antilang.
no. 2
fall 2018
The ALP
Mandate Good. Short. Writing. The Anti-Languorous Project is an online open-access creative writing hub that publishes antilang., a magazine of literary brevity, and soundbite, an audio collection of byte-sized readings. Show, don’t tell; imply and implicate. Antithesize languorous language. antilang., no. 2 Published by The Anti-Languorous Project Treaty 6 (Saskatoon, SK, Canada), Fall 2018 Edited by Allie McFarland & Jordan Bolay Layout & Design by Jordan Bolay Cover by Manit Chaotragoongit Logo by Lissa McFarland ISSN 2561-5610 (online) All rights revert to the authors and artists upon publication. No portion of this magazine may be reproduced without permission from the artists. The ALP is a federally registered and unfunded non-profit organisation. We invite you to follow us on social media and to consider supporting us on Patreon or by donation.
@antilangmag / antilang.ca
antilang. no. 2
Contents Jessica Mehta 1 Savagery 2 Orygun Michaela Stephen 3 Ripped from the Same Book David Martin 9 Loess 10 Grassi Lakes Lonnie Monka 11 over Awarta Taylor Skaalrud 12 Louder than Words Kevin Stebner 17 GAME GENIE: Oilspill Shannon McConnell 20 A West Coast Wimp in a Prairie Winter Steve Passey 22 Borealis Erin Emily Ann Vance 23 Birdbones 24 Mistress Anthony Etherin 25 SEAGULLS Melinda Jane-The Poet Mj 27 Kit
Fall 2018
K.S.A. Brazier-Tompkins 33 Glass 34 On Thomas McIlwraith’s Birds of Ontario (1903) 35 Object i nathan dueck 36 Oh! Portmanteaus! Kat Heger 37 Bitter Marzipan Lucas Peel 40 ‘/process_startUp.am’ 41 ‘/process_powerOff.pm’ Zelda Baiano 42 Intimacy Andy Betz 45 Eighteen-Word Stories Grant Guy 47 Squalor Amilcar John Nogueira 48 Crafting the Black Box Pavel Radonic 51 Billboard Anastasia Jill 55 Kick it Chris Kelly 56 Notes from the Execution of Ned Kelly Jesse Holth 58 Extra Credit Catherine Jones 60 Hit 62 The Couch Lip Manegio 64 & THE TRANS PERSON POURS GASOLINE ON THEMSELF 65 ode to a queer boyhood, imagined Lissa McFarland 66 04.26.17 Allison Iriye 70 Bright Through Bare Windows 71 Goodnight
antilang. no. 2
Heather Myers 72 Bones of the Sea Ryan Coleman 75 Babyface Amy LeBlanc 78 Lady Grey Owen Schaefer 81 The Last Town 83 Myopia David Eso 84 Family Business 85 Occasional Dirge for the Grassy Knoll at Swan Mall 86 Three Davids and no Goliath BB 87 Xoloitzcuintli
Fall 2018
Jessica Mehta
Savagery What are you? I can see the Indian in your cheekbones. My skin, white as the albumin on salmon, the only whisper of Cherokee etched into bones begging to be birthed. Show me your tribal card, your ancestry lineage, proof of Dawes Rolls in your blood. Am I not Native enough for you? You look like something. Something savage and uncontained.
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Orygun When I find myself missing Wild, I walk for hours through the wetlands til my hips grind to dust and the mud suckles my feet. This is what I’ll miss when another city swallows me whole. The deer hooves in the deep, throaty frogs with lustful lines, marionberries sprawling fat and frenzied. So let yourself be Wild. Suck the cold air deep, rattle it around your lungs and fog up your insides. How blessed are we born into the Oregon green, how lucky we are to carry her ferality in our bones.
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Jessica Mehta
Michaela Stephen
Ripped from the Same Book With her head between her knees, Faye watched the blood drip from her face onto the gravel. The sun beat down on the exposed three inches of flesh between her shirt collar and her recently buzzed neck. Faye pictured her skin as a newborn mole, peeking out at the world for the first time. If she stayed crouched like this much longer, her skin would burn, then peel. Once again, she thanked her mother’s genes for giving her oh-so-sensitive skin. Sweat prickled in the short strands of her pixie cut. She showered this morning, but her head still itched. Faye kept her head down until the drips of blood from her nose began to slow and space out, before finally coming to a stop. The puddle seeped into the ground, leaving a stain on the earth. Maybe someone would come by later and think a person had been assaulted here. Did people call the cops if they saw a puddle of blood but no body? Faye wished she could take back the decision to drive the seven hours from Kamloops to Vancouver Island with Charlotte. Taking the greyhound would’ve been more fun. antilang. no. 2
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She could handle the men with duffel bags who made too much eye contact or sweaty toddlers crying after being carsick. It was better than listening to Charlotte’s audio book on dealing with grief and preparing for loss. They hadn’t even been on the road two hours, and her sister had already left her on the shoulder of the highway in the middle of nowhere. Faye figured it would serve Charlotte right if some bearded hillbilly came out and murdered Faye. That would show her. The dry, summer air wrapped around her skin like an oppressive cocoon. How long had she been sitting there? She slowly shifted her limbs and raised her head. Faye pressed her palms into the concrete meridian on either side of where she sat hunched. Even under the sunshine, the concrete still felt cold. Faye thought about her mother the last time she saw her, complaining about the cold while sweating profusely at the same time. Faye stared off down the highway towards Chilliwack where the forest bore down on either side of the concrete strip like a smothering hug. If Charlotte didn’t come back, she’d go hide in the woods. “Fucking bitch.” Faye felt no relief from the words. In fact, she was a bit embarrassed. They sounded cheap and moronic, too loud to her own ears. Her throat croaked as if it had been rubbed raw by sand paper and cheap vodka. She reached up and touched her face, groping the area between her mouth and nose, then down across her chin. It was crusted with dried blood. Scratching at the dip below her nose, she watched flakes of dark maroon flit away in the wind, like ash from a burning tree. Faye 4|
Michaela Stephen
refused to clean off any more blood. She wanted Charlotte to see the damage. Unseen cicadas sang in the trees. Nearby, a branch snapped. A faint breeze occasionally tickled Faye’s face, but never for long enough. Two cars drove past without giving her pause. The dusty air made a nest in her lungs. Although it felt like an hour, only twenty minutes passed before she saw her sister’s silver Kia coming down the road. The car pulled off the otherwise deserted Highway 1 and stopped in front of Faye, the gravel under the tires moaning in protest. Faye didn’t move. Charlotte unrolled the passenger window and waved a pile of napkins at Faye. “I had to drive all the way back to the Husky in Hope for these,” she said. “Get in the car.” Faye glared at her sister, not saying a word. Charlotte rolled her eyes. “Quit your pouting and get in the car.” “I’m not pouting!” Charlotte honked a laugh. “Yeah right, a helicopter could land on that lower lip.” “Quit trying to sound like mom,” Faye said. “Well someone has to be the sensible one here.”
