Masthead
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Becca Liu
ASSISTANT EDITOR Catherine Lopez
WEB EDITOR
Natalie Robehmed
ART DIRECTOR Reina Imagawa
FACULTY ADVISOR Michael Golston
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Andy Bowers Jess Gersony Schneider Rancy
columbianewpoetry@gmail.com columbianewpoetry.tumblr.com
table of Contents 1 2 7 9 17 19 21 23 24 25 27 29 Covers
[cold sweat kissed - the brow: Morgen Hall Exodus Marcus Jeremy CREATION! Catherine Lopez MEMPHIS Reina Imagawa Break Bread Yoni Golijov LuringAnna Catherine Lopez “Act consequence ion” – (1984) Natalie Robehmed Journey to the End of the Night Listen Chen Inside the Whale After Jonah Ana Diaz “he there she re hears” Natalie Robehmed Waders María Cristina Fernández Hall melizmatik Reina Imagawa Reina Imagawa
[Cold sweat kissed - the brow: [cold sweat kissed - the brow: listless is stitched in the alley still, reflected – in/rhythm in/dewtime you who whispering crisply called out indecently the hour ‘every chime realize it’s always already sic o’clock!’ in ]sung sickish blocks[ so well drippedly muddle in the wind then, while what young things will walks past, wishfed, this rumpled flowerstall]
-Morgen Hall 1
/ Columbia New Poetry
exodus 1. Venture The inexorable rush of blood to the Head, perhaps, in fear, stopped short at the mouth. --Well that’s what he thought… When he got knifed in the neck (—Right) He remarked on how on this day, Blue sky pressedtoRed, RedRhubarb—tender, So sweet like morning (--Sweet? He was hung´over) Burnt Whip, sharp red, groove blue, yeah, festive Feast Collage—colorful bricolage for the stomache, Kalediscopic—it was gonna be everything. Has been everything… [Interrupting] A mutant doubleyoked egg sizzling under All that fat—some bacon even, cracklin’ mist In the air, thewayyouwanna mash your face when you Say Coffeegrindz with jazz in your soul— (you’re missing the point) That / THAT—that?— Life and death converging, this Point in time a biiird singin. He was knifed, okay. This.
issue Vii / 2
2. Outward The garden bright with beets; The moonshine fighting The leaves scratching my Restless sleep. Scab-picked knees Dressed over greens Doused in dew out in The garden. Lemon curd On Toast for “brekfist” so I Called it. Bare feet on the kitchen Floor, cut on glass made for Grownups. Beautiful. I knew it’d be A great fucking Morning to be alive. (--see exactly…) Me eyes’ device, failing description, Conjoining memories pressed to vision Bailed in hay while some strummer makes my Insides boil—a melody, fading… They said he died immediately, 142nd and Lenox… Pulpy soup—like gangs throwing Bodies over the East River— Them shuttling underground, Bodies, bodies—frail, heavy and lifeless, at once
3
/ Columbia New Poetry
Fetors, mange—feral— So…the opposite of juicy…. Dessican or DesiCANT? Not funny, asshole Hmmhm…smells like fish dead in Water, messily carved. Fish Paste. You hungry? No. I’d be down for some Sa-shi-mi, Some beta fish even, (you can’t eat those, idiot…) Betameta, fish—bird Or serpent, bed of sleepers, Feathered fish or scaled Pigeon—talking Metaphysics like we know shit? If you had a fucking brain…Just know I’m here for you if you need to talk, okay? The burning seed ingested; Wisdom locked in its own destruction All for the sake of fucking nourishment?— Buried in its prime, underground. A goddamn seed! Might as well be fucking fishpaste… We’ll have to call and make funeral arrangements. Bursting through its own design. Damn that’s hot—explosive…
issue Vii / 4
3. Whereto Is it snowing? Endless hail dancing over the archipelago Then why are the mountains white? Clouds swathing the swollen terrain of beaten soldiers Get angry when their work escapes the public eye So you’re lying then? The burning seed ingested, Internal stirring of the merciless Prophet becomes palpable— Maturity rises like a phoenix and takes Charge and all you can do is relish… What? [___] Where did you go? Here. No, where did you go? Disrupting decaying rhyme, corroding rhythm Consumes The rotting Flesh What happened to the blood? The throat, music, beatings. Licks. Beets, Like pink fingers stained like blood But dressed in vinaigrette.
