PoetsArtists (2009)

O&S VOLUME 2

ISSUE 6

Self Portrait Issue Jason John Stephen Wright Jarrett Min Davis Denise Duhamel Jennifer Wildermuth Richard J. Frost Billy Collins Alyssa Monks Bob Hicok Steven DaLuz Rauan Klassnik Ron Androla William Stobb David Lehman and more ‌

2009

CON poets and artists on the cover

Publisher / E.I.C. DIDI MENENDEZ Creative Director I. M. BESS

Copyright reverts back to contributors upon publication. O&S: PoetsandArtists.com requests first publisher rights of poems published in future reprints of books, anthologies, website publications, podcasts, radio, etc.

The full issue is available for viewing online from the Poets and Artists website.

Print copies available at www.amazon.com.

For submission guidelines and further information, please stop by www.poetsandartists.com

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96 Jason

John

Stephen Wright Adam Fieled Jarrett Min Davis Denise Duhamel Billy Collins Marcus Slease Alison Jardine Joseph P. Wood Marie-Elizabeth Mali Luisa A. Igloria Alyssa Monks Andrew Demcak Sally Hanreck Matthew Hittinger Kent Leatham Francois Chartier Ellen McGrath Smith Ming Holden Bob Hicok Jason Joyce Coleen Shin Brian Walters Juliet Cook Kathy Kubik Steven DaLuz Larry W. Lawrence Linda Benninghoff Jon Damaschke Elaine Kahn Jordan Stempleman

TENTS 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75

R Jay Slais James Belflower Nina Bennett Terry Lucas Suzanne Savickas Cheryl Snell Dan Murano Grace Cavalieri Norman Mallory Mia Paul Siegell Peggy Eldridge-Love Pris Campbell Michelle McEwen Rauan Klassnik Oscar Bermeo Nydia Rojas Ed Marion Ron Androla Paul Squires Peter Ciccariello Dave Lordan Janelle McKain Nick Piombino Janet Snell William Stobb Jennifer Wildermuth Fábio Baroli Luc Simonic John Korn Craig Hawkins Stephen Russell Richard J. Frost

76 77 78 80 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112

Ernie Wormwood Jeremy Baum Jeff Filipski David Lehman Renée Zepeda Leigh Wells Nanette Rayman Rivera Cedar Lee Grady Harp Patrice Erickson ChiaNi Hsu Annie Finch Pauline Aubey Barbara Jane Reyes Sarah Zambiasi Kate Wyer April Carter Grant Belinda Subraman John Walz Jeremy Hughes Calli Whittall Emma Trelles Barbra Nightingale Didi Menendez Marcus Kwame Anderson Melissa McEwen Ruben Belloso Howard Camner Tara M.M. Larkin Angelique Price Diana Adams Luke Meinzen Joze Hicks

Stephen Wright

Self Profile oil on canvas 66” X 33”

Mouth oil on canvas 66” X 33”

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Adam Fieled

Enter the Dragon This is what I amount to: a connoisseur of cultural capital, a sweet tooth for crazy-assed girls living in wood-floored bedrooms without shades on their lamps, a Derrida-reading Doctor that plays along with Cream records, I’m the dragon, born in a snowstorm in New York, 1976.

A sudden blow: that’s how sweet joy befalls me, why I’m dragon-like: lean, green.

Scorpio Rising My apartment is stark: four hundred books on a big Ikea shelf, guitars (a Strat and an acoustic), a computer, manuscripts scattered on a desk, plus a fridge with whiskey, eggs, pasta, Brita water, little else. I am into the travel light thing, because my mind is heavy: textlust! Imperatives come into me with fish-hooks— I dare not resist. Text!

Child of the Moon Neptune’s Trident: an emblem I use to channel spirits. I walk with legends, converse, move in preordained rhythm to music made by heavenly bodies. I was born to be shuttled through the Milky Way in my sleep, to have waking hours be dreams, to plunge beyond time’s parameters into mystic parallelogram places.

When I die I’ll leave no traces.

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Shipwrecked oil on linen 32” X 28”

Jarrett Min Davis

Denise Duhamel

SelfPortrait in Hydrogen Peroxide

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I never thought of myself as “the blond” or even “a blond,” until a young man working his way up to asking me for a date says, My ex is jealous of the blond I keep talking about. At first, I think he means someone else, someone other than me. A third woman in the equation.

Then he says, My friends want to know why I keep bringing up the blond divorcée. I have only recently grasped the fact that I am a divorcée, the gentle accent over the first “e” like a hand coming down to pat me on the shoulder, to tell me things will be OK. I don’t have to be ostracized, like the divorced moms I knew as a child. I’m a cougar now, accepted and absorbed by the mainstream, even though I haven’t had plastic surgery, even though my bank account isn’t exactly purring. I get this, sort of, but I still don’t feel like a blond—a blonde with or without the extra “e” on the end. In fact, I dyed my hair red for over ten years, until I moved to Florida where it was too hard to keep up, my frizz turning orange in the sun.

So I went back to being blond, but not “a blond” or “the blond.”

I insisted on Jodie-Foster-ash-blond, not Pamela-Anderson-platinum, the first choice of the hairdresser who was sure I could pull off. I grew up with dumb blond jokes and one of my big fears was looking stupid. Another big fear, looking smart. I had the highest IQ in 7th grade— the teacher announced this fact to the class after we took some standardized test. Great, I thought, now I’ll never get a date. So I tried to act dumb, then smart again, then I thought that what I really wanted was to blend in, but that can’t be true— because then why would I have dyed my hair bright red?

It was an experiment for an article I was writing for an alternative weekly in New York, to see if people reacted to redheads differently, which, I found, they did. Women were less likely to cut in front of me in line, men less likely to whistle.

I held onto my power in a Clairol box as long as I could.

But now I have a lot of gray hair. To tell you the truth, it’s easier to be blond because the gray blends in, just the way I’ve always wanted to blend in and not. The magazine folded, so my article was never printed.

Glamour ran a similar story shortly thereafter, blonds on staff becoming redheads and brunettes, reporting pretty much the same results I’d found. Now I’m middle-aged, with a middle-age spread. Even though I’m “a blond,” it’s false advertising. There’s a lot of silver in my hair, I tell my potential suitor. He says he doesn’t care, reminding me that I am a cougar which makes him a cub. I catch us in the mirror—my lines, my loose skin, a wrinkle in my skirt, his big arms and pressed shirt. I’m nervous and talking too much, about my doomed article on redheads for which I was paid a kill fee, a term I have to explain. He’s relieved I’m not a murderer. When I ask him if he knows what a cub reporter is, he squints. I’m 47, I blurt.

He says, Oh, never mind then, you crazy old lady.

Why would I want to go out with you?

Then I begin to roar, the big laugh of a blond cougar.

Billy Collins

Instructions to the Artist I wish my head to appear perfectly round and since the canvas should be of epic dimensions, please trace the circle with a dinner plate rather than a button or dime.

My face should be painted with an ant-like sense of detail; pretend you are executing a street map of Rome and that all the citizens can lift thirty times their own weight.

The result should be a strained but self-satisfied expression, as if I am lifting a Volkswagen with one foot.

The body is no great matter; just draw some straight lines with a pencil and ruler.

I will not be around to hear the voice of posterity calling me Stickman.

The background I leave up to you but if there is to be a house, lines of smoke rising from the chimney should be mandatory.

Never be ashamed of kindergarten— it is the alphabet’s only temple.

Also, have several kangaroos grazing and hopping around in the distance, an allusion to my world travels.

Some final recommendations: I should like to appear hatless.

Kindly limit your palette to a single primary color, any one but red or blue.

Sign the painting on my upper lip so your name will always be my mustache.

First appeared in Questions About Angels (University of Pittsburgh, 1991)

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Marcus Slease

Self Portrait 1 you you chameleon your greatest fear is offending you grow your blond mop you you shave your blond mop you run you run across the world sapless figtree ashy graze of the eye you you boy far from home a great horse is waiting your castle is the mythopoetic cabbage

Self Portrait 2 I’m the golden butter I live to flatter I live live towards the border yeah

Self Portrait 3 I go outside tonight and locusts grace my mind I go outside I go outside to see the sea to find my mind to look to look for the new all ways to look always to look for the new the new shoes the new toadstool the new allergy is the new excuse the new winter the new paradise the mew is the news the you the you is where to look for the new the you is the new home 10

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Alison Jardine

Self Portrait After Midnight oil on canvas 24� X 30�

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Joseph P. Wood

My Biography grand as Lagos mine disaster, cruel like Beijing prison cells, starts & stutters in my father’s unshaven ghost, his one night white Russian, slurred sentiment upon hearing Brady caught Reagan’s bullet, son, the stars

are pointless, ditto the planets, I turned for my mother but she was the street, the divebombing snow, El’ hurdling darkness I wished to sip, narcotic snore, greyhoundlike twitching, in my dream I became my dream electrified with a bugle, soldiers’ hard-ons flown half-mast, thesauruses where Purple Hearts were pinned, it’s a lie to claim there are 30 words for glory, 28 which I know will never cross my lips when the funeral car stops, the sun daggers its burn, the dead man’s collar like a dog-eared page I did not fold nor write.

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Joseph P. Wood

Definitions of Son I am your rope bridge. I am your chasm. I the eyes your daughters magpie. I the optic scraps. The unfurled copper wire. The falling beams, the gutted house. I’m the shoebox of yard. The brown, brown Augustine grass. The pollen fleets, the kudzu clinging. And cling I do. Implode I do.

Stomp my larynx, offer it catlike. I philander, I rumor. I undermine neighbors. Declaw their infants, chicken pox cats. I sandbag the snow. I bring you the Styx. I call it a spring, freshen-up your highball. I’m a thick thread of droll. A brain verging collapse. Three day stubble, a mealymouthed suitcase. Let us take a bus. Let us be the bus. I shall lead you by hand. I shall name you sweet duckling.

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Marie-Elizabeth Mali

Invisible in Me —Disculpe señor, dónde está el reclamo de equipaje?

—Over there, carousel three.

Because the language I spoke did not match my features, he answered me in English, his words falling into the well filled with a lifetime of Tú eres Latina? Why do you speak Spanish?

He can’t know about my grandmother’s trip from Caracas to New York, where she married my grandfather, remaining here a transplanted orquídea. He can’t know about my cravings for arepas, plátanos maduros, yuca, aguacate, y batidos de parchita y mango. Nor has he seen the faces of my grandmother and her three sisters painted on the ceiling of the Panteón, home of Simón Bolívar’s tomb, El Libertador, muses immortalized for centuries to come.

At my college in Ohio, I sang lead in a salsa band, Gringo Centrál, the only one able to sing quimbaracumbaracumbaquimbamba without messing up once, but he can’t know about that.

Nor about my love for Mary, the corazón sagrado, and the painting of Santa Lucía over my childhood bed at the hacienda, the one with her eyes on a plate, following eyes that kept me awake,␣ afraid. He answered me in English, not knowing any of these things because they are invisible in me.

I walked away thinking, If your ears can’t hear what your eyes don’t see, then I’ve got nothing to say to you in any language.

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Luisa A. Igloria

Magnolia He said, Do not forget me, which can’t be the anagram of

Regret me. Another summer: buds of the magnolia push heady scent

into the sun. Their creamy damask has begun to slide— straps of a cocktail dress

worn past dusk, into dishabille.

They spend it all, until all that remains

is softly leathered: a purse with counters of loose change, the phosphored

heads of matchsticks they struck, that flared all the way down the avenue.

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Alyssa Monks

Vaseline II oil on linen 64� X 86�

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Andrew Demcak

Abalone Cove I see his surfboard scritch-scratched by sand.

Damp bolts of kelp furled, the hues of lead.

Urchin beds improved after day’s calm.

Mussel-shelled, soft plink of buoy bells.

Tidal boy gouges an under-carpet of coastline.

Slash of an anxious fin felt, spattered by the waves’ perfumed crests.

Cock tip salt-white, etched, a slick turret.

My first sex, spread-eagle on a tern’s nest.

Mirror at Forty My other self, his face rising roughly shaved, blood pink, towards mine.

A hooked fish mouth, some terrible haul brought toughly up.

Still important each morning.

I took measurements.

Truthfulness, that exact little god.

The thin lines, flesh defining stranded pores.

Where is that young man I’d find, day into day, like a full moon drifting these lands?

He was not as cruel as I am.

