Pop Serial by Feng Chen

Pop Serial was edited, designed, and published in Chicago by Stephen Tully Dierks. Cover by Julia Sonmi Heglund (http://www.sonmisonmi.com)

Shout outs to Bill Akin, my “homeslice” in Japan; shout outs to “D-rock,” “D-Train,” “Drop-D,” “Ebum,” etc., livin’ the dream; shout outs to “Lukiss,” you and your family are wonderful; shout outs to “Pedro Benito,” “Apple Dash,” “McEwan,” “Freem the Dream,” “Douche-Dosh,” “Bink,” “Kels,” “Junk,” “Melby,” “Lynch,” and to all my peoples. Love, thanks, and peace to my family: my beautiful mother and father and 2 sisters, and my brother, Nick Buhr (thanks for the advice!).

Thank you to Blake Butler and Justin Taylor, for founding HTMLGIANT and for “tolerating” me.

A special thank you to Tao Lin, for his support and inspiration. This would not have been possible without you.

Thank you to Miles Ross and Mike Meginnis for reading and giving feedback re: “Some Trembling Melody”.

Thank you to everyone who contributed to this magazine. I love you.

Stephen Tully Dierks stephen.dierks@gmail.com popserial.tumblr.com (the magazine’s web presence) popserial.wordpress.com (my personal/random blog)

SAY IT! NO ‘GOOD’ OR ‘BAD’ IN ART. ’ZINE NOT HEARD ? No author where none intended ? ARMONIA (‘SOUND-IDEAL’) ‘OMNIVORE’ NO CEILINGS ONE DAY I WILL DIE. WORDS & (HEART)BEATS

“Do you know what I was smiling at? You wrote down that you were a writer by profession. It sounded to me like the loveliest euphemism I had ever heard. When was writing ever your profession? It’s never been anything but your religion. Never. I’m a little overexcited now. Since it is your religion, do you know what you will be asked when you die? But let me tell you first what you won’t be asked. You won’t be asked if you were working on a wonderful, moving piece of writing when you died. You won’t be asked if it was long or short, sad or funny, published or unpublished. You won’t be asked if you were in good or bad form while you were working on it. You won’t even be asked if it was the one piece of writing you would have been working on if you had known your time would be up when it was finishedI think only poor Søren K. will get asked that. I’m so sure you’ll only get asked two questions. Were most of your stars out? Were you busy writing your heart out? If only you knew how easy it would be to say yes to both questions.” J.D. Salinger, Seymour: An Introduction

"...and look at this prepronominal funferal, engraved and retouched and edgewiped and pudden-padded very like a whale's egg farced with pemmican as were it sentenced to be nuzzled over a full trillion times for ever and a night till his noddle sink or swim by that ideal reader suffering from an ideal insomnia..." James Joyce, Finnegans Wake

Russian Dolls

by Jesse Patrick Ferguson

THE HOUSE YOU WERE BORN INTO by Paul Edward Cunningham you were born into a house and there is no way out of that house everything outside the house will seem gigantic if you could just open the door you have tried to make an opening using objects available inside the house you have tried a small collection of keys merciless hammer-pounding chainsaws and electric devices fingernail clawing and kicking and more kicking still kicking a foot of broken toes the house has fourteen windows the windows have your attention and you’ve only ever knocked you’ve only ever worked you’ve only ever cheered you’ve only ever heaved your insides into a bag of plastic i wanted to tell you how to get out of the house but you were born with organs you were born a soft box of fluid that shimmers beneath ceiling lights you were born with a house and a door and your finger is pressing a doorbell

that was never meant to make any noise

Table of Contents Page

Artist

Title

Jesse Patrick Ferguson

Russian Dolls

Paul Edward Cunningham

THE HOUSE YOU WERE BORN INTO

Tessar Lo

all i need

Mike Meginnis

The Growing World

Grady Hunziker

The Ox-hide of Easterham

Shivani Gakhar

dreaming tivillus 2 lunch

Kendra Grant Malone

The Third Day In The Mountains little girls are women somehow in some way

Mallory Whitten

untitled

Kristin Hayter

DANTE VS PLUTARCH

Sarah Kate Wong

untitled

Lauren Michele Manke

La Ballena

Brandon Scott Gorrell

four small poems interview

Nic*Rad

Brandon Scott Gorrell

Stephen Tully Dierks

Some Trembling Melody

Tessar Lo

all i needer

M.P. Powers

Liturgy Deliriodreama Random Maxims for Pissmops and Treasuretramps

Noah Kalina

Tao Lin

Inconspicuously Hyperlinked Hamster Prize-Winning Hamster

Zachary German

what is not drinking hegemony release me here is a list of some of my guy friends and also some facts about them

Jasjyot Singh Hans

All the Utterly Horrible Things That Can Happen to Your Precious Double Half Fried Egg Floatman Floatwoman

Carlos Kotkin

Downward (Spiral) Dog

Jordan Castro

Seriously Just Going to Fucking Kill Myself

Doug Flora

The Spastic Eyeworm

Blake West

Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll Do It

Doug Flora

We praise you, lord

[2]

Heiko Windisch

Le void

Miles Ross

Lake Placid

Louisa Podlich Christian Dahlager

untitled

Carrie Lorig

ghost in the closet road shoulders in the summer, there will be leaves and leaving

Sarah Meadows

The Witches’ Castle Steve’s House Sauvie Island

I. Fontana

OOZE OUT AND AWAY

Maureen Gubia

yenpor / interview / smtri skin / dockead

Feng Sun Chen

the astronaut talks to himself th 4 of July TRANSITORY

Joshua Cohen

Notes Toward the Crane Poem

Dot Potkonjak Holly Kass Stephen Tully Dierks

“A Day in the Life of Dot”

Jaimie Eubanks

Brenda Miller

84 85

Aniela Sobieski

The Sugar Snap Girl / Icarus Shmicarus/ Fear of Empty Houses

Colin Herd

you can’t question denim

Adam Moorad

miserable ones

Leif Haven

Landon Manucci

The leopard and the wolf

Jared Harvey

untitled

Brittany Wallace

love poem / Sunday

Sarah Meadows

shanties / The Celebration Doctrine / Rebounding from robot love.

Fireworks / Rachael In The Backyard / Dusk

Jacqueline Fahmy

Cereal Mornings / Greeting Card

Sarah San

Participant

Matty Byloos

Loved In Spite of Great Fault

100

Donald Futers

Notebook / [photograph]

101

Ray Hsu

Thirteen Scraps, or, Assorted Paperwork [+ 2 more lovely poems]

102

Tessar Lo

all i needest

P.S. 1

all i need

Tessar Lo

P.S. 2

The Growing World by Mike Meginnis

Hiram woke with his hand in a pile of ash and charred wood fragments. There were several orange or orange-white flecks still glowing in the pile, still alive with small tastes of fire. He rubbed his hand around in the ash as if stirring pond-bottom mirk, searching for warmth. His other hand (his left) was blue. This hand, the right hand, came out smeared gray and black. He wiped it on his fur-lined coat. Beneath the stains this hand was also blue. He put on his gloves, which he had left to dry the night before. They were still rotting. It was still winter. Wind blew over the cave's mouth, producing a hollow, inconstant lowing, which echoed and hummed into the depths. The snow today was like communion wafers. It fell, lilting sideways, pinwheeling. Hiram chipped frozen drool from his chin. He rubbed his eye until the iced scum melted, loosened; he opened his eye. The world telescoped, gained depth, became real. The light outside the cave's mouth flared up, then went quiet. The dark behind him was loud as ever: that dark was always loud. He lay the ax on the sled. He slipped one sledge dog's harness over each arm, wrapping the trailing leather cords once around his shoulders. The crude iron runners scraped and sparked on the bare cave floor. He came to the mouth, sunk his boots into the snow that congregated there. The sky was growing. It used to be he saw stars through the air. Now he saw the stars were inside it, shining blue and white on thinning gray, and the snow fell from somewhere further out, someplace colder. The clouds had spread so thin they were a blanketing fog. The flakes hung suspended inside them like embryos, crystallizing and growing for hours before they fell. A flake tilted into the cave's mouth, flitted left before his eyes, then right again, and landed on his shoulder, where it broke and powdered. The snow crunched beneath his feet, and crackled under the iron runners. He pulled the sled uphill. The ax rolled slightly back and forth on its handle. He climbed the ridge, which rose steadily until, for several feet, it was almost perfectly vertical. Then a plateau. After fifty feet, the ridge crested and folded back into the mountain like a wave becoming the ocean again. Elsewhere other ridges broke out on the mountain and faded away, and these were like the ridge's sisters, or swimmers emerging to breathe. Hiram could not reach the other ridges, and he could not climb down this one. It would lead him back to things he had been right to leave behind – empty things, dry bones. On the plateau atop the ridge there was a tree. Hiram tossed the ax onto the plateau. He climbed up on all fours, and dragged the sled behind him. It dangled from the leather cords (which scraped upon the shelf, and thinned) and twisted in the wind. The runners met the plateau's edge. He pulled the sled over. The tree was a slight black thing four times his height. Its leaves were fallen and gone. Some of their veins and spines still mingled with the snow, and that was all: only veins, only spines, all packed in ice. Its branches curled out from its trunk as if they had once been raised together in praiseas if they had only recently begun to sag and fall. They were all knees and elbows, knuckles and gnarls, blisters, horns. The bark, shallow and flaky as shedding skin, was inscribed with winding, overlapping brown designs, which seemed to glow behind the bark, as if there were a new life underneath the old. The tree was wounded severally, its highest limbs severed, the body gashed deeply at each bare juncture, the bark patchy and stripped. Now only the low, heavy branches remained. Hiram peeled his right rotting glove. He touched the tree. First with the thick, yellow callus that padded his fingertips. Then with his blue-sheen palm. “Hi,” he said. He sat beneath the tree, folding his legs. He packed himself with snow up to the waist, layered it thickly, to keep himself warm. He hugged his chest, slipped his hands into his armpits. “How are you today? You look tired. “Nice, but tired. “Last night I had a dream about you. I won't bore you with the details.

P.S. 3 “Look at the snow out there,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. “The wind gets so confused. All those big flakes crowd together and they end up in spirals, twisting around each other, butting heads like hungry horseflies.” Hiram said, “You get lonely up here?” The tree leaned east with the wind. “I know I'm losing weight. We can't all live on sunbeams.” He gestured to the sun, which had also been enfolded by the sky. It blazed, unfiltered, and steam shot out at various angles as snowflakes fell into its gravity. “Inside I look like you,” he said. “I guess that doesn't mean there's a thing inside your trunk like me.” Hiram was thirsty. He tipped his head back and opened his mouth. Some snow fell in. He rolled it on his tongue until it melted. This took a long time, and it hurt. The tree creaked. As he stood, the snow fell from his body, leaving a dusting of powder clinging to his thick pants and the bottom half of his fur-lined coat. He lifted his ax from the ground, leaving its impression behind. He hefted it, and ran his finger over the head's blunted edge. The weight felt good in his hands. He swung hard, lodging the ax in the tree's trunk. He climbed up on the lowest branch, pulled the ax loose, lodged it in the tree again as high as he could reach, then pulled himself higher. Until he sat below the highest remaining branches, fifteen feet from the ground, squeezing the trunk tight between his thighs to steady himself. He pulled the ax from the trunk. He brought the ax down on the highest branch, and knocked it skewed. Shook bark from the limb. He swung again, broke it loose. It fell. He watched it go. The wind pulled at the tree. He held on with arms and heels till it calmed. He came down. He chopped the branches in halves or quarters so they would fit on the sled. At the end of this he gathered every loose bit of bark or fiber of wood and stowed them in his pockets. He tied the rest to the sled with fishing line. “See you,” he said. He climbed down from the ledge, pulled the sled down after, and marched back to the cave. He shrugged off the sledge dog's harness, and the other. They lay among the dog bones and dog skulls piled by the wall. * He built his fire on a bed of ashes from the last. The bark and spare bits were kindling. He struck his flint to start the fire, beginning with four short measures of wood. He snapped the rest in pieces, bending them over his knee, or propping them against the cave wall and kicking through. He needed to save what he could of the ax's edge. In breaking the branches, he saw the tree was not dead, but dyingwhite inside, only faintly, faintly tinged with green. His hands were grimed with sap when he finished, but only a little. He sat close to the fire, spreading his legs around it and folding his body over to trap the warmth. The snow in his beard melted, and dripped into the fire, and there steamed. When the flames threatened to die he fed them more. * The mountain was growing. So was the cave. When Hiram first climbed the mountain, it took him nine days to reach the ridge and the tree. It was the first tree he had seen in months. He sat with his back to the trunk and looked out at the world beneath, which was then still visiblehe surveyed what was left of his home. Broken timber. Empty wells. Trampled things. Come nightfall he crawled down the ridge (then very narrow) and tucked his body in a niche in the wall, pressing his face to cold rock. He showed the world his back. The sledge dogs slept together. When he woke this shallow groove had deepened. The ridge was wider. Beneath the tree, his home was further away, and he could see into the ruined fields of other homes, homes where he had never been. In time, the niche became deep, became his cave. In time the Earth receded, till there was only mountain and sky. In time, the sledge dogs starved until they ate each other to death while he cowered in the depths of the cave; in time, he cleaned their bones. His skin went blue all over. His lamp ran out of oil. Hiram climbed the tree and collected its newest, highest branches for fire. In this way the tree kept him alive. The cave spread downward, divided into new tunnels and chambers. Hot gusts of air bloomed from somewhere beneath. The ax grew heavy, and the sled seemed to swell. Not only the mountain and the cave, not only the sky, but everything grew (not Hiram, not his tree).

P.S. 4 As the sky turned black and the moon, blank as a stranger's face, came into view, Hiram watched the light leave his cave. It receded from the ridges of the tunnels, drew back from the stalagmites and little pools of condensation. They shaded blacker and blackest. The light stroked his body as a hand caressing a beloved jaw. He turned blacker and blackest, and so did the snow. And this was his life, or its end. He lay down by the fire. He slept. The flames snuffed. His hand lifted itself and burrowed into ash. * Hiram climbed the ridge. He pulled the sled. The tree had three branches left. The bottom two, which projected outward in either direction like the ends of a spit. A third, which angled several feet above them like a clock's arm: reaching for two. The tree was shorn of bark and gashed everywhere above this highest branch. Above the bark it was all piecemeal brown and gray. The spines and veins of leaves were gone. Today the snow was like sugar through a sifter, and it stung him in his eyes and ears. He could barely see, hear. “Are you cold?” he asked the tree. Hiram liked to think his fired warmed the tree as they warmed him, but more slowlyone piece at a time. He imagined the ghost of everything he'd taken imposed on what was left, burning bright and red. He folded up and packed himself with snow. He contemplated his tree. “I have the worst memory. Whenever I try to look back on things, I can't figure out what happened when. Did I have my first kiss after my last fight with my father, or before it? Did I bloody him then, or the first time? When I used to drink, who was there with me, and who taught me how to make which one? No matter what it isthe memory I'm trying to rememberI'm always something like ten. My first prayer, my last, my only wet dream, the night I met my wife. It's as if they all happened on the same day. One long, exhausting day, dense as granite. Or it's like I was the same person all the way through, the same little boy, and no one noticed how I wasn't changing.” He tipped his head back for a drink of snowfall. Some flakes fell into his throat, and lit chill sparks inside him, or deeper, in his gut. “Where do you keep your roots?” he asked. “My gloves fell off yesterday, as I was pulling the sled back. Just fell right off. Then they lay there in the snow looking up at me, like weird renditions of my hands. Somehow they seemed to accuse me. “I don't want to cut you anymore.” He took his tree's branches. He broke them with the ax, which was now nearly as tall as him and too heavy to swing from over his head. He laid them on the sled and tied them down. The trunk was all that was left. A slight thing, more brown than black, more gray than brown. Still some twenty feet tall, though diminished. A ring of dry, flaking bark at its base. It creaked in the wind. * Then the snow was all ash. Came down the same, in clots and flimsy crystals, from same gray cloud-vapor. It took days to reach the growing Earth, traversing whole galaxies, falling in the sun (and other suns), orbiting the moon (and other moons). Until the last of the snow fell and was gone, like milk from the bottom of the bowl, and the ash began to stain it, then to replace it, and all the snow was ash. Cold as ever. The sun grew sick and mottled tar from all it swallowed. Irregular shafts of light spun out in wild threads, spraying across the growing Earth in tremulous networked patterns like light through moving water, or through green canopy. It licked Hiram all over with slight warmths. He gathered all the clean snow he could find, in bowls and cups, so he would have water. He was caked with ash. He smelled and tasted it. It collected at the ends of what was left of his eyelashes. It blacked his fingernails. It blacked the sled and the bones of his sledge dogs. It blacked the splits in his skinhis hands, his cheeks, his forehead. He spent three days without fire, unmoving. He tipped his head beneath the stalactites of the growing cave, waiting for the water to drip in his mouth. It hit him in the eye sometimes, and sometimes ran down his beard. He did not flinch.