Ripped from the Same Book
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“Oh, and that’s supposed to be you? Get over yourself, Chucky Cheese. You’re such a hypocrite.” The smile disappeared from Charlotte’s freckled face. “Jesus Faye, you’re such a little pube. It isn’t my fault you got a nose bleed. You should’ve known better than to stick your head out the window like a dog in this weather. I wasn’t about to let you get it all over my new car.” Faye turned her head away and pretended to watch a squirrel dart up a tree. Charlotte hated being ignored more than being sworn at. “You want to walk to Victoria? Fine with me. Mom will be long gone by the time you get there,” Charlotte said. Faye opened her mouth to respond, but stopped at the look on Charlotte’s face. In the silence between them, Faye almost missed the sound of someone telling them not to argue. Faye harrumphed before standing up. She pulled open the door and slouched into her seat, slamming the door behind her. Charlotte’s serious face dissolved when she looked at Faye up close. Charlotte’s mouth pursed to the size of a dried apricot as she stared at her little sister. “What? Why are you looking at me like that? You look like a weirdo,” Faye said. Charlotte gave in and laughed out loud. “I look like a 6|
Michaela Stephen
weirdo? Look who’s talking! You look like a hungover clown.” She licked her index finger on her right hand and reached over towards Faye’s face. “Here I’ll help you clean it off.” Faye smacked her hand away. “Ew, I can do it myself. Don’t be disgusting.” Faye snatched away the napkins from Charlotte and turned towards the window. She wouldn’t give Charlotte the satisfaction. Despite how much of a neat freak Charlotte pretended to be, Faye knew the truth. Her sister loved to spit on people. Faye and Charlotte never hugged, but they used to wrestle and tickle each other. Whoever pinned the other done won the prize of spitting on the other’s face. As the bigger sister, Charlotte usually won, even after they reached university. Faye stared through the glass for the next hour in silence, watching the passing pine trees transform into highway exits for Chilliwack then Abbotsford. How many times had she driven through these cities, never stopping for longer than to use a bathroom or fill up on gas? Her mother used to joke about the people who lived in the Fraser Valley, claiming they liked the smell of car exhaust. When she was thirteen, while stopping for gas in Abbotsford, Faye saw a bear galloping around the strip mall. He was terrified, his movements erratic, as if he didn’t know where to go. The bear was barely bigger than a cub. People were laughing and pointing, or screaming as if they thought he would attack them. Faye felt bad for the bear, even started to cry, but her mother said there was nothing they could do. Charlotte had to drag her back to the car. Later on, Faye heard on the news that they put the bear down. Ripped from the Same Book
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The three of them used to make the trip to the island every year to go surfing. Their mother loved being near the ocean and hearing the ferry horn. She even enjoyed the smell of kelp and dead fish baking on the beach. Faye shouldn’t have been surprised when her mother insisted on going into hospice care in Victoria. Faye left the blood on her face until they stopped for lunch. Only then did she splash her face in the bathroom after the Tim Hortons employee asked if she was all right. Back in the car, Charlotte turned off the audio book. She plugged in her iPod and offered it to Faye to pick a song, the closest either of them would ever get to apologizing.
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Michaela Stephen
David Martin
Loess Wind nitpicks a drained bed until it strips, strips self-help from sheets to suspend relief, smooth-talks braids into a prairie of feathers, and magpies loose-lips for a current shadow-cache, the hoard plump as a brittle-bladed midden. Tricked up middens head for the Hunter’s Gate, uncooping clays to shave off plastic milliseconds, which pluck at the clock to kerplunk in the ocean, slugging in grave sea-floors to polish their moves. Cajole the unmoved plates to lurch in a thermal, celebrate hot ascension with weight-loss petting, and collect a pet’s hair for a wigged hump-home.
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Grassi Lakes Feckless dolomites are pocked by vugs, guillotined by a shale blade. Rock flour grifts a bed, curdles refracted views, and snookers into place. At the brink of the water’s homely bed, blossoms are tethered to their dead selves. Petals propitiate the sun by racking skins on outcrops. Map-lichen leaches its host, bleeding islands, tyrannizing limestone thighs. A half-trunk, crowed open, betrays a throat pleated with phylum furrows. Bark beetles etch a map for sap clots, while sphagnum shadows its quarry.
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David Martin
Lonnie Monka
over Awarta above the well-lit village silent specks of stars look down but can not hear the upward-reaching explosions of fireworks—those quick-to-burn-out bursts of light celebrating the end of the school year
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Taylor Skaalrud
Louder than Words Diesel burned steady in the idle of ‘The Dodge.’ He lit a Player’s Light, cracked his window, and then glanced at the map’s live-fire zones for the day before grabbing the radio and hailing in. “Alberta 0, this is Big County 39.” “Go ahead Big County 39.” It was Michelle today. Though they’d never actually met, she and Dad would occasionally chat and joke like old friends. Today wasn’t one of those days. “I’m coming on gate 13 from 7 of 13 and 12 of 17. I’ll be using Pronghorn and Coyote.” There was still some of the coast in him. Who in their right mind would pronounce it with only two syllables—surely not the people who came up with it? A short pause held before Michelle called back. “Your route is clear Big County 39. 12 |
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With the day’s bureaucracy taken care of and satellite radio now blasting Black Label Society’s “Stronger than Death,” we roared out of the camp toward home. Like most of his ilk, Dad wasn’t a particularly emotional man, but over the years I came to realize much of his communication came through the music he chose to listen to. He let others speak for him—and it was up to you to both notice and figure it out. Dad blasting metal on the way home was a sure sign of one of two things: either he’s riding the high of a good day at ‘the grind’ and wants something to match his energy—unlikely; or he’s pissed and needs something to match his emotions—bingo. As the song finished he turned it down from blaring to youbetter-have-a-strong-diaphragm-to-hold-a-conversation. “I talked to Peter and you aren’t gonna be working with Jim anymore.” His tone was commanding. I knew not to argue. He ran a calloused hand back through his growing widow’s peak and scratched the back of his head. “Uhm… okay.” He continued, “You’ll be goin’ out with the spread’s boys from now on. Pipefitting. They’re good kids, they’ll show you the ropes out there… but make sure to use your head this time—what in the hell were you thinking back there!?” “I don’t know, I—” “You took your safety courses; did that seem like the sort of thing you should be doing?” I knew a rhetorical question from Dad when I heard one. He answered Louder than Words
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without pause. “No. So why did I find you standing in a pit getting buried by Jim in the hoe? You gotta have some common sense when you’re out in the field. Fuck man!” He paused in contemplation. I patiently awaited the next barrage, not like I had anywhere to go for the next half hour—and to be fair, he wasn’t wrong—this was shit well-deserved to be gotten. I earned it today. He picked back up. “Well I can tell you for a fuckin’ fact I didn’t teach you to pull shit like that—well!?” “…W-well, what?” He let out a single hefty smoker’s cough. “Why were you in the pit?” He said curtly; he didn’t like having to repeat himself. “Well,” my throat stuck between stress and lack of words, “Jim told me to go down and protect the pipe while he filled it in. I guess, I figured he knew better—I don’t know.” “Jim? He’s fuckin lucky I didn’t kill him for that shit. He was already on Pete’s shit-list and the Brits back on the base don’t fuck around when it comes to safety. He’s not gonna be comin’ back onto the block and he’ll be lucky to get a job anywhere in the patch once word gets out he almost killed Scott’s kid.” Pivoting his hair-trigger rage from Jim back to me, he pressed on. “And what part of you thought it was a good idea to listen to Jim? You’re a smart kid, Taylor, you’re smarter than any of these old guys out here. You don’t gotta take shit from anybody.” I didn’t feel that way, and I seemed to be taking a whole lot of shit from Dad, but I knew arguing would only make it 14 |
Taylor Skaalrud
worse. “You got your mother’s brains, man, so just man up and put your foot down. Safety’s got your back, I got your back—so you got nothin’ to worry about. Some of these guys are all coke’d out half the time and I only brought you out here for the summer so you could get a glimpse of what it’s like in the real world and go off to school and not get stuck out here like your old man. So next time, maybe keep your wits about you, eh?” At 4 p.m., after a ‘short’ eleven-hour day, followed by a near-death experience and subsequent shit-giving. All I could muster was a muttered “Yeah, okay…” barely audible in contrast to the radio. There was a moment of quiet as the radio host came on and began talking about Zakk Wylde’s transitions between Ozzy and his solo work before Dad capped the conversation off. Considering an elephant could probably perch on my pout, Dad smothered the remains of his smoke and tried to lighten the mood with an impression. “‘Aww man, Dad’s givin’ me shit, this sucks…’—Look man, I’m only giving you shit ‘cuz you scared me is all—besides, your mother’d kill me if she found out I let anything happen to her first-born.” With one hand at twelve o’clock, he reached across the cab of the truck and mussed my hair up. I cracked half a smile to acknowledge his attempt to connect, but we both knew it was a writeoff day and that by the time we got home, we’d have to pretend that it was just another day on ‘the block.’ Clicking over the last kilometer of one hundred and one square, we rolled on through the gate and off ‘the block’ onto asphalt and towards home. Louder than Words
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“Do we have anything to drink at home? I could do with a shot of Vodka after today.” “Not unless your mother picked some up—should have some beer in the fridge, though.” “It’ll work.” As much as I just wanted to be alone, he was making an effort to connect, and I couldn’t just leave him hanging for that. As hard as he was to be around, sometimes, it wasn’t ever his words that I heard.