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Andrew Demcak

Oedipus Night opens over the street like a wound.

His mouth is wet.

Spring crickets count off in the blackness.

He whispers and gets in bed.

A phone ringing somewhere is answered.

The house groans and settles down on its back.

His swollen feet poke out beneath the quilt.

I read his rose scars like riddles.

Tonight he’ll enter me like a blind man, as if I were his mother, and he could love her.

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Sally Hanreck

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Recovery oil on canvas 70cm X 45cm

Matthew Hittinger

Sketch and Pentimento Put a pen in my hand and I will sketch out the terms : before words found me my guise was pigment, colored pencil pastel yes acrylic and wood block my canvas name M D H three letters like two eighth notes stems connected by a beam but that map tracks a different theme where the staff maps clef time and key, ledger and measure sketched by line and space, rests like periods notes like words and this time signature disguise seems to stray from where I started. Erase then and start again. I was a clown. No one recognized me that Halloween not even if I had used a semaphore to telegraph “last kid standing” my name forgotten, classmates “who’s missing?” sketchy unable to realize through the disguise.

And if that moment of triumph denotes love of deception it also connotes my long standing fear of the red ball nose and rainbow wig, white face and masked eyed guise when real skin is hidden, hermaphrodite face. And yet I love a good drag queen sketch lip synch and banter but does that erase or lace a boy too shy to state his name?

These facts are gone replaced by odd footnotes like you will never catch me in Skechers or skinny jeans; if you ever did yes I’d disavow blame my evil twin map the points my doppelgänger did disguise to be a spy, a master of disguise to hide the final claim made to my name.

It’s all terra incognito unmapped dream to be a cartographer endnote letters all rearranged I might never add that wit or just might threaten wit etched on my final guise stone or urn last note to preserve the nature-erased name. Yes a map. But as for treasure? Come and sketch.

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Kent Leatham

Patriotism, or, Let the Children Boogie

Because it’s the fourth of July I sleep late then finish reading “The Sun Also Rises” after which I masturbate to prove that despite my empathy with Jake Barnes I’m no castrato although I would like to be an expatriate except I’m lazy and love living in California too much even with the Governator and earthquakes and wildfires every summer and the cost of living which reminds me I need to buy groceries but instead I watch Rob Reiner’s “The American President” where Michael Douglas and Annette Bening reveal that love can conquer anything including credibility so I follow it with the true story of “Boys Don’t Cry” but that’s too heavy so I go buy groceries after all since the co-op down the street is open all day because Americans still believe the pursuit of happiness is a right which means we should be able to buy beer and hot-dogs any day of the year, even if that requires making the local teenagers and immigrants work on holidays, but I guess the idea is to give them something to look forward to by way of better jobs where they won’t have to work on holidays, and anyway I’m not buying beer and hot-dogs I’m buying sushi and soda which I eat and drink while listening to Leonard Cohen and Neil Young and that David Bowie song “I’m Afraid of Americans” which was beefed up by Trent Reznor to make Bowie sound tough to a new generation that wouldn’t be as inclined to idolize a sexually ambiguous Martian even if he was the nazz and had that ridiculous codpiece in Jim Henson’s “Labyrinth” and condemned Willem Dafoe to death in Scorsese’s “The Last Temptation of Christ” and played the Elephant Man on Broadway because in America anyone can do whatever they want if they are famous and don’t get caught using ethnic slurs or prepubescent girls or tax breaks, but hey one shouldn’t criticize one’s country even jokingly at least not on a holiday when they let you sleep in.

for Peter Jay Shippy 22

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Francois Chartier

Self Portrait acrylic on canvas 58” X 58”

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Ellen McGrath Smith

Self-Portrait at Forty-Six

The phone didn’t know anyone in the building, abandoned as it was — the building — its ligaments languid, laconic.

The phone didn’t know any sausages uncooked and linked as depicted in comics to distract the watchdog — holy mac! and KAPOW! In swings a policeman like an echo.

Still the phone made its sound, a kind of spell in which the ears get taller (like a dog’s do): hence, the need to pick it up and say a little something.

We would walk up Bigway Avenue and, each time we passed the payphone, stick a thumb into the Coin Return.

One day, it came out covered in Cheez-Whiz.

The payphones so autistic on the sides of those abandoned buildings.

How will those fixed locations flag us down today, when Plexiglas is nothing but a lung wiped clean of oxygen, a sausage casing holding the idea of meat? Now, the cochlea roll inside the pockets, in the bag, or in some cases, what they call a skin for I-phones. What a phone might do is called a tone now, tony gadgets knowing lobes and tongues. The size of an Adam’s apple (in some cases, even smaller).

I wish phones stood still like they used to, like houses of god, like tombstones, antimacassars, and two-toed sloths.

What is that moaning against the wood table?

Whose cattle are lowing, whose new baby wakes? You say it’s your phone that’s on vibrate. I say it’s the place where your stomach used to growl.

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Ming Holden

origin On my way to yoga, white-flower smell stopped me. Man’s bright eyes crinkled across street at me in question. In thrumming room where high bell of neighbor’s basketball rang through foam mats, movements to open hearts. Inside the body I tend to leave in thought a sage-ridden endoskeleton of seared grass.

Wide-skied widestreeted between stomach and collarbone. Line of cottonwoods past which I sped over and over learning to ride bike knocked between hipbones and ribcage, disturbing womb. After class: threaded long aching evening through to grungy city room, but in suspended hour of breath: traced inward to why green leaves afford not. Where I was born same open land. Where I was born leaves been dry for weeks. Where I was born breaks apart to shrapnel, reassembles in blooming shape. Thorns around heart own bones, splintered.

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Bob Hicok

self-portrait of a self-portrait you=eve poets want to be painters. painters want to be musicians. musicians want breakfast at the oddest times. i have painted myself out of the picture: i am the japanese maple holding the hand of the woman holding the diamond parasol holding sunlight hostage in the upper right corner of everything that has happened so far. we had been trying to characterize our love. our love is going to spain and running with the peonies. our love is a futures contract for soy. our love is a six year old who knows the satellites of jupiter. io. ganymede. then she heard the rustling of my leaves, saw a robin land on my abundance, stood within my shade, the dawn of a new erogenous zone, and did not ask, where have you gone, but asked, how long have you been a forest inside? this is what i see when i don’t look in the mirror: art.

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Bob Hicok

when i look in the mirror, i see a chin the size of other people’s scurvy moods on monday when their lives haven’t changed, half- and shit colored moons under my eyes, see a cold regard of my cold regard, as if i am an atom bomb given consciousness, who thinks, what of it: since there is a beginning, there has to be an end, and doesn’t the mushroom cloud remind the imagination of itself? you asked if i’ve ever thought of painting myself and i have thought of painting myself green from head to toe. green tongue, green penis, green knees, green eyes, green hope, orange fingernails. for contrast. so when i touch you, you feel, for once, that pumpkins love you, that citrus has your clitoris’ back, so to speak, so to sway, so to live brightly at the heart of it all.

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Jason Joyce

Whatever Happened to TGIF on ABC? I’ve (played with famous bands, met and dined with notable people, helped the guy who played Bogy Lowenstein in 10 Things I Hate About You write a new joke, had sex with friends, regretted it, pushed away long time friends, regretted it, signed autographs, developed arthritis, saw justification for higher education, worried too much, overanalyzed, underestimated, rushed, slept in, stayed the straight edge, caught the Twitter bug, been honest with strangers, lied to close kin, started a halfsleeve, wanted to see other countries, filmed skits with Hollywood eyes, written songs I’m proud of, played shows to ten kids, read important books, played shows to six hundred kids, lost friends to girls, lost my religion, discovered amazing bands, text-text-texted, grown closer to best friends, been ran over by a golf cart, threw many many concerts, stepped on toes, worn sandals every day for a month, been guest-listed, wanted a girlfriend, let my body language speak too loudly, scored six goals in a lacrosse game, been an asshole, watched horrible b-movies, laughed until I peed just a little, made mistakes, made amends, caught my roommate having phone sex, weighed my options, kissed on the first date, led someone on, had a drug dealer buy me a cheeseburger at 2 a.m. at McDonalds on the rough side of Nashville, started eating more salad, been hit on by girls…and guys, decided to pass out whenever my blood is drawn, thought I knew what was best for people, been front row for this roller coaster called confidence, worn high heels, let secrets slip, held standards, hands and grudges, saw the ocean for the first time, had doubts, held out, wasted peoples time, pissed off the homeless, taken satisfaction in proving others wrong, played jokes on strangers, rushed, waited, obsessed over plans, lacked self-control, thrown a couch off a balcony, slept on the floor of an airport, stared at the stars, shopped shopped shopped, convinced a lot of people that Patrick Ewing and Will Smith died, watched friends marry too young, gotten excited by the small things, figured out why divorce rates are so high, threw mousetraps at two cast members of Whose Line Is It Anyway, took a girl with multicolored hair and eyes done up like circus tent stripes on the perfect first date, been the target of an ex’s drunk dialing, wanted to hunt ghosts, started pursuing this silly dream of being a writer) started living this past year.

Who the hell do you think you are?

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Coleen Shin

The Photo staring into the little pink camera arm’s length away channel Veronica Lake for posterity, a come on into me, into my gaze one last time, before I waste take it, shop it, the blue circles under my eyes the brown splotch high on my cheek, airbrush the fatigue and the change the odd little dot, a blemish that wasn’t there yesterday the leach of encroaching age.

I want you to remember me what I am going to say I am not afraid to die not afraid of the slow demise I have lived with the disease of remorse, of guilt of wonder brought on by altered chemical states I have prayed to random entities to absolve me of pain prayed like a child does before sleep, with absolute faith prayed wailing like a mother her child excised from the womb bled out on the table while surgeons shook their heads left the room the photo, one moment clear eyed a woman who made mistakes made pie, made hay made strange music made a mess of things made love in a graveyard under the stoned angel his heavy feathered wings

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Brian Walters

Inside Brian Walters is Nothing But foam. But frog spawn. But spit and fine-spun froth, utterly useless, tasteless and fat free. But crappy Halloween candy unwrapped and stuffed with needles or razors or broken glass. But plastic forks with broken tines. But bullet-holes, piss in gas tanks and un-detonated land mines rusting inside the sandbox where retarded children go to die.

Inside Brian Walters is nothing but the cat shit inside the sandbox. Nothing but the worm inside the bird inside the cat.

Before that, nothing but the worm’s stomach he dissected once in high school, pinning it to some Styrofoam tray.

Nothing but a migraine right now exploding behind his eye. An abandoned library in that part of campus where no one goes to learn or even shirk off learning anymore. Jerk off. Inside Brian Walters everything is so long dead that not even moss will grow in its corpse’s rotting muck.

No lichen around its headless stump for decaying pigeons to roost on.

No moldy leftovers left in the fridge.

Jerk off inside Brian Walters. Spill your juice and spray your seed all over everywhere, still nothing will grow.

Big, bright swaths of nothing as far as the eye can see. Nothing here or there sprouts in row after jagged row like poppies in the fields of Afghanistan. Like fish, floating along the Florida coastline, dead and bloated, that desperate seagulls eat then fall from the sky. Inside Brian Walters is nothing but an old tape recorder full of previously recorded messages playing whatever you want him to say.

Of course you’ve heard this all before.

Name one new thing he’ll ever be able to tell you.

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Juliet Cook

Self Portrait as Stuffed Pepper Precocious green glowing outside, gutted inside.

Like an alien on a plate, posing as an edible self portrait. I just might be designed for consumption.

I might be a messy quick fix, stowing secretly

a choking hazard in the midst of flapping lips.

Before you take off my flabbergasted flapper lid and inspect for saucy or seedy trickery; see what I am cooking in here, what I’ve been stewing secretly…

Do you call it dressing or do you call it stuffing?

Do you call it lovemaking or do you call it fucking?

Do you call it sexy dissection or ugly striptease or silly slits picking at food when they should simply eat

or be eaten? At least I’m good with spicing.

At least I’m good at knifing my own wicked witch.

My bestial female flow, posing as your seasoned spill.

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Juliet Cook

Self Portrait as Queer Cane Toad This isn’t sugar cane. This isn’t sweet.

Semi-comatose in the deep freeze, I won’t be eaten. I won’t even be licked for my mind-

altering properties. This isn’t savory.

I’m a wart-covered invasive species.

I’m a poison-glanded obstacle, just waiting for you to catch me

like some seeping disease.