P.S. 5 On the third day a goat wandered into the cave. She was a pretty goat with a thick covering of black hair all matted down on her lean, hungry body. He was prepared to let her leave the cave if she did not come to him. She came to him. She nuzzled his shoulder, and ate from his clotted beard. He put his fingers in her hair; his fingers came away with its color, and her side was streaked with white. This was her real coat. “Sweet girl,” he said. He wrapped his arms around her neck. He pulled her close, and twisted till her spine broke, while her hooves stamped tentatively, and her hair streaked white from his handling. On the fourth day, he went to his tree. * Hiram stands at his tree. Its branches are gone. Its bark is all stripped. It is a slight, wounded trunk, ax-bitten all over. It is blackened by the ash. Hiram says, “I want to thank you for your support through the last several months. You've been brave, and generous.” He holds the ax with both hands. Its handle is grown as long as he is tall. The blunted iron blade, as large as his head, rests on the ground. Soon he will roast the goat's meat over the fire. He will sew himself new gloves from her skin. He will melt the snow he has gathered and pour it in his wineskin, which has grown to the size of a potato sack. He will light the tree's last branch, a branch in the shape of a slanted claw, and use it for a torch. He will go into the darkness of the growing cave. He says, “I wake up sometimes in the middle of the night with cramps in my legs and my back. I scream, and it echoes through the cave. The sound extends and overlaps itself until it is a different thing, and this hurts as much as the cramps. I'm not trying to make you feel bad for me, but we're all suffering right now. That's all I'm saying.” He says, “If I hadn't stayed with you, then you would be alone. But you would be alive. And I would be alone, but I would be dead.” Soon he will find that his tree has dried of sapthat it has died, perhaps finally choked by the ash. As he walks into the loud dark of the cave, his torch will illuminate almost nothing of the ground or the walls, nothing of the ceiling. It will only light Hiram himself, and this is all he will see. As the light flickers and weakens, he will see himself less and less, until he is gone. His footsteps will echo. He says, “I found a goat. She was lovely. I wish I knew where she came from. Probably, I guess, the top of the mountain. I wonder why she came down. If I were her, I would stay up there, and ride the growing peak to the stars. I guess I would get hungry. That's what happened to my beard. She was hungry.” As he walks into the depths of the cave, and his torch is extinguished, and he is forced to feel in front of him with his hands in loud, perfect dark, the cave will grow warm. He will take off his gloves, though he has just sewn them. He will tuck them in his pockets, for later. It will become warmer. He will remove his fur-lined coat and carry it over his shoulder, until this becomes too much and he drops the coat on the floor. (A quiet echo.) He will eat of the goat's meat. The dark will be hot. He will take off his boots. He will leave them behind. It will be sweltering and moist, like the inside of a dog's mouth. He will drink from his wineskin. He will take off his pants, walk the cave in his under-things. He will sleep on the cave floor, and warmth will enter his body through the stone. He says, “I would sing for you if there was sap left in my throat.” He will wake in a pool of his sweat, and peel off his under-things, and leave them behind. Naked, he will wander the growing cave, following the heat until the next thing happens. The hair will fall from his body. He will feel his skin turn pink again. He will burn inside, and outside, until the next thing happens. First he must lift the ax. First he must cut down his tree, though he believes it still lives.

P.S. 6

The Ox-hide of Easterham

Grady Hunziker

P.S. 7

dreaming

Shivani Gakhar

The Third Day

by Kendra Grant Malone

when you drink for two days straight your hangover becomes something other than a hangover

and flop around your bed for most of the day

on the third day you wake up very early and drink a lot of water there is no headache no nausea you feel incredibly anxious there is a cloudiness around you it feels a little like despair your stomach feels hollow and transparent even after your force yourself to eat you take your anxiety medication

your limbs feel lucid like you are swimming but are not enjoying it like someone is forcing you to swim and watching you do badly memories resurface ones you don’t want to resurface like all the people you called in the last two days and the one time five boys fucked you in the shower while you were mostly passed out because of shitty cut cocaine you read your friend’s book and wonder why someone so brilliant hangs out with you so much

but then you think about the fort you build with him you build the fort for protection and together you survive inside of it you read your friend’s book lying the wrong way on the bed and focus all your attention away from your cat that is too hyper for you to deal with on the third day for three or four hours you move your head around on the pillow looking for cool spots to rest your eye on you think about that one boyfriend who broke up with you a couple of years ago because he said he felt

P.S. 8

In The Mountains

like he was fucking someoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s little sister and you look at your wrist at the tattoo that says little sister and you laugh a little then you go on the balcony sit in the sun and smoke you alternate between very sad and very happy songs on your headphones to avoid feeling too strongly about anything itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s alright, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s okay

tivillus 2

by Kendra Grant Malone

we were in the air in the mountains and she said to me it is so beautiful and she focused far it was silent for a while and then i said it kind of looks like someone whose hair is thinning and she gazed at me disgusted and just mildly hateful she said i love you little sister

Shivani Gakhar

P.S. 9

lunch

Shivani Gakhar

P.S. 10

little girls are women somehow in some way by Kendra Grant Malone "no no no" is what women utter in despair "no no no" i cried it into my pillow at age 13 when i understood that a man once broke my mother's ribs for sport "no no no" and she came into my room to hold me "what's wrong my baby?" even children know not to tell a person about pity

P.S. 11

untitled

Mallory Whitten

DANTE VS PLUTARCH by Kristin Hayter

D: hi.

P: i’m pretty busy.

D: it’ll only take a couple of minutes, i promise.

D: hello?

P: yeah.

D: please?

D: hi.

P: fine. you have five minutes.

P: hi.

D: ok.

D: can i talk to you for a minute?

P: ok.

P: i’m kind of busy.

D: you don’t look busy.

P: well?

P: i’m thinking.

D: what are you thinking about?

P: do you want to talk or not?

P: god. mountains. people. you know.

D: i’m trying to think of what to say.

D: oh.

P: so you want to talk but you have nothing to say?

P: yeah.

D: i’m sad.

D: i really just want to talk to someone.

P: that’s it?

P.S. 12 D: i just want you to sit here with me for a little while.

P: five minutes, not a second more.

P: i was already sitting here.

D: will you hold my hand?

P: no.

D: can I rest my head on your shoulder?

P: no.

D: starting now?

D: can I just sit next to you like this? P: fine. just donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t sit so close. D: ok. is that better? P: yeah, I guess. Move your robe thing. D: ok. like this? P: ok, thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fine. just stay over there. D: ok. P: D: P: D: P: D: P: D: P: D: sometimes i ď&#x201A;ž P: wait, i thought you were just going to sit there. D: i want to talk about things now. P: no no no. you said you were just going to sit there. D: but before that i said i wanted to talk. P: D: i want to talk. P: D:

P.S. 13

untitled

[2]

Sarah Kate Wong

P.S. 14

P.S. 15

La Ballena by Lauren Michele Manke "Se puede ver una ballena muerta," says our guide, proudly, like a Labrador that has retrieved a large stick. He’s a gangly boy with whispers of a moustache and complexion like honey. "Está muy cerca." Jacob rides up on a chestnut stallion graying around the muzzle. "What'd he tell you?" I’m still angry after last night, unable to look at him. “There is a whale dead on the shore not far from here that he will show us, if we want." The similarities in the guide’s and Jacob’s mannerisms multiply as they discuss the whale. Barely audible over the lapping of the waves, Jacob’s Spanish is hurried with the excitement of something he's never seen before. I look at them hard and wonder again how I got to this grayed strip of shore. The Baja feels different than the rest of Mexico: the people a shade more reserved, the sights and sounds muted. Maybe it’s me, though. Trying on this new life like a dress I'm not sure I could pull off. A discussion of graduation looming turned into an argument last night, and Jacob almost missed the hotel's exit, scraping the side of his new car on the highway guardrail. "Ruby, vamos," he says to me with a machismo that he didn't learn in Wisconsin. It is a lilt in his speech that encompasses Valparaíso, Havana, and Barcelona. Full of stories that would make Hemingway proud. Making our way down the beach, our guide looks at my horseyoung, wild, horribly beautiful. A poor choice. I've made a lot of those lately. But the horse and I have an agreement: I only pretend to lead and he behaves himself. Jacob pulls on the reins and I involuntarily catch up. He looks over. This is why I’m trying on this particular life. Jacob's eyes are the color of the ocean. We fight like thunderstorms, but it ends in the best sex I've ever had. I question again, like an overprotective father before a first date, what my intentions are. Like a man, I don't have an answer to that question. Our guide breaks into a canter and returns, defeated. Our horizon does not hold the leviathan. We ride a little farther before coming to a place where something sickly sweet still mingles with the salty air. I feel something, maybe relief. Jacob's eyes have clouded over with a familiar disappointment, and I shiver with a dampness that clings to the bone.

P.S. 16

four small poems by Brandon Scott Gorrell thinking i could just be happy if i were hit by a car and fighting off existential worries i want to speak spanish in front of you or push my face into your cheekbone i want to say something about your nipples something about unexpectedly spiraling into a kind of sarcastic depression on an uneventful friday morning watching south park until i fall asleep or the bleakness of the temperature outside the way the sunlight filters through the blinds i feel really worried the bleakness of standing in an empty kitchen imagining my face lit by a sunset thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s almost over and walking into the living room trying to logically convince myself of something i miss you so much the same way the temperature makes me feel afraid your gmail status makes me worried about the future in a giant house with central heating in a giant bed eating chocolate i just remembered how you used to say this one thing

how a cold sunny day feels with my eyes closed i thought you looked nice i feel like inhaling for a long time

P.S. 17

INTERVIEW with Brandon Scott Gorrell by Stephen Tully Dierks

Brandon Scott Gorrell (ball point pen, acrylic on panel)

from the project “PeopleMatter”

by Nic*Rad Brandon Scott Gorrell is the author of the poetry book during my nervous breakdown i want to have a biographer nd present, the 2 book published by Tao Lin’s publishing press, Muumuu House, after Ellen Kennedy’s Sometimes My Heart Pushes My Ribs. Brandon is also the author of the novella My Hair Will Defeat You, forthcoming from 3:AM Press. For ‘some reason,’ ‘somewhat’ discussed/analyzed in the following interview, Brandon’s work/’antics’ have led to him being the recipientwhether or not he is there to witness/read about it onlineof a fair-to-decent amount of what may be termed ‘haterade’ in the ‘blogosphere,’ and, one imagines, at actual literary parties. Having ‘defended’ Brandon in said blogosphere, and having been very impressed by his poetry book, I decided to email some questions to Brandon while he was ‘on the road’ in Central/South America, to gain more insight or something into ‘what makes Brandon tick,’ no, not that, but just to talk with him, sort of. He was kind enough to respond.

Hi Brandon. I hope you are well. This is Stephen Tully Dierks. How did you decide to have three names as a writer? Was there a pivotal moment in which you became certain that you wanted to be "one of those threename guys"? Do you ever have doubts or fears vis-a-vis having three names as a writer? My writing teacher in college told me to use my middle name because it is "distinctive." I don't know how I feel about threename people, but I do like David Foster Wallace, and Rainer Maria Rilke, and Wong Kar-Wai. Also, I feel comfortable with the Tully, because it is my mother's last name and because friends in college and more recently have called me Tully more so than Stephen even. Also, that makes my initials S.T.D., which is [ ].

P.S. 18 I decided to have three names as a writer because I thought it sounded better. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Now I dislike it. I have doubts and fears. Your writing teacher sounds like an asshole. [Ed. Note: My writing teacher was/is a very nice woman. Hi Judy!] What are your feelings re: Lil Wayne? I feel he has an inimitable style one could describe as that of a highly verbal, witty Martian with extraordinary swagger and a tendency to amuse and brain-tickle. Free Lil Wayne from prison. I guess I feel slightly amused when I think of Lil Wayne, maybe also having some kind of thought about Zachary German. I feel my tone as an interviewer has been too jokey so far. I don't want to end up like poor Jon Stewart, getting "reamed" for having the chance to interview John Kerry/Barack Obama et al. and then just "soft-balling it," "fucking up a journalistic opportunity most people would kill for." Why do you write poetry "the way you do," do you have a philosophy of poetry, how does poetry relate to your life, what are your views on "Seriousness" and "High Seriousness"? Sorry for all the questions. I write poetry the way I do, lately, mostly as the result of having some feeling or sentence 'go through' my head that seems like it would be nice, placed within a poem, in 'the right' place, or whatever. I don't care about trying to write metaphors, really. I like metaphors actually. I just don't care about trying to conform my thoughts to poetry that would be respected by MFAs and mainstream things, or something. I don't think that way, and it isn't important for me to try hard to create poetry like that. I'd rather try hard to create something that's mostly comprehensible, with funny metaphors that I judge are comprehensible to the people I want to read my poetry. I don't have views on "Seriousness" and "High Seriousness" other than "I didn't know those terms existed as expressions that described something to do with poetry." Why are you so controversial? Or alternately, what did you eat for breakfast this morning? I had this Wild Harvest Organic brand "Wild Berry" cereal that was on sale at Jewel yesterday. First impression: not bad. I also drank "too much" coffee and a bunch of water in order to recover from last night. If you're ever in Chicago, "Entertaining Julia," a night of stand-up by "Go-Gals" and "Go-Guys," at the Town Hall Pub in Boystown, is a fine Sunday evening entertainment option. Robin Williams performed at it once. I am controversial because I always do lazy, 'bad' writing shit that gets a relatively high amount of attention. It makes people want to tell other people that I'm not important because they feel I'm not important and lazy and 'bad' and want to make sure that their worldview, or set of beliefs, isn't defeated or something. I don't really know actually.

P.S. 19 Do you remember any music from your childhood? I remember the music from a tape my dad made for my two sisters and I when we were little. It was called "Kids Beatles." There were "kid-friendly" Beatles songs on it, like "Octopus's Garden," "Good Day Sunshine," and "Piggies."

I remember 'ONYX: BACDAFUKUP'. I may have spelled that wrong. Have you ever felt keenly aware of your body as a body, with needs and desires? Have you ever felt calm, detached (in a nice way), and almost serene as a result of being aware of your body as a body with needs and desires? I had that feeling this morning. It felt like "nothing-matters/everything-is-possible." I feel that if I stay conscious of my body in this manner, my "soul" will "hug itself," or something. Any thoughts re: "this"? Yes. I don't know. Not really. Who are some of your favorite authors? Care to say why? Some of mine are James Joyce, J.D. Salinger, Samuel Beckett, Virginia Woolf, E.E. Cummings, Julio CortĂĄzar, and Roberto BolaĂąo. I like reading my own poetry that I've been writing lately. How did you meet and become friends/colleagues with Tao Lin? Isn't Tao Lin a nice guy? I have not met him in real life, but he seems like a very nice person. We met after I emailed him. I mean, we Gmail chatted after I sent him an email. We met in person once when he came to Seattle for a reading for EEE. Anything else you'd like to share? Thank you for your work and for being you, Brandon. Peace and love. No, thank you for interviewing me.