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Taylor Skaalrud
Kevin Stebner
GAME GENIE: Oilspill Part of a series of Game Genie Poems—poetry written using limited word-length lipograms—written entirely within the 1990 Nintendo peripheral: the Game Genie. Every code for the Game Genie used 6 or 8 of a limited number of letters (16, thus eliminating much used letters like r, h, d, etc.) to create a number of effects in the games. These poems are all written in what could concievably be GameGenie codes. Equal appeal for fans of old-school videogames and Oulipian constraints.
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Kevin Stebner
GAME GENIE: Oilspill
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Shannon McConnell
A West Coast Wimp in a Prairie Winter (in five haikus) Remember Summer? When you could feel all your limbs? Well, so much for that. I plug my car in. No, it isn’t a Tesla. Slightly less Musk-y. Do not shave your legs. You need that extra warmth now. Even in Summer? Cheeks, eyelashes, nose. Things of mine that are frozen. Toes, soul, will to live.
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antilang. no. 2
So cold I could cry, but then my eyes would freeze shut. So, see you never.
A West Coast Wimp in a Prairie Winter
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Steve Passey
Borealis The news says the borealis will be visible here tonight. I have never seen it. I was raised in a faith that believed in miracles, expected miracles. All prophecies were those born of witness to miracles. But right now, the men who hold high office argue over how little we should have, over how little we should be left with. That we should lose our medicine, and then our sustenance, and that we should cease even to hope and how, should we have but an open fire, they will kick dirt all over it. They will leave us without warmth, leave us with nothing to but our will to sustain us, and they’ll mock us for that. “Nothing” one will say, “nothing,” and the others will stand silent and by their silence consent. But, I will have seen the borealis, if only on the news.
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antilang. no. 2
Erin Emily Ann Vance
Birdbones A wicker basket is not a womb and I am not a girl. Below, lie my sisters; in fragments, and like tinker toys I reassemble them.
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Mistress a soldier dug up my corpse. bloated it floated in her arms in the wet
in the dark.
She carried me to the forest to dig a fresh grave to sew me back up with winter creeper pulled from the trunk of a wytch elm. She lay down next to me held onto me breathed over me like I was a relic adorned with precious metals and she a crypt keeper until the morning light sent her not home back into battle I sleep safe in my new tomb
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my new womb
Erin Emily Ann Vance
Anthony Etherin
SEAGULLS I. Anagrammed Lines When playful seagulls circle up above the golden shores, the ocean pulls low beaches over gulfs, here pulling days across the shells. A plunging curve of blue, heaped yellow, roars. We feed, but pinch, a cove. One gull laughs helplessly‌
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II. Palindrome Go, feel freed…. All abyss, algae saw a sloop, one vocal lugsail. As you based it on wash, surf, or a wade, I died. A war of rush saw no tides… A buoy’s alias: Gull. A cove, no pool, saw a sea. Glassy balladeer, flee fog… III. Monometer Petrarchan Sonnet By light, we mull their lull of flight and white of skull, but gulls, tonight, will flock to shore and swarm the dock, before the storm…
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Anthony Etherin
Melinda Jane - The Poet Mj
Kit Chapter 1 Kit fumbled with the latch her tiny lace fingers groaned under the weight as the lid of the wooden chest heaved open. White butterfly paper blew away crumple, crinkle, crunch colour array.
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The inches uttered lemon, wattle, then canary yellow motif hissing, spread curled out, on this wondrous object. Kit held her breathe, seeing crochet like silk ample length of tangerine tail which creased her jeans and woollen knits. Stepping up, on tip-toes the tail grew in bows and twirls a box like shape and sharpen tail took her full body shape the colours blossomed canary sun yellow tangerine, mango orange and this strange motif which frightened her limbs to stiffen with an intake and gasp. Before her, a Dragon in brutal anger, eyes amber fire from its nostrils fangs hungered curls of lizard like bodice this pearl symbol clasped in its nails stung her imagination.
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Melinda Jane - The Poet Mj
Chapter 2 Grandpa packed the wooden chest with great care placing the gift centre stage cloud like paper fluttered and crumpled. The gypsy glint in Grandpa's eyes as he shut the lid with a thud. The rich tapestry of carvings on the chest Empirical Shogun reposing composure under silken wrap, temples pleated shingles, bell like rooves, grooves held symbolic travels Japan Cornwall to Maori’s hands. The lock was whale bone motif, chiseled leafy vines bear tooth wedged the latch intramural, hidden a cherry warm amber flower etched.
Kit
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Chapter 3 The note written in illegible calligraphy on rice paper was deciphered by his son. “Dear Kit this trunk was your grandmas which was haggled for in a market place in Hakone I found myself there at the end of the war it was a surprise for Eva back in Cornwall.” Kit squirming, asked if the magic chest could be placed in private and Dad gently hoisted the box into Kit’s room and a gathering of teddy bears, viewed the opening surprise.
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Melinda Jane - The Poet Mj
Chapter 4 Her Dad garnered the wondrous object from the boot of their Volvo. Kit held the tangerine tail of bows and twirls down the steep cliff to the bottom where margarine sand tempered their tread. The sand between her toes the excitement spread rising inside Kit. Dad planted his feet instructed Kit to run north into the wind for her lace fingers to fling this wondrous object to heaven. Gush, rip from her grip whoosh the luscious Box Kite mastered it’s majestic place within the horizon of peppered clouds and sea-gulls.
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This Dragon-Kite loved its freedom as its tail flagged, rejoicing all over Kits creased face. Dad leaned holding the entwined string and boisterously laughed at the glow of Kit and flew back to his own childhood on those craggy cliffs of Cornwall flying his kite.
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Melinda Jane - The Poet Mj
K.S.A Brazier-Tompkins
Glass Song burst – a sparrow – my windowpane resistance. Prints against the glass.
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On Thomas McIlwraith’s Birds of Ontario (1903) McIlwraith waxed adjectival when he wrote of birds, his eyes as wide as the white expanse of snow on prairie pasture. Nothing with feathers is ordinary. Data is lost. Frenetic, euphoric, overwhelmed by turns, McIlwraith waxed letters to associates in taxidermy and, ebullient, amassed his own collection of waterfowl. Enclosed, his records, and if the etchings of bird in air, through air, cannot be mounted on words or rods, can a semblance of its iridescence? When once, trapped in ice, he found a loon similarly snared, McIlwraith waxed eloquent, empathetic, invigorated by the net that had enclosed them. He searched, but they did not meet again.