Not like a gingerbread girl at all; that was just a silly tease. Lumping myself in with sugar cube edibility;

falsifying my true identity as akin to the fairy tale anomaly, but no princess will kiss me unless she is oddly drawn to bufotoxic bisexual bestiality.

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Juliet Cook

Self Portrait as a Slab on a Slab I’m a little slice of pound cake in a little coffin, served with a little container of half & half.

Where will you pour the creamer?

I’m a cut off braid with silver threads, served on a silver platter. Split ends unloose themselves from multiple strands.

I’m a slab on a slab, a plait on a plate, a poorly shorn lamb on the lam.

I’m sweet, heavy, deathly, hairy.

I’m shaved, heaving, dripping, dirty with my ruffled bloomers torn off at the stems. So throw me in. Fast forward

my declension. Will I thrash or gulp?

Will I sink or float? Will I suck it all up like a sugary sea sponge with teeth?

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Kathy Kubik Poem inspired by the George Ella Lyons poem, “Where I’m From”.

Where I’m From I am from jello molds, from crochet needles and my grandmother’s hair.

I am from the peach tree in our backyard (leaves rattled like layers of cellophane over rummaged plastic tableware.)

I am from the Redwoods, whose rough edges I curved my bones around, not minding the splinters.

I am from flapjacks and forget-me-nots, from Michael and Nancy.

I’m from the fools and the alcoholics.

I am from eat all your cereal before leaving the table, and I’ll tell you about maxi pads when you’re older.

I am from Irish Catholic, going to church and then sneaking out after communion.

I am from Chicago, France, Ireland, Denmark and Germany.

I am from my great grandfather Christian Nielsen who courted Alice Dungan and sung the lyrics to Alice Bluegown – until then, she dismissed him.

Afterward, a family grown.

I am from the great uncle with frilly collars to the ancestors that fought in the Civil War to my father who fought in Viet Nam to my husband who fought in Desert Storm.

I am from heavy gilded frames hanging from trees, from genealogy lines of pictures, from voices unheard except when the house echoes and the ghosts come out.

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Steven DaLuz

Self Portrait 0509 conte, black gesso on mylar 22” x 18”

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Larry W. Lawrence

The Bedtime Story Laying on the top bunk, sister a year younger,sleeping below, but they weren’t asleep that night.

Mom’s in the living room, the TV is blaring, she’s chatting over a cup of coffee, a slice of angel food cake.

It seemed that she liked him, this new man.

The kids weren’t tired and stayed awake, Clowning, giggling, laughing like four and five year olds always do.

An hour or so passed, Mom yells and threatens to make them fall asleep!

The brother and sister laugh, joke some more, Ignoring the final warning.

The man storms in the room, in a torrent of rage, spanks both of the children soundly and the mother stands by, watching, with a smug look of satisfaction.

“You’ll never marry my mother, I won’t let you!” is what the boy said choking on snot and slobber.

The children cried themselves to sleep as they would for the next ten or twelve years.

And they call each other on the phone, decades later remembering the days and nights, but forgetting more.

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Linda Benninghoff

Sun Washed The place where we meet is always sun washed straight through the room. The cat Buttons plays in the window. We eat squash, mashed potatoes and chicken--before the day’s

light goes out the window and the squiggly moon comes up. I used to want to see zebras and gazelles.

Now I can only see the space out my window, hear the loon but feel no joy for the loon or the red spring azalea.

You tell me you still feel joy but you are dying?

How do you reconcile the two? If the fish shine in the afternoon sea then there must be light lying over them--if you feel joy then mustn’t that be a lifeline

for you? We thumb through capabilities, remember, and hang onto what seems possible.

poetsandartists.com

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Jon Damaschke

Struggling with a Beast digital 20� x 30�

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Elaine Kahn

Field At night you watched the city river round its sooty sloping ledge.

Oh, if the world would only break apart.

If you would break apart-Come out, come out. * Remember the order of everything there is.

There is a braid growing out of your mouth.

The birds are sinking. You turn away. Your hair is in your mouth and now the birds have sunk.

The spool of the horizon breaks apart. * Now in a wide, wet field. You’re in a field with no perimeter. The bluegraygreen, the everycolor. You are kneeling in the everycolor, a point within a field.

Your crinoline hangs from a dark magnolia branch.

You’re such a let down with your skirt off and now everybody knows. You hide your eyes in your long translucent braid of hair. *

Do not forget the sky has other zones.* Is that a promise--If it was held up to the light would it wilt to gossamer? * Oh, how difficult it has been to be-To be kneeling in a field without an edge, Nearly there. * 40

poetsandartists.com

Elaine Kahn

Fields unlock. Fields overlap and do not end.

Your skirt is hanging from your plaited gape.

You’re such a let down, can’t you break apart. * Remember how the city swayed against its verge. Remember how the city bent.

The sky unspools. Undone.

The field is glowing. If you’re crying while your hair grows out, then it’s a story. * When finally your braid has left your mouth you start to sing.

Remember to be brave. * You thread your braid into the slipping sky.

It lifts you up. The field may have no end but you can float above it. Isn’t it a pleasure.

Come out. * You break into a million shining points of light. A million shining points into the everycolor.

Now you have no end.

Now you are everycolor. Bluegraygreen.

*Quote from the Barbara Guest poem, Imagined Rooms

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Jordan Stempleman

Self Portrait photo booth/digitized spray-paint 6� x 6�

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R Jay Slais

Happenstance After the emergence, a held breath until whatsound on acoustic gland flesh, tremble of fern leaf like a flight feather wisp hastens the formation of tough-skin layers until desensitized, the barkwood surrounds.

The rings are not circular, though some say they are, more like a three month sap squeeze then settle for a year gone by in waves.

Theology of the splurge, to high on land for sun and the rains that fell yearn for nothing but escape.

Finally well rooted, with thick arms along the dirt into the black depths, soon shadow vegetables and verdure until the ice storm fall, pruning of great branches that will rattle an acre on impact. Await the taking by beetles and birds, the ones who carry all the tiny pieces of my mud to rust.

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James Belflower

A Black Volkswagen Beetle Passes.

A massive Weimaraner barks out its passenger window.

The driver stares.

The noise must be deafening in that petite shell.

I remember thinking extensively about voice. As I write this I am muffled by a chattering of two finches on the concrete to my right. Must voice resemble a wing, a petite shell? Another one has come from across the street and two more have dived on them. What a strange sound, wing against wing, a rustle of corn leaves.

A rustle of corn leaves. Though this sounds convincing, I can’t recall having heard corn leaves rub. What I recall is their texture. Judging by this, corn leaves would make, if imagined rubbed across each other, a very similar rasp to the impact of bird wings.

The first time I heard a bird fall. This may have been one of the first.

Each day this dog barks. It makes me think it is falling into a crevasse its mouth slowly fills up.

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Nina Bennett

Liner Notes First time I heard the Beatles was family night, Ed Sullivan on a black and white TV with my parents, sister, brother.

First time I heard Pet Sounds was in the middle of a neighborhood Monopoly game during a summer thunderstorm. I landed on Nancy’s railroad empire and lost all my money.

First time I heard Light My Fire was on a transistor radio in my bedroom. I stayed awake all night waiting for the deejay to play it again.

First time I heard Live For Today you and I were pressed thigh to thigh as we danced at Roxanne’s birthday party.

First time I heard the seductive bass line of Brown Eyed Girl we were making out in your parents’ basement, pretending to play ping pong.

First time I heard Fountain of Sorrow I was nursing my newborn son, wondering who was listening to Jackson Browne with you.

First time I heard Shake It Up was in a rundown disco in Warminster where my girlfriend and I went to dance when we were bored. The cinnamon glaze on her hair glowed purple under the lights.

First time I heard In Your Wildest Dreams was on the car radio on my way to work. I had to pull over because I was shaking so hard I popped the clutch.

First time I heard Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes was in the trauma center in Seattle where my sister died.

First time I heard Wild Angels was on a cassette mix tape you made me. I hit replay until the tape broke.

First time I heard Traveling Soldier was in your car on a Friday night, as we drove down Delaware Avenue. I was glad it was dark so you wouldn’t see my tears.

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Terry Lucas

In This Room There is a long-playing record turning on the turntable. For some time, the speakers have been faithfully amplifying the scratches residing behind Art or Miles or Freddie—who knows which?—with a metronomic ticking, the needle bumping up against the label’s edge, sending the tone arm veering back across the smooth gap, like a saxophonist swaying on stage, or a drunk driving a black-iced road on a new moon night, searching for the centerline— but these are just thoughts in the mind. From another room there might be the moaning of lovers over the hiss of knees caressing satin sheets.

And who is to say which is more holy? The music or the static electricity? The arm holding the needle in the groove of the vinyl, legs rising and falling, out of time, the moonlight flushing the dry flesh of curled leaves blowing across the road that has tangled itself in the hills like a necklace in my mother’s long hair fanned out on my father’s pillow.

And what am I but the valley between them? A watershed of snowmelt and shade. A cry from one far peak to another, an avalanche of sound echoing between the walls of yet another room, where the index finger of a trembling hand is lowering the stylus aiming the needle for the edge of a black vinyl record.

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Suzanne Savickas

Blurred The reflection in the mirror always blurred. She remained unclear.

Signature in ten variations, attempting to recreate herself. She avoided her own structure. Continually changed her own name. Modeled herself after no one. The longer the heel, the shorter she felt. Ran her fingers through the ground she fell square onto. Impatient with her world, she wrote a new one.

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Cheryl Snell

Sound Gran turned to God when tempted to murder her faithless husband, who came home rolled in a rug.

She tried to save Mother’s soul in case there was something in the genes, but Daddy walked in out of the Alberta winter

in his red pompadour and Navy uniform.

The only time he brought his hands together was to play trumpet for Mother’s torch songs.

I knew all the standards by the time I could walk, but I never learned a single hymn until Daddy shipped out.

For years, Gran hurled Scripture through the air like retribution. Mother pounded it back, and my life became a staff of running

notes and syncopated rhythms. If only I’d known how deep silence could be, I might have stayed a little longer.

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Dan Murano

Polaroid Spectra instant photos above: Self Portrait In Triplicate With Clay Sun below: Lucy & Me

Grace Cavalieri

DUCKS

Assignations

For years now I look out the same shining window from Mrs. Gherardi’s sewing circle when I was four.

Uncertain language making its way into my life walked me backward to sound, to the stir of the cradle.

The large clear view overlooking a water of shadows shows three yellow ducks at peace without a worry of their own, not too hot, not too cold, perfect lives buoyant soft creatures complete on a float made for their pleasure, How I stayed while the women in the other room laughed and talked, how the center of a rose opened in me I do not close, I kneel close to the glass, Over and over I see them shifting water under their feet without fear, I still see them reflected on the day my mother was happy.

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The faint moon alone and content then, as if it were mine to give, carried me into the future before crossing the threshold to leaving.

I am happy to have known you, and, although tortured by affection, I am ready to go back into time, gratefully flailing against the bright lights beckoning, and starring my dark lucky sky.

Norman Mallory

Self Portrait in Painting Hat egg tempera on gesso panel 20� x 16�

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Mia

Race This—just because—wasn’t going to be easy.

Four times I changed the title and back again to what the poem called for the first time.

But what did the poem know about my mother’s favorite Waterford crystal bowl? That I dropped it out of my eight-year old hands and watched it shatter into a thousand nightmares in slow motion, my past self dividing to catch the phantom pieces only to be cut by the sharp edges of her mouth.

What had started out with the wind and the weight of the moon upon one’s will veered off into an apology for the color of my skin. Race, as a crime, not a crutch and the sins of my father who learned to speak Korean softly to women, but not to my mother. The time I caught her beating her fists against his chest, the piercing animal screams, I sprung out from the shadows to save him. Her arm, like a ballast hurled my seven-year old body across the room.

But that wasn’t the time I cracked open my head and saw pinpricks of light gather like so many fireflies. The midnight train ride to the hospital, tucked in the mountains, I lay blooming into a Red Poppy on my father’s t-shirt.

What is a child but a thing to blame? The mistake of it all is to assume that she can be unmended. The day of the race in question, she was four, nearly fiveand a boy threw rocks at her because she had dared to cross his path. The very sight of her enraged him as if she were an earth grub to be squashed.