P.S. 20

Some Trembling Melody by Stephen Tully Dierks

Can we have fun? Is there a party somewhere? Why don’t I have more friends? Where are all my friends? Is there a place where they gather? And no one told me the place? Such a big city. Must be people in it. Think think. Or don’t, actually. Only leave your “garden-level” apartment to drag your unshowered ass to the corner store to buy a 40 of (Ye) Olde English, or Mickey’s, and like, a bag of Cheese Fix or something, and then sitting in your bedroom, which is about the size of your queen-sized bed, and closing the door, and not talking to your roommate, who’s a girl but somehow the dirtiest roommate you’ve ever had, beats all the guys, truly remarkable, sitting there watching Flirting With Disaster I believe was the titlethat’s a fun movie, early David O. Russellanyways, just sitting there in your queen-sized-bed-sized room watching Flirting With Disaster on your laptop, thinking to yourself, “Hmm, Patricia Arquette is hot in this movie…was not aware of Patricia Arquette,” and feeling like you have constipation of the heart, drinking until you’re giving yourself shit-eating grins in the bathroom mirror, but realizing immediately that it’s an inauthentic grin, you’ll be sad again soon, you’re sad already, is the corner store still openis that a pathetic night? Ever have one of those? Ever have a really incredible first kiss with someone? Had one of those once. It was this older girl, only older girl I’ve “been with,” so to speak. She was this girl whose last name is the same as the name of the street my parents still live on in Milwaukee. I remember we walked all the way to the capitol building and then all the way back to the Lake Mendota terrace, and sat down by the water, fed some ducks. All the while talking about her trips to Europe and South America, my friends, her friends, her younger brother (same age as me), “that time her and said younger brother had to share a sleeping bag in this shady hostel in Belgium on a wickedly cold night and were forced to huddle together for warmth in a vaguely ‘wrong-ish’ fashion,” etc. We talked for two hours straight, I’d estimate. So when I dropped her off at her friend’s doorstep in this alley off of State Street, there was a pause, and then she said, “Are you going to kiss me or what?” She actually said that. And we kissed, and I honestly remember thinking in a completely serious manner: “Wow, she is like 50X better kisser than every girl I’ve ever kissed. Damn.” I remember she made fun of me for drinking a mocha at a coffee shop. She called me a “malt shopper.” That was the last time I ordered a mocha for at least a month. Oh, and she played Prince when I came to her apartment for the first time. I was impressed. My closing detail re: Mystery Older Girl of Yesteryear is that the morning after we “traversed the fjord” for the first time, she was making biscuits or something and said, as casually as if she were saying she was meeting her friend for lunch later, she said, “You know I think I’d like to try dating a girl.” Seemed like poor timing.

Maybe it’s because of growing up with 2 sisters, but I really miss it when there aren’t any girls around with whom to talk. I mean, there is no fun quite like uninhibited, toe-curling sex, but even just talking to girls makes me feel more whole, divested of some worthless burden I’ve been dragging around. Girls often make an effort to understand how the other person is feeling and to try to “cater” at least a bit to that person in the interest of making him or her feel better about life…whereas men tend to show the minimal effort possible in all social situations unless they need something from you, are drunk, or are trying to sleep with you. That is my inelegant, impressively banal analysis of how women talk to people versus men. Huge generalizations, of course. Kind of bugs me sometimes that you’re not allowed to make generalizations. What if they are compliments? I just said all women are nice, or something. There was that one, though, Cari. Kind of a bitch.

Now that it’s been some-odd years since those glory days in the garden-level apartment of dreams, one of my main comforts when I’m still feeling lonely and underfriended and generally “kind of lame,” “you spend too much time on the internet,” “what are you doing with your liiiiiiiife, my Gaahhhhhddd…”when I’m feeling like that, I take a medium-large to enormous amount of comfort from going over to the token straight bar in my homosexual neighborhood for a comedy night on Sundays that is devoted to what the three lovely hosts (all women) call

P.S. 21 “Go-Gals” (there are some “Go-Guys” at this event, as well). The hosts have this hilarious bit where each of them sings a “song” about incidents that precipitate a Go-Gal “getting her wings.” It’s usually some variation on: “When youuuuu move-to-some-random-part-of-Florida-from-Cleveland-and-your-alcoholic-abusive-father-can’t-find-a-joband-has-to-resort-to-selling-hot-dogs- at-the-local-carnival-grounds-and-moves-out-of-the-house-and-doesn’t-paychild-support-and-leaves-his-children-with-irreparable-emotional-damage…A GO-GAL GETS HER WINGS!” They’re usually not quite as brutal as my example, but you get the idea.

I’ve never been genuinely suicidal I don’t think, but there have been times since moving to Chicago when I’m on a train platform, waiting, and it occurs to me that if an insane, inexplicable impulse seized me, I might throw myself onto the tracks, which would presumably lead to me being run over by a train, unless someone felt like a hero that day. Yeah, there have been times when I felt the impulse a little, but I’m so terrified of death and I have some basic survival impulse, so it’s more a queer mortal dread coming over me as opposed to a suicidal impulse, I guess.

My mom almost committed suicide. She was adopted by this third-generation Irish couple in Queens, and her parents were mean to her, and they were threatening to not let her move to Indiana to attend college (out of the many colleges which had accepted her, she purposely chose the one farthest away from home). At her high school, Mom had been accused of doing drugs, with no proof to back up the charge (back in those days, the nuns were very paranoid about “kids today and their drugs”). This was why her parents were threatening her. So my mom was at a study session with some girlfriends in this third-floor apartment, and she stood up and went to the open window and she had one foot over the sash and was about to jump when her friend Connie yelled something and they talked her out of it. To think of all the chance in life, that I am even here to talk about it.

My dad wrote a poem about my mom once. It is about the sadness of her childhood, I think. I haven’t read it. I don’t need to. It is enough to know it exists. When I was being born, I kicked a lot and came out much faster than normal. I was a bald-headed baby. So were my two sisters. This black lady at church came up to my mom after my younger sister was born, the third of us to be born hairless, and the lady said, “Ooh, I love dem baaald-headed babies!”

I wonder if it was the “Hat Lady” who said that to my mom. We had a Hat Lady at church. So called because of her eclectic, colorful collection of massive hats, one of which she wore every Sunday to church. I would call them readymades. Readymades being the term Marcel Duchamp used to describe his selected, modified, “found” everyday manufactured objects. Art. Though of course the Hat Lady may not have been aware she was wearing art. And if art sometimes relies on context, how did the context of her fine head, her joyous self, add to or even create the art? Art because she wore the hats to church every Sunday? She is art but the hat is “simply” a hat? Rhetorical questions? “I don’t believe in art. I believe in artists,” being something Duchamp once said. Though of course in literature the Author is “dead,” according to Roland Barthes. Does this mean, retroactively, that Duchamp believes in people that do not exist or do not exist anymore? nd And of course Duchamp died on October 2 , 1968, and “The Death of the Author” was published in English in 1967. One assumes Duchamp stopped believing in artists the year before he died, owing to the essay that had “appeared” under the name of Roland Barthes. I sincerely hope my Literary Forefathers and Foremothers would say, “This is on the mark, son!” Bad joke. “Who is bad?” being an approximation of something Michael Jackson once asked, rhetorically, Rest In Peace. The joke refers to David Markson, author of Wittgenstein’s Mistress, published by Dalkey Archive Press, which was founded by John O’Brien in Chicago the year before I was born. The style of this passage seeming somewhat similar to the style employed in Wittgenstein’s Mistress. With modifications, of course. The effect of this being not entirely unlike that achieved in hip-hop/rap music via the sample. The sample being the “best part of the song” cut out of the rest of the original song, repeated, and “fucked with.” Hip-hop/rap music being a genre of music I enjoy immensely and have even been known to “philosophize” about. There being departments in universities for this sort of thing.

P.S. 22 Me not having any “advanced degrees,” as of now. Me not “really” seeking any such advanced degrees, “for some reason.” “Advanced degrees” having become “standard,” or “the norm.” Having become plaguelike. These comments being grounds for the appellation “sour grapes,” if the reader happens to have such degrees and/or a “small, narrow mind impervious to fun.” An “artistic” reference to Michael Jackson occurred previously in literature, in 2666 by Roberto Bolaño, an author first published in the United States by New Directions. New Directions being a publishing press founded by James Laughlin when he was a sophomore at Harvard. This decision spurred by Ezra Pound’s advice to the young Laughlin, that he “do ‘something’ useful.” Ezra Pound being the “lynchpin” of the Modernist scene in Paris, circa 1920-1924. Also the author of the epic poem The Cantos, and a “traitor,” a “Fascist,” and an “anti-Semite,” allegedly. Pound having been forced to live in an insane asylum in the U.S., St. Elizabeths, for 12 years, after being found incompetent to face trial for treason. Upon his release, following a campaign spearheaded by his fellow artists, Pound was quoted as saying: “…all America is an insane asylum.” Pound having been born in 1885 in the Idaho Territory, before it was a United State. Pound having met William Carlos Williams and H.D. at the University of Pennsylvania. Pound having been engaged to H.D. for a short time. H.D. Imagiste. Dubbed, dumped. Later bisexual, nowadays rediscovered. A special Imagist issue of The Egoist (an organ which “recognise[d] no taboos”). Pound having subsequently taught at Wabash College in Indiana. Pound having allegedly let a “stranded actress” stay overnight while teaching at Wabash, which resulted in a scandal. Causing Pound to be dismissed after only 4 months. “All accusations having been ultimately refuted except that of being ‘the Latin Quarter type,’” according to Pound. Witz. Being the title of a novel by Joshua Cohen, also published by Dalkey Archive. “Witz” being a German word for “joke.” Though Pound did later recant on his anti-Semitism, saying: “The worst mistake I made was that stupid, suburban prejudice of anti-Semitism.” Pound having aided many famous Modernist artists in their survival and publication, including James Joyce. Giving them his money, writing letters to editors, tirelessly, on their behalf. The Michael Jackson reference in 2666 concerns a disagreement between two characters over whether or not Michael Jackson knows things the rest of us do not. The second man opines that everyone thinks they know things that no one else does. I saw this as an indirect reference to Michael Jackson’s loneliness and alienation at times in his career, like when he was first accused of child molestation. There being a song by Michael concerning this loneliness, entitled “Stranger in Moscow.” Though no one much cares if celebrities have feelings. They are not real and they have way too much money, so they are “asking for it,” of course. Given that some things are “unforgivable,” even if one is eventually proven “innocent” or “pardoned” by the victim him/herself. There being no double standards re: these situations. There being no undue, relentless hostility from the public in the cases of, say, Michael Jackson or Michael Vick. Though Roman Polanski’s stint on the whipping post continues apace. There being better things to care about than some “notable” artist’s feelings and life and family, like charities and protest rallies and “being ‘right’.” Charity of course not founded upon empathy for others, no matter who they are. There being no need for wisdom or forgiveness in the world. There being only a need to roast more meat. There being a need to redirect one’s insecurities and biases and fears and anger and pain into hating people, day in and day out, because those people are “rich, disgusting douchebags.” There being not enough people to hate at one’s job, at one’s school, at the soccer game, at the supermarket, in the park, at a party, on the internet, in the morning, late at night, day after day, hating and hating and hating, oneself most of all. And of course the hater has no faults, has never done anything wrong, has never hurt anyone or offended anyone or made mistakes. Not to mention the hater has perfect judgment, the best taste imaginable, and superior knowledge of everything ever compared to anyone anywhere ever. Jesus having told those who would stone to death Saint Stephen, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” This tastes of bitterness, strange passion. It is wiped away, gone. One never knows where it comes from, the passion to defend others. The passion to promote detachment, understanding, empathy, love. It is late. Another day. This being written two days later. On paper and then typed up. Hand having cramped up from the onward

P.S. 23 scroll of words and words, beats and beats. This being all hip-hop “really is,” words and beats. Sometimes melodies. Thump…thump…thump, and words, moving in time, then ceasing. Starting again. Rebirth (2010) being the name of a rap/rock fusion album by Lil Wayne. Birth of the Cool (1949/1950) being the name of a post-bebop jazz album by Miles Davis which features innovative arrangements inspired by classical music. Miles Davis having created one of the first fusion albums, Bitches Brew (1970). “Life’s a gamble,” being something Lil Wayne once said. Lil Wayne currently serving time in Rikers for “weapon possession.” Lil Wayne having also said, “My thoughts wild/My ideas are scattered.” Oscar Wilde having gone to prison as well, after being convicted of “gross indecency,” AKA being gay. This leading to De Profundis, written while in prison to an erstwhile lover. The title meaning “from the depths,” an allusion to Psalm 130. “Where there is sorrow, there is holy ground,” Wilde wrote. And now a feeling I have, a feeling of being free. Sorrow leaving me. Because I have new friends. I feel love. The internet connecting me to kindred spirits. “IRL” having become a necessary acronym, meaning “In Real Life.” So much life buzzing over wires, these days. Oscar Wilde having been mentioned in at least 2 “notable” literary works, James Joyce’s Ulysses and Tao Lin’s Shoplifting from American Apparel. Though when I told my mom that Tao was going to be in my magazine, she didn’t know whom I was talking about. And she has never read Ulysses. And many people will never read Ulysses. Not to even mention Finnegans Wake. And of course Ann Beattie said of Wittgenstein’s Mistress: “As precise and dazzling as Joyce.” Ann Beattie having published a novel and a collection of stories, Chilly Scenes of Winter and Distortions, respectively, simultaneously, in 1976, a feat duplicated in 2007 by Tao Lin, with the simultaneous publication of the novel, Eeeee Eee Eeee, and the story collection, Bed. Tao Lin being widely considered the “lynchpin” of “some kind of” new “movement” or something, via “‘minimalist’ realism,” “internet-referencing literature,” “severely disillusioned emo shit,” Muumuu House, selling “shit from your room” on the internet, promotional gimmicks/stunts, publishing Gmail chats, and other things, or something. Ezra Pound, Modernist “lynchpin,” having said of Finnegans Wake: “Nothing so far as I can make out, nothing short of divine vision or a new cure for the clapp can possibly be worth all that circumambient peripherization.” Oscar Wilde having been rumored to have said,upon being asked by U.S. Customs officials if he had anything to declare”I have nothing to declare but my genius.” Wilde. Joyce. Pound. Tao. Witz. Markson. Ann Beattie. “You better keep your wits about you,” being something my mom has doubtless said to me, on some occasion. When I was in danger of something. “At wit’s end.” My dad having said that the 2 essences of the world are fear and love. Though my mom, my dad, a song in church told me “be not afraid.” I haven’t been to church in years. Well, I’ve been in churches, as a tourist in London. Visiting a friend studying abroad. This being the kind of thing white people love to do, study abroad. My feeling being that not studying abroad was the biggest mistake I made in college. Though there are no mistakes, right? Chances there are. And randomness. Chances to be brave. This being the “bravura” section. How so far? Though of course, after Beckett, what’s brave? What’s smart? What? Watt? Wut wut wut inna butt. Being an approximation of some random gay club jam. The phrase preceding. About butts. Dicks in butts.