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K.S.A Brazier-Tompkins
Object i a curious coincidence co-incidence a collusion of incidents incidental to Object i i look in a looking glass look pool loop a curious collusion of is
loophole
K.S.A Brazier-Tompkins
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nathan dueck
Oh! Portmanteaus! Oh, portmanteaus! lonely Once-ler, Whose factories knitted the Thneeds, Felled those forests where Bar-ba-loots were, While euphemisms damped down his deeds. While machines discharge Shloppity Shlop, One moustached Lorax opposed Once-ler, Dampening each sound of axe chop, As though Truffula Trees cannot hear.
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antilang. no. 2
Kat Heger
Bitter Marzipan Ingredients: - 4 cups ground bitter almonds - Three sheep horns (can be substituted for well dried blood or other animal matter) - Any alkaline powder (pearl-ash is traditionally used) - Iron shavings (can be taken from your husband’s farm) - Vanilla extract - Powdered sugar (or a sugar free substitute) Start with whole almonds. (What is the colour of an almond?)
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Boil the epidermis, (it’s an epidemic). Raise the water temperature slowly. When softened, scrub it off. Rough, tasteless exteriors, reveal the flesh underneath. Pummel. Sweeten. And form into a proper shape. No point covering it in chocolate, use gold leaf porcelain. Does this taste like almonds to you? Some used apricot pits, some survive off bitter almonds. Around 6.2 mg in each almond, you’ll need about 50 mg, for the desired effect. Pour alcohol over the ground seeds, leave to sit, extract. Add to cherry jam, spread over toast when convenient.
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Kat Heger
Who is deserving? Traditional brew: better for select groups. Meld the iron and ash, gradually add the blood or ground horns. Scrape down the sides, I love my red spatula for this. Store the mass by the boiling water, (you can make the marzipan at the same time). Crystalize. Purify. Add three tablespoons solid sodium, careful, it’s volatile. Side effects include: consumption. (Another type of epidemic.) Bitter cassava in high intake, relevÊ. It pulls the calve muscles, tiptoeing through hot sand, unable to come down. Konzo.
Bitter Marzipan
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Lucas Peel
‘/process_startUp.am’ { < sunrise.jpg /> post_response = /get.up /get.up( ‘autoLogin’ :1, run: prgm[“sad”] body: {avail. =file ://origin.exe { f(run >resource_ask[‘help’]) find_id *error: not found* *error: not found* f(manual_override namespace :boy headspace :none desc “Run diagnostic. Update existing.” task fix_prgm :startup buffering buffering }
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‘/process_powerOff.pm’ { < input: silence.mp3 /> post_response = /noise( run: prgm[“static”] head: { >create_new { ‘accept’ = stimulus : hi_vol f(playback/voice(s) =file ://normal.exe { >resource_find[‘myself’]) ‘/ return_it . f(search: in.btwn ; parsed_legs ; container(s): empty ; status: symbol / fit :in *error: overload* f(shutdown desc “Initiate reboot. Delete existing.” task commit :sleep end end end
Lucas Peel
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Zelda Baiano
Intimacy “What are you up to right now?” A water droplet slowly makes way down the faucet. “Not much, playing games and talking to you.” His voice deep, nonchalant. I sink into the water. I speak into the mic just above a whisper. My voice soft, alluring – “Did you work out?” “I did like one pushup.” I scoff – “How are you gonna get into the forces?” My feet swirl in the lukewarm water, anticipating.
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“I’m already jacked, remember? Plus, I know I will.” “I want to dedicate my life to the military.” I smile, and realize he can’t see me. Turn on my camera, making sure my hair parts at the side & my face is on screen. I lull – “I know. That’s a long ways away.” “Yeah, It's all I want.” I look at his lips through the screen. The sides of my cheeks heavy as I smile. My favourite part. – “What about me?” He steals quick looks at the screen. 4 hour drive, 6 hour bus, 32 hour bike. The drop of water pauses towards the end of the faucet, for a moment. “You? You should come visit me.” It's been 504 hours. “It's been 504 Hours.” Intimacy
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I see myself in the droplet. – “I should.” The droplet falls, collides with the water. “What are you up to right now?” He asks.
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Zelda Baiano
Andy Betz
Eighteen-Word Stories Adverse versus Averse The first describes why you so eagerly departed The second describes why I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t care Stasis Field My life is perfect I have everything Except a stasis field generator To keep what I have forever Eroded and Corroded My mother doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t understand I love my daughter No acid exists on this bond No corrosion ever will
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Talents Revealed I can juggle I can sing I can dance Yet, I can’t keep you happy But, I’ll try
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Andy Betz
Grant Guy
Squalor he once thought of himself as a big shot – a tough guy – he rode with pretty boy floyd but where is floyd now – smoldering in his squalor grave – & he – he lives in squalor room forgotten – in a small town in Oklahoma – a town so small it does not appear on any map & too small for a name – maybe – maybe he thought – in his squalor room in a squalor town – it would be better to give up the ghost – like bonnie & clyde & perish onto the other side – but where was the other side – he just knew it wasn’t “up there” – he was 77 years old yesterday – in his squalor room in the squalor town with no name – it was a long 365 days until his 78th birthday – his squalor stomach ached - he was a squalor man with squalor memories – he remembered where he put his gun when he swore it off – it would have one squalor bullet in it for a squalor man in a squalor town with no name
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Amilcar John Nogueira
Crafting the Black Box Step One:
Step Two: invoke data this means a stirring of elements this means
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Step Three:
Step Four: output begins. gather pens and scribes for the pens and cats to disturb the scribing of the scribes with the pens. output, regardless, outputs. Step Five:
Crafting the Black Box
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Step Six:
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Amilcar John Nogueira
Pavle Radonic
Billboard 1. ART IS NOT ENOUGH Unarguable. And a touch over-stated in this republic. No danger of getting that wrong here. The guess, like much else on the Little Red Dot, is an import from London or L.A. Young Indian-Malay couple days prior at the Sims Avenue bus-stop was startled when the forefinger approached his chest bearing: RELIGION IS DARKNESS Not a good idea, parading that in Geylang Serai there lah, no jokeâ&#x20AC;Ś Duly warned. Zainuddin for one would take up the matter with some vigor, red rag to the old Sufi poet. Another that appears on the streets here and there of late, antilang. no. 2
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usually nearer the city and the cafe district, usually borne across small, pert breasts of pretty young pixie girls: EVERYTHING IS AMAZING Soft, slight girls. (Other body types are not favored.) Well, again, hard to argue, even on a small, experientially narrow island. Perfect for the callow youth market. Unrelated (strictly): Hulwana stopped by the Mr. Teh Tarik breakfast table this morning for a chat on the way to work. This-and-that. Long, tiring work hours; incapacitated dad at home. Weighing the options; Allahâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s will etc. Like many others here, in closing Hul requested she be included in prayers. Not unfamiliar now after almost forty-four months in an Islamic community. Christians here will make the very same plea. Tricky. Hulwana would never wear a tee of any description. Good Arab girl; Hadrami (Yemen). Full-length kebaya and scarf for that gal, albeit high-style cut and plenty spunky. Michele Obamaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s problem in Saudi Arabia was brought to mind, as well as the ISIS injunction on their territories against tees bearing pictures. After the unrelenting diet of the brands here one was forced to think sometimes our enemies might be able to teach useful lessons.