5
/ Columbia New Poetry
But then why are the mountains white? These hands a vessel For the beets, their ink Staining fingers, Bowl carriers Scaled with paint. And then fucking what? Fences laid mystic around ancient treasure Were blown away in minutes, Lost in primal printlessness. My mind marked with flesh wounds, midnight gils opened in the becoming night, expanding the fingers’ breath: Two parallel hands pressed on shoulders, evading blue pressingMoreToRed, more delicately searching this time, Even in the promise of daylight. Corroder, leveler, speckling lightning or tiled evenly, the stab of night will soon Be woven into endless water, smoothed back gently into morning, in the absence of breath.
-Marcus Jeremy
issue Vii / 6
CREATION! Reins I wanted so bad for you to be a part, To pick knick-knacks with Candy Down on favorite blocks of desperate sleaze: The first, the third, el-iz-a-BETH and Ludlow all providing sprigs of misplaced leaves, dandy-lions, and one-or-two used-upcrack-vials. I picture now the two-of-you And smirking all the while: Smearing and cutting, swapping ‘round, The treasures that litter, float down to our soles By souls just longing to be in love! With something something something…
more
And yet Your ecstasy’s pure as paste-snarfing children Who know all-too-well the shit they endure From teachers-- fresh and forgotten in thought Of what the draw of the paste is. Of just how good that paste really tastes. And really. You and Candy—see pure joy! (Repressed in presence.) The two of you stand in a pure-white-room Over pure-white-tables that darken from snowing collages
7
/ Columbia New Poetry
‘Cause here: You and Candy— Making some light.
(and snarfing your paste.)
You two make light, make light! Out of body-bag-beckoning, Sorrow-seducing, and helplessly hearing the harrowing head-droops You’re on the streets with those who have more than freshly forgotten That the paste
really tastes
damn good.
-Catherine Lopez
issue Vii / 8
9
/ Columbia New Poetry 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1
1-9-5 Bedford Avenue; craft beer, cigars, and foreign champagne.
I could’ve sang and stroked summer smoke all night long in that mini dancehall, mini boxes of whatever happiness shrouding my gaze in your bathroom mirror.. Got a buck to spare?
..Bullshit.
THANKSGIVING. Thanksgiving? Who’s not here for class on thanksgiving? Why we talkin’ about Thanksgiving? I don’t know. Why we talkin’ about Thanksgiving NOW? You should know. Tell me about it.
Alright, I’m late. I walk in. Everybody’s zombie—23 zombie gazes, A pair of.. real cool hazel eyes. Flashing. Giuseppe’s all rollin’, rollin’..
Five.. Two..
MeMPhis
issue Vii / 10
But what’s more to say?
Lifting the gates of stubborn entities..
Barricade, made in China.
Barricade, made in China.
No. No! He left me in the street. I was totally without a roof.
Not quite yet. Here, I’ll swear with you in the lobby. Where? The lobby! The lobby of our place in Memphis.. Paris.. and we called it the Hotel Chelsea.. we blew up the Hotel Chelsea..
It calls for a confirmation: some cat walks in; places his tumbler on the counter, orders lime rickey like he’s spitting out phlegm. It calls for a confirmation.
That’s not what I wanted to say. What more to say? The stool is vacant—
My umbrella was our barricade.
My umbrella was our barricade.
11
/ Columbia New Poetry
Last year, Christ was too heavy so the iron contraption broke. Can we get a new one on eBay?
Man, you’re spoiling me! It’s a bad temptation.
