Review (Turkey), Public Republic (Bulgaria), Calliope Nerve and other publications.

lady killer

lady killer

i chug a bottle
of anti-freeze
to keep this
cold heart frozen
in my chest
from locking up

i soak my mouth
in vaseline
so my words slip out
smooth and slick

i inject wine
into my fingertips
to get them
drunk off my touches

you see
with eyes like
cobalt and kisses
like arsenic

these poor innocent
onion-booty girls
don't stand a chance

--Steve Calamars blogs @ dirtywordsoncleanliving.blogspot.com. His first poetry chapbook, american violence, will be available in April from New Polish Beat. His first collection of short stories, six years of relative happiness, will be available in May from Calliope Nerve Media.

Windowpane

            WINDOWPANE

                                                                               

I see hungry moths feasting

on street lamps, yellow globes

wired with spider silk,

filaments of moon, closet

of dreams.

I see gnarled pine trees rooted

in charred ground, branches furled

in quiet submission, withered arms

offering swastikas

of surrender.

I see emblazoned

upon cellophane glass, full moon’s

cold accusing eye watching me

watch young lovers

writhing in the long shadows.

I see a velvet cape stretched spandex

over drum filled with black water;

a hungry black spider kiting the rafters,

its spiny fingers spooling

a fine silk blade shrouding

these long hot summer nights.

I see a butane ocean of sky

surging with the bitter grief

of loved ones,

my own grief held back

by the chewed gristle of the heart.

Spiders and stipple

winged moths hunger, circling about

in clouds like a spray of bullets

from gunmetal cylinder roulette,

spray of shattered moonlit glass;

               spores of light

               scraped

               from the drowning

               flame

              of a warm suicide




Ben Rasnic currently resides in Bowie, Maryland. An accountant by profession, he maintains his sense of dignity & humanity through writing. His poems appear in recent issues of Angelic Dynamo, Breadcrumb Scabs, Chickenpinata, The Clinch Mountain Review, Jimson Weed, The Orange Room Review & Word Catalyst.

wild parakeets of florida

WILD PARAKEETS OF FLORIDA

(For Duane Locke)

He parted the wall

so that we could enter.

He melted mortar from the bricks

supporting our future superstitions.

Ultimately, this allowed us to enter.

But, once inside,

we realized that genocide is a disease

more rampant than AIDS,

genocide as ancient as DNA.

And now we’re petitioning

what new stadium, exactly,

which new sports franchise,

while our children,

slumped in overcrowded classrooms,

are herded by underpaid sheepdogs?

This can’t be why Blake

parted the Red Sea.

I’m telling you,

Blake was an escaped convict

from the 18^th Century

with nowhere else to go.

He reminds me of a poet

who once watched pale blue parakeets

blistering the pine trees

of St. Petersburg, Florida, 1969.



Alan received his Masters Degree from the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University. He performs poetry workshops for the Maryland State Arts Council and occasionally publishes the international literary journal, Black Moon, from Reisterstown, Maryland, where he lives with his wife, daughter, two Bouviers des Flandres, one Bichon Friese, and two formerly feral cats.

Quoteable

"But who could have heard such a prayer, from such a man as him? There was no Saint of Killers then." --Garth Ennis

Black Atlas

Black Atlas

A crushed bird voice
we drank together.
The hunter's arrow breaks
inside a wound of snow
I will not remove.
Grey morning invites spiked fences
as we drift transformed in chrysalis.
The acid river dissolves
every color and pyramid,
I reject this weaponry.
I still travel the black atlas
of your cruel illumination.
Come with me,
your bleeding wings
shelter the skeletal relics
of my descent.



John Swain lives in Louisville, Kentucky. His chapbook, Prominences, appeared from Flutter Press and his ebook, The Feathered Masks, recently appeared from Full of Crow.

Harlequin

Harlequin

The river birch skin peels
like I feel in my own skin.
The wind of genuflections flays,
then the open earth swallows
our naked pain.
I cannot decipher your marking,
the stand of trees blurs red,
you desecrate my rest,
I challenge your orchid glances.
By horse you issued summons,
then I chose my own hangman,
the carnivals proceeded after.
In defiance I tasted bramble
as the harlequin chases belief.



John Swain lives in Louisville, Kentucky. His chapbook, Prominences, appeared from Flutter Press and his ebook, The Feathered Masks, recently appeared from Full of Crow.

Quoteable

"You watch what how you talk to me, then! Remember, I'm a supermodel-turned-lawyer with a dangerous secret!" --Garth Ennis

jawbone

Jawbone

The ink sucked the life out of me,

like blood letting, the words drilled

a hole in my head. Things once reserved

for coke & cheap cigarettes, my screwdriver of choice

used only Vodka to purify the wound.

I grew older, I think, from thinking too much.

It showed on my skin, in the cave of my

eyes and then betrayed me, swelling

with tightened litigation. What are you

so worried about? They ask. You

should be careful, they warn,

you don't want to age so fast.

You should take it easy,

they say, you've got your whole

life to live. A teacher once told me

she'd rather be an actor than a writer

because she could always go back

later and relive what she'd experienced.

It doesn't work that way for me.

I'd rather be both.

Michael Aaron Casares has four chapbooks, two of which, Green Tea America (New Polish Beat) and The Winter King (Shadow Archer Press) were recently published. Michael edits Carcinogenic Poetry and operates an indie press called Virgogray.  He lives in Austin, TX.