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Pavle Radonic
2. Too late to catch dad as he turned onto the steps cutting in front. Tall lumpy pink polo with the laurel leaf emblem it might have been, colour here just beginning to fade. (The tropical sun.) A selection from the Ralph Lauren range on the shelves at home presumably. Fred Perry, Tommy Hilfiger and Lacoste offer variety in that leisure wear niche among the corporate chaps here. The five-to-six-year-old advertising-perfect daughter held by the hand on the escalator, her soap perfume unable to be taken from a couple of steps below. Newly laundered white shorts and blouse, the former tagged low, slyly low behind in large pink lettering— GAP High-end you can’t get higher Takashimaya on Or-chard Road, on a par with the Champs Élysées, Fifth Avenue and Shinjuku: Cartiers, Mont Blanc, Rolex, Raoul.
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3. Young woman in front of the Converts. On the approach brief eye contact that slid to the chest in the usual way. Gives the wrong idea of course, though when one was on the job surveying the erotic element fell off almost entirely. Black with matte white lettering perfectly legible, some crumpling across the fabric was all. Late teens/early twenties maid, almost certainly Indon. Almost certainly stumbling with her English acquisition. On the pass she had begun an ungainly, lumbering run. Perhaps uncomfortable at the tracking eyes and hurrying on her chores in any case. Unlikely it was embarrassment at what was being deciphered on her chest, but not out of the question. BLOWJOB Better Than No Job Employer some divorced gangster running karaoke and massage joints, washed his money thinks itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s funny. Saved her from a rat-infested trash-heap with open sewer and picking food from bins. Perhaps she had had laughs and ridicule before. Singapore, 2012â&#x20AC;&#x201C;16
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Pavle Radonic
Anastasia Jill
Kick it Happy berries like me are distant and we scream nonsense like baskets I haunch over the stoop I sleep on, wait for urban fables to tell me to others: there goes that girl, mind as wide as the western coast all she ever do is grow, she grows and she grows until she ripe like a plastic Dollar Tree rose; sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s got game through she plays, she bounce, she rhyme. Fuck, man. I wish I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know her.
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Chris Kelly
Notes from the Execution of Ned Kelly 11 Nov 1880 Kelly was submissive on his way to the gallows. When passing the upright dahlias and daisies of the gaol’s flowerbeds, he remarked: “What a nice little garden.” He remained quiet when brought into the Press room. Quiet after receiving last rites from his baptizer.
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Quiet in the presence of the eyes that had seen his ceremonial lives.
antilang. no. 2
Reporters reported his last words: “Such is life.” as his neck was ringed with rope. According to another, Kelly intended to make a speech, but, “…made no audible sound.” The last words his mother gave were: “Mind you die like a Kelly.”
Notes from the Execution of Ned Kelly
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Jesse Holth
Extra Credit One. I don’t believe you. When a body is breached, belief is the first to go. Running, it scatters to the hills, buried—head-in-sand, ears stopped up. Two. Confusion. Used to like saying, I’m a confusion of stars. Not anymore. Sometimes, when cells themselves rebel, they trick the body into forgiving. Count to three.
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One. Two. Three. When a trust is breached, it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t break or bleed, like a body. It disappears, sneaks off quietly, convinces you it was never really there.
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Catherine Jones
Hit “I hit you because I love you,” he said, his hands gentle now, petting, caressing, stroking my face and hair, gathering me into his lap. I sat stiffly behind his pleading hands, revulsion making my stomach ache. Even my child brain knew that this didn’t make sense, that this was sick, that this wasn’t how you treated the ones you loved. —— Now you burst forth, legs racing, arms pumping, laughing, seeing everything but seeing nothing at the same time because you run directly into the street. And even in that moment I perceive my world shattered from the loss of you. I scream but you ignore me, so I chase you and run in front of the car, my eyes only on you, the rest of the world like streaking, bleeding watercolor. Squealing tires, the acrid burn of rubber on asphalt, you wide eyed and yet still not really understanding.
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And I grab you roughly by the arm to make sure we are both still alive. And I hit you right there on the street as you cry. Because I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t express in words how scared I am. Because I want to punish you for making my heart stop and ripping my soul wide open for the world to see. I hit you because I love you, and I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know how to stop.
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The Couch I get home late from work, exhausted, covered in a layer of city grime that I can feel but cannot see. He’s lying on the couch, where he’s probably been all day. I call his name but he doesn’t respond. I can smell him from the kitchen, a sickly, sweet scent like rotting fruit. I’m afraid to go any closer because it feels like this might finally be the moment, that not-ever-going-back moment, and I’m not sure I can face that right away. But the twisting fear underneath my skin has wrapped itself around my sinews and reached my bones. I kick the empty bottle of Jack Daniels and it skitters across the hardwood floor. His eyes lay open but he stares at nothing. I wave my hand in front of his face and he doesn’t even blink. I do not cry. I do not feel. He mumbles things under his breath I can’t understand. There is a gash on his hand that probably needs stitches but is now crusted over with purple blood. I sit next to him on the couch and warm liquid seeps into my pants. I realize he’s pissed himself and I leap up in disgust, wriggling out of my khakis as I run to the bathroom to shower. When I return he’s somehow turned himself over so he’s lying on his stomach on the couch. He throws up and I pull his head back before he can suffocate in his own vomit. I roll him off the couch and onto the floor, stripping off his clothes even though each of his limbs feel like a hundred-pound weight. He shivers, and I throw a blanket over his naked body. 62 |
Catherine Jones
I stay up all night, the lights in our apartment blazing, every hour feeling for a pulse or putting my hand up to his mouth to make sure heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s still breathing. The couch is ruined. In the morning I will go to work.
The Couch
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Lip Manegio
& THE TRANS PERSON POURS GASOLINE ON THEMSELF after miller oberman & they call it reclamation / meaning / they will not be saved / from a burning / today / by the flame hands of someone else / will become the hearth / the scorch marks under someone else’s feet / or they won’t / & who ever said anything / about a match / about a strike / about how their fingers will flick / & maybe this is a metaphor / for transition / the way one can keep puncturing / & puncturing / themself / without ever leaking out / listen / do not think they were dreaming / of the lick / just of their / soft palms / grasped around the can’s handle / something they can hold / over their own self / finally a choice / no one else can name for them / no / this poem doesn’t end / with another trans death / just a body / choosing how it wants to drip / little rainbows in the puddles gathering / at their feet 64 |
antilang. no. 2
ode to a queer boyhood, imagined i probably watch too much glee. i probably am team edward. i probably plaster all my walls with posters of some disney heart throb. at fifteen i begin my sufjan stevens phase and never stop. i tell my mother i like boys and it means something. i never doubt where the fear comes from. i never doubt what the flutter is. i never look up the etymology of a name i dreamt about. i don’t turn the mirror over. or i do, but for all the other reasons. i fly bike down a hill holding my love’s hand and everyone knows exactly what we are. the sun twinkles and lights the world in joy. i am queer and wearing a button down shirt and high waisted shorts and no one thinks twice. no one asks where my mouth has been. no one asks me to prove it. the street lights are all ours. the street lights stay exactly where they’re supposed to. the night chases us only as far as we ask it to. the river banks are full of all of our wish bottles. i mean, i get to love from the moment i bloom and never stop. i mean, i do not have to turn myself inside out for someone else to see me.
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Lissa McFarland
04.26.17 I remember the first time I heard the word lesbian. I was 7. how another young girl whispered it like a dirty word and everyone giggled, but my laugh caught in my mouth, slid down my throat, and sunk into the bottom of my stomach. it was a filthy word that tasted like stagnant water whenever I tried to work my tongue around it. it was spat out by my peers and parents and even myself; the word acrid on our tongues. to be one was to be ugly and undesirable and completely unlovable.