I was there. I miss’d the train. Were you there? Something’s missing.
Time and space.
Tokyo. And no, I wasn’t really lost. Just developing this kind of emotion.
0430 fucking a.m.
KHRYST! Continuity of the night flight is dead.
The joint rainbows, the red damask curtains; And I thought it was a series of resurrection plays.
And he decides he doesn’t want to marry her no more.
Snowstorms.
No one was there.
No one was there.
& all the bars were closed! Like the residue of a freak show. The metro runs only till midnite SHARP.
Lost in Memphis?
issue Vii / 12
FANTAAASTIC.
..Fantastic.
Compressed. Like the wad of tissue you kept pressing against your palms while we listened to the rain in the birthday room. The room that was never really used..fantastic.
Were your words compressed like diamonds? Compressed in Tokyo? Well.. Though I don’t really get what you’re aiming for..
‘cause the only place open was Ippudo. Man, that asshole made me eat ramen alone at four fucking thirty a.m. And no, it wasn’t even all that spicy.
So I asked him to lend me at least a pen, So I could make myself busy trying to spend the night Everything I wrote smelled like jazz and chili peppers,
FANTA-HSTIC!
FANTASTIC.
Spit it out!
WAS IT SPICY?
To spend the night with?
13
/ Columbia New Poetry O. Damn, so long. The last time I saw you, you were out to Paris.
S-T-R-E-T-T-E. NO
STRETTO! STRETTO.
it’s the same stanza the same stanza that keeps on exploring the themes. Everyone was there.
I was not there. My night was spent cracking eggshells for egg nog & scotch to poison my mum.
I.. I.. I was not there.
Peking. Memphis. Memphis. “It was nasty.” How was it? “It was mad nasty.” Her bra is broken. It was mad nasty. reproductive. overused. I don’t even know her name. shy delight. RIGHT! So casually accepted..
jesus. S-T-R-E-T-T…
In Italian, it’s called
Compressed;
issue Vii / 14
What bullshit is that?
THANKSGIVING..
I wasn’t there. I’m trying
MAN, YOU’RE VACANT.
I am. Are you? The searchlights are broken. so they say, so they say..
..I’m sorry.
But it’s all like a joke. WE HAVE NO APRICOT SODA, unless you don’t mind it
But there was nobody missing! He was wearing a sweater, Levis, and Nike shoes. Fuck, missing people look all the same! Can’t tell which is which.
Are you? I am.
I don’t KNOW what I want! Well, some apricot soda.. a bit lukewarm
EVERYONE WAS THERE! I’m trying, to show you the very beginning. Late August, LATE AUGUST.
A tarantula was smashed against the window, it was really funny.
15
/ Columbia New Poetry Plato & Aristotle; which one’s which?
But wait, we actually don’t have that.
So I kept on writing, ‘cause, you know,
Now we’re REALLY one topic behind.
I should call Ohara. I should call Cheyenne. Plato’s got his right hand up.. FUCK! Now he’s all about “the reality beyond”— THE PHYSICAL REALITY. Man, I need a drink.. I need a drink. It’s Very, Very Renaissance! Noooo! It’s the other direction.
YES.. wait. I don’t know what it is, but there’s something about this coffee that’s just not right!
From an arithmetic point of view,
She knew all about grapes and dogs.. “Grapes are toxic when ya feed them t’dogs.” I thought about that this weekend then I fell asleep. Yeah, maybe we SHOULD turn off the lights, YES..
Her name is Julia, she’s still a mystery.
issue Vii / 16
When?
you were falling asleep.. What’d you write about?
-Reina Imagawa
When he left you and rode off on his bike? Right. I WANTED TO FUCKING SHOOT THE KID OFF HIS BIKE. And I was tired of writing about music, forgetfulness and lust. Love; there’s no such thing as love. If the piano hadn’t already been invented, d’you think you would have created something like it? I don’t know. Piano’s are kinda horrifying, Delirious. ‘Cause it’s up to me to play it or break it.