Three days he had tormented her as she ran through the alley into the streets. When she saw no sign of him, she made a dash— he jumped out of the doorway and she saw nothing but the sky open up in front of her, the gentle slope of a hill under her sprung feet, blood singing in her ears, and the wind, her second skin.

The face of the boy, when she whipped around, was no larger than a peeved mouse. She couldn’t help herself. She stuck out her tongue and chortled the rest of the way home.

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Paul Siegell

Tiger Bridge to Giant Serpent in Space Your core: Galactic activity. Blood to blog about.

How ’bout 05:11:51 a.m. on 12.21.2012? Sound good?

A cuckoo skill, absorbed in experiments of out-of-sight seeing.

Tiger heat. A boom shakka lakka spirit beacon, ticket-stub’d.

Waiting for my tentmates to wake, wondering why I thought packing Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno’s Slamming Open the Door to Bonnaroo was a good idea, I overheard a Scott Medosis go to a Scott B. Davis, “Got anything crispy to listen to?”

Vivid bridge, flower skull, tiger bid. They’re giving a polygraph to the hieroglyphs today. Brahkuna matata.

All on a fresh head, Scottie B. goes, “It looks like you’ve got poison ivy in your eyes.”

And then a bazillionpiece puzzle of the Milky Way became a fan of realizing that even thinking about applying for a job at the apocalypse is what wrecks the rocket ship.

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Peggy Eldridge-Love

Me, Currently In winter I will lean into the window and let puffs of breath cloud the pane and give me the power to write my name on the world as I see it.

I will love the time spent with me, arms encircling so that I can give myself quick little hugs of reassurance.

There will be, close at hand, the comforter, the knitted wrap, the fuzzy shoes, and the stoke to stir the fire that has burned down to embers inside.

Summer lingers while I wait for winter, taunting me with its knowledge of my fear of lush rippling green turning to brown dying straw.

Autumn will, no doubt, rush to and fro unwilling to make the commitment I need not to fret.

In winter I will move with the grace of one January born without apology for loving best the feel of ice pelting down my neck, touching me with authority, reminding me promises sometime do come back in Spring.

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Pris Campbell

Rites of Passage I step through my mirror, become Alice — sometimes Cinderella.

I eat cookies, grow, shine my slippers, kiss the prince.

Here in Aliceland, no-one pokes fun at my floppy hats, protest signs, long hippie skirts held together by daisies.

Nobody tells me the Sixties have passed or that I’m obsolete—Martin and Bobby are dead.

They never say Hair’s last song has been sung or Lucy in the Sky has long been in rehab.

Nobody mentions the feds tracking my poems about sexual revolutions, getting their rocks off in the pale green light of monitors that never blink.

Bluebird The fallen Bluebird of Happiness caws, folds its molting wings around my house, my prison, this cell of karmic perdition.

Mother’s china serves up scenes of Last Suppers, eaten and gone.

Grandmother’s sideboard moans family stories to a glass angel standing guard on my windowsill. She sparks back the passing lights of cars careless enough to venture this ruptured street.

The Filipino couple next door argue until dawn ignites the sky with its breath.

They think redemption can later be found in a bottle of Christ’s Blood Shed For Them or in a quick fuck on a mattress, spine bent like a weeping cross.

I become Moses crossing the Red Sea, Frodo, grasping the golden ring, Ulysses, self-blinded in order to stay the way, but in my cockiness, I stumble against my dear angel, too late to catch her, already tumbling against that greedy Bluebird’s beak. poetsandartists.com

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Michelle McEwen

How Else To Explain It In a past life, I must have been a woman blues singer— one of hoarse-&-harsh voice gotten by the cigarettes Boy Piano turned me on to the first night. Me, up on stage, when I should have been sleepin. Up there, wide-mouthed & slim, singing for my late rent, singing for the money spent, singing for my open-mouthed babies, singing for the ladies with men gone to find work up north, promising to send money home. How else to explain it, then, in this life, these bags under my eyes I’ve had since birth— these toiler bags, these vagabond bags, these midnight singer bags? How else to explain it, then, in this life, this voice – rough raw – meant more for a smooth-tongued womanizer?

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Rauan Klassnik

Self-Portrait (1) White strips of gold pulsing. A room filled with it. Curtains drawn.

Doors closed. And death—its breath. Down on me. Thorned in fat stone pulps. A man bites down on his fist. Not like a star, or God—trees swept out to the sea. And the sea like ashes. Egrets rise up. Drops of blood. Elephants. All of them.

Curled up. In the dirt, gasping.

Self-Portrait (2) Reptile hunger. In frozen rubble. Suns twitching. I prayed a woman would save me. And she has. The way cocaine turns you into mist. Or just plain old loneliness. Veins of black-gold crystal.

Cracked shadows. Bent rebar. Love: sunsets soft and warm.

Swarmed—On their backs—Crippled—Gleaming. Everything’s exactly what I wanted.

Self-Portrait (3) Everything’s dripping. Filled with light. Exploding. Ashes. I miss my body. Swept up into violence. Saints. And pigeons.

Burned down the sea. Twitching. Swelled up. Into us. Collapsed.

A thin grey sword. Along the boardwalk—the palm trees wave.

They raged in my cunt—spiders’ teeth—shivering silver. They leapt up. Dragged us down. Cold mists of piss.

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Oscar Bermeo

A Bodega on Anywhere Avenue After Allen Ginsberg’s “A Supermarket in California” You got me straight trippin’ tonight, Pedro Pietri, as I strut down the block under the El with a headache self-conscious checking out the lights of the #4 train. In my deep jones, and fiendin’ for images, I hit up the 24/7 bodega, bummin’ for a loose poema! ¡Que guava y que gusto! The whole fam shoppin’ late-night! Aisles full of señores! Doñas in the platanos, shorties in the yucca!—¿y tu, Mikey Piñero, what were you doin’ down by the mangoes?

Caught you out there, Miguel Algarín, viejo manganson, pokin’ among the hot dogs in the fridge and scopin’ the superette boys. I heard you grillin’ them hard: Who killed the chuletas? What price gineos? Are you my Boo? I stroll in and out of the brilliant shelves of Goya cans trailing you, and trailed in my imagination by the store rent-a-cop. Easin’ down the tight rows together buggin’ out and scarfin’ down coco bread, munchin’every frozen icee, and doin’ the dip past the cashier.

Where we headin’, Pedro Pietri? The last downtown express will be here any minute. Which way does your fedora point tonight? (I touch your suitcase and dream of our viaje in the bodega and feel tan pendejo.) Will we wander to the break of dawn through the streets? The lampposts add shadow on shadow, lights off in the apartments; we’ll both be ass out if keep goin’ on like this. Will we troop while ruminatin’ on the forgotten America of dreams past abandoned cars in alleyways, home to our makeshift shack?

Ah, dear Reverendo, gran poeta, maestro de locura y verso, why is Ameríca still the America of Juan, Miguel, Milagros, Olga, and Manuel who died waiting, who lived waiting, and who were born again to still keep waiting? How long must we stand by the busy tarmac of JFK and watch the planes bring more dreamers into the waiting dark waters of the East River?

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Nydia Rojas

Spring Rain Morning. The rain like a glass mirage covers the horizon where dawn is still imprecise light in waiting.

Waiting. I place another bet against the weather.

Today I bet you I’ll plant those overgrown sunflowers seedlings by the south side of the garden. I’ll work the compact ground, add peat moss and top soil, then I’ll place them gently in the loose soil, hope the roots go exploring deeper, deeper.

The raindrops touch the ground, sip down through the hidden web of roots- maps I will not know how to read, how to follow.

I wonder. Sometimes an easy journey requiring no movement or digging on my part.

Most times only requiring the simple act of spreading the pine mulch around the trunks of the evergreen or the crab apple.

How deep into the ground do these roots go?

The raindrops quicken and pelt the groundno pity, no easing off, no respite in between.

The saturated ground with which I’m left as necessary as the dry soil I’ll be able to dig, to alter with the nutrients the new seedlings will need.

Morning. The rain continues. Judging by the fierceness with which it falls on the ground and how continuously the raindrops follow each other it will be raining all day long.

All day long raindrops falling, exploring, building Earth underground. The rain steadily falling as if saying these maps are not for you to alter.

These maps you leave where you found them, undisturbed.

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Ed Marion

Developing her passion for fine art as a child in Wisconsin, Jennifer Wildermuth naturally gravitates towards to the human figure in her absorbing oil paintings. Elaboration on the representational nature of her work, Wildermuth describes her aesthetic as “Impressions of a fleeting moment or idea, then captured, analyzed, and returned back into the chain of time.”

Currently represented by the renowned Horizon Fine Art Gallery in Jackson, WY, Wildermut

In the Studio oil on board 14” x 11”

As written by the Academy of Art University, San Francisco, CA

Ron Androla

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Confession #3

55 tomahawks 55 glances from A 360 degree 55 second spin 55 senses of self 55 progressively Lowering bottles of Absinthe xylophonic Oxygenation 55 Bulldog protons leap over 55 holes in a dead face 55 xylophone opium poppies 55 levels to a smile Where the crack of Black Space Dark Matter leaks 55 sunburst beams 55 world-perfect moments Ago 55 pterodactyl Time Warps 55 bones 55 stomach-lining djembe drums 55 yesterdays yes existence 55 algebra tomorrows fail Equation after equation Exactly after beat 55

No jet has ever flown so low Over our house, steering for The Erie International Airport Maybe 5 miles away. This jet Is way too low, it growls Across my roof & maybe blows The trees to lean northwest, Pulled by the object’s magnitude.

I’m startled, writing in my upstairs Room, writing confessions, Which are self portrait poems; I’m instinctually ducking. Hell Right it’s not right, & maybe, without hearing a Crash, I hear the hollow roar Echo of the crash: city trains, Midnight traffic, perceptible Radioactivity Geiger counter Rockslide, troops Inside, armed for Battle. Their viola moans crescendo Before chopped silence & This hiss, this electric hiss, This existential hiss, This viper, vapor hiss, This steamy hiss of aftermath.

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Paul Squires

Degrees of Resolution (camera 7) 1. silhouette shadow puppets, noh, lips move when reading japanese wine (obvious segue-sake) negative definitions as in this is not without what this is 2. pointless syllable casting as in what if this silver bubble s’next to this 3. consistently demonstrates a need for obvious self-reference as in whispers and intuition and the crackle of dry leaves 4. why the orchid? being so far from surreal, almost licentiously obvious especially in hindsight 5. one persistent and constant apology (just take it for granted, immediately, on any occasion that I offend, it will save us both a lot of time) 6. revolution? why not?

7. self-portrait (with whiskey and cigarette)

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Peter Ciccariello

Breathe This muffled cognition These slick asphalt roads The circuitous hum of electric motors Temperature, always temperature Heartbeat, breathe in breathe out Breathe in breathe out Sheaves of newspaper Tumble and slap the street A cool wind from the coast Promises, promises, promises Here, inside where I live The newsprint is unreadable The road impassable The rain incessant, dubiously Striking the next possibility into awareness Breathe in breathe out Outside where I live One step follows another One reason becomes the next reason Breathe out breathe in This rain, carried here by gods with buckets Dissolving icons obscuring metaphors Revealing the black bird in the branches Darkening the shadows In the corners of the room

Dave Lordan

After the party Don’t ask me when night ends and the morning begins Don’t ask me for a light Don’t ask me for a cigarette Don’t ask me my name how old I am or who I know in Galway Don’t ask me anything the tunnel I claw through afternoon is caving in around me A few hours ago I was beautiful just one among many wrapped in a towel neck high in bubbles hot water flowed through me my locks swam my mouth danced I understood so many tongues I passed so much warmth around and so many loved me...

Luis, Solomon, Emad, Michelle, Lisa, Yuri....

Now I look like I’ve been pulped and shallow buried in a roadside wood My gruesome face is like a warning a dark boreen might shout from the shadows at a driver turning off a motorway My My My My My

brow is full of tiny holes tongue is a wormeaten sponge lips stink cheeks have a bloom of algae eyes bob in jaundiced sacs

Through platforms rushing by in the rain Fat little boys are pointing me out and laughing and I can’t read and I don’t speak anything and I don’t know why I am alone on this train or why it keeps speeding the opposite way to the train heading home I got on.

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Janelle McKain

The Mystery of Me graphite drawing 8” X 10”

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Nick Piombino

The Current Assignment “Not words of solace, but the solace of words.”

Ray DiPalma

As a writer, when I’m not writing I tend to feel guilty. I am ending this.