P.S. 24 You know. Like Wilde, maybe. Did he “consummate” with anybody? Not sure. I live near Boystown. I live near boys. In a town. In a city. Sometimes called “Chi Town,” which is confusing, because it’s not a town, it’s a city. But I mean… There being nothing to say, again and again. Oh but I am still awake. It is already morning. I may not sleep tonight. Perhaps too many mornings with hazy memories of night before and also, contacts still in, dehydrated. Must have hit up Delilah’s or something. Being the cause, usually. With a friend, Nellie. A girl. A platonic friend. Take that, Billy Crystal! Or Chris Rock! Whoever. I believed those jokes. But then I have 2 sisters. Why can’t I have more sisters? Sisterhood of the traveling paunce. “Paunce” meaning “a weak individual” or “a homosexual.” According to the online dictionary. Which means I am a weak individual, according to me. Don’t fuck with me! I’m weak. Heh. Nellie being a friend of a friend. We commiserate on the phone. Nellie is whomever I call to not feel quite as bad. We all need to not feel quite as bad sometimes. (“Hey,” I said. “What’s up, dude?” “Not much. How’s it going?” “I don’t know.” “Work was…all right?” “This guy tried to get my number.” “Yeah. Was that good?” “No, he was old and gross.” “Oh. Sorry.” “I think I wanna quit.” “Really? What about the benefits?” “I don’t have benefits.” “All-you-can-eat free breakfast.” “Fuck hashbrowns.” “OK… Yeah, I mean, I guess you could ‘do better,’ right, or something?” “Wait, what?” “No, I mean, I don’t know, I… I don’t, me I don’t have any… I have no opinion about anything, I was just, I was channeling you, what you would…” “OK, Daniel.” “No, seriously. No offense. I think…your job…seems ‘swell.’ ‘Cause there’s food and…in this economy…” “Shut up, Daniel.” “I really… I have no opinion on your job. If you don’t like it, then I don’t like it. If you don’t care about it, I don’t care about it.” “I don’t care about it.” “OK, then I don’t care about it either.” “What should we care about?” “I care about youuu.” “No you don’t.” “OK, fine.” “Do you really?” “No.” “That’s what I thought. This conversation is stupid.” “I know. What’d you eat, what are you eating for dinner?”

P.S. 25 “I’m not hungry.” “Of course you’re hungry.” “I’m not hungry.” “Not at all?” “Fuck. I was supposed to call my dad.” “Do you need…” “Can I call you back?” “Sure.” “You sure?” “Yeah, I’m sure.”) Though I’m not sure if anyone’s sure that they are ever sure of anything. Owing to the amorphous nature of the universe. Randomness. Randyness, being the reason we are still here. Until we aren’t anymore. One day I’ll be dead. Well, it won’t be a day. One moment I’ll exist, and then, I won’t. And I won’t ever exist again. Unless I come back as like a cow in India or something. Scares the shit out of me. All the fear I’ve ever had derives from that queer mortal dread. The sum of all fears. Being the title of this thriller novel by Tom Clancy. Concerning Russian politics after the fall of the Berlin Wall, according to Wikipedia. Happened to be released days before the Moscow uprising in 1991. Interesting, or something. Probably nothing, actually. Nothingness being what I was talking about. Or nonexistence, if you prefer. Being a very charming and lighthearted topic, nonexistence. Right cheery old topic! The subject of many jokes. “But then, existence itself is a very special kind of joke,” as J.G. Ballard said. Witz. Could be a mantra. Witz witz witz. Witz witz witz. Watt? Witz. Who? On first. Are you bored yet? Here’s another conversation with Nellie, because why not. (“I’m having a suck day, I think.” “It’s sucking?” “There’s a lot of suckage.” “I stubbed my toe. This morning.” “Where’d you stub it?” “On my toe.” “No, like, what on?” “The dresser. Or my bed or something. It’s a hard wooden bed.” “Is it hard and wooden?” “Really?” “No.” “It hurts.” “Well, like, I don’t know, ice it or something.” “I don’t have any ice.” “Well, like, take some water and put it in the freezer for awhile.” “…” “Then take it out. Ice cubes.” “What I need is an ice pack.” “A pack.” “Didn’t you ever have swelling?” “Probably.” “Well if shit swells, you need an ice pack.” “I’m hungry.” “Then eat something?” “I’m not that hungry.” “Which one is it?” “Which…wait what?” “What? Huh?” “Not funny.” “What’s not funny.”

P.S. 26 “Clever.” “…” “I hate us. And all the other people.” “Really? Seems sadly inclusive.” “Inclusive of all the fucks!” “Are you drunk?” “Maybe.” “Seriously. Why aren’t you sharing? Why aren’t we at a bar?” “I don’t know. Why am I not orgasming right this second?” “Maybe you are.” “I am the opposite of an orgasm, currently.” “Stop being such a sex fiend.” “Who’s a sex fiend?” “You are.” “A sex fiend?” “Yes.” “Fiending for sex?” “Fiending for the fuck.” “This is depressing. I’m hanging up.” “Don’t hang up! I’ll…I’ll do something inconsiderate and selfish, if you hang up.” “You’ll what.” “I’m going to put Whiskers in the oven, if you hang up.” “Whiskers?! Jesus Christ, Nellie.” “I’m serious. The cat gets it.” “This is even more depressing. I feel like we’re mentally handicapped 12-year-olds.” “With autism. And maybe missing a limb.” “Missing purpose in life.” “Missing a hand, because of the compactor. That one hand-eating compactor.” “The one time. That gobbled it up.” “Fuck you hand, you’re dead.” “Dead.”) I feel better. Where was I? Can’t be sure, right? Remember from before? Boredom. Irrelevancy. The problem, across the board. What would be relevant, really, if you stripped down to your needs and desires and detritus? […] Because I don’t think we have been morbid enough yet, I would like to write some more about death, paying particular attention to some of the many horrendous and/or bizarre methods of achieving death, to wit: Standing in the way of an axe. And then getting fed to a wood chipper. Self-inflicted gunshot to the temple. Death by hemlock, as punishment for “corrupting the youth.” Found wearing someone else’s clothing, lying dead on the streets of Baltimore after spending the previous night with “the jimjams,” or “jazz hands,” or “the staggers and jags,” or “the horrors,” that is, suffering from wicked wicked alcohol withdrawal, muttering the name “Reynolds” over and over again for some reason, then collapsing on the street, mumbling “Lord help my poor soul” before expiring. From starvation, in a Viennese sanatorium, while suffering from “suicide headaches” and tuberculosis. From pneumonia and a pulmonary abscess, after being confined to a cork-lined bedroom for 3 years. In Bangkok, at the age of 53, electrocution by poorly grounded electric fan, while stepping out of the bathtub. Hanging by a rope in a closet in Bangkok, following “accidental autoerotic asphyxiation.” Accidentally slipping off a boat and drowning after “seven or eight” glasses of wine. From peritonitis, on an ocean liner bound for Brazil, after swallowing a toothpick at a cocktail party. Bleeding to death from a nosebleed on wedding night. From pneumonia, while experimenting with freezing a chicken by stuffing it with snow. Via smashing head on board while attempting a three-and-a-half reverse somersault in the tuck position at the World University Games. From tuberculosis, while sipping champagne, with these last words: “I’m dying. It’s a long time since I drank champagne.” “Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.”

P.S. 27 “Moose…Indian…” “Good-bye…why am I hemorrhaging?” “Is it the Fourth?” “Is it not meningitis?” “Am I dying or is this my birthday?” “Codeine…bourbon.” “How were the receipts today at Madison Square Garden?” “I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis.” “Ah, that tastes nice. Thank you.” “I am still alive!” “Ay Jesus.” “I am not the least afraid to die.” “I’d hate to die twice. It’s so boring.” “Does nobody understand?” Via jumping into the thousand-foot crater of a volcano on the island of Oshima. Via disembowelment and decapitation as a protest of the Westernization of Japan. Via sticking head in oven with gas on. Some claim barbiturates, others claim via wrapping a plastic bag around head, following allegations of plagiarism and suffering from an irregular heartbeat; suicide note reads: “I am going to put myself to sleep now for a bit longer than usual. Call it Eternity.” Burned to death at the stake, coals raked back to expose the body, then burned twice more, following sexual molestation while being held in prison, all this due to “heresy.” Found dead in backseat of white Renault parked for 10 days on a quiet Paris street; overdose of barbiturates and alcohol, suicide note reading: “Forgive me. I can no longer live with my nerves”; this following a FBI-planted, fabricated newspaper item claiming pregnancy out-of-wedlock, planted by Hoover as revenge for voicing support for the NAACP and the Black Panthers, which allegedly led to premature labor and a stillborn child; also following a previous failed suicide attempt via jumping in front of a Metro train. Bullet to the jaw while standing on the second-floor balcony of a motel in Memphis. With the words, “Let’s cool it, brothers,” followed by 16 bullets. A bullet in the back, a bullet in the head, while riding in a limousine in Texas. Shot 3 times in a crowded kitchen at a hotel, with a .22-caliber revolver. 4 bullets to the back outside the Dakota, by a man clutching a copy of The Catcher in the Rye. 4 bullets, in a drive-by on the Vegas Strip. 4 bullets to the chest, while stopped at a red light in San Francisco. Death by bullets and grenades, while walking unarmed with 8 brothers in South Vietnam. Death by self-immolation, in protest. Death by gas chamber. Death by dysentery, in an internment camp at Ross’ Landing. Via a jump into the Gulf of Mexico, exclaiming, “Goodbye, everybody!” after having been beaten for sexual advances on a fellow male crew member. Via an internal hemorrhage caused by cirrhosis, due to a lifetime of heavy drinking. Via propofol, lorazepam, and midazolam, at the age of 50. Via complications from cosmetic surgery. From AIDS, at the age of 40. From congestive heart failure resulting from complications of pneumonia, after the words “I’m going away tonight” and 3 long, quiet breaths. From natural causes, at the age of 91, after having lived in seclusion for 57 years. Death by hanging from a patio roof rafter, after years of suffering from severe depression, after suffering a relapse and undergoing electroconvulsive therapy, to no avail. […] We are only human, after all. You know I listened to that song, “Human After All,” on the bus today. Those life-affirming “robots.” Human beings in costume, faces hidden. Standing on a pyramid, lights’ dizzy shower, crowds of thousands. In order to establish a connection. To create a memorable moment in time. For no other reason. That being reason enough. In the summertime. In Grant Park, Chicago.

P.S. 28 I have been there, to Grant Park, for the Lollapalooza. I am writing now; spring is approaching. I am writing outside at a café in Paris, with croissant and café au lait. I am writing at a hookah bar on the island of Marmara, the sea Propontis bathing me in soft wet breezes. I am writing at a table by my window over the street, my apartment in Lakeview. I am writing lying down in what were once cornfields on my grandpa’s farm in Rockford. The air is crisp and cool; the sun is shining. I remember lying on the beach with you, reading Infinite Jest. Infinite Summer. So many beautiful passages. I remember you crying because we’re best friends and I had abandoned you, I wasn’t hanging out with you anymore because I was spending all my time with some girl. I remember when we were in your room having a sleepover and you told me your thoughts about the collective unconscious. I remember playing tackle football on your front lawn, only one of us wearing pads and a helmet. I remember chipped teeth, a little blood, crying, hurt feelings. I remember you carrying me on your shoulders. I remember you taking me for walks in the park, taking me to the library with my sisters. I remember you reading me bedtime stories. I remember shooting hoops in the alley with the cobblestones. I remember “Magic Babies.” I remember dress-up. I remember my Elvis impersonation. I remember Play Group. I remember falling off the barrier wall and fracturing my skull. I remember falling off my skateboard and fracturing my wrist. I remember losing my balance over a hurdle and fracturing my heel. I remember running 6-10 miles a day, every day. I remember “Strong hearts to the front of the pack.” I remember us crossing the finish line one after the other, having urged each other on to 2 personal bests. I remember watching your soccer games, running up and down the sidelines. I remember Dad yelling, “Gooooooo Too-Tall!” with a big happy grin on his face. I remember Mother’s Day on the porch. I remember Father’s Day, those cards with doodles of your face, squiggles for hair, glasses, and a smile. I remember you and I sitting together by the window in that Florida hotel, and what you said. Too much to remember. Not everyone has so many happy memories, of course. So much luck. There being chance every second of every day. Still I believe you have your memories, too. I remember Nellie calling me late on a Sunday night. (“Hey man.” “Wuzzup?” “Not much. Are you…am I interrupting anything.” “Shit no, I’m just sitting here not really doing anything. Surfin’ the web. Wasting my life, one day at a time.” “Yeah.” “What’s going on?” “Oh, I don’t know.” “You…you sound sad, or something. What’s wrong?” “Nothing’s wrong. I’m… Nothing’s wrong.” “OK. Well, I mean, if you need to…you can, you know you can tell me whatever, I mean…” “No, it’s not that.” “OK.” “…” “Well, I’m listening.” “OK, don’t take this as like weird, but Daniel, do you…I mean…all right, I just…I don’t know, I’ve been feeling weird as shit and I don’t know what the fuck’s wrong with me, but it’s like I have this crazy, bullshit insecurity right now.” “Insecurity.” “Because of Paul and the whole…” “Yeah…” “It was pretty fucked up.” “Yeah. He shouldn’t…it’s not a very cool way to…” “I know. And so, I’ve just been fucked up, as a result.”

P.S. 29 “I’m sorry.” “I know.” “These things always fuckin’ suck. Unfortunately.” “Yeah.” “Well anyway, all right, here, I just… Daniel, do you think I’m pretty?” “What?” “Do you think I’m pretty?” “Pretty?” “Yes.” “I…” “Daniel.” “I mean…” “I’m serious. How old are we, 13?” “Do you mean… Like, in what way?” “Jesus Christ, Daniel, I asked you if I’m pretty. Apparently I’m not if you have to ask that question. Jesus… I don’t know what…I’m a moron, seriously…” “Nellie, calm down. I didn’t… I didn’t mean anything by it. I just, what the hell kind of question is that?” “A perfectly normal one. That you could answer, without making me feel worse.” “Well OK, do you mean would I fuck you?” “Goddamnit, Daniel! That’s not what I mean.” “Because I would fuck you.” “No you wouldn’t.” “Yes I would! I totally would.” “Yer fulla shit.” “Am not.” “Then why haven’t you, if you’re so into me.” “I didn’t say I was into you, I just said I’d fuck you.” “This is not comforting. Why are you talking like this?” “Me talking like this? You’re the one who’s like, asking…dumb questions.” “That’s a dumb question? Paul cheated on me on my fucking birthday!” “I know…” “Well then, have some fucking sympathy!” “I do.” “You do? Well show it.” “All right. Sympathy.” “You’re a horrible friend. You don’t get it.” “I do get it. But I know you’re going to be fine.” “Well, is it too much to ask to kind of smooth that along? So I can be miserable for less time? Is that so much…?” “No, it’s not. I mean… C’mon Nellie… You know I love you… You’re the most beautiful girl I know. Why do you think I call you so much?”) That being a surefire sign of affection, that 2 people want to talk all the time, want to be together as much as possible. Such a rare thing. So hard to find. The ability to sit together in silence and enjoy it. Deep silence. Breathing. Hands on the table. Fingers touching wood. Picking up a spoon. Bringing soup to lips. Putting down the spoon. Picking up a glass. Taking a drink. Swallowing. Putting down the glass. Staring at one another, and it not being weird. Makes both of you smile inevitably. The eye contact and the nice silence. My hands on top of your hands, on the table at the restaurant. On a Thursday night in June. There being little else worth doing. Eating, drinking, with a friend. The best friend imaginable. Afterwards, going home for some naked wrestling. There it is. I’ve said my piece. “I have had my vision,” as Virginia Woolf writes. Lily Briscoe with her paintbrush. Orlando shape-shifting over time. A boy, a girl, always a lover. The children, boys and girls, voices, growing up together. The passage of time. Voices in the waves. Virginia wading into the water with stones in her pockets.

P.S. 30 Acceptance or despair? Moments of being. Alone in one’s room. At the library. Alone time. Waves of sadness and acceptance. You know I suspect all people are artists. And if that’s true, what’s up with people complaining about their lives all day long? Complaining about their jobs. What’s that about? No, seriously. What’s the point? When I meet someone who seems to tie all their self-worth or happiness to their career in engineering or nursing or non-profit management or whatever, I have a hard time not feeling snarky about it. I’m talking about someone who feels compelled to complain about their job and various co-workers at a party, at length, regardless of who’s listening. Seems sad, misguided, and/or annoying. Is that what life is? Having co-workers to passive-aggressively hate who also sit at desks and also have arbitrary tasks to carry out to meet some vague demand for some vague thing that some other people who also sit at desks maybe vaguely need occasionally? Seems bleak. Let’s drink, I don’t wanna talk about that on a Saturday night. Am I being too childish/amateurish/conversational? I had some Joyce impressions worked up, but they sucked. There’s no point. Yes. There’s no point. There’s no point. There’s no point. Yes! There’s no point. There’s no point. There’s no point! Maybe there’s a point. Hold on.

