Dear Readers, Contributors, Friends

With a heavy heart, I want to let you know that we have lost our dear friend Nobius Black, editor and producer of Calliope Nerve. In his honor and memory, I will keep the content up here as long as possible because I think he would have wanted it to stay and for the words he loved to be held in the places he gave them.
Nobius Black, Matthew, was a giving man with a generous heart, who touched many of us in different ways. Many of us were part of his creative world, his writing and publishing world, and we know how important this work was to him. For those of us lucky enough to call him editor, collaborator, friend... here's hoping that we can take pause and remember what he gave us and honor it accordingly.
When I think back on what he had to say about so many of you and the work that he was proud to include here, I wish that I could share his thoughts now, to you each- personally. Please know that he had so much respect and admiration for your work, and truly believed in our community of independent presses.
Thank you for your support of Calliope Nerve.
Lynn Alexander

Song for the Postmodern Void

I am playing possum,
indoctrinated by shareholders,
and corporate elite,
whose aim is to devour my soul.

I am alien to this body;
this fleshy machine of wilderness.

I serve, as a cog in their bomb,
which aims to destroy everything alive.

Humanity has adopted
this system of order
and exploitation,
which serves to maintain
the illusions it creates.

--Craig Shay lives on Long Island, NY and will be attending College of Old Westbury in the fall. He is currently working on his first poetry book titled Birth of Music. Samples of his published work are available at www.craigshay.wordpress.com.

Aftermath

Bodies lie
beside each other –

Eyes peer up
through stony rubble,
glassy and dilated –

Staring through
a doorway,
towards the future –

Dreaming
of a colorful afterlife –

Steady pallid eyes,
concentrate
on the kaleidoscope
of possibilities
as they pass –

--Craig Shay lives on Long Island, NY and will be attending College of Old Westbury in the fall. He is currently working on his first poetry book titled Birth of Music. Samples of his published work are available at www.craigshay.wordpress.com.

Chain Gang

Let down
               that curtain,
which shrouds
                       reality –
 

Reveal
           these chains
around our
                  heads,
feet,
       and wrists –
 

We are
            incarcerated here,
in comfortable
                    cages,
which lull us
                 passively
into a state
               of acquiescence –
 

Why is it,
                that the circus
distracts us so?


Why is one's soul
                          exchanged
for a handful of ash?

--Craig Shay lives on Long Island, NY and will be attending College of Old Westbury in the fall. He is currently working on his first poetry book titled Birth of Music. Samples of his published work are available at www.craigshay.wordpress.com.

Rainbows

Surprisingly, rainbows do not gush out of my ass
or any other orifice of my body
while I ride my unicorn Pony Girl to candy-coated Heaven
I smell like cigarettes and ride the decaying
public buses that usher out their very own shitty rainbow of
pollutants and I pop my lithium like candy corn so that
I don’t actually see unicorns strolling in the back alleys of
The local AA Social Club

Maybe it will pour down rain and wash my sins away
and a rainbow will shine brightly in the sky while
a Goodyear Blimp cuts across it,
magically giving my morning coffee a hint of pumpkin spice
and breaking my smoking habit for good
good sport I am I’ll have started a fitness program
for preteens who believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster

No, rainbows do not gush out of my ass
or any other orifice of my body
while I tiptoe through the tulips
or in my case the thorn bushes
I prefer stargazing on LSD
and miniature people collecting.

--Kevin Ridgeway is a writer currently based in Southern California in a shady bungalow with his girlfriend, one eyed cat and old books. He studied creative writing at Goddard College and Mt. San Antonio College, at the latter of which he won the 2011 Writer's Day Award for prose with special citations for his poetry. He has most recently been published in The Left Coast Review and Insomnis Veritas, and is anticipating two forthcoming publications in Breadcrumb Scabs and Larks Fiction Magazine.

Verge

for Kathleen
The long dark tunnel
                ends
           in a pinprick 
                of light.  [double space]
Deadly heliotrope pulls me
in,
                too vast to slide
                through the aura
           calling out,  [double space]
                My own Siren,
sinking
           my heart
           with her dulcet tones
           & echoes of ache.  [double space]
I give in to the black  
               endless
           ether drops
               on either side.

--Suzanne Grazyna is a stage actor and poet in California. Though she may actually be a robot.

Oo Triptych

1.
What doesn't kill us makes us stranger. Cracked hatched and eyelashless. We
need aviation here. I am fearful of heights. [double space]
He reaches across many streets, arm outstretched , to where I sleep. I am
carinate now. There are 3 fresh eggs in my nest. I didn't feel a thing. [double space]

2.
Clippings scatter; they spot the down cover. Wings flutter
with fanfare but I am no angel.
We aren't meant to be caged. Our path has been laid. [double space]
He breaks my ovaries with skill. Warms the skillet
to scramble my yolks. Mitosis with one hooked bite.
I consume my future. My beak is pure. [double space]

3.
It didn't make it.
The fledgling fetus.
Fresh from the shell.
Pushed.
Or fallen.
Carrion for vultures. [double space]
And I knew how it felt.
And my swollen heart broke.
And I saw myself.
And I knew what I was.
And I buried it in the hole
the vultures left in my throat [double space]
when they ate my song.