Again—I’ve put an end to feeling guilty—to feeling not good enough. This is mostly about feeling competitive, about worrying about what other people think, about feeling like a loser. There is much excitement to be felt about the possibility of change.

Always an impalpable time when it is unclear what the elements are or how they are interrelating. Vague hunches.

Writing is something that comes and goes but time is always there. As with anything else, the writer needs to be able to say—of writing—I’d prefer not to. There is always the current assignment.

Perhaps my optimism was borne out of youth—out of the idea of a limitless horizon. As I got older, had some illnesses, witnessed tragedy after tragedy, experienced death again and again, I realized that the surface aspects of this stance had been lifted out from under me. But my essential optimism has remained unchanged. What to base it on? As a psychoanalyst I would bring it to my work—but gradually I have realized that this feeling was never rational or practical or based on anything realistic or actual. It derived from the love of books, words, ideas and thought and human discussion. At the moment of contemplating this, I find my hopefulness to be boundless. I need not conform to someone else’s idea of how I might employ these feelings. Must I compose allegories and stories? Must I be abstract and emblematic? Must I derive my raison d’être as a writer from a given theory, or from theory at all? Must I create mindscapes or conform to the latest literary movement? Part of me says yes, but that optimistic part of me says NO WAY. Go your own way—the literalist manifesto.

I am a crazy optimist. Every piece of bad luck proves me wrong. My poet friends might wonder what has happened to me and shake their heads. This guy has gone off the deep end, or better yet, has retreated to the shallow end of the pool. He is not mysterious anymore.

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poetsandartists.com

Janet Snell

Self Portrait with Blue Lips oil on canvas 30” X 32”

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William Stobb

I Try to Think “A thing there was that mattered.”

Virginia Woolf Packed sand, branches, nettles, shoreline.

One surprise at the Moscow station: humans crumpled in fluorescent sleep. Afraid at customs I’d never understand sent to Siberia but she stopped yelling let me through to Fish Fabrique where one old Russian hippie kept his John Lennon peace and love shrine.

There. Then. What could I have been thinking?

A question I’ve asked when memory heaves back another city’s abutments.

Most of the time nuclear war.

From 1980 when Jason Robards got dropped by that Kansas blast until 2002 when the nuclear part was just the tip to bust the bunker which I always thought of as a golf not a gulf word. I dreamed of Osama Bin Laden’s mountain lair— lighted tennis courts under granite tonnage his high toss under high voltage the perfect C-pose of his heavy serve in white robes. I took another viewing of Beneath the Planet of the Apes.

Obsessive traits run in families.

After a fight but before major security we went to the airport, watched jets leap the ravine into cumulus clouds with sculptural properties— I thought of invisible pressures roughing up cabins-full of married people.

I wondered how they taught Sunday school in those basement rooms knowing wildness in every moment’s eighty-six religions. For a while deserts only seemed good for war. Then I lived in one and found it good for Frisbee.

For a while it seemed I’d never share a sensible word with my father.

Then he said he might’ve murdered the whole committee if they’d sent him back to China.

Ruins compressed in geological strata.

This intersection of county roads after consecutive untended millennia.

A squirrel got trapped in my friend’s parents’ cabin and died chewing at a window frame.

Glacial runoff, pristine, refreshing.

A child’s sparkly sandal drifting down.

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Jennifer Wildermuth

Blinds oil on canvas 16� X 20�

Shipwrecked 2009 oil on linen 32 x 28 Short Biographical note: Jarrett Min Davis was born in Seoul, South Korea and adopted by American parents. His paintings explores issues of identity and the collisions of culture between East and West. His current work is a revisionist history of the nautical voyages Admiral Yi of Korea.

My Website is www.jarrettmindavis.com

Self Portrait

oil on canvas

60cm x 48cm

Fรกbio Baroli

Luc Simonic

THE DEAD LEFT IN ME I’ve been beautiful enough to die several times over, ain’t no different than blood unresurrected, and just like that blood, I’m an idiomatic sigh; tall, white, dry brown wisps that fade away; absolutely “Quids in” - bagging blue plums. But wait, there’s more, behind the mirrored glass luxury of the fifty sixth floor, my stamen-eyed priestess spies the bard the bars of gold tucked safely below the tons of coal traveling slow the long iron road from northeast Wyoming to southern Colorado.

Once, I made the most humbling tofu flan - it spelled my name for me and I grew a falsetto smile like a lyre begging for heat.

A lyre begging for heat, and we are no different from one another.

We are shaking hands in the penthouse donning feudal cloaks while perspiring like shark bait. We coil in wait.

We hardly see a word for five hundred years. We can’t even read, much less decipher the simplest message.

We screw ourselves through to delirium, you and I, bodies to die; pictures on a refrigerator for a few years.

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John Korn

false teeth

sunday night

like dentures I take my little heart out and put it in a glass on the night table and sleep on one side of a big bed I drop blue tablets into the water and it fizzles into the cockles of my arteries a baby’s fist my heart soft and pink grabs at the glow of a dim white light bulb in the yellow shade I flick it off and lie in the dark

the wind is a dark blue soul tonight feeling the brick walls of my second floor apartment the way a blind man feels a face it is making the sky above this into an ocean there are caverns in the night clouds it seems as though one could float up into this and my wind chimes yes they bring a voice to this ghost heartbreak but I must say I’ve never felt so good being this heartbroken I hope it stays broken it is like a vase that split and now the flowers have grown up the walls laying on the couch I slip my hand down the front of my pants now I am a sexual being I must do this at least three times a day but tonight it is lovely and not mechanical I imagine those wind chimes unhooking from the their metal loops and sailing into the sea air

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SELF PORTRAIT CHARCOAL ON PAPER

30” X 40”

Craig Hawkins

Stephen Russell

Hit Parade A beer can hit the hood of a pickup as “Smoke On The Water” belched from the eight track Billy Right had installed in his new Dodge Dart.

My sister wouldn’t budge. My mother balled her right hand. “I didn’t raise a slut.”

Sarah, my sister, was not a whore.

My mother slapped my sister.

Several more ... wounds, a grave large enough for each curse clenched into fist.

“Not in my house.” My mother’s voice, the smell of burnt bacon filled the kitchen with dark clouds.

A neighbor’s mutt yelped. I walked past my mom, my sister, into my bedroom where I grabbed my headphones and the latest Jethro Tull. Dishes crashed into walls. Sarah screamed, “Don’t.”

Older people were always fighting.

I strummed along on acoustic as Ian Anderson sung the 1971 billboard hit “Aqualung.”

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Self Portrait

acrylic on masonite

11” x 14””

Richard J. Frost

Ernie Wormwood

Fountain Pen

␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣

I am a poet who writes with a fountain pen (doesn’t make me Shakespeare or Keats) from which the ink flows sensuously (doesn’t make me Hari or Monroe) lending substance and salt to a life (doesn’t make me Lot’s wife or anyone’s) lived only in my imagination. (but Barrie wishes he had known me).

The pen has grooves near the tip that exactly fit my first three fingers, making each script a grasp of pleasure, a miraculous yes of writing.

I think of it not as a fountain pen, but as the penis of the man I adore and whom I loved under many moons.

Stop here if you do not want the sad ending.

How I resisted the typewriter and the computer.

How the man I adored loves another and worse still, writes poems about it, they are everywhere.

How fortunate that I am yet a woman who prefers to do the job with her hand.

Each day I rise, I grasp another pen, I write again.

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Translation

ballpoint pen and prismacolor marker on bristol

9� x 12�

Jeremy Baum

Jeff Filipski

tweaked perception of a disturbed serenity sugar rush plant life walk like mindless tourist through sunlit brain. china white boiling in spoon. the boogie man delights the dead. rubber boot societies within echo finger cordial manners.. sucked like wind through rotting tunnels. a woodpecker sips water from a stagnant pool near a busy street as angular clouds scratch skies like broken glass... suffocate orgasm rules are smitten. by hanged outstretched soul like gutted fowl in Chinese kitchen. blankly stare half smile erectile grin Cheshire catlike and satisfied. bang the gong of agog. mania leaks from my head like a dripping sore. poison is relative. take it. or leave it. no difference. puddles of clear thought splashed at tiny feet mottled by heresy. personal or otherwise. shredded by logic denial. the same old story teased by the ordinary if the ordinary fails to feed for the extraordinary there remains no recourse darkened ghosts of memory. gently entwined and slippery with lust. constant oscillations. penetrations. erotic dream sequence pokes musky fingers into sleeping folds . makes weapon of midnight tension. a rude wet wake up of rhinoceros horn impaling supple flesh of laughing day.

The moment a wandering prurient force left less satisfied wrung out like cloth. inside like outside, but hardly breathing.

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Jeff Filipski

Self Portrait mixed media 8” X 11”

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David Lehman from Adventures of Lehman

A sampling of today’s headlines: “City Bracing for Lehman’s Demise”: The New York Sun “Should You Dump Lehman Or Is It Too Late?” CNBC “Lehman’s Assurances Ring Hollow”: The New York Times “For Lehman Employees, the Collapse is Persona”: The New York Times “Lehman’s Long Weekend”: US News and World Report “Lehman’s Worst Gamble Ever”: Motley Fool What a day, Lehman said, rolling out of bed. The Sun reported that the whole city was bracing for his demise. “Commercial real estate may take hit.” Lehman resisted the impulse to tell the Sun guy that when the Sun goes down, which is inevitable, the city will probably not go into mourning and property values will almost certainly remain unaffected.

Both CNBC and the Times were looking into Lehman’s personal life. Goddamn journalists. The stock jock on the TV was saying it was already too late to “dump” him. Like any jilted lover he tried to take some consolation from the idea that his girl friend, Hannah Barbaro, might not break up with him, or might at least postpone the dreaded phone call, if CNBC had it right. The Times devoted several headlines to Lehman. “Lehman’s Assurances Ring Hollow,” on the front page of the business section, undercut the promises he had made to Hannah on the previous day. “I can change,” he had said. “I will change. You’ll see. In ten years the Lehman family is going to be completely legitimate.”

The adjacent article on the same page announced that “For Lehman Employees. The Collapse Is Personal.” He thus stood accused of violating the oldest rule in the book. Everyone knows that it is fatal to mix “personal” and “business.” And yet, according to US News and World Report, Lehman was going to take a “long weekend.” Well, why not? Wouldn’t you?

“Lehman Shares Slide,” said Reuters, and it took Lehman a moment to realize that “Shares” in that headline was not a verb but a noun. Or was it both? Was the wire service insinuating that Lehman’s famous generosity amounted to sharing his fall from grace, his swift decline down the slippery slope? There was, he had to admit, some truth to the thought. Just yesterday he had taken up an hour of Glen’s time on the phone complaining about Hannah and her sisters, whom she had enlisted in the struggle with Lehman.

Reuters also gave readers a timeline on the Lehman family. Henry Lehman, who came to this country from Germany, set up shop in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1844. His brothers Manny and Mayer joined him six years later. The brothers established a private investment firm in 1929, perhaps not in retrospect the best year to have initiated such an enterprise. But “Lehman’s Worst Gamble Ever,” according to the Motley Fool, may not have occurred then, or even a year ago, when the firm that bore his name had record revenues and earnings per share and yet did nothing to avert a calamity that it should have foreseen.

In Lehman’s mind, the worst gamble is still to come and has to do with his choice of partners to the dance. His record here doesn’t inspire confidence. In a marriage arranged by the matchmakers at American Express, Lehman wed Libby Shearson back in 1984 and let her talk him into changing his name. Only with their divorce in 1994 did Lehman become Lehman again.

If autonomy remains the goal, Lehman had better proceed cautiously in the next few days when choosing among seemingly reluctant suitors proposing a merger of convenience.

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Jack of Diamonds watercolor 9” x 12”

David Lehman

Renée Zepeda

In This World Together My sister once called what I do in my poems pedestrian so I thought about that a while then I decided to go on walking. My arms tend to stray at first sin but eventually ribbon like Picasso’s portrait.

Here’s my portrait: the poet propels the poem by using charm, coming clean she likes some things’ mystery, spontaneous, on the spot like jazz. Abstraction is my sister’s raven hair and my stance is one of admiration.

In “Jackson Pollock at the Tate” you should have seen her painting her own anger.

Why is she ascending?

She performs; she keeps circulating. Objects in motion tend to stay in motion.

I didn’t, but I did stop, and I died a little.