She had dirty blond hair. Her name means “weary.” OK, here’s the story as originally written: It was while watching The Straight Story that Daniel and Daphne first made out. Daniel had been too chickenshit at work to ask her what she was doing after. For over two hours, they had leaned against their registers in the checkout lines, talking between customers. She was long-legged, tall and thin, hair dirty blond. She had a nervous laugh and a smile that dwarfed her small round face. Whenever there were no customers, she wanted either to read the paperback she had stashed in her register or to talk with someone immediately. She didn’t want to be still. Her eye contact was intermittent. To banal comments she offered an amiable nod, a polite affirmative. She wore Goodwill jeans, faded sweatshirts, and beat-up old Nike high-tops. She seemed detached, even when happy. She could be blunt, as when she told Daniel after a year of dating that “you know there will be other boys.” She couldn’t bring herself to dump him, though, so Daniel did it for her, on his porch after some sad exchange, and she said, with tears in her eyes, “Will I still get to see you ever?” The night they talked in the checkout lines for hours, after Daniel left the store and as he walked to his house, it bugged him that he had chickened out, and so he called her and asked her what was she doing. She said watching a movie. He asked her if she wanted company. Daphne said yes. She played hostess and brought him grapes on a tray. Daniel felt she was giving him some silent cue, so, eventually, after stalling for a few minutes, he asked if he could kiss her. She smelled of stargazer lilies. Daphne had the smallest bed in the smallest bedroom Daniel had ever seen. It wasn’t really a bedroom even, just a nook off the living room with a sheet hanging over the entrance. When they slept together in that tiny-ass bed they were packed like sardines in a tin box. But she had a small window that looked down on the street, and everything in her room was made up of pleasing colors. Only sometimes when he held her he could no longer feel her there. They had this mission to eat at every breakfast place in Madison. They made it to most of them. One time, Daniel wrote a play to enter in a student competition. It told a thinly fictionalized version of the story of his dad’s two college relationships. The first scene showed Dad and a girlfriend’s last dance to “It’s Too Late.” The next scene was Dad sitting on a wood bench in a courtyard looking despondent as hell, so lonely that he was thinking about joining a fraternity. Mom saw him and, taking pity on him, sat down on the bench to talk with him. She was the answer to a prayer, was Dad’s take on it. Daniel emailed the play to Daphne. She replied that she liked it, but she wished there was some way for literature to be uplifting without being too picture-perfect happy. One night during the summer of 2007, Daniel and Daphne took a walk out to Lake Monona. They passed by black men and women fly-fishing at the lake’s edge, transferring impulse through the rod and through the line. They found an abandoned, carpet-covered block drifting right offshore. Quietly, with few words, they climbed onto the carpet block and lay down together. Daphne wondered aloud what it’d be like if they could simply drift away on this carpet block and never come back. Daniel said it’d be their carpet island. He saw that out past the visible waters everything slowly disappeared.

I don’t know what to think about that story.

P.S. 31 What do you think? Is it OK if we place a moratorium on thinking for the rest of our lives? Seems impractical.

I had this trumpet teacher once, a tall wonderful jazz trumpeter by the name of Ray Flanagan, with a gray ponytail, thick beard, and, behind his Coke-bottle glasses, inscrutable eyes. I used to go to his house for private lessons once a week, and he said that you have to learn how to say “No.” Didn’t seem like a skill that needed explaining or promoting, but he suggested to me, in a calm, highly logical tone of voice, that I was over-extending myself between school and my extracurricular stuff, and I needed to decide what I wanted to do and focus on that, not try to do everything all the time. Do one thing, and do it well. He said sometimes it is very difficult for people to learn how to say “No” to things. I had been butchering songs at my lessons. This is why he told me about saying “No.”

It is hard, yes it is hard, hard to be “nowhere without no.” This lovely phrase came to me from Rainer Maria Rilke via Thomas Merton. I wrote a short story for one of my creative writing workshops in college. It is called “Nowhere Without No.” It tells the story of a father, a son, and a daughter. The daughter never makes it to lunch with the others because she has been shot an hour before by a burglar. The burglar is startled to find the daughter meditating in the sunroom, oblivious to his presence, and he panics and shoots her. The concept for the story was: “What would happen to your ‘spirit’ if you died while meditating?” The story didn’t offer any answers to this question. Here is the pivotal scene: In that moment the poet left her body. Betha Frey was meditating on the pristine white floor of her sunroom when she was shot. It was an hour before she planned to have lunch with her father and brother. She left the door to her apartment unlocked. It was a modern high-rise with glass windows overlooking the city lights and the shadow of the Salinas Valley. She bought the new apartment with money from her grandmother’s inheritance. Her bags had yet to be unpacked; they had been unceremoniously dumped in the living room. Above the mantelpiece was the only decoration thus far, a framed picture of Betha with her dad and Tommy. While picking through her belongings, a burglar heard a low moan from the next room. He crept in with gun drawn. Startled by what he saw, the burglar fired. When she was shot, Betha fell forward in her cross-legged position toward the center of the room like a bird from off its branch. Her chest came to rest upon the floor. Her arms spread up and out as wings, and her lips vibrated from deep within, like the last strum of a hollow-bodied lyre. One hand landed near the only other thing in the room, a scrap of paper upon which she had scrawled a poem. Her forehead pressed against the floor. Red blood spilled onto the white tile. The sun rested upon her crumpled form. The killer stole out the door. When the bullet struck her, Betha was meditating on a koan that recounts the Zen master Bassui’s letter to a disciple nearing death. It reads: “The essence of your mind is not born, so it will never die. It is not an existence, which is perishable. It is not an emptiness, which is a mere void. It has neither color nor form. It enjoys no pleasures and suffers no pains. I know you are very ill. Like a good Zen student, you are facing that sickness squarely. You may not know exactly who is suffering, but question yourself: What is the essence of this mind? Think only of this. You will need no more. Covet nothing. Your end which is endless is as a snowflake dissolving in the pure air.” Betha’s brother left a message on her cell phone several hours after she died. This is what she would have heard: “Hey Betha, it’s Tommy. How’s it going? Remember last time we talked how you said I should start exercising more? I finally took your advice. And the other day, I meant to go for three miles, but I ended up going on for another mile or so after that. And get this, I think I finally figured out what you mean by the ‘runner’s high.’ I did feel this sort of euphoria after awhile, like my legs and arms were weightless and just floating along. Anyway, Dad and I missed you at lunch. Give me a call when you get a chance. OK, I’ll see you later.” Nearly every question or comment I received from classmates re: the story had to do with the “plot” or the “narrative” or some sort of clarification of a character’s “motivations.” One boy, who had no positive feedback to offer, was nice enough to point out that a type of tree I had mentioned earlier in the story “is not commonly found in that part of California, just so you know.”

Do you ever feel alone in the world? like you got lost along the way somehow and now you reside in a dim, impenetrable chamber of your own making? You are not alone. It’s as if we are speaking to each other right now. Look at my face. Mine wants to see yours. I am with you, in spirit.

P.S. 32 I have surrendered to the way things are; there is no point to make, only love.

Chicago March-April 201 0

all i needer

Tessar Lo

P.S. 33 Poems by M.P. Powers

Liturgy

if I could just have one year back, or a day to sail my doom against the sunset like a crow (an hour is all I'd really need) because there is no doom in me, hardly any sky left, just a candle and a chorus of monks wailing in my head. something to close the curtains on when I twist the cap off, pour forth a little blue death and smash the dusk out of my love. J.A.C. (Jackknives And Cutthroats, or the enormous logic of trees)

Deliriodreama

wandering past the cemetery gates and purple bougainvillea along olivia street, an angel with wings of stone attends the garden. I walk below her mournful gaze, follow the sidewalk to a blue hotel. i take two halfdrunk flights up and back and down to a roomful of smug, incurious furniture, empty winebottles and a defunct stove. dust floats in the fading dusk. I close the curtains, lie on the sofa. deep bluishgray tints wash over me. my thoughts creep silently in and out of consciousness: a meadow appears; tall lemongrasses waving in the aching sun. souchong and sucrose; the feeling I’m falling and feeling my fingers gripping these cushions deep and which keeps me between here and where the wit of philosophy dissipates; where the agonies of day lose their meaning, darkness sighs, time tells itself, and the hands of all the clocks are amputated.

Random Maxims for Pissmops and Treasuretramps * we are all living for the sake of achieving being dead * the mind is exceedingly practical wherever genius isn’t * our culture is an arm in the crapper reaching for a baby wipe that never should’ve been flushed in the first place * the heart is infinitely larger than any universe ever could be * there are topless European women playing volleyball on the beach * nobody who could be hasn’t already been, again and again * a hero with a thousand faces or a shithead with only two * your choice HCE (Hardly Can Exist) without a little moderate coaxing (?)

P.S. 34

“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” Andy Warhol

P.S. 35

Tao Lin

Photograph by Noah Kalina

P.S. 36

Inconspicuously Hyperlinked Hamster Nondescript unless (1) touched with a force between 16 psi and 25.4 psi or (2) viewed with a literally palpable intensity, at which point there can be seen either a dotted line, sometimes of color, sort of “hovering” beneath it or a light blue glow emanating from its surface, indicating that it is a hyperlink, the Inconspicuously Hyperlinked Hamster is otherwise a fine species of hamster— respectful, considerate, dignified, with no major vices, allergies, or viral susceptibilities. Average weight/height (record): .9 lbs/2.7” (1.2 lbs/3.3”) Average life expectancy (record): 16.1 years (36.9 years) Favorite book(s): Dinner At The Home-Sick Restaurant Favorite band(s): Rainer Maria, Modest Mouse Favorite movie(s): Stardust Memories Favorite sexual position: missionary Hunting tips: Extremely difficult to capture because it’s a hyperlink that when touched at a force exceeding 25.4 psi transports you somewhere else—a porn site usually, though sometimes a Telegraph or [any English-language newspaper based in India] article about humorously extreme domestic-violence, yeti sightings, or alleged discoveries of new species of fish—it is not recommended that one hunt the Inconspicuously Hyperlinked Hamster unless for financial reasons, in which case it is highly recommended that the “hunt” be filmed, in one continuous shot periodically displaying that day’s New York Times, to prove to prospective buyers that what you’ve captured isn’t actually a Common American Hamster or [other species of hamster worth very little in terms of eating it for abstract reasons]. Cooking tips: Considered an extreme delicacy because of the stressful, embarrassing (for all parties), expensive, physicallydemanding process of “de-linking” that must be exacted upon it before it can be touched (the most common “de-linking” method is actually to use a leaf blower on “any gathering of unsuspecting hamsters,” as the Inconspicuously Hyperlinked Hamster can physically resemble almost any type of hamster, into the physical manifestation of a blank Microsoft Word document, where it can be right-clicked to have its hyperlink removed), the actual meat of the Inconspicuously Hyperlinked Hamster is similar to that of the Freshwater Hamster—somewhat dry, vaguely fibrous, slightly bitter.

P.S. 37

Prize-Winning Hamster Previously identifiable by the conspicuous growths on the sides of their bodies that resemble and actually are, literally, “prize ribbons”—the growths mysteriously exhibit the exact molecular structure as any “prize ribbon” one might buy at Kmart or win in an elementary school spelling bee—many Prize-Winning Hamsters have, in the past three years, for societal reasons too complex to adequately enunciate in this description, begun “amputating” their ribbons through an expensive, not-always-successful, nonetheless FDA-approved procedure that utilizes laser technology first employed in the New Mexico Hamster War of 2012 (to annihilate enemy hamsters in a bloodless, PG-13 manner—ostensibly because of the main warzone’s proximity to a middle school and a daycare center, actually because hamster soldiers perform more effectively “when their weaponry resembles video game weaponry from the mid 90s,” according to military files accidentally posted in an online discussion forum about the band Bright Eyes). Today, an estimated 38% of Prize-Winning Hamsters have “de-prized” themselves—choosing to “house” their “self” within a less obviously qualified/rated physical manifestation. The other 62% can be identified by ribbons displaying prizes ranging, most commonly, from 1st to 10th, in colors ranging from dark blue to peach-fuzz orange, though prizes as “low” as the mid 40s, and, once, 649th, have been photographed—usually (re the “lower” prizes) blurrily, while the hamster is running away, in what most psychologists consider to be “shame.” Average weight/height (record): 1.1 lbs/3.1” (1.8 lbs/4.1”) Average life expectancy (record): 11.4 years (24.9 years) Favorite book(s): Invisible Monsters, The Contortionist’s Handbook Favorite band(s): Radiohead Favorite movie(s): Se7en Favorite sexual position: missionary Hunting tips: Depending on the content of their “prize ribbon” the Prize-Winning Hamster is either shockingly confident (running through public spaces screaming in joy while flailing their bodies, in extreme cases—if one can describe a round object as “flailing”) or severely lacking in self-esteem (hiding in dark holes crying and binge-eating baked goods while feeling focusedly suicidal in a manner meant to be cathartic but ultimately “only exasperating, in terms of mental distress,” in extreme cases). Approach a specimen displaying a prize placement between 3rd and 9th (at this range of innate praise the Prize-Winning Hamster likely will not attempt to escape in fear or feel such confidence that it cannot control itself from openly attacking you), placing it in a plastic baggie. Cooking tips: Carefully slice off the “prize ribbon,” which can be used to express fondness/sincerity the next time you mail someone something and feel that, in your letter, you seem “really depressed” or “vaguely sarcastic.” Peel and slice the hamster like a kiwi, using the skin, and its connective fatty tissue, as an oil-base for the broiling of the meat slices. For “de-prized” hamsters excise and discard the scar tissue immediately, before doing anything else, as it can seem—in its implications of “ruined youth,” “mental distress,” and [something about cancer]—depressing/unappetizing on an otherwise relatively consistently contoured piece of meat.

P.S. 38

Poems by Zachary German

what is not drinking what is not drinking is drinking four cups of coffee a day not drinking not smoking, is not smoking not drinking what is not drinking is being happy with what you have not drinking thinking about goals, trying to remember goals, is that not drinking is wanting to reread a specific carver story not drinking what is not drinking what is not drinking

hegemony what is the worst book ever i mean the book i would like the least what is my favorite bar god, can we even calculate what the markup on sushi is think about the person that mops the floor is it cheaper to pay for sushi or is it cheaper to do something else i didn’t eat anything today i ate sawdust in my house, for some reason my house has sawdust on the floor, i just moved in, watching passion of the christ, i got passion of the christ from netflix, it’s 2007, the water doesn’t work for some reason so we got a few gallon jugs of water, passion of the christ starts to skip a lot

release me i’m into bondage s and m stuff like that i subscribe to a magazine called skin2 it has a lot of pictures of women in leather also i look at stuff on the internet one prurient cd, too, the booklet has some cool stuff

here is a list of some of my guy friends and also some facts about them pablo – chilean, 23 or 24, cool guy travis – vermonter, pretty cool, 26 maybe miles – cool guy, 25 adam – canadian, 26 maybe tao – super talented, taiwanese i think, 26 i think brandt – really nice, likes grape soda, strong

P.S. 39

Clumsy / All the Utterly Horrible Things That Can Happen to Your Precious Double Half Fried Egg by Jasjyot Singh Hans

Me and a few others were sitting and wondering what all could go wrong with the eggs in your first meal of the day; if you happen to get up in time for it, that is :P All the haunting memories of the days I’ve had to eat my eggs NOT the way I want it start flashing. And I pen it down immediately. The most tragedy-struck breakfasts are generally when you ask the hostel mess chef to prepare double half fried eggs. If you’re lucky, that’s what you’ll get, if you’re not, which is usually the case, these are some of the things you could be in for… Though I do blame personal clumsiness for some of them :P…

Scenario 1: Both of the egg yolks will be broken already.

Scenario 2: The egg yolks will be riiiight next to each other, so if you want to eat the yolk by trying to get one of them to reach the spoon safely, you know the other will break.

P.S. 40 Scenario 3: The chef blatantly ignores you and makes for you double full fried eggs instead.