The night I flew outta Tokyo.
I think I wrote about music. ‘Cause, you know, I miss’d my train, had till dawn to fool around.. I think I wrote about music, it was… really depressing.
he gave me that pen..
break bread Sun is set low I think moontime I think time to bake bread I think time to rise from afternoon naps like the stars I think slowly pouring. My body heaves to breathe but pores blocked up the clench of sweet aroma bread fits its fists up in my nostrils and I gag at beauty. with the oven on Thistle bead sweat seeds down past tear duct to the tip of my nose I tilt up to lickcatch it like a snowflake not time to add salt yet just water slowly pouring bodies beneath me I block pores I knead little yolk and open mouthed you drift your lips to my clavicle and whisper I do.
“fold up”
Your lips stained with olive oil remind me of fire I think isn’t that a wonder as I grope dough for a stray chunk of sugar I say separate as I crush it between separate I think moontime your cold hands on the back of my lungs I sweat thistles to keep me off and they fall 17
/ Columbia New Poetry
into the dough, folded again, but burst up from seeds of sweat The flower the Centaurea! “star thistle” the Carduus “blesséd thistle” the Silybum “milk thistle” giggle this bread will make gums bleed cut tongues yet you still whisper like fire, I take snowflake steps but yoked to these flours I say water I say olive oil lips I say you smell of Greece you say I’ve been fixing the car Oh wash your hands then I say water and I try to breathe under water and I try to fold this dough water I say I need water you say turn the oven down, this’ll be the death of me. You punch the stiff dough. You mix slow sweet with water You mix vigor and you punch slow sweet dough. I think I wish I was bruised
-Yoni Golijov
issue Vii / 18
luringanna The small foamy waves of our beerbitten friends spill out gently from the door of the drunken soirée I thought Lonely | eye Only | eye watched you slam and Now resigned to retreat from Each body detected—who can explainsuddenfear Closing | tide Running | time How grateful one feels with each ebb And stea-dy ex-pec-ta-tion’s relied on most likely Mates slosh, we rock with the nauseous tide And try to escape to the shore tomorrow departing from stable sands. . .
19
/ Columbia New Poetry
too soon
it’s
when
smoothsailing from
I’mebbing your blue-green brooding
I should have known When you said you couldn’t decide their color. Your only eyes,
Luriana -Catherine Lopez
issue Vii / 20
21
/ Columbia New Poetry
ConsequenCe
ion”
I’d rather not say. dissemble feelings in to tw/o thirds of it its
would you like me to search the web for: the lunatic minority of one sixtieth?
shoot screens! we were talking about you, not me lick ’er ish! OK, I didn’t think so commit FaceCrime! I don’t understandain’t nobody fuck human!
we are waiting corpses sitting w/ bruised ears btw hours.
The end starts as seconds march by enormous.
“aCt
– (1984)
issue Vii / 22
-Natalie Robehmed
present/ing the past, Siri was contained in the beginning.
she’s so buoyant my neuroses bounce off her I’m so non his bounce through me.
this algorithm knows me better than I know my self fleshing out on the internet.
(but the boundaries are still leaking and every unit bleeds.