The poem doesn’t die, it lapses into melancholy, but I can bring it back with a shot of something maybe something freaky like a memory of speed riding a Munich train, my sister and I riding a Munich train “watching colors changing,” my sister, cold and bitter, thin as a rail, and me, cold and sweet, thinking of a machine made out of words racing by, in the air, so high, so high—

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Leigh Wells

Self Portrait. Atlantic City. MAMIYA 7II 14” x 12.5”

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Nanette Rayman Rivera

m butterfly lock Rene Gallimard’s on a hydrant in Union Square and I’m sick.

Artists and vendors cut stems and paintings with machetes.

Mosquitoes bevy my belle. A- Donna comes to my mind.

In poverty and de-synchroni-city there’s nothing but predators and mothers. But in Boston Donna my friend forgot me like the weedy garter belt that is life releasing her stockings each night, casting off what’s unbearable, shaping herself in her own obi.

And in Boston mothers not woman enough to hold a woman like a daughter: In New York I will fight the yearning in hands made for rain and sex that purées the sediment and lets me bring up hoar from my frost. Because the girl I am walks through homeless over water, my feet too gilled to ever feel again what’s above me. The day Jeremy Irons caught me by the Futon store with a bottle of pills, I let his lashes butterfly over my face with their unknowing tips, a secret Donna would die for—my mother would kill me for—a swallowing of circumstance, a hand into hand where I wanted to devour him completely—taste of lotus and cherry cigarettes, his mouth tasting of water, a no going back afterlife mouth.

It isn’t the way he swims in my eyes but that his hand grips mine and is grace like the sunstreak across Fourteenth Street— that he’s a haze, like rain against an aqueduct, and my heart might disable, withering down to the peach pit spring of persecution.

Hand against hand, two people grip the parallel lives of the body’s penitentiary, the lines of the locks sudden death and the crux of the key is the cry of awareness—where the obsessive sun illumines what we are not.

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Cedar Lee

Joyful Moment acrylic on canvas 12” X 16”

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Grady Harp

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Self Portrait

#3

Memories rattle inside time’s can and tumble out on the lawn especially in summer especially in the hour when light dips behind the edge of the yard and trees and what’s left of the barn at the end of the dirt driveway, a bangle of moment held loosely by evening breezes until the stars stop being shy to the gloaming. Little lights of blinking fireflies pull the space between the lawn’s dewy covering and the ink that is night hiding behind a waning white moon into worn pages of yesterday tales. And in all of that there is no grandpa left and no crickets and no prairie parades, charades or even shards of a boy’s life or beginnings of one that could hold tenderly and say it was okay that I never became an artist.

And why review, critique hold up for exam the art of creators, others who prospect ideas or illusions or allusions or even dare to brush color on monotone images, why, when instead I hide in retrospect or wordify the intangibles, the gifts talent has blossomed in their hands their thoughts their more alive lives?

Time has pushed me back in spectator stance, at distance from the page, the canvas, the glowing matrix where lies the magic and in older eyes and worn about heart, and fearing ultimate impotency or other bridges of desire, I view/review/critique/ time and sidelines, signed.

poetsandartists.com

Patrice Erickson

Artist’s Self-Portrait oil on linen 10” X 8”

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Greenwind photoshop with tablet

ChiaNi Hsu

Annie Finch

Song of the Sorry Side On the sorry, sorry side of the world is an opening that hides the girl who is closing up her heart.

She has fallen down a winding curve to the place where solid seas are torn and the continents are lost in stone that obtrudes upon their rest.

When the lava reaches to the girl burrowing around inside the world, solid places in the ocean floor fill the spaces she was looking for, and the lava slowly rides the sea till it reaches to her heart.

An opening has gone.

A rising has begun.

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Self Portrait

pastel pencils

A4 (8.26”x11.69”)

Pauline Aubey

Barbara Jane Reyes

Tocaya Madre, ¿por qué cuando se corre una estrella o luce un relámpago se dice: Santa Bárbara bendita, que en el cielo estás escrita con papel y agua bendita?

—Federico García Lorca, La Casa de Bernarda Alba patron saint of lightning bolts you, of sharpened tongue maiden of thunder and war guard us against malediction beautiful girl, mártir, astig poeta, rebel, tattooed daughter our lady of gunpowder our lady of bullets our lady of men deep in the earth sweet anise star, bold pomegranate saint of machete, two spirit bull

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Self-Portrait : Sarah-Bernadette oil on canvas

50cm x 75cm

Sarah Zambiasi

Kate Wyer

Mitochondria Ancestral line: “Eve” >L1/L0 Inside a body of loud brine, my mouth without teeth.

Ancestral line: “Eve” >L1/L0>L2 I must use mouth, fingers, feet to see where the body stops. Compress me, show me.

Ancestral line: “Eve” >L1/L0>L2>L3 I meet a body. He shows me where I do not end. I learn about an angry virgin. I learn I am bad. My tongue retreats down my swollen throat.

Ancestral line: “Eve” >L1/L0>L2>L3>N I write letters to God. I am in love with poinsettias. I take the Son on my tongue and say thank you for entering my heart and body.

Ancestral line: “Eve” >L1/L0>L2>L3>N>R Inside my body dogs are barking. I prefer liquid that has passed through peat. I prefer Fathers that are living to Fathers that are dead. I prefer falling.

Ancestral line: “Eve” >L1/L0>L2>L3>N>R>U My body fills up with other bodies. I filter water into chambers to sink toward the floor.

Ancestral line: “Eve” >L1/L0>L2>L3>N>R>U>U5 I always swim alone.

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93

Self Portrait

pencil, ballpoint pen, marker, acrylic, acrylic ink

April Carter Grant

Belinda Subraman

What It’s Like The way plants turn yellow and limp Flowers faint to the ground Or trees so brittle their limbs Break off in wind The way anything that danced Now lies still The way the hand resists a pen And the need to speak lessens The way the dying Grasp towards air Eyes fixed upward There is no practice for life ending The closer ones gets the less one conveys How can we know?

“Ready to go” is relative to imagination.

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Jason John

Self Portrai oil on board 16” X 20”

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John Walz

J. Walz hi res scan of collage printed on canvas 37” X 42” 98

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Jeremy Hughes

I am a standing stone some folk think walks at night to kill the rooks and stoats they find crushed on the roads next day.

The sun picks me up in the morning and puts me down in the evening without a sound, unlike the hundred men who prised me up, inch by inch, their timbers snapping like bones till I slid into the hole they had dug.

The stones of the field are no relations.

I used to wonder at the beaten silver river’s sound between the trees clutching to its bank, close to me now, its pebbled engine buppling in its bed.

Waters sense their way beneath me to places rivers merely dream.

One man painted me as a bear, gone save for teeth and claws experts says map the constellations; a woman was burnt against me for saying her baby born as still as stone was mine; a mob thrashed me with rakes and wooden mallets until my dumb intransigence made their arms ache and throb: their crops had failed.

Consider me now. I am impermeable.

Even the frost cannot compete with my kernel: it is as cold as the coins a Civil War soldier buried at my foot when lightning silhouetted me against the clouds’ chiaroscuro, though the memory of the sun’s first heat is latent as a lover’s back once pressed against me.

Cows’ tongues lizard my fissures.

I am the cornerstone of an academic reputation.

Aerial archaeology reveals I am the hub of a wheel with stones that spoke to near horizons.

Time-lapse photography dials me around the field.

I court the moon that casts me half in this world and half in another.

I am intimate with rain the sheep and lichens shun in my lee, an island adrift in swells of grass which break against me.

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Calli Whittall

Jeremy Hughes lives in the market town of Abergavenny, which is situated on the border of Wales and England. He has published two pamphlets: “breathing for all my birds” and “The Woman Opposite”.

she is a work-in-progress mixed media on canvas 30” X 30”

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Emma Trelles

Autorretrato Quintina A mind needs a place to set its teeth, and grace arrives in fixing the toilet, in water smoothing the pre-dawn fears of possible cysts, faulty seatbelts, the radio loop of reasons I’m needed and belong nowhere.

Here is a mirror without Las Meninas, and nowhere does light soften brow and wrist to the grays cherished by Velázquez. Here is a needle’s loop for a mouth. Here is a sheet of water rising behind the iris, here, the possible a mottled gold. My skin is a plausible way of counting miles, the tender nowhere route of veins, the tongue floating in water carried since birth. My hands have the grace to wield a wrench, to pull a chain loop free from its knots and trace the oval loop a portrait might make if the impossible appeared: a king’s room brushed with grace, light, royal lace and a leisure nowhere near the bathroom echo of iron and water.

In this lull between doing and dreaming, water owns shadow and animal rust, water loops music around the heads of all who are nowhere in the path of sleep. Draw closer. It is possible to love the trouble in this face, to surrender.

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Barbra Nightingale

Aging Disgracefully Picture this: a red rain on green grass running to purple lakes, a purple sky.

The clouds spell out “When I grow old I shall wear purple” till your eyes turn red then blue, then purple.

Little did you know that phrase would burrow?

Look at your legs, the soft fleshy bulge just behind the knees.

Notice the spider webs— in a certain light, bluishred at the center, purple at the ends.

The blue veins in your hands merge with the raw red skin casting a purplish glow— held near a light, they’re luminous, almost transparent.

Sit, rest, take in a sunset, bathe your feet in the sea and do not notice how the clouds, stippled rose resemble your toes, the edges all gone purple.

There is nothing you can do against the march of purple: it will make its way; so, instead of fighting, revel, wear all the purple you can get.

After all, it matches just about everything.

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I Am The Walrus oil on gessoed canvas 36” x 24”

Didi Menendez

Marcus Kwame Anderson

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Blues Portrait

acrylic on paper

9� x 12�

Melissa McEwen

Thirty-Four I don’t know where I’m going, but I still need a lift— stuck out thumb & hiked skirt, I’m so far from where my mother was at this age. No ring on my finger, just the one on my hitchhiking thumb. No work uniform, I want to live in my swimsuit all summer long with firecracker & cherry bomb love.

Sermonizing signs tacked on trees along the highway:

Jesus Saves But I can’t save a dime.

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105

Autorretrato pastel on paper

50cm x 70cm

Ruben Belloso

Howard Camner

The Celebrated Mr. C I hated the fame the money the women the clap the book signings I hated it all the weasel manager the sniveling agent the tours the bad jokes the rancid coffee so I locked myself away for three months in a New York hole and did nothing but watch old reruns of “Leave it to Beaver” I expected to die in my twenties to find fast fame, make a bundle, and take a good long nap I expected to die in my twenties but, as usual, I didn’t live up to my expectations and must now suffer accordingly

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107

Tara M.M. Larkin

She Loved Her Mother When Rose got her nipples pierced At seventeen, I went ballistic Screaming who would do such a thing To you, my baby, girlchild barely Womanized, now marred, I did believe.

Meekly then she replied and revealed The nature of the perps name Scary Shari from Morgan Hell, Mom...

Frightening enough. Might she have wild Presto eyes and Celt lips covering Missing or perhaps decayed dentition Foul smelling like chicken fat left For the ravens and magpies?

Rump like a twisted heavensward Tortoise, magnificent ,shell-like Shelf-like, chintz covered rear?

Entrance to her lair webbed with Expired flies; too early for roaches!

Ash and trash can sour. I would confront her.

She of the ersatz arts and dirty needles.

Prince Albert and Marilyn Monroe her Tarted up companions of note. Maybe A mustache; beard, even. Bleachcoif or jericurl, Vomit and pomegranate under her nails?

Yet there she was wise eyed With a soft smile, sleeve of tats Fit, young, smoking cloves Legs dangling smoothly across Space and time between us, yellow Leather pumps, her gentle instep skin Logo command: Love Your Mother What had I been afraid of?

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Invisible Presence prismacolor and sharpie on heavyweight watercolor paper

24� x 30�

Angelique Price

Diana Adams

Self Portrait as a Box of Gulls Begat in an airport staring north, gulls small as a plum unfeather as a woman without shoes in thin dress leaves through ice-aluminum sky.

Wing points wilt, eyes dawn-soft close from not knowing. Walls clutter up up with brain caught snapshots. A crawlspace is kicked out of the snow shut container, to aroused blue space with glitters of water. A boat of silver fish is feasible, salt spray to purl virgin air, top-notch flocks, hypotheses of sand.

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Luke Meinzen

Tall tales My grandfather said children of God when he meant family.