Scenario 4: Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve managed to get the yolk separated. You carefully put it on the spoon, get it to your mouth, shivering and hoping it wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t break midway.

Scenario 5: All your fears come true.

P.S. 41 Scenario 6: You feel like having an omelette and by the time you sit down to the table to eat, you wish you had asked for double half fried eggs; again :â&#x20AC;&#x2122;(

Have a lovely breakfast and a happy day ď &#x160;

floatman

Jasjyot Singh Hans

floatwoman

P.S. 42

Downward (Spiral) Dog by Carlos Kotkin I did not become a heartthrob in my own mind overnight. It required a lot of hard work, dedication, and a countless number of yoga classes. Whenever I take a yoga class, invariably, I will see my future wife. Sometimes I will see three or four of my future wives. That’s not out of the ordinary. I believe we each have at least forty thousand soulmates. By soulmate, I mean someone to take a shower with. Of all the soulmates I encountered at the yoga studio, one stood above all: my favorite instructor. The fake name I’m going to give her is Samantha. Samantha was stunning. Her ass made me want to cry. It was truly spiritual. I tried being suave and debonair around her, but often fell victim to self-sabotage. Once, she stuck her tongue out at me and made a funny face. I was going to call her “Wacky.” But at the last second I considered calling her “Wacko,” which led me to unintentionally say, “Wackyio.” Rather than amuse her, this confused her. I beat myself up for days, thinking, “Damn it! I meant to say ‘Wacky!’” After two years of attending Samantha’s class, my subtle charms wore her down like Chinese water torture. She became friendlier and friendlier, until one day, as she was helping me get into a handstand, she grabbed my crotch. I thought it was a happy accident, one I would normally have to pay twenty dollars for. But at the end of class, as she hugged me good-bye, she held me close enough to arouse memories of school dances I attended in junior high. Since she was showing me such affection, I asked Samantha if she wanted to grab a drink. She spoke softly into my ear. “Yes,” she replied. “But let’s be discreet. Let’s have a drink at your place.” My heart soared. This was straight out of the beginning of a Penthouse Forum letter! A few hours later she was in my living room. We had some wine. After drinking one glass, I was plastered. I can’t hold my liquor, I’ve never acquired a taste for alcohol. It was under the spell of a Cabernet Sauvignon that I did something wild. Something so reckless, so stupid, few have done this before me: I had drunken, unprotected sex. Moments after we were done fornicating, as we were still basking in the afterglow, Samantha said something unexpected. She said, “If you got me pregnant, I’m keeping our child.” This destroyed the mood. I sobered up immediatelyand laughed, of course. One problem, though, Samantha wasn’t laughing with me. In fact, the expression on her face reminded me of Kathy Bates in Misery. Looking back on it, I’m pretty sure Misery is one of Samantha’s favorite romantic comedies. Samantha continued our post-coital cuddle by informing me she was not any kind of birth control. Then she draped her arm across my chest and asked, “When did you first realize you loved me?” I have always wanted to visit Australia, never more so than in that particular moment. Though we were in the same bed, we were obviously on different planets. I tried not to sound too unsettled when I responded, “The first time I saw you, you made a really strong impression.” This seemed to satisfy her because she quickly hopped out of bed and exclaimed, “Let’s eat!” Her new pregnancy was already giving her an appetite. I hastily served Samantha the only food I hadsome Shredded Wheat in a plastic cereal bowl. Any smart, rational individual would have realized Samantha was probably not pregnant just yet. But I, valedictorian of my high school, was convinced there was one in Samantha’s ovenan embryo soon to be a fetus soon to be a teenager. How was I going to put him or her through college?! Samantha sensed my anxiety. She stopped eating, squinted at me, and sternly stated, “There’s more than one person in this situation, you know.” I nodded my head, hoping for a moment when I would be able to call 911 without her noticing, so that the police might come and rescue me from my own apartment. As it turned out, Samantha decided to leave on her own. She said she needed time to think about “the baby.” I walked her to her car and spoke my mind, explaining when we slept together, I wasn’t visualizing parenthood. I was not prepared to raise a child with her. She looked dismayed and bellowed supernaturally, followed by a display of tears. Then an unmistakable anger welled up within her. She glared, somberly warning me, “Actions have consequences.” The only thing missing was thunder and lightning. Samantha slammed the door of her car, and peeled out into the darkness. How I longed for the days when my greatest concern was having said “Wackyio.” The following night, I hung out with my friend, Jason, telling him I was possibly going to be a daddy. He sympathized. “Dude, that’s rough. How long after you guys had sex did she say she might be pregnant?” I told him. “Five minutes.” Upon hearing this, Jason nearly lost consciousness due to an inability to breathe due to hysterical laughing. Once he was able to speak, he had two questions. Did we have sex in a mental hospital? And was she dressed like a giant frog? Jason wasn’t much of a help so I did what I always do whenever I have a sexual misadventure. I contacted my Trekkie doctor, Dr. Kovac. I emailed him, asking what my chances were of becoming a papa. I was

P.S. 43 hoping for reassurance, for a response along the lines of, “It’s actually a lot harder to get someone pregnant than you think.” Instead, he wrote, “Anything is possible. Good luck!” I noticed there was an attachment to his email, an audio file. I downloaded it and discovered it was dialogue from the movie, Galaxy Quest. It was Tim Allen saying, “There seems to be no signs of intelligent life here.” Considering the circumstances, I found a new yoga studio. Months went by. Not that I was keeping track, but eight months went by, and I had not heard from or seen Samantha since our fateful night. I knew she was still teaching at my original yoga studio because her name still appeared on their website’s schedule. So when my married friends, Todd and Kristy, asked me to recommend a good yoga class, I sent them directly to Samantha, requesting a small confidential favor from Todd. I casually asked Todd, “After you take class, could you tell me if the teacher is” Todd interrupted: “If I think the teacher is hot?” “Sure,” I went on, “And also if she’s…expecting.” Todd laughed heartily. Then he high-fived me. He seemed proud. But he also advised me to be careful, because, as he put it, “Yoga teachers can be a little crazy sometimes.” Todd gave me a call after taking Samantha’s class. He completed his reconnaissance mission and reported, unequivocally, “There’s no way that woman is having a baby.” I haven’t heard from or seen Samantha since our rendezvous and that is probably for the best. She seems to have vanished into the ether. Every now and then, I expect her to suddenly jump out of the bushes holding a baby, or a machete, or bothwhich is why I now travel in large groups when doing anything social. Needless to say, I have developed a strict policy of not sleeping with yoga instructors or pilates or personal trainers. No matter how many times they ask, my answer is the same: “Absolutely not.”

P.S. 44

Seriously Just Going to Fucking Kill Myself by Jordan Castro Jeremy sees that his ex-girlfriend gave Shoplifting From American Apparel by Tao Lin one star on Goodreads.com. Jeremy can recall at least three different instances where he has praised Shoplifting From American Apparel by Tao Lin with his ex-girlfriend present. Jeremy is lying sideways on his bed, listening to music at a low volume through headphones. He pulls the covers close to his face. His eyes become wet. Jeremy makes a noise. * Jeremy is inside of an organic food store. He is staring at steamed kale. He paces around the organic food store, looking at food. He approaches the steamed kale. He uses silver tongs to place the steamed kale into a brown container. He uses silver tongs to place braised tempeh on top of the steamed kale inside of the brown container. Jeremy’s eyes become wide. He looks at employees. He looks at customers. He thinks, ‘Act confident.’ He thinks, ‘Normal.’ He walks quickly up a flight of stairs. He sits on a chair that is next to a table. He looks around nervously. Jeremy eats the steamed kale and braised tempeh with a fork from his backpack. He places the brown container and the fork inside of his backpack. He moves quickly away from the organic food store. His eyes feel wide and his heart rate increases. He repeatedly thinks, ‘Fuck all you bitches.’ He thinks, ‘I’m frantic, bitches.’ Once inside of his apartment, Jeremy pours himself a glass of water. He disposes of the brown container. He sits on his bed. He hears sirens on the street outside of his apartment. Jeremy’s eyes become wide, before quickly returning to their regular size. * Jeremy thinks, ‘This is so fucked. I hate myself.’ He picks up a pencil and writes his name on a green scantron card. He thinks, ‘Capital letters.’ He says, ‘I’m just going to kill myself, I guess.’ He thinks, ‘Like, I’m seriously just going to kill myself.’ He thinks, ‘Like, I’m seriously just going to fucking kill myself.’ He writes, ‘3-23-10’ on the green scantron card. He makes a noise. ‘Fuck,’ he says quietly. ‘Fuuuck,’ he says loudly. * Jeremy walks quickly down a flight of stairs and into his kitchen. He opens the pantry door and stares idly at snack items. He reaches into a bag of potato chips. He puts a handful of potato chips into his mouth. He chews. He swallows. He frantically shoves more handfuls of inorganic carbohydrates into his mouth. He thinks, ‘I should stop.’ He thinks, ‘What am I doing.’ The next morning Jeremy is staring at his stomach in the bathroom mirror. He thinks, ‘I’m going to fast today.’ Jeremy walks down a flight of stairs and into his kitchen. He puts a spinach salad and a Tofurkey sandwich into his backpack. After school, he thinks, ‘I’m not going to eat any carbs or sugar for the rest of my life.’ Later, Jeremy eats organic soy ice cream with sprinkles, dark chocolate chips, and Hershey’s brand chocolate syrup. * Jeremy swallows one Xanax pill. He is drinking a twenty-four ounce can of Budweiser brand beer. He is sitting next to Hillary. Hillary is drinking spiced rum and Coca-Cola. Hillary says, ‘Are we fucked?’ Jeremy says, ‘Damn.’ Later, Hillary and Jeremy have sex. Jeremy swallows one Xanax pill. He drinks a twenty-four ounce can of Budweiser brand beer. Hillary and Jeremy sit in bed. They say things. Jeremy says, ‘I feel so.’ Hillary says, ‘You’re funny.’ * It is 9:17 a.m. Jeremy goes to school. Jeremy goes to work. Jeremy goes home. It is 9:43 p.m. Jeremy opens his laptop. He looks at Gmail, Blogger, Twitter, Tumblr, Statcounter, Flickr, and YouTube. He receives two Gmail chat messages and responds to neither. He receives another Gmail chat message. Jeremy types, ‘am i online.’ Jeremy types, ‘like, do i appear to be online.’ The person Jeremy is Gmail-chatting types, ‘yes, you are green.’ Jeremy types, ‘god damn bitches...’ Jeremy types, ‘invis/afk.’ Jeremy opens a Word document. Jeremy types words. Jeremy receives a Gmail chat message. Jeremy types, ‘i just minimized my story / put heaphones in

P.S. 45 my ears...’ Jeremy types, ‘feels as though i’m preparing to watch porn...’ Jeremy types, ‘seems so...’ Jeremy types, ‘brb, going to masturbate.’

The Spastic Eyeworm

Doug Flora

i’ll do it by Blake West i feel like my face might fall off and that it might be a good thing and that it might make people feel bad for me which in some weird fucked-up way would make them love me

if you hear a loud noise it is either me driving a motherfucking u-haul into your front door or there is a hungry carnivorous bear at your window

P.S. 46

We praise you, lord by Doug Flora Chuck chuck chuck. Grist grist grist. Tshhhhhh. Everyone is cold, and everyone is rude and brisk as they shuffle from the platform through the doors. Pfshpfshpfshppfsh. Kriiiist. Kriiiist. Chuka chukka chukka, chuck chuck chuck, chuck chuck chuck. Sometimes the conductors are friendly, sometimes not. A few hate you because you’re on your way to a job that isn’t theirs. Today, the female conductor just nods without looking at me. Chek-puuuufpaka, chek-puuuuuuuuufpakapaka. Every day, I see the same people, sometimes different people. The people you talk to, you don’t know their names. People you sometimes see every morning. Train friends. Today, I pick an empty double seat near the door. A Caribbean-looking man is sleeping on the two seats in front of me. He is dressed reasonably well, but still looks unkempt. Chek-puuuufpaka chek-puuuuuuuuufpakapaka. Sometimes we stop for no announced reason, and just sit on the tracks. Today, a passenger from Europe comments. “You can get from Paris to Lyons in such and such amount of time, even with the strikes. Even with the delays.” It is true, the train has been unreliable lately. For some reason, the wealthiest state in the union has slow, unreliable trains. I chalk it up to fiscal responsibility Keplooooo-kachoooo. Geftaw, geftaw, geftaw, geftaw. Cruntooo-plachoooo. Sometimes I see attractive girls about my age, but it doesn’t matter, and I never talk to them. The train is hopelessly neuter, with its smell and its old orange seats, the outside with the old Amtrak logo still visible underneath the cheap paint-over job, the permanent grit between the ridges in the walls and the floor and the ceiling, the advertisements for financial firms or to live in Trump Parc. Trump Parc. Why rent when you can afford to own? Trump Parc, just 45 minutes from Manhattan. Tee-rumpus parcus. Majorcus. Ketorcus. Malorkus. Crete-tetta-crete-tetta-cretutt-atutt-atutt, atutt. Atutt. Outside are two faces of New England. The beautiful coastal towns, the forgotten coastal cities, the industrial buildings abandoned for several decades, the high-end highrises, the beautifully restored cape cods, the rotted out cape cods, the new, large cape cods. Chaka-trakunka-lunka-tunk. Katunk. Katunk. Groups of old people or women or families with children going to do shopping or to see a show in New York seem happy and excited, but most everyone else is droll and dumb and silent and waiting. The train shoots in a straight line, A to B with some other letters in between, and usually I just get in a fetal position with my knees resting on the back of the chair in front of me and read my book straight through. But sometimes, I have to look around, and I have to remember that there are hundreds of people with me, sitting in chairs in rows in this machine that shoots fast and straight along tracks to get you from point A to B. Ratella-tella-tratella-crackella-crackachecka-ratella. What is it? What is it I am supposed to remember from my dream last night? I am supposed to remember the key words. The only thing I can remember, usually, is the image just before waking. Last night it was waffles, lots of Eggo waffles that I was just stuffing in my mouth without even buttering them up. What could waffles be? I close my eyes and start to zone out when suddenly something snaps me wide awake. It’s the man in the seat right in front of me, who was sleeping before. He’s clapping his hands together above his head, and singing. “Lord, lord, lord, we’ve been in slumber, oh lord. But now you have awoken us, awoken us with your light, awoken us to your grace. Lord, lord, we praise you, lord.” I actually stand up a bit, startled, and he keeps singing, chanting.

P.S. 47 “We praise you, lord lord lord. You give us direction in the dark, you awaken us with your light, we are awoken to your grace…” I check to see if he has earbuds inmaybe his music was turned up too loud and he just got excited and sang along. But no, the only earbuds must be celestial ones, inciting him to sing this spiritual alone, loudly, while on public transportation. I look around to see if anyone else is as taken aback as I am. There are a few quizzical looks, but most are either too wrapped up in their own internal annoyances or still stuck in the morning daze, and seem to take no notice. Soon, the Carribean-looking man’s singing subsides and becomes a vague humming, and I can focus my attention elsewhere. I scan the aisle and see a fat woman who keeps rearranging her bottom, trying not to crowd out the man next to her. Behind her is a middle-aged business woman who looks down at her shoes and grinds her teeth to the rhythm of the train on the tracks. In front of the fat woman sits a man, probably on his way to Greenwich or Manhattan, resting his suitcase on his lap and reading his Kindle. Next to him, a man in a denim jacket stares ahead blankly, an empty Dunkin’ Donuts bag sitting on his paunch belly. In another direction I see a guy around my age, in his early twenties, with a backpack, reading a book on early Greek history. Maybe going from Yale to a special session in New York, or maybe he’s not so smart and he’s cramming for his exam at Housatonic Community College. Next to him someone reads a travel guide for New York City. Behind that person, an old man looks confused or excited, and looks out the window eagerly at every stop. Next to him, a Puerto Rican girl chews gum and listens to her iPod. Her bright yellow earphones look glaringly neon against her solid black hair. This machine moves people. Prunka-takunka-badunka. The Carribean-looking man’s singing has become loud again, but this time I don’t care as much. There is not enough goodwill to go around, on this train, in the world. The businessmen look at their watches, and they hate to be crammed in with so many people. The fat woman rearranges herself again and again, hopelessly self-conscious of taking up too much space. The mothers and fathers going into the city with their families have only enough love for their offspring, and even that parental compassion begins to wane as the children grow restless and ask too many questions. But this man sings. His song is sort of annoying, but it is not for him. It is for the Lord. Or maybe it is for us. Either way, the song becomes less annoying as it drones on monotonously and becomes just another one of the set of sounds inside this machine that moves people from point A to point B. Prunka-takunka-badunka. Ratella-tella-tratella-crackella-crackachecka-ratella. Chuck chuck chuck. Grist grist grist. Tshhhhhh. We praise you, Lord.