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the first time I was called a dyke I was 14. the words were crudely etched into the wall by the back doors of the school with a key. a small group gathered around them, debating their truthfulness. they scattered when I approached, which meant it must be serious. I traced the words with my finger, letting the cruelty of the act seep into my body. it burned my eyes as tears threatened to escape and my palms where my nails cut little crescents into the soft skin and later my hip when I pulled the blade across it the first time.
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my first kiss was when I was 16. we said goodbye as we stood on my front porch, neither of us wanting her to go. illuminated by orange light and surrounded by still air, she was beautiful, and I was nervous. my heart cracked my ribs and my hands shook. I was confetti. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t remember going back inside,but I laid in bed that night and thought of her rose petal lips and how her laugh comes out in bursts and bubbles and I knew.
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Lissa McFarland
finally, at 21, I’m learning how to say lesbian and have it taste like how she takes her coffee—sugary sweet and creamy. my mouth slowly understands the way it needs to move to hold the syllables with care. it will take time, but I will figure out how to exhale love love love and only love. I’m teaching myself to pack my wounds with flower petals so that when I heal I can maybe be unyieldingly soft and gentle.
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Allison Iriye
Bright Through Bare Windows Bright through bare windows, a breeze of breath warms my skin beneath tousled sheets. Intertwined like ivy, we spend dog days in sanctuary.
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Goodnight A quilted sky stuffed with clouds of endless memories blankets our evening. We are entwined limbs dreaming with bright eyes open and mouths stretched in grins, plotted like coupled constellations. Never do we have to say good night.
Allison Iriye
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Heather Myers
Bones of the Sea I could tell you the ways a mind can feel like a prison cell. I could tell you about the ragged, incessant beating of my thoughts against dwindling self-control. The way shadows slither up my spine and caress my brain with sweet tongues. Whisper poison through my skull. Jane Eyre boldly declared: “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me.” How I wish I were Jane. I could tell you all these things. But I won’t. Instead they are bubble wrapped and duct taped into a secret that will one day burst apart but for now stays firmly put. No. I won’t let the wave carry it away, risk it bursting open. Can’t face the thought of the mess and the empty feeling that follows as I numbly scrub the floors to a polish. A perfect mirror to reflect a painted smile. Leave no trace. 72 |
antilang. no. 2
What I will tell you? How I miss the way my bones felt as I ran my fingers over the sharp peaks of my hips. How I would count the valleys between my ribs in front of a mirror. And when your head dips between my legs, I remember when the space between them was a canyon. I miss being so small it felt like I could disappear. No matter how many mornings I wake up to your voice softly singing of my beauty, I’m always trapped. Life sentence. No parole. Conjugal visits allowed in the evenings. But we both know all this. Nights spent over room temperature sauv blanc making confession through saltrimmed lips. Eyes like dull sandpaper scraping tired lids. Your arms encircle me – hold all the pieces threatening to pull apart. The bubble wrap in my chest thrums with every beat of my slow heart. I don’t tell you about the prison cell. But I think you know. And though the world hashtags, likes, and shares, I cannot help but notice they all avoid my eye as I crack the blister pack of the pills that keep me sane. I swallow them daily, like the lies I tell myself, parroted from therapy. “I am enough.”
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And maybe one day I’ll believe them. But I don’t hold my breath for maybe. No, the lies are like the poisonous shadows whispering in my head. Each one thrown back with a hastily written post-it note; “What if?” in a jagged cursive. The question mark a gash in the blank meditation they teach me to strive for, opening my carefully wrapped heart one scratch at a time. Your arms are still there, holding. Arms that showed me love and strength when I didn’t know it existed. So I could tell you all these things and more. But I won’t. I keep to my cell, the walls cracking and paint peeling from years of scrabbling hands, searching for an exit. I wait for your tidal wave to crumble them and carry me away. But the wave was never yours. It’s mine. And it grows.
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Heather Myers
Ryan Coleman
Babyface Walking south, Fair Oaks Avenue. Pasadena, just after 7. It’s fall and the sun is already setting in the west, but it’s still warm. The summer bakes Southern California so relentlessly that the effects are felt for months afterward. Even now, in November, I imagine that if I got down on my hands and knees and pressed my ear to the ground I could hear the anticipatory drops of early winter rain sizzling into steam and rising out of the cracks, feel them like breath at my cheek, the heat dying, but still glowing deep underground. But I don’t kneel down. I don’t press my face into the asphalt in the street, or the stones that make up the sidewalk. I don’t plunge my fingers into the soil sunk into plots around the pharmacy, pull out clods wriggling with worms, rocks, and rot, throw them into traffic or smash them against my chest, cursing anyone I can see and laughing garishly through tears. Today I am all ease. I don’t fight today—against other people, against my body, against the sun, and I don’t ask why. It is as useless antilang. no. 2
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to question the days I’m allowed the mercy of ease as it is to question the days I’m not. Because I don’t buy into the God I was raised with anymore, and because I haven’t taken the time to look into any others, for now I am who is left to answer these questions. Of course I’m inadequate, but I’m not mysterious, which is at least a consolation. Ease walking past a hookah lounge, ease walking past Bank of the West. I am wearing comfortable pants and a comfortable shirt. I look like a boy, which disappoints me but does permit less visibility. There are so few people out. I feel so light I might disperse. I finger a button at my waist, not above the fly but set off from the center for suspenders to loop around. The button is so firmly stitched into the pants that I feel the shape of my flesh beneath it and grimace, imagining the body I hate as obstinate as the button. I dart my eyes in response, screw up my face in a grim imitation of the peace I felt only moments before. Across the street is an old theater. It was called “The Rialto” before it shut down. The name still coronates its three marquees, which are adjoined, facing east, southeast, and northeast. I approach the Rialto and look up. The sky past the marquee is a vivid color—blue, violet, and gray. The colors have combined into a shade so tender, set against the thick white lines of the marquee with their red letters, which spell: “BABYFACE THE LADY EVE 730P 11P”
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Ryan Coleman
ringed by a rope of translucent bulbs lining the marquee’s inside edge, each with a filament at their centers, setting off the red with a brilliant gold. The sight fills me with a powerful sentimental emotion, like missing the company of a character from a favorite childhood book. The emotion drains the color from me and my surroundings. It is the same autumn night, but set against a contrast of the past. Where reality and hallucination meet there is friction, and the static sound cannonading from the collision of two irreconcilable ways of being in the world frees me from pain. I laugh because I know it’s stupid to dream about the past but I don’t care, because I’m happy. My gray body is warm, cloaked in a long wool Chesterfield of my invention, single-breasted with no pockets and no buttons. The glossy red, wicked, pointy nails at the end of my elegant fingers, thick-boned, flesh as sweet and simple as poundcake take hold of the collar, pulling the coat closer around me and against the wind now whipping at my ankles, an invention also. I continue to face the marquee. The city is quieter than ever. “Ease,” my body thinks out loud. White light pours out of the marquee. I mouth: “baby face,” my face still upturned, as my eyes relinquish focus. This is romance, and no one has to touch me. I enter the theater.