We all said Midwestern when we meant virtuous.

My parents said German when they meant tall and stubborn.

My grandmother said Jewish, Greek, and royalty when she meant dark eyebrows, unmanageable hair, and prow-like noses.

My father said she was difficult when he meant bi-polar.

My mother said middle child when she meant I was difficult.

They both said young when they meant agnostic.

I said socialist when I meant bored in high school.

My father said the influence of liberal professors when he meant well-intentioned but wrong.

I said young progressive when I meant anything but old and conservative.

I started saying ethnic enclave when I meant German-American.

My grandfather said independent when he meant traveling together.

I agreed because traveling meant expatriate, which, I thought, meant independent.

My first lover said independent when she meant inaccessible.

I didn’t say anything. When I said I was leaving, she didn’t say anything.

Another lover said emotionally retarded, and she may have meant it, so I said I love you until I learned what it meant.

My older brother said it’s been a while when he meant unfamiliar to begin with.

I said we should catch up someday when I meant I doubt I’ll be back.

My younger brother started saying white guilt when he meant privilege guilt.

I said I’m proud of you when I meant I’m proud you speak my language.

My parents said we’re proud of you when they meant we don’t speak your language.

I said I speak the language when I meant I’m happier elsewhere.

My younger brother said I don’t understand why you don’t get along better with our parents. They said joyless. I said grown up. We all meant distant.

When I said homecoming, none of us knew what I meant, but I mean to tell them, when I see them, that I love them and saying it will be the beginning of meaning what we say.

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Joze Hicks

Above acrylics on paper 30cm x 30cm

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CONTRIBUTOR NOTES …

Diana Adams Diana Adams is an Alberta, Canada based writer with work published in a variety of journals. Her second book of poetry Theaters of the Tongue was recently published

by BlazeVOX Books.

Marcus Kwame Anderson Marcus Kwame Anderson is an artist who lives in upstate NY with his lovely and talented wife and beautiful baby daughter. He believes that the arts can be a powerful vehicle for change and his work often contains social commentary. www.marcuskwame.com

Ron Androla Ron Androla lives in Erie, PA with his wife Ann. He wishes he was not 55 years old.

He posts poems and other tidbits at pressurepress.ning.com

Pauline Aubey Pauline Aubey is a French self-taught portrait artist. She developed a very early interest in drawing people, but had to wait until 2006 to draw on a regular basis. She started with celebrity portraits before choosing to draw more personal works with a more specific mood. Attracted by opposite feelings, her main goal is to depict beauty in a strange unexpected way. Her works are displayed on her online gallery: www.paulineaubey.deviantart.com

Fábio Baroli Fabio Baroli earned a bachelor’s degree in Visual Arts from the University of Brasília, Brazil in 2009. Since 1999 Baroli works extensively with several artistic languages.

Nowadays he is focusing on oil painting as his main media. Some of his paints can be views at www.flickr.com/photos/fabiobaroli

Jeremy Baum Jeremy Baum lives in Pittsburgh and has done illustrations for For Love of Armadillo

by Didi Menendez, Television Farm by John Korn, and Mind Fields: Adventures in Purgatory by Jeremy Baum. Check out his online gallery at www.madbaumer37.deviantart.com or email him at madbaumer37@hotmail.com.

James Belflower James Belflower is the author of Commuter, (Instance Press) and And Also a Fountain, (NeOpepper Press) a collaborative echap with Anne Heide and J. Michael Martinez. He curates PotLatchpoetry.org, a website dedicated to the gifting and exchange of poetry resources. www.potlatchpoetry.org

Ruben Belloso Rubén Belloso Adorna is currently finishing his degree at the University of Fine Arts in Seville. At the present, he is focusing almost exclusively on portraits in pastel, a technique he has been perfecting for the past five years. “For me, every portrait has a story to tell.” benbe.deviantart.com

Nina Bennett Nina Bennett is the author of Forgotten Tears A Grandmother’s Journey Through Grief. In 2006, she was chosen by the poet laureate of Delaware to participate in a writers’ retreat sponsored by the Delaware Division of the Arts. www.booklocker.com/books/2081.html

Linda Benninghoff Linda Benninghoff has been published in Agenda and Ocho, among others. She is currently Assistant Poetry Editor at Women Writers womenwriters.net.

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Oscar Bermeo Oscar Bermeo was born in Ecuador, raised in the Bronx, and now makes his home in Oakland, CA, with his wife, poet Barbara Jane Reyes. He is the author of the poetry chapbooks Anywhere Avenue, Palimpsest and Heaven Below. www.oscarbermeo.com

Howard Camner Howard Camner is the author of 16 poetry books. He was named “Best Poet of 2007” in the New Times “Best of Miami” readers poll issue. His autobiography Turbulence at 67 Inches was recently released. He lives in Miami with his wife and children. members.authorsguild.net/hcamner

Pris Campbell Pris Campbell composes her poetry three and a half miles from the ocean in Southeast Florida. Her new book, Sea Trails, will be released by Lummox Press, 2009. www.poeticinspire.com

Grace Cavalieri Grace Cavalieri’s latest book of poetry is Anna Nicole: Poems, 2008 (Goss 183::Casa Menendez.). She produces/hosts “The Poet and the Poem from the Library of Congress” for public radio. www.gracecavalieri.com

Francois Chartier Francois Chartier has much respect for portrait artists, but prefers to paint objects.

While working on his “Pop Culture Icons” series, he wanted to find a way to create a self portrait. He had a nice antique frame that he wanted to use in one of his paintings and found a photograph of himself at one year old. Surrounding it with objects that have special meaning to him, it became his “humble essay to a self portrait.”

Peter Ciccariello Peter Ciccariello is currently writing, thinking, and growing things in an old farm house in a small town in Connecticut. All bets are off. poemsfromprovidence.blogspot.com

Billy Collins Billy Collins is the author of eight books of poetry including Ballistics, The Trouble with Poetry and Other Poems, Picnic, Lightning, Sailing Alone Around the Room and Questions About Angels, which was selected by Edward Hirsch for the National Poetry Series. Collins’ poetry has appeared in a variety of periodicals and in numerous volumes of The Best American Poetry. He is the editor of Poetry 180 and a New York Public Library “Literary Lion.” He is a distinguished professor of English at Lehman College. He served as the United States Poet Laureate for 2001-2003 and as New York State Poet Laureate 2004-2006.

Juliet Cook Juliet Cook’s poetry, editing, and publishing projects can be viewed by visiting her website: julietcook.weebly.com

Steven DaLuz Steven DaLuz is a San Antonio-based artist who paints both figurative work and landscape-referential abstractions. He was recently selected for the 2009 Florence Biennale in Italy, and a small sampling of his work can be found at www.stevendaluz.com

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Jon Damaschke Jon Damaschke’s work has been showcased in Italy and museums & galleries in Wisconsin and Michigan. His art evolves concurrently with the digital art movement, while reflecting the artists and movements that have influenced him. Evident in his work is the Surrealism of Salvador Dali and the Impressionism of Claude Monet. Despite these influences, Jon brings a unique sublimity to his art through his intuitive use of line and color to suggest movement and convey emotion. Currently, Jon resides in Chicago, Illinois. jondamaschke.com

Jarrett Min Davis Jarrett Min Davis was born in Seoul, South Korea and adopted by American parents. His paintings explore issues of identity and the collisions of culture between East and West.

His current work is a revisionist history of the nautical voyages Admiral Yi of Korea. www.jarrettmindavis.com

Andrew Demcak Andrew Demcak is a poet and a librarian in Oakland, CA. When he’s not busy working on his new novel, he spends most of his time communicating with the dead via sock puppets and sending love letters to Edward Norton.

Denise Duhamel Denise Duhamel’s most recent poetry title is Ka-Ching! (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009). She is an associate professor at Florida International University in Miami.

Peggy Eldridge-Love Peggy Eldridge-Love is a poet, playwright, novelist and artist living in middle-America.

She is an eternal optimist. Sometimes.

Patrice Erickson Patrice Erickson is a realist artist based in Michigan who specializes in painting fine art portraits and landscapes in oils using time honored methods that go back to the Renaissance. Images of her commissioned portraits as well as landscapes of wild fields and rural pastures are visible at www.patriceerickson.com

Adam Fieled Adam Fieled is a poet, musician, and critic. He is finishing his PhD at Temple University in Philadelphia.

Jeff Filipski Jeff Filipski lives with his wife and daughter in the heavenly throes of small town Florida waiting patiently for the muse.

Annie Finch Annie Finch is author or editor of fifteen books of poetry, translation, and criticism, most recently Calendars. She is director of Stonecoast, the low-residency MFA program of the University of Southern Maine. www.usm.maine.edu/~afinch

Richard J. Frost Richard J. Frost graduated from Otis/Parsons Art Institute 1990. He lives in Los Angeles where he shows his work and would gladly do commissions.

April Carter Grant Raised in rural Illinois and now based in Los Angeles, April Carter Grant is a designer, illustrator, and marketing consultant who helps new businesses launch. When time allows, she photographs, writes, and composes music. www.sugarsock.com

Sally Hanreck Sally Hanreck is a self taught artist born in Sydney, raised in Spain, schooled in England from age 11, and now living in Melbourne. She took up painting in 2006, aged 32. She is drawn towards painting as a means to communicate complex, often overwhelming emotion.

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Grady Harp Grady Harp is a practicing surgeon while retaining his involvement in all aspects of the arts. He is a gallerist, a published poet, a guest lecturer on music, and his critical writings appear in museum catalogues, as Forewords for novels and art books, and he is a regular Reviewer for multiple Internet sites as well as O&S Poets and Artists.

Craig Hawkins Craig Hawkins makes his home in George and has lived in the South all his life. He likes to collect moments of revelation. He takes these personal, local moments and record them through meditative compositions, high contrast, and expressive mark making with the hope of expressing them as having applicable qualities. craighawkinsart.com

Joze Hicks Joze Hicks, born in the north of Scotland in 1991 has recently completed his education at Thurso High School. This year he is due to start his BA(hons) in Art and Design at Edinburgh College of Art with the ambition to specialize in painting after the first year. An emerging talent, Joze’s work travels though a wide spectrum of styles and media to produce some interesting and beautiful results. To date, Joze’s work has been shown in the Scottish Parliament and also at Lyth Arts Centre.

Bob Hicok Bob Hicok’s new book, Words for Empty and Words for Full, will be out from Pitt in 2010.

Matthew Hittinger Matthew Hittinger is the author of the chapbooks Pear Slip, winner of the 2006 Spire Press Chapbook Award, Narcissus Resists (GOSS183/MiPOesias, 2009) and Platos de Sal (Seven Kitchens Press, 2009). He lives and works in New York City. www.matthewhittinger.com

Ming Holden Ming Holden grew up on a zebra farm, went to hippie commune schools, co-founded the Brown Literary Review, and spent her year as a Henry Luce Scholar in Mongolia working with writers. She likes pesto pasta.

ChiaNi Hsu ChiaNi creates beautiful masterpieces traditionally with paint as well as with the use of modern tools such as a computer and mouse, resulting in a breathtaking final product nearly indistinguishable from traditional oils or acrylics. In ChiaNi’s most recent body of work, the Mask Collection, each piece elicits an emotion which is hauntingly familiar.

This is ChiaNi’s intent, to express what’s real and true in humanity. The artist hopes each print will touch every individual who sees this collection. www.chiani.com.

Jeremy Hughes Jeremy Hughes lives in the market town of Abergavenny, which is situated on the border of Wales and England. He has published two pamphlets: breathing for all my birds and The Woman Opposite.