P.S. 48

Le void

Heiko Windisch

Lake Placid by Miles Ross

They trolled past houses with tiny lights on them while moving a spotlight over pine trees. When they found their house, the boat engine shut off and the hull made tiny squeaks, sliding into the slip. The pyramid-shaped roof was black in the night sky. There were two bathrooms inside. One of the children found the blue and white bathroom. The other bathroom was orange and smaller. When the children grew up there were grandchildren, some of them who spent summers at the house. Kyle packed CDs and a Discman before he left with his grandfather. He packed bathing suits, warm socks, and sweatshirts. Then his mother said goodbye. He kissed her. His grandfather drove them north on the Taconic. It began raining in the Adirondacks, while they waited at the

P.S. 49 marina. It rained often. It was hard to tell if it would ever stay nice. Kyle woke in the bunkroom and saw the sunlit lawn through the window. He walked to the porch and looked at the lake. Waves gently lifted the boat and it made one squeak on its way down. The small part of the dock shook a little. There were no roads. Kyle would wander in the woods. He was mostly alone and brought a live branch from the beaver dam to smash apart the dead trees and live plants. He returned dirty and sweaty, swam to the float and did attempted backward dives. Then he lay on the dock until a too-big cloud blocked the sun. He and his grandmother walked along the lake one day. The trees on their right hung over the lake. The trees in the lake were dead. They crossed a stream and traversed a grass field. They heard boats on the lake and passed many houses. At a dirt clearing they stopped and the grandmother said, “Oh my.” Kyle said, “How did this happen?” “There was a fire, I believe. I’m not sure,” the grandmother said. “Did anyone die?” Kyle said. “No. I don’t think so,” the grandmother said. They stood and looked at the still-standing chimney and fireplace. Kyle walked close and saw a rodent skull on the mantel. After they walked more there was another lake house with a lot of trees between the house and the lake. Kyle and the grandmother climbed the stairs, looked through the windows. There was a bear-skin rug. The kitchen. The lights were off. “She must be in town at Kevin’s,” the grandmother said, and they walked back to their house. It was raining a little. The grandfather was in the outboard. Kyle watched from the porch the grandfather tie the outboard to the dock. He asked how many fish his grandfather caught. The grandfather raised three fingers. Kyle went inside. “Gran, Papa caught three fish,” he said. “That’s wonderful. Wash up for supper,” she said. The grandmother cooked every night. They were eating pasta and chicken. Kyle cut a piece of chicken. He ate the piece of chicken. He drank orange soda. He finished the pasta in his plate. He dragged a piece of chicken through some sauce. He ate the piece of chicken. “There is plenty more chicken and pasta, Kyle. Eat up. Eat up,” his grandmother said. “Okay. Thanks, Gran,” he said. “Let him catch his breath. Don’t forget to breathe now,” his grandfather said. “I’m breathing, Pop,” Kyle said, still chewing. “Pass the salt, bubby,” the grandfather said. “Thanks, kiddo,” the grandfather said. Kyle carried dirty dishes to the kitchen. He washed some dishes. The grandmother placed the dishes in the dish rack. Kyle dried his hands. He left the kitchen.

P.S. 50 The lake was dark blue. Kyle watched the grandfather playing guitar on the porch. Kyle was on the inside of the screen door. He brought Keebler Elf cookies and milk from the kitchen to the porch. He played an electronic solitaire game and ate the cookies. The grandfather hit a bug on his neck. “Got ya,” the grandfather said. After they sat on the porch they would sit inside. There was a fire in the fire place. The grandfather drank scotch and ate cookies. Kyle showed his grandfather a comic he just read in the chair next to him. The grandfather smiled and put a toothpick in his mouth. The fire got smaller then they went to bed. The cousin worked in town and needed to be picked up and dropped off at the marina on weekdays. Kyle frequently rode along and listened to his Discman. He listened to disc-one of Woodstock ’94. The boat bounced into the second strait. He looked at the water a lot. He looked at the islands and hills. He was familiar with the different houses. The aunt would wear her bathing suit all day if it was nice enough to swim. She’d put on a sunhat, sweatshirt, and wrap a towel around her waist for the boat rides. She stood in front of the steering wheel as the boat sped out of the second straight. Kyle watched her squinting at the estate sprawled out on a corner of the island. The boat slowed when the marina came into detail. It bounced against the Styrofoam and the cousin hopped over the gunwale. The aunt reversed. They watch the backs of other boats go by. When it sped up, a flap on the rain cover began snapping in the wind. Kyle held the flap. The aunt shouted, “How was work, honey?” Kyle and his cousin watched movies in the living room. It rained then turned nice by dinner time. After dinner it was still light outside. People seemed busy in the house. Kyle went to the porch. It seemed people would eventually go on the porch. He woke up during the night. The cord to his headphones was wrapped around his neck. He tried not to look out the window of the blue and white bathroom. The grandfather slept in the chair by the fire. When the grandfather had fish on his chain he rolled the cuffs of his jeans and stood in the shallows next to the dock. He put his glasses on his face, pulled the link out of the lip and cut the head off the fish. The guts went into a tall white bucket. He scaled them with a special tool. Kyle watched from the porch the fish guts pour from the bucket. The grandfather drove the boat into the second strait, to the marina, to pick up some milk and the paper. The grandmother cooked the fish on tin foil in the oven. Kyle could see the sun still hitting the lake from his place at the long table. He sat next to his mother. She pulled a fishbone from between her lips. The father had a few bones on the corner of his plate. He filled the plate with salad. “I’ll be downstairs, when you’re done, Dad?” the father said. The grandfather looked at his watch. “Okay,” the grandfather said. “Use the blue and yellow rope.” “I know about the rope,” the father said. Everyone except the grandmother rode in the boat while the father water-skied. The sun was only on the top of the mountains and the lake was very flat. Kyle filmed some of it. “Careful, Steven,” the mother shouted very loudly and everyone laughed but you couldn’t really hear them. The grandfather put a glass of scotch on the low table. Kyle asked his grandfather if he ever drove on the lake when it was frozen. He explained how sometimes people did drive on the lake. Kyle took binoculars out of a case. He looked through the binoculars. He looked at a boat through the binoculars. He tried to focus on a woman in the boat. The woman’s hair moved in the wind. She wore a teal bikini top. At night Kyle looked at the moon. He looked at the islands. He looked at the floodlight above the porch stairs. He looked at the bugs swarming the floodlight. He looked at the bugs swarming the dock light. Kyle walked into the house. There was a fire in the fireplace. Kyle sat on the couch. It was the 90s.

P.S. 51 On Mondays they concentrated on cleaning. Kyle sprayed the t-shirt with Pledge. He rubbed the t-shirt on the bed posts. Kyle sprayed the t-shirt with pledge. He rubbed the t-shirt on the wicker end table. The t-shirt could not remove the dust from between the wicker. He walked onto the porch. He hung the t-shirt on the porch banister. He swept the dirt around the woodpile off the porch. The dust blew past Kyle’s feet. He closed his eyes tightly. The last summer before they sold the house Kyle was there for a week in June. They talked about who owned it now and a little about the money they collected. When convenient he visited his grandparents in their regular house. The grandfather sat at the breakfast table. The grandmother walked through the hall to the back door. She walked through the hall to the kitchen. Kyle walked through the living room to the television room. He said hello to the grandfather. He sat at the breakfast table. The grandfather talked to him. Kyle spoke to the grandfather. “Excuse me, I don’t want to disrupt your conversation but, Obi, you’re having the pasta and Kyle, you want pasta and salad? I have a little salad with mushrooms and onions and all that,” the grandmother said. “Yes. Thanks, Gran,” Kyle said. “Okay. Okay,” the grandmother said. “Elizabeth, can I have another drink when you get a chance,” the grandfather said. “What are you drinking, ginger ale?” the grandmother said. “Yes, with ice, please,” the grandfather said. “Ice, okay,” the grandmother said. “So what was I saying?” the grandfather said. “Journeymen,” Kyle said. “Ah, Journeymen. Journeymen are the people who just dabble in all the aspects. The draftsmen are guys who can really draw anything you ask them. And the very few who have real talent, those guys can channel god,” the grandfather said. Putting a finger on the table, he looked down and took up his ginger ale. He sipped it through a black straw. The grandfather passed away in the winter. It snowed in March. There was a heavy rain and wind storm. Trees and branches fell on cars, ripped down electrical wires. Kyle looked at the canoe that was ten feet from the branches of a fallen tree. The canoe was at his parent’s house. The canoe was from the lake house. Kyle cut branches with a bow saw. Some branches pinched the blade. The blade bent a little before Kyle stopped sawing and tilted the saw back and forth to work it out of the pinch. He lived and worked in the city now. Larry, his co-worker, was watching Dr. Oz demonstrate how to drain blisters. Kyle put his salad down next to Larry’s Subway sandwich. “How’s your car? Got it locked… a car alarm on that thing now?” Kyle said. “Too sensitive. There’s no rain or wind, not a bird in the sky,” Larry said. “Damn. Does that…” Kyle said. “Yo, last night, I’m on my porch drinking beer, a hoopty drives by real slow,” Larry said. “A hoopty?” Kyle asked. “Yeah a hoopty. I swear it was my hood, bro,” Larry said.

P.S. 52 “You have a porch?” Kyle said. “The front of the house, front of the house,” Larry said. “Chairs out there?” Kyle said. “Well, steps. On the steps,” Larry said. “Your girl with you?” Kyle said. “My neighbor. When my car was stolen he was the one with me like two hours,” Larry said. “Did you get drunk?” Kyle said. “I have a headache,” Larry said. “How much did you drink?” Kyle said. “It was after the bar,” Larry said. “Damn. You couldn’t drive to the stores?” Kyle said. “Everything was closed,” Larry said. “Oh. Your girlfriend is Italian?” Kyle said. “Yeah. Marone,” Larry said. “What’s her first name?” Kyle said. “Donna. Yeah, Donna,” Larry said. “That’s Italian,” Kyle said. “She’s gonna sound like a ninja turtle and shit – Donna Sotelo,” Larry said. “Yeah, damn. She could hyphenate – Marone-Sotelo,” Kyle said. Larry agreed. Kyle finished up some things in the office. He sent an email to his bosses. He took the subway home. He bought beer before he went up into his apartment. He was new to the place. His roommate was eating some rice. She was watching the Food Network. The dog barked frantically then disappeared behind the couch. He put his beer in the fridge. The roommate told him she watched Treme. It was like The Wire – really good. The roommate said, “It made me homesick though. It had people I knew in it.” Kyle said, “Who is that?” She said, “Kermit Ruffins.” Kyle said, “Sweet.” He told her he had been there. She told him her parent’s home was affected by Rita. Kyle said, “I’d like to go back there, but I feel like I need to go somewhere else since I never really travel.” She said, “Yeah. Go to Costa Rica or something like that.” 2010, Brooklyn, NY

P.S. 53

Photograph: Louisa Podlich

Words: Christian Dahlager

P.S. 54

Poems by Carrie Lorig

Photographs by Sarah Meadows

ghost in the closet i took myself out of the poem about our trip to the wildlife sanctuary, i watch you touch a crane. and now no one says that he’d rather eat cans than your leftover tortilla chips. i’m afraid you’re going to stay there forever with nothing but tortilla chips. i’d get you home before the laundry goes bad in the washer, if i could still be in the poem. the nerves in my jaw fizzed a little while i was erasing. i asked about it and someone said it was the nerves trying to stay dead and failing.

The Witches’ Castle road shoulders q: how’s the search going? a: in the backseat you always feel like you’ve been born twelve minutes later than everyone else. q: you want a refill? a: my mouth opens wide enough to swallow just the tops of buildings, the same way fog does. it’s a trait that hasn’t shown up in my family for years. q: are you getting warmer? a: i can’t bear to go north anymore. the dead moths in the snow facing windows. the constant knife in your back pushing you towards thicker and thicker ice.

P.S. 55 q: and after you lost control of the radio? a: i climbed up the only tree at the wayside and jumped. i broke all the bones in my hand and put the pieces in my pocket. they’ve started picking up the weather forecast. q: tell me then what christmas day will be like two years from now? a: i won’t ever be sure about the mountains. you have to break something above sea level to know about them. but here, we’re going to be chased by the sun’s dogs. i can feel it in my bones. they’re on fire.

Steve’s House

in the summer, there will be leaves and leaving get on three trains at a time with me, and if i say citrus drugs on your voicemail, will you come with clementines? if i leave a note in large quivering letters about going to see a psychic, will you add that coming back is in the cards? if i get a dog, will you tell everyone i found a wolf with wings? if we weren’t bound by mitosis on loop and then broken by the giant lake’s thaw, i would ask you to put my skin on pause.

P.S. 56

Sauvie Island

OOZE OUT AND AWAY by I. Fontana

“So I opened a door in his head and went in,” said Mahnoosh. “We lay there on the bed and contemplated our relationship. We possessed telepathy.” “Wait…this is the future?” Donya asked her friend. “Yeah,” said Mahnoosh, then drank more raspberry-cranberry through a straw. The intense dark red now entering her matched the highlights of her hair as well as her leggings, more or less. Donya moved slightly and said, “OK, what happened next?” “What?” “What happened next?” Mahnoosh laughed and said: “I realized that I didn’t have the remote. I thought that it was misplaced somewhere in the pillows or the sheets there on the bed.” “Those are those pillows…isn’t everything a leopard-pattern?” “No, Donya, everything isn’t a fucking leopard-pattern. How can you say that? There are many varieties of leopard-pattern. There’s also cheetah-pattern, jaguar, tiger…sabre-tooth tiger, even.” But she giggled at that. “I’m sort of distracted by this music I guess,” Donya said. “Do you want me to turn it down?”

P.S. 57

“No, it’s fine. I’m getting used to it. I like the beat.” Mahnoosh’s lipstick was raspberry-cranberry only darker. Donya’s lips were some other, pinker, peachier hue. Glossy. The big television screen had some actors talking in a hotel room back in the admirable if strange black & white shadowy America of maybe 1948. Mahnoosh looked at the sexysexy dress the actress was wearing while thought

Donya found an old Zippo lighter in between the pillows and used this to light a filter cigarette. Mahnoosh she could maybe fit in a dress like that. People would look. She noticed the smoke in the air and said, “I need one too.” “This is the last one,” Donya lied. She was a liar sometimes. “Why are you lying to me?” “I don’t know. Here.” Then, in three or four minutes, Donya said: “I’m bored.” “Let’s go outside.” “It’s the same as in here.” “No it’s not,” Mahnoosh said, noting how spectacularly pouty Donya’s lips were now. If people were

watching

Mahnoosh would have kissed her then. "Am I boring you?" Donya asked. "You're getting close." Outside in fifteen minutes some crows on wires observed them walking down the avenue and commented while Mahnoosh tried to call Farid on a small dark-green plastic phone. They were across the street from a building which had that look buildings have a week or two after being carbombed. Debris was still strewn about in a disorganized fashion and the big hole exposed nude iron girders which looked unstable though the architecture was normal enough given the circumstance. The weather was sped-up in the clouds above and traffic moved past in a stop-and-go rhythm with accelerations of motors and some horns. “What was that?” Donya said but Mahnoosh didn’t answer while a silver automobile slowed and then moved faster, sleek and blurred. Donya however had some other phenomenon in mind. The traffic meant little to her. Farid, disembodied, somewhere, said “Yeah?” “Remember when I was in your head?” Mahnoosh asked. “You still are, baby, you still are.” Romantic, so romantic. Donya, looking at her, she knew.