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Amy LeBlanc
Lady Grey She used her tongue to her moisten her lips that flaked like the wing of a moth. I emptied tealeaves into the pot while she spoke and nodded my head at all appropriate times in her story. “I couldn’t smell anything at all. Then I died. It happened,” she snapped her fingers, “just like that.” She said this while running her tongue along the rim of her teacup. I’d refilled it with earl grey tea and leaves clung to her upper lip. She shook from the strain of lifting the cup towards herself and a few strands of hair loosened from the turtle clip beneath her hat. Her skin draped across her bones, loosening when she spoke, and tightening when she was quiet. “It was the sea birds that finally killed me—damn greedy things. I just lay there with my sun hat blown off and my dress lifting up in the wind. They pecked and pecked and pecked until there was nothing left of me. When I woke 78 |
antilang. no. 2
back in my body, the birds had gone and my sunhat had been torn into a pile of shredded straw beside me. I’d swear to it on a stack of bibles if you asked me to. That’s exactly how it happened.” “More tea?” “Please.” She handed me her cup as she said, “We must do something about these moths.” The moths she spoke of had buried into our walls during the hottest weeks of summer. She called them an infestation, but I called them a gathering. Their silken wings were drawn to the light of the oil lamp on her bedside table, which she kept above a stack of books. I think they came for the light, but found the house too comfortable to consider leaving. I poured more tea as she tucked the loose strands of hair back under the brim of her hat. She never took the hat off; I think she was insecure about the state the birds had left her in. I believe her, but sea birds are more likely to scoop mackerel from the surface than they are to peck at her head below her hat. I wanted to tell her that the bergamot in earl grey tea was added to offset the taste of lime-laden water in 1800s England (the cornflower and vanilla came later). I wanted to tell her that the moths she speaks of are formidable mimics. They pretend to look like less palatable insects to avoid being eaten. They’re really no bother. I wanted to tell her that ravens can live for forty-five years, which is longer than she lived before the birds finished her off. Lady Grey
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Two moths fluttered towards us. One moth landed on the edge of her hat and one descended to the table in front of her. She hit the table, this time releasing numerous strands from the turtle clip, while the force jolted the china cups from their saucers and knocked the ladyfingers to the floor. “I’ve got you.” When she lifted her hand—the flattened body of a moth clung to the tablecloth, wrinkled and speckled like poplar leaves, its wings turned to dust beside the body.
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Amy LeBlanc
Owen Schaefer
The Last Town The place was empty, like most other towns we’d passed through. We scavenged the already looted supermarkets and restaurants for cans. Broke the door down at some fancy apartment building where we scored a few dried soup packages and a bottle of rum. Cal busted in a vending machine, so we had all kinds of drinks at least. We were no longer cautious, no longer travelling from shadow to shadow. We hadn’t seen anyone to run from for weeks. The last ones were too weak to chase us anyway. That night, for kicks, we set tires on fire outside a car repair shop and rolled them down the hill along the main drag—clouds of flame and billowing blackness that bounced and careened off the abandoned cars. We were halfway drunk and laughing when we saw the first building catch fire. We sat giggling. Got all corny and nostalgic about bonfires and marshmallows. A couple minutes later, the next building started to flicker. Then the whole block went up.
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We ran. And in my head, I heard my father yelling at us about having respect and not shitting where we lived and all that. That’s the kind of thing he used to shout about. He’d be chewing us out right now if he were here. He’d say it was idiots like us that had wrecked everything. Maybe he’s right, but I always figured it didn’t matter, since everything was pretty well wrecked already. But running from that fire—its heat on our backs, us wondering if it was going to follow us right out of town, burn straight across the fields and roast us there like a couple of rabbits—that was the first time I kind of figured out what he meant. The first time I realized how things could turn on you, all quick like that. Never listen, do you? my Pops would’ve said. Then he’d have clucked his tongue at the town blazing behind us.
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Owen Schaefer
Myopia On Saturday, you sat alone in the too-bright eye clinic as the optometrist placed a metal torture device on the bridge of your nose. You’d asked Nate to go with you; actually joked about not being able to recognize him anymore. But he’d refused. Cited exhaustion. And you said you understood. He worked late, worked weekends. And you hunted for reasonable explanations while the optometrist led you through the chart. They work him too hard, you thought. He’s tired. You hoped for the same thing about your eyes. Eyestrain, perhaps. A regimen of vitamins to sort it out. Two days later, the prescription for glasses is still folded like a secret in your purse, and you’ve put the empty condom wrapper found in Nate’s shirt-pocket on the kitchen table where he will see it. Where you can both see it. For once, you’re glad the time on the microwave is a blue smear, the room vague and edgeless. Any time now, you’ll hear the car pull in, the sound of his key in the lock. And you’ll think about that moment when the optometrist clicked a lens down into the metal frame, and everything jumped into terrible focus.
Owen Schaefer
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David Eso
Family Business My mother erred by crafting minor secrets just for me. My father blunders when excusing himself for living well. My sister is perfect and far away. My brother is perfect and never-born. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t you find, cousin, the whole family fits us to a tea plantation?
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Occasional Dirge for the Grassy Knoll at Swan Mall Lying on the grass or just under it, willing passing clouds to imagine their own shapes, not mine.
David Eso
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Three Davids and no Goliath â&#x20AC;Śwalk into a barren land. First David erects a fortress. Second David besieges the fortress. Third David arranges a rooftop Bacchanal with many consorts and lyres. No sign yet of Goliathâ&#x20AC;Ś nor a source for fresh water.
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David Eso
BB
Xoloitzcuintli I close the book I’m reading and rest it on top of my couch. At my feet, something is trying to get between my legs. Vermin. I pat his head. He lets out a gentle woof. I roll my eyes. I’m a reluctant dog owner. I live above this old bookstore, a regular client, been flirting with the bookseller for a while although he doesn’t pay me particular attention. He’s kind of cute (the bookseller) and a bit odd. The only thing that I’ve to show for my efforts is this hairless dog. My efforts, I should clarify, were aimed at inviting the cute-but-odd bookseller, out for coffee. That’s how I got Vermin. And a bunch of books that I might never read. The bookseller told me he breeds them (the dogs, not the books). They are called xoloitzcuintli (again, the dogs, not the books). It took me precisely 108 tries to pronounce that right. Xoloitzcuintli. I had to Google it. Xoloitzcuintli. Now it’s in my computer’s cache and I’ve no idea how to get rid of it. It has contaminated everything. Whatever I do, I get the images of these ugly dogs, identical to the one that is currently angle parking between my legs. Ugly thing. antilang. no. 2
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Still, I think I like him. He’s kind of cute (the dog) and a bit odd. And although he might not be a looker, he’s clever. I considered calling him Leprosy, but that would have been unfair. He has the smoothest, most evenly coloured skin that I’ve ever seen. It’s weird for a dog, I bet. You know, ‘cause it’s hairless, but it would have been normal in a person. Perhaps, Vermin is more like a person and less like a dog. Anyway, he can be really cute in a different way from the bookseller, who also is cute and sells dog food. He makes a special blend of camel and ostrich meat. Occasionally spiked with bison. Wild Thing, he calls it. High in protein. It’s weird but I buy it anyway (like I buy books I won't read or the dog I didn’t want). Because they are both darling and I’m already too deep into this matter of the dog and the bookseller. One day, I found his (the dog’s, not the bookseller’s) stash of pins and thimbles. Odd. I don’t know where they came from. But I had to tell the bookseller. It was then that he first mentioned that he had been sequencing these dogs, not just breeding them. Apparently, he has some other interests that aren’t evident when you see him at the bookstore (like advanced biology and knowledge of gene splicing). He said he was sequencing them to find computer chips. You know, ‘cause of the metal (I nodded along, not sure why that would be a good thing). It went wrong, of course, and the dogs keep finding sewing instruments. Insanity, I thought. Not that the dogs tracked down needles (that’s good), but to be sequencing them to find computer chips (that’s odd). Still, he’s kind of cute. And so, but differently, is Vermin.