--Suzanne Grazyna is a stage actress and poet from California. Though she may actually be a robot.

Vicodin Flytrap

Bitter pills. The bleating the bleeding the beading of sweat like dew. The ache to drip into the sweet abyss. Seal me shut, airtight, hermetic hermit in a hydro poison bath. Bathed in shivers. Awash in the tremors of desire of on-fire lust of needing to trust the hand willing to sew the lips shut. The prick of tiny unicorns with barbed wire treats that ping the meat in twitching legs. Needles like leaves dipped in sticky saliva lick my fleshy fat clean. Unhinged by twin horns by a devil's trick by a knight in nepenthe armour. Lancet on his white steed. He's found the Holy Grail. Swallow whole. Deep in the throat. Dissolve into bleating cells bleeding cells beating carnivorous bitter cells eating me complete.

--Suzanne Grazyna is a stage actress and poet in California. Though she may actually be a robot.

City Surgery

The imbalance of ancientness hangs heavy overhead-
dangling steel verticals, whom distilled in the ether
of new dead air, are wrapped by sterility:
the night smog wound illuminated by neon billboards
they cut through the alley night streets with precision,
slicing the bulbous tumour from her roots

--Jack Little (b. 1987) is a British writer who currently lives in Mexico City. When not writing poetry he edits The Ofi Press magazine and manages the Mexican national cricket team. You can find out more information about both of these ventures at: www.theofipress.webs.com and www.mexicocricketassociation.com.

The heart is five minutes long

Between a lung sucked back through love into regret of accepted lust.

On a blackberry-tasting tongue.

At a secret whistle outside the bedroom window
turning to a keening beside the quilt.

From the time of grasping fingers to the time of lowering blankly,

brows drawn black and grass departing you from all sounds

of tender and hardened loved ones.

From the anger at your father.

From the annoyance at yourself, the slamming of an object, the consideration
of cutting edges

peeling forth the red,
like a signal,
an ecstatic meeting–tears beating at the light
like the pulse of the soul–or
a rending,
a covering or an opening,
a faultless disclosure.

--Natalie Caulfield lives in Connecticut with her archaic typewriter and a river creeping up her back yard. Her work has been published at Ink Sweat & Tears webzine and is forthcoming in Penny Ante Feud.

The guest

I felt the day come
and settle back in
like a gore-full suitcase.
Heavy,
landing on my throat
like the careless step
of a stranger in a stampede:
here are my guts,
quivering with rubber
and electric wire;
my eyes
staring fleshless,
record expired
as old prescriptions.
Not pretty brown, just stark
as a child's horror story
from the dark of my head.
Hardened hands making
a last snatch at fading thought.
And when they tell you
it doesn't matter
say it back
loud
like a magnifying glass.
Like the painting of one.
Out back in the shaded
hollow by my house
it is blowsy and
I feel my own death
nudge gracefully at my skin with
promises of what may be.
Like a cat, urging on bird calls.
Forget wet flesh,
I am lemon cake
and a slow breath;
tea with a vanilla cloud
of oleander.
A pausing swell.
Sleep attractive as the promise of breakfast
and marital love:
the idea of you
all over me,
the idea of me
all over.

--Natalie Caulfield lives in Connecticut with her archaic typewriter and a river creeping up her back yard. Her work has been published at Ink Sweat & Tears webzine and is forthcoming in Penny Ante Feud.

Once Upon a Time

Trying to get that adrenaline
Pumping; in stride with the beat
Of a drummer that marches within
But refuses to quicken on her feet

And sinks slowly like mellifluous quicksand
Stubbornly; into a hollow abyss
No extrication by Merlin’s magic wand
Or even Prince Charming’s kiss

Not every damsel needs a savior
Distressing; concerned by an unknown plight
That reeks of a sacrilegious flavor
And burns the eyes of foresight

And though this heroine may indeed be raving
She, in the end, must do the saving

--Adina Rosenthal's poetry has recently appeared at The Camel Saloon, vox poetica, Yes, Poetry, and Heavy Hands Ink. Her short story "Succubus-in-Law", will appear in Gus Ginsburg's forthcoming anthology Bride of the Golem. Her thoughts can be found at adinacate.blogspot.com.

Angel Wings

Angel wings twinkle with hope
Their caress feels electric
Caring for the peripatetic
Transients; helping them cope

By cleansing their wounds with pensive soap
To improve their hopeless aesthetic
Ridding them the label pathetic
Disappointments; removing the rope

That harnesses them to failure
Doomed to repeat past mistakes
Instead, accepting an evanescent cure
Allowing them to eat their cake
And have it to; they will acquire a heart pure
To finally rise proud and remain awake

--Adina Rosenthal's poetry has recently appeared at The Camel Saloon, vox poetica, Yes, Poetry, and Heavy Hands Ink. Her short story "Succubus-in-Law", will appear in Gus Ginsburg's forthcoming anthology Bride of the Golem. Her thoughts can be found at adinacate.blogspot.com.