Journey to the end of the night JOURNEY TO THE END OF THE NIGHT 1/3 Country No. 2 soil two charnels a situation the last coward on earth JOURNEY TO THE END OF THE NIGHT 2/3 that tangled meat jam in a kettle JOURNEY TO THE END OF THE NIGHT 3/3 like rabbits like rats like that like dead people like you like hoops
-Listen Chen
23
/ Columbia New Poetry
inside the whale after Jonah Hey there, you look new hold on let me unbutton my ribs so your hand can reach in unfasten that jaw, sip some marrow here’s a box: I made it in pottery class & I made sure to mix some blood into the clay I wrapped it in skin and it’s even got a bow of muscle sinew spill your guts in there make yourself at home the last guy only stayed three nights but I have a good feeling about you
-Ana Diaz
issue Vii / 24
“he there she re hears” we’re on the same page you and I right don’t leave / stay retrogressing the foreword. you and I right one is too few retrogressing the foreword to vibrate in negative. one is too while depiction takes place to vibrate in negative the colour of post tragedy
few
while depiction takes place she said / my voice was maroon (the colour of post tragedy sutured out of narrative… she said my voice was maroon he had a squid tattoo left shoulder sutured out of narrative Amar Radia . he had a squid tattoo left shoulder for a deep opening of the heart Amar Radia . from Dubai, United Arab Emirates 25
/ Columbia New Poetry
for a deep opening of the heart. peel the sentence he is in from Dubai, United Arab Emirates beats re-stanza the betweenpeel the sentence he is in all is void beats re-stanza the between destory un person all is we’re on the destory un don’t leave /
void person stay
same
page
-Natalie Robehmed
issue Vii / 26
waders THE ARC Their cloven hooves filtered biles, old grain digest, wood plank. Forty days, their legs collapsed in the stench-wound hull. Upon descending, they were wind-washed. They found at their feet, fecundity. They remembered encandilation.
SPACE Half the time is spent thinking of floor dirt or tobacco shits. Half on food, maybe more. Half the time is almost always spent sleeping. Half waking somewhere, am there, reading slowly. Half at least of all the time I plan of you of next half-century or mid-birthday. How long till we throw them in the water, till I prop them on your lap? Half the time is spent almost all the time, leaping.
27
/ Columbia New Poetry
ROSAS DANCE The effort is their living bodies and then direct. I palpitate with their space flow. They don’t move upon floors, they alter within navels. Rotating the hair is a total awareness of Soviet. Proximal umbilical initiation radiates from the axis. Inside the walls is control. Behind the skin are thousands of marathoners about to break ribbon. Bound extension of the arm. Head-tail awareness of the spine. Strong thrashings contain the error that breath is not binding.
-María Cristina Fernández Hall
issue Vii / 28
MelizMatik
I. wacchit, comet. racing the human catalyst bloodyeyed/sawwyfists/xtraSoftSkin— spray painting trillion habits to show Manhattan the scars of Lafayette/ beers likes butters Chinatown’s basements/ rum-->bulletproof windows--> every damn word in catapult a fear/ yea I wanna live here in this beat. (%) no: i can’t speak; misto ok the gin; gun, gin; lo ve is not death for pub lication. oxygen y gasol ine; blind cut your ch ildren’s teeth, yes; esy, yes, it’s fucking magic. meliz: YES. It’s fucking magic! The avarice is now public. matik: No; they are just blushing. Did ya hear dat kid? Kid: Maybe. 2 steps from Stuyvesant 1,000,000 words less from ever being once adored Don’t even try me. Markiss inhabits my words dissolved.
29
/ Columbia New Poetry
II. 1-888 CAR CRASH
“Regardless, sweet dreams Reinaaaa..” finito consecuencia; call me later; 110112 cabbie crankin’ the tires/ crumbs of unchartexecuted glass taken anger swimming of the pools if zinc/ acetaminophen $1.49/ we. His passenger—wide awake in sabotage—tells a hummingbird joke taking a smoke/ huge bite out his speckled../ jesus, so many otha fish in the sea tease new york tease a whisker/ get tight cash & start teething— followed by almost nothing in crime; the diners only halfheartedly deserted; Sandwich is marriage. III. Pyramids are made from triangles, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Seven, Seven— hold, hold that thought; I am, am; in reverse to everything they wrote about love; love, The dollar leaves my fingers, It’s a new sensation. Holy Fuck/ We’re flipping words/ Like we’re frying ckatfish — where are ya babes Words are damn cocoons/ who but us save em ∙ miahows ∙ n ot yet/ speak. Kid: too hot to chew to know how. melizmatik: NOW. -Reina Imagawa
issue Vii / 30
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