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BB
antilang. no. 2
Contributors is currently studying English Literature and Language at Brock University in Southern Ontario. She has been previously published in two anthologies, The Nights Voice, and Fresh Ink 2016.
Zelda Baiano
has been an academic for more than 20 years. Currently, she is an MFA student at the University of Saskatchewan. She grew up in South America and has lived in the US, the UK, Belgium, and Canada.
BB
With degrees in Physics and Chemistry, Andy Betz has tutored and taught in excess of 30 years. His novel, short stories, and poems are works still defining his style. He lives in 1974, has been married for 26 years, and collects occupations (the current tally is 95). hails from north-western Ontario, but spent much of her youth in New Brunswick. She received a Ph.D. in English from the University of Saskatchewan. Her published work includes articles, novels, short stories, and poetry. Brevity is not her strength, but she approaches it most closely through poetry.
K.S.A. Brazier-Tompkins
was born in 1983 in Bangkok, Thailand. He has received photography awards from the Globalhunt Foundation, India and the Burggrun Institute, USA. Streets and alleys are the places he explores and photographs.
Manit Chaotragoongit
Fall 2018
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Christopher Coleman is a queer and gender non-identifying person from Los Angeles, living in Los Angeles, and writing about gender, violence, and film. In Los Angeles. Ryan
nathan dueck’s initials spell “nrd.” His parents tell him nobody used that word when he was born, but dictionaries say otherwise. His poetry collection, A Very Special Episode, is forthcoming.
Eso studies literature at UVic and creates it largely elsewhere. He helps select poetry for The Malahat Review and co-edited Where the Nights are Twice as Long (Goose Lane). David
Etherin writes experimental formal poetry. His books include Cellar (Penteract Press, 2018). Find him on Twitter, @Anthony_Etherin, and via his website anthonyetherin.wordpress.com. Anthony
is a Canadian poet, writer, playwright, stage director and designer. He has over one hundred poems and short stories published internationally. He has five books published.
Grant Guy
is in her second year at the University of Calgary studying Creative Writing and Biochemistry. Her writing reflects a merging of the two incongruous worlds with a flare for ethical debate.
Kat Heger
writes and edits in beautiful Victoria, BC. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Barzakh Magazine, Mantra Review, Canada Quarterly, Eastern Iowa Review, and others.
Jesse Holth
is a recent University of Calgary graduate who writes about the people in (and out) of her life. She spends her time chasing various creative projects, baking for loved ones, and winding up in trouble.
Allison Iriye
Melinda Jane – The Poet Mj: writer, spoken word artist
with explorations in soundscapes, improv music in the performing arts. Poems in Thirty West Publishing, The Mozzie, Rambutan, and more. is a queer poet and fiction writer living in the southern United States. She is a current editor
Anastasia Jill (Anna Keeler)
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for the Smaeralit Anthology. Her work has been published or is upcoming with Poets.org, Lunch Ticket, FIVE:2:ONE, Ambit Magazine, apt, Into the Void Magazine, 2River, and more. Language lover, art enthusiast, and tea aficionado, Catherine Jones is a college professor and writer of novels, poetry, and nonfiction. You can follow her writing adventures on Twitter @catjanejones.
Kelly’s biographical statement is paltry, known to the editors, and currently beyond the reach of a copy and paste. Chris
edits Non-Fiction editor for filling Station. Her work has appeared in Room, the Puritan, Prairie Fire and other journals. Her latest chapbook is “Ladybird, Ladybird” (Anstruther Press, fall 2018).
Amy LeBlanc
is a queer, trans nonbinary poet from Boston working towards a BFA in creative writing at Emerson College. Their work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Flypaper Magazine, Crab Fat Magazine, Freezeray Poetry, the minnesota review, and elsewhere.
Lip Manegio
works as a literacy instructor in Calgary. His poetry has been awarded the CBC Poetry Prize and has appeared in journals such as The Malahat Review, The Fiddlehead, Grain, Event, CV2, and Alberta Views. His first collection of poems is Tar Swan (NeWest Press, 2018).
David Martin
is a writer, teacher and musician originally from Vancouver, British Columbia. In 2017, she completed her MFA in Writing at the University of Saskatchewan. Her work has appeared in various literary magazines across Canada.
Shannon McConnell
is usually a visual artist (she did the wonderful cover and logo for antilang. no. 1!). According to her Instagram profile (@lil.trashlord), she's a big gay from YYC, a sandwich connoisseur, sunshine personified, and a ramen enthusiast.
Lissa McFarland
is a multi-award-winning poet, storyteller, and author of 13 books. She’s a member of the Cherokee Nation and has been awarded numerous poet-in-residency positions around the world.
Jessica Mehta
Fall 2018
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Currently, she is a Halcyon Art Labs fellow and working on her PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Exeter. www.jessicamehta.com. Besides being a freelance writer and poetry enthusiast, Lonnie Monka runs Jerusalism, an initiative to foster local literary community through events such as reading series, author meet-ups, workshops, and more. When not busy reading or writing, Lonnie enjoys posting pictures of restrooms on Instagram - @toiletsofjerusalem. is a U of C alumnus with a BA in English. She spends her days marketing and editing for engineers, but side hustles as an editor at Dote Magazine.
Heather Myers
received his Masters in English from the University of Windsor. His short story “Felix and the Light” recently won the Ten Stories High Short Story Contest.
Amilcar John Nogueira
is originally from Southern Alberta. He is the author of the collection Forty-Five Minutes of Unstoppable Rock, chapbook “The Coachella Madrigals,” and many other things.
Steve Passey
likes the idea of strangers, vegetables, and defacing things in the name of art. He does not like vinegar, rules, or high places, though he is willing himself to at least understand the purpose of all three. One time Neil Hilborn told him that his poems were pretty. He currently lives in Aiea, Hawaii.
Lucas Peel
An Australian-Montenegrin, Pavle Radonic’s six years living and writing in S.E. Asia has provided unexpected stimulus. In the current political climate Canada is acceptable as another spiritual home. is a Canadian writer and poet currently living in Hong Kong. His work has been published in various journals and anthologies, including Barzakh, Dimsum, and Hong Kong Future Perfect.
Owen Schaefer
has no official creative credentials; he is virtually incapable of formality and regularly substitutes snark in its place. He would have you know that passively submitting one’s bio is likely to have it eaten by zombies.
Taylor Skaalrud
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Stephen recently completed her MA in English Literature at the University of Calgary. She works as an events coordinator planning book launches. Her writing has previously been featured in The Impressment Gang. Michaela
is an artist, poet, and musician from Calgary, Alberta. He produces visual art using old videogame gear, and produces music with his chiptune project GreyScreen as well as alt-country in Cold Water. His first book of poems, Sunshine Policy, is out from Straw Books.
Kevin Stebner
writes about history, folklore, and the body. Her debut novel will be released in 2019 from Stonehouse Publishing.
Erin Emily Ann Vance
Fall 2018
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Contribute to The ALP
What weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re looking for: Good. Short. Writing. Any form, any genre, as long as it is brief and of exceptional quality. Poetry, short/flash fiction, creative essays, ficto-criticism, flash memoir, photo essays, comics, postcard fiction, and collaborations across media. We support diversity in both the form and content of writing, and we prioritise voices that have been systemically silenced or have otherwise gone unheard. We welcome and encourage simultaneous submissions (because you should have the opportunity to submit your work widely). 12 point Times New Roman, one inch margins, maximum SIX (6) pages, regardless of form, genre, or number of pieces. Please double-space all prose. MS Word files (.doc or .docx) only for textual pieces, please. Please send all submissions via Submittable and include a 30 word bio (we are all about concision, after all).
@antilangmag / antilang.ca