Luisa A. Igloria Luisa A. Igloria is the author of Juan Luna’s Revolver (2009 Ernest Sandeen Prize, University of Notre Dame Press), Trill & Mordent (WordTech Editions, 2005) and eight other books. Originally from Baguio City, she is currently Director of the MFA Creative Writing Program at Old Dominion University. www.luisaigloria.com

Alison Jardine Alison Jardine is a prize-winning British artist, now living in Dallas. Exploring mood and sensation, Alison’s paintings immerse the viewer in the artist’s distinctive experience of the subject, whether landscapes or people, in unconventional, colorful and emotive compositions. alisonjardine.com

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Jason Joyce Jason Joyce recently graduated from the University of Wyoming and is pursuing a career in event and entertainment management. He plays bass in the band Save My Hero and is working on his first full-length collection of poetry. jasonrjoyce.blogspot.com

Jason John Jason John is a painter who specializes in Psychological Realism. Recently Jason has received second place in the Art Kudos International Juried Exhibition and has received an Honorable Mention at the Target Gallery’s ‘In the Flesh II’ juried exhibition at the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, VA. www.thebroadstreetstudio.com

Elaine Kahn Elaine Kahn is currently working towards an MFA in Poetry at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop where she has studied with Cole Swenson, Mary Jo Bang, Jim Galvin, and Mark Levine. She has two chapbooks out Radiant Bottle Caps (Glasseye Books, 2008) and Convinced By the End Of It (Big Baby Books, 2009), a split with Canadian poet Valerie Webber which was recently featured in Arthur Magazine. Some of my poems can be read at shampoopoetry.com and at moisttowelette.blogsport.com

Rauan Klassnik Rauan Klassnik has a book of prose poems, Holy Land (Black Ocean, 2008). One chapbook, Ringing, released Feb. 2009, and a second, Dreaming, is due out shortly.

Rauan blogs at rauanklassnik.blogspot.com

John Korn John Korn is a poet and artist living in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. He’s been published in a few places online as well as in print and his book Television Farm is currently available at createspace.com and amazon.com

Kathy Kubik Kathy Kubik is the author of four poetry chapbooks. When she is not writing poems, short stories, or working on a novel or two, she is spending time with her true loves: daughters Lucy and Marlo and her husband Jim.

Tara M.M. Larkin T.M.M. Larkin writes and lives on California’s central coast, where she finds that the fog acts like foxglove on her stenciled four-chambered rib cage, filling the holes with damp, maudlin magic.

Larry W. Lawrence Larry Lawrence graduated from Rutgers University where he studied Playwriting, before obtaining a Masters Degree from Kean University. He teaches technology to children grades K-5. He has been writing poems for many years now and still likes “a place called school.”More of his work can be found at crownedwithlaurels.blogspot.com

Kent Leatham Kent Leatham is a California poet currently relocated to Pittsburgh, PA. His work is forthcoming on a bookshelf near you.

Cedar Lee Cedar Lee is currently represented by several art galleries and her work is in private collections throughout the world. She operates her art studio from her home in Maryland, where she paints majestic trees, colorful, symbolic flowers and cosmic universe art.

David Lehman David Lehman’s new books are A Fine Romance: Jewish Songwriters, American Songs (Nextbook / Schocken) and a book of poems, Yeshiva Boys (Scribner), both published in fall 2009. He teaches in the graduate writing program of the New School in New York City.

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Dave Lordan Dave Lordan is 34 and currently lives in Mantova, Italy. His first collection of Poems The Boy In The Ring (Salmon Poetry 2007) won the 2005 The Patrick Kavanagh Award in manuscript and 2008 Rupert and Eithne Strong award for best first collection by an Irish Writer.

Terry Lucas Twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Terry’s work has been published in several online and print journals. He received his poetry MFA from New England College in 2008, and is an assistant editor for Fifth Wednesday Journal. thewideningspell.blogspot.com

Melissa McEwen Melissa McEwen lives and writes in Bloomfield, Connecticut; although, right now, she’s looking for a change of scenery and a change of pace.

Michelle McEwen Michelle McEwen is a writer living in central Connecticut. She has had poems published in Best New Poets 2007, O&S, and online at UmbrellaJournal.com. When she isn’t writing, she’s busy doing something poetry related on www.theblacktelephone.blogspot.com

Janelle McKain Janelle McKain is a surreal pencil artist. She is Dept Chair and high school art instructor at Millard South High School in Omaha, NE. beinart.org/artists/janelle-mckain/gallery/drawings/

Marie-Elizabeth Mali Marie-Elizabeth Mali received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and is a co-curator for louderARTS: the Reading Series in New York City. www.floweringlotus.com

Norman Mallory N.C. Mallory was born in Oregon and taught in colleges and universities in the west until 2000. His work has appeared in and on the covers of many publications and he has exhibited in galleries for over thirty years. www.flickr.com/photos/augustusswift

Ed Marion After studying life drawing at the Art Students League and the Cooper Union, Ed Marion went on to life as a New York City litigator for 20 years. Ed is now a full-time cityscape and portrait painter living and working in Ithaca, New York. Links to his portrait and selfportrait work can be found at www.edmarion.com

Luke Meinzen Luke Meinzen occasionally works as an exchange program administrator, English teacher, grant writer, and dissenting voice. He more rarely writes poetry, essays, and long letters to friends. As such, his writing may be found, once, in Gourmet and on the walls of his friends’ homes. He is coming to the end of three years in Mongolia and is taking suggestions about where to go next.

Didi Menendez Didi Menendez used to play the piano, tennis, guitar, take pretty pictures of debutants, brides, babies, live in Alaska, wear her hair cropped short as if it were a porcupine sticking out of her head. Now she does this and has finally let her hair grow long again.

Mia Mia is the editor of Tryst. She has recently published a poem in Quiet Mountain Essays.

She has work forthcoming in Slant Poetry.

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Alyssa Monks Alyssa Monks lives and paints in Brooklyn, New York. She is represented by DFN Gallery in New York, Sarah Bain Gallery in California, and David Klein Gallery in Michigan. Look for upcoming solo shows at www.alyssamonks.com

Dan Murano Dan Murano is a photo editor by trade and a photographer by passion. His latest book of photography, A Solitary Moment, is available at Blurb.com.

Barbra Nightingale Barbra Nightingale’s newest book, Geometry of Dreams just came out in May, 2009 and is available at Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble. com. Her poems have appeared in many anthologies and journals. She teaches literature and poetry at Broward College, near Ft. Lauderdale, FL.

Nick Piombino Nick Piombino’s Contradicta with collages by Toni Simon will be published soon by Green Integer. He is the editor of OCHO 14 and OCHO 21. Nick Piombino’s blog is fait accompli nickpiombino.blogspot.com

Angelique Price Angelique Price is a fine artist and a tattoo artist. She has an arsenal of markers, paint and ink to create all of her two dimensional friends.

Barbara Jane Reyes Barbara Jane Reyes is the author of Gravities of Center (Arkipelago, 2003), Poeta en San Francisco (Tinfish, 2005), and Diwata (BOA Editions, 2010). She blogs regularly at bjanepr.wordpress.com

Nanette Rayman Rivera Nanette Rayman Rivera, three-time Pushcart nominee, is the author of the new poetry collection, shana linda ~ pretty pretty, published by Scattered Light Publications.

Nydia Rojas Nydia Rojas likes to garden and go for long walks. She often finds inspiration in nature. Her work has appeared, among many others, in The Wisconsin Academy Review, Madison Magazine, Mom Writes and Palabra.

Stephen Russell Stephen Russell lives in Washington, D.C., and walks dogs for a living. He encourages the dogs to growl at pedestrians.

Suzanne Savickas Suzanne Savickas obtained her MFA from Naropa University. She is founder and editor of Le Pink-Elephant Press and co-editor of the press’s new subsidiary, A Trunk of Delirium.

Coleen Shin Coleen Shin writes, paints and practices the art of self delusion in a large house full of dust and echo on a wooded hill in Texas. A chronic pain survivor, her art reflects the process of taking hold of it via pen and paint, pulling it out and making it her bitch. pressurepress.ning.com

Paul Siegell Paul Siegell is the author of jambandbootleg (A-Head, 2009), Poemergency Room (Otoliths Books, 2008) and the e-chap JAM> (ungovernable press, 2008). Kindly hit up more of his work at ReVeLeR @ eYeLeVeL paulsiegell.blogspot.com

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Luc Simonic Luc Simonic is an Anglo-American Poet, among other things. He was born and resides in Colorado with his family.

R Jay Slais R Jay Slais makes his living as an engineer and inventor while bleeding a lifeblood of poetry some of which can be read at Barnwood International Poetry Mag, Cause & Effect, Hanging Moss Journal, Mipoesias, Pedestal Magazine, and The Rose & Thorn.

Marcus Slease Marcus Slease is the author of Godzenie and co-author of This is the Motherfucking Remix with Brian Howe. You can check out his multimedia projects, personal musings and poetry in progress at www.marcusslease.blogspot.com

Ellen McGrath Smith Ellen McGrath Smith teaches literature and writing at the University of Pittsburgh. A 2007 recipient of an Pennsylvania Council on the Arts fellowship, she has published work in Kestrel, 5 a.m., Diner, and other journals, and is Reviews Editor for Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics.

Cheryl Snell Cheryl Snell is a classical pianist and the author of nine books of poetry and fiction. shivasarms.blogspot.com

Janet Snell Janet Snell is a painter from Akron, Ohio. She graduated from MICA, and is the author of Flytrap (Cleveland State University Poetry Center) and other books of art and words. snellsisters.blogspot.com

Paul Squires Paul Squires is a slow large moving Australian who has been writing poetry for nearly thirty years. His work has appeared in obscure literary journals all over the world and he believes that poetry is the cornerstone of civilization.

Jordan Stempleman Jordan Stempleman is the author of six collections of poetry. He lives in Kansas City, Missouri and teaches at the Kansas City Art Institute.

William Stobb William Stobb is the author of Nervous Systems (Penguin 2007). He is co-editor of poetry for O&S (poetsandartists.com) and host of “Hard to Say” on miPOradio. He lives in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

Belinda Subraman Belinda Subraman is a writer, multi-media artist and Registered Nurse. Her main website is belindasubraman.com

Emma Trelles Emma Trelles is the author of Little Spells, a chapbook of poems published by GOSS::183 press. She is an arts and culture writer and a regular contributor to The Best American Poetry blog.

Brian Walters Brian Walters is currently completing his PhD in Classics at UCLA where he is working on a translation of Lucan’s poetic epic Civil War and writing on the interrelations of violence and metaphor in Latin literature. His poetry has recently appeared in Barnwood online and the UC magazine MATCHBOX.

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John Walz John Walz is a photographer and collage artist living in Waterville, Ohio. He makes a living as a documentary photographer specializing in Weddings, and as a college instructor teaching photography. His photo work can be seen at www.JohnWalzPhoto.com and his collage work can be seen on his Face Book page.

Leigh Wells Leigh Wells is a bluegrass born photographer and writer living in Bx. In the recent past, her work has appeared in Fifth Wednesday, Spinning Jenny, and Gourmet. www.photoleighflet.com

Calli Whittall Calli Whittall is an upstate, New York artist. Her work involves transformational themes and attempts to depict the emotions involved within the process of transforming ones self, ideas, and life. Visit her website at: www.soulreflectionsinart.com

Jennifer Wildermuth Developing her passion for fine art as a child in Wisconsin, Jennifer Wildermuth naturally gravitates towards to the human figure in her absorbing oil paintings. The renowned Horizon Fine Art Gallery in Jackson, WY, currently represents her. www.wildermuthart.com

Joseph P. Wood Joseph P. Wood is the author of the forthcoming I & We (CustomWords), A Severing (Cinematheque Press), Urgency (Cannibal Books), Travel Writing (Scantily Clad Press), and In What I Have Done & What I Have Failed to Do (Elixir Press). He edits Slash Pine Press and coordinates the Slash Pine Poetry Festival. www.slashpinepress.blogspot.com

Ernie Wormwood Ernie Wormwood is a poet and transformative mediator in Leonardtown, Maryland. She has poems forthcoming in Gargoyle Magazine and the Ars Poetica Anthology.

Stephen Wright Stephen Wright’s work has been exhibited internationally and is in several important private collections. He lives and works in Los Angeles. stephenwrightart.com

Kate Wyer Kate Wyer lives in Baltimore with her husband and two dogs. She works as a mental health interviewer for the public health care system.

Sarah Zambiasi Sarah Zambiasi is a self taught visual artist living in Australia. She paints/illustrates and creates soft sculptures. artworkbysarah.blogspot.com

Renée Zepeda Renée Zepeda is a poet and teacher who also edits The Pulchritudinous Review, an experimental literary magazine available for purchasing. For more information contact: ReneeZepeda@gmail.com

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excerpt from:

self-portrait of a self-portrait

by Bob Hicok

when i look in the mirror, i see a chin the size of other people’s scurvy moods on monday when their lives haven’t changed, half- and shit colored moons under my eyes, see a cold regard of my cold regard, as if i am an atom bomb given consciousness, who thinks, what of it: since there is a beginning, there has to be an end, and doesn’t the mushroom cloud remind the imagination of itself?

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