P.S. 58

INTERVIEW with Maureen Gubia by Stephen Tully Dierks

yenpor Maureen Gubia is an artist living in Guayaquil, Ecuador. I found her work on the internet (http://mgubia.com) via my friend, the artist Julia Sonmi Heglund, I think (?) (Julia did the cover for Pop Serial). I am intrigued by her work and wanted to learn more about her and what she does, so I emailed her some questions, and she was nice enough to answer them. Hi Maureen. First off, where were you born? What was it like growing up there? Any random hobbies or interests? Anything else you'd like to say about your personal history? Sorry if these questions are random or too personal. I was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the second most important city in the country where most of the commercial activities take place. it has a breakwater/harbour where commerce blooms. The city is located two hours away from the Pacific Ocean and non-resort type beaches. I could describe my living environment in very quaint, picturesque ways but I'll try to refrain from sounding like a tourism ad. I think its funny how colorful and exotic this country is by default. The city is basically at sea level built above a mangrove type of environment. The weather is always humid and hot; I think this is very influential in the way I approach art making. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mostly laid back, I never feel like I'm

P.S. 59 stressed out. My hobbies... anything that has to do with being creative. I like experimenting with various mediums without having prior knowledge of how they function. Photography, recording, learning foreign languages, travelling when given the opportunity, penpals, etc. When did you first start making pictures, doing art? How has your process evolved and/or become more complex? I started being conscious about making art when I was 17. My personal process has evolved from being generally focused on technicalities to sort of getting rid of them and staying with what I think retains the essence. Like letting go of little distracting, superfluous detail. Internet is playing a major role in my artistic formation and general knowledge enhancing. I cant imagine living without it. Are you interested in conceptual art? Do you consider any of your art "conceptual"? Are you more interested in expressing emotions or ideas, or both? Yes, to an extent. I like the cold, disposable readings that I get from conceptual art, because it opposes the type of art that is too obsessed with aesthetics within art almost bordering on decorative arts/applied arts. But at the same time, I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t take it too seriously either. It starts becoming a doctrine, some kind of dogma. No, my art is more representational and figurative. It deals with observation, repressed/invented/hazy memories and maybe even identity issues. I try to show my process as clear as I can in such a manner that is hopefully emotionally engaging and intelligent/intuitive. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m not interested in clever readings. I avoid that like the plague, too self-aware and gimmicky.

smtri skin

P.S. 60 How did the piece "yenpor" come about? What does "yenpor" mean? What is your thought process re: the titles of your pieces? “yenpor” is like an amalgamation of two words (yen+portrait) but rendered in a manner that is to me at least, interesting in the way it sounds and looks. Most of my titles are like that, almost like onomatopoeias, invented ones. It usually doesn’t mean anything in particular but still it relates to the visual and ideological elements that are part of the piece. It comes randomly, whatever feels right. A keyboard is often necessary to come up with these; the letters just roll off my fingertips. And then I say it out loud to test the sonority. searching for harmony. Who or what inspires you to make art? Who are some of your favorite artists? Family picture albums, found pictures, photos found in gossip magazines of royal social events, nightmares, sticky weather, etc. when I was 17 Edvard Munch was my favorite artist bar none; right now I like Paul Klee, Helene Schjerfbeck, Kai Althoff, COBRA/Karel Appel, Francis Bacon, Tim Hawkinson, outsider artall of it, Harmony Korine, Mario Giacomelli, Victor Erice, Nico, Stina Nordenstam, Haco, etc. What is your favorite meal to make or to eat? Anything close to local seafood with lots of rice, onion and plantains. Sweet ones too. Also, cheese. Seen any good movies lately? I used to download and buy good quality bootlegs of indie films from all over the world at a store near my house a couple of years ago. It’s not strictly illegal to produce + sell pirated content in Ecuador, perhaps it is but it’s not taken care of or prohibited. In that way I feel privileged to live here and peruse all of these films, they’re like a dollar each. There aren’t any great public libraries where you can spend all day searching for obscure works like I did when I was in France. I was obsessed with watching as many films as possible and suddenly stopped. But the last film I watched was Paranoid Park by Gus Van Sant. It was alright. It was more like a mood piece, very beautiful overall. I could somehow relate to that feeling of nagging dread the main character felt. ...The soundtrack was so spot on. Have you ever felt "serene," or have you ever felt as if you're doing "what you're supposed to be doing" in life? Does this have anything to do with art? More like, it has to do with keeping the creative juices flowing and keeping busy. Otherwise my mind wanders off into bleakness. So, serene to me is like being completely invested in my art-making. Any artists' websites you think we should check out? Donald Dixon! okaysorry.com, ubu web archives, ubu.com Thank you for your time and interest and for your beautiful artwork, Maureen. Peace and love.

P.S. 61

dockead

Maureen Gubia

Poems, as well as an illustration “inspired by Kurt Vonnegut and spring,” by Feng Sun Chen

the astronaut talks to himself I can’t remember where I found this: A man discovers immortality in outer space while free-floating, trying to fix a kink in the outer shell of the shuttle but then the cable snaps and he is left to orbit the earth forever. It is quite pretty up above the sky so high. He is like a diamond, he thinks, twinkle twinkle. His hair continues to grow and soon his beard fills up his whole helmet. Then the audience realizes it is a story about hell. Hell is popular. A savior hands you a cloak that can protect you from anything. You thank the savior, though you know he’s full of shit. You wake up and swear to yourself never to abuse your body again but night comes bearing jewels. You eat astronaut food and avoid thinking the future. Rather, you think your soul is an elmer’s glue collage in which sensations and convictions are sutured together loosely to avoid the worst thing ever.

P.S. 62 So here I am, hanging out in space in a big spacesuit. My magic cloak changes colors and my muscles atrophy, skin and bones tethered to a rail like bat wings. I’m drunk and I love everyone. But the main thing is the bubble around my head--no one can hear through it. What am I supposed to do, well, are you telling me that all this time I’ve been talking to an echo? I’ve got sonar power. Now you’re telling me there are more than three dimensions well I don’t know what to say to that. You are whatever you say you are, spaceman, and your love, and your boredom, and the secret loneliness we each receive through a tube from the metal containers strapped to our backs.

4th of July Sometime, said the paper queen, you will cease to be loved. Maybe you will be lucky and a kind witch will tell you why. It’s probably your personality, for example. You will not understand your pain, which is shaped like a windmill and moves by the tug of a horrible moon but you may learn to live with it, or forget it for longer and longer stretches. In this case, the story must rest on my profound endurance. What a long time I have gone on! Even after the baby dropped and happiness has proven itself to parts of the world like glow on a map of electric consumption, a country of darkness wrung with glitter. I want to kill you, old boy, with my glittering heart. I can never stop until I do. But I am small. Maybe, said the magic vole, you are too small. Maybe, said the naked mole, you will have to give up, or somehow eat him up from the inside. There are other things to think about, said the princess in a dress made of leaves, like art. Where is your warm gun? Let freedom sprout. Show me how you love. Spangled one, how precarious and plump you look perched on a white fence. Happiness, said the paper beggar, (who is really a god) comes from within. Oh, how he hobbles! Look on, look on. He is richer than you. There are forces much larger at work here, humming about my life like godmothers. I am small, I am small. Here comes the parade! All that beauty! I want to die! I want to die! I want to die!

P.S. 63

TRANSITORY One of the transformations did not go well. He tried to cleave in two but stopped halfway. Nobody knows what happened, what made the ghost stick. Some say it was a stray being he’d met in the woods who’d stopped at a particularly yellow moment and gazed, alone, into the wilderness. It was this aloneness Wukong could not penetrate, that made him shake incongruently, the red inside twisting the skin and fur inwards. A young man in the woods, legend says, dark and besotted with evil. I know you, cried Wukong, I swear we’ve known each other, though that’s impossible. Bodhi was taking a nap, so the godling ran for the trees which were jaundiced and bright. Adonis had the most beautiful hands Wukong had ever seen. Chaos in heaven, he cried to himself. The world became Iridescent. One yellow leaf filled the whole sky. Something learned about love, the turning of the earth at night, about ownership which can only be fulfilled through mortality, or faith. He trusted in neither, though he knew the former never betrays. When Adonis left, he

P.S. 64 could not close his eyesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;they were so swollen with primeval water. This was the last time he would ever blink without the vibrato of fire in his lids. He could not have the one in the woods so no one else could. Wukong went back to Bodhiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s house, closed all the doors and began to multiply himself. One for the possession of the world. One for the sculptor. Make me into whatever he wants, Wukong begged, make me human. The sculptor apologized, for it was impossible. Then make me immortal, he said.

P.S. 65

Notes Toward the Crane Poem by Joshua Cohen

Time to write that poem about Hart Crane (dates). Specifically a poem about his death by suicide. On that ship off the Florida Coast, off that ship on the Florida Coast. A poem I’ve been wanting to write for decades since I turned 32…. I want to record/prisión in poetry the moment from when Crane last touched ship’s railing to when he the poet hit water to drown. This last moment freefalling of life being the freefall of meaning, words being dropped in space, through space, words dropping away from each other into watersilence—breaching sense once last—then again sinking below: into incoherence. the incoherent water Hope— To write my Hart Crane Poem in stages three: One, Crane leaps despondent from rail of boat. Two, Crane hits the water and fails to float. Three, my failed homosexuality. I first read Crane in college, nothing interesting there, on the verge of droppingout of college, nothing interesting there either. Crane was my Whitman and Whitman was Crane’s Whitman. That he wasn’t fashionable then, he wasn’t trendy (1967), I didn’t care a whit, man—my hair was long and thin and my girlfriend—Lucky Sue—was longer and thinner. Crane died at the age at which I began to take myself seriously as a poet. Now I’m almost 64 and have been heterosexual my entire life, a reluctant heterosexual born 1946. Im a mediocre man / but not from the Middle West “Show don’t tell” teachers tell their writing students at NYU (where I’ve taught), but: I’ve been trying to write that poem about H.C.’s suicide for as long as I’ve been trying to be gay, voraciously trying and now “as my powers flag”—I who’ve never married but only last week took my first pill for a hardon—now I find I can’t because I haven’t yet addressed— apostrophized— told about “the role of homosexuals in my life” as the phrase goes, Some Of My Best Friends Are Gay but more than that almost all my friends best or not have been gay and certainly I’m the only (wellknown, wellpublished) good poet of my generation never able to—no I can’t write prose about It either. Copy such as would be cozy in the New York Times. Which did not publish an obituary for C.

P.S. 66

Orizaba Abaziro Orizabaziro— The name of the boat—the ship—he’d taken before: the same ship that had brought our poet to Cuba those years ago, how many? to that island off Cuba—Isle of Pines—where he staged his first suicide attempt when he was 15 (this the first trip on which cornkid C. ever saw the sea: he was born in Ohio but his father the wealthy candymaker owned a vacation house on the Isle). Orizaba is also the name of a mountain, a volcano (dormant), third highest in North America. And don’t say ship, say oceanliner? Which like a poem lines the ocean? Meet me in Havana Café La Diana He’d been living in Mixcoac, suburb of Mexico City, with Peggy Cowley (Malcolm’s exwife). He used her to turn himself hetero and enact with her his parents’ marriage. She used him for everything not that. She described the sea C. jumped into as “a mirror that could be walked on.” Surprise—that line is not original with her. Onboard the liner C. was unregenerate (which is degeneracy without hope). He tried to fuck a crewmember who blackened his eye into an orifice. And so the drunk’s depressive leap. If he couldn’t be “a man”—macho—he shouldn’t be at all. S.S. Orizaba was returning to New York from Mexico, stopping in Cuba. April 1932. C. had just lost his straight virginity to Cowley, Xmas Eve 1931. “The Jazz Age Officially Ended!” Meet me in Havana At Café Diana Took skyblu pill / and dribbled thrill Katherine Anne Porterhouse. Jazz Age had no politics but gin / Homosexuality a sin Depression turning Guggenheims into Aztecs and Mayans (no one had any cash for poetry, no one had clock enough for poems). Too much damn Marxist archaeology! (Gloss: both C. and Katherine Anne had initially come to Mexico on Guggenheim Fellowships.) Cold sissywinds blowing the minds of Meheeco rattle bones, tattle home, c/o Chagrin Falls

P.S. 67

Dear John, My one time South of the Border I did it wrong, staying in hotels too clean expensive and reading in expat bars translations of Octavio Paz. It was a December escape from NYC after finally a real bookadvance came through (that nonfiction dunger I shouldn’t have dunned about the history/mythos of Coney Island), $300 airfare roundtrip from JFK to Mexico City but later I flew from there in a smaller plane to Cancún to meet my aunt at the mythical allinclusive resort Gertrude Berg (famous last sighting): “[C.] walked to the railing, took off his coat, folded it neatly over the railing (not dropping it on deck), placed both hands on the railing, raised himself on his toes, and then dropped back again.” two minutes to noon/two minutes after he dove into the Tropic of Cancer (dove—swanned/plunged) no buggery or bjs could get him out of pjs (he wore the coat over pjs— nympho lympho alcoholhic) The resort watered its tequila, scrambled eggs from powder and only had white toast, promiscued its women after dinner at nightly dances (Divorcées’ Choice). The visit to Cancún was utter chance, I was there in Mexico City and, lonely and wanting to surprise her with incongruity as freedom, called Ma who duly alerted said you absolutely have to be in touch with Aunt Sarah— who just happened that week to be wintering in widowhood, permanent winterhood—touchingoff a spat of expensive phonecalls across two countries resulting in me not wanting to go but going (Ma: “It can’t be that far if it’s the same country, you both could use the company, it would just be polite.”). I’d read all the books I brought, all my clothes were filthy, I didn’t takeoff my bathingsuit from Sunday to Sunday—and so you can imagine the fucking chafe the fucking rash around my crotch and inner thighs (forget this as a section but still, about the resort—the excess impressed Folding coat over rail before suicide prevails explanation: fastidiousness or drama?

P.S. 68

To stand on highest rung below the yellow bung and think: If only I could drink it! could drink it! Last buss of shoe of rail as overboard he Cranes— Hart, heart—gorgeous Jorge & sailor Danes— to love sailors on leave is to love men who leave

Star sun above, char sun below. What reflection ever lasted? And what current has ever slowed? And which shark has ever fasted? The eschat tap of toe to steel, the slippered slip to shipless keel— the hull of sky, Old Mizzentop, erect yourself against the day! Prove gravity to depthlessness by appled drop, by falling gay and thus in flux, flummox heaven by being not one or both again. As Hart Crane falls only faller shall he be not baller or “straight” or even late to Paradise! As Crane tumbles New York crumbles. ... skyscape crumpled to tickertape … No parade shall he have but wind. A bridge bodied, a span unspun, single cable to grasp at sun, though the supports have rotted out and suspension is suspended until metaphors assert the law and come to spout that daylight’s ended. And with it search and so lush stars, are by foghorn called to further bars. burnt and from then on I had to wear a dopey giftshop sombrero, moisturize my thighs so regularly I couldn’t go swimming (swimming also burned—when I had to salve myself I sent Aunt Sarah off to the buffets early telling her to get good seats). At this resort whose name and latitude escape me—they wouldn’t matter

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but neither should my forgetting imply any intimation of superior gringoness, just the recent leaks and blowholes in the brain—I didn’t share a bed with Aunt Sarah but we did share the room, twice the size of my then-apartment (I was still Downtown, Seventh Street and living in a sublet just down from McSorley’s with Vietnamese gradstudent Lily I met at the library, she had a boy’s haircut and wore balletflats even in winter with the snow accumulation, she liked sex from behind but only vaginal and squeezing her own juices and sandwiches, she only ate sandwiches pb & j and grilledcheese with wild honey and her poetry—despite that once she said over rye/swiss tunamelts and wheatgrass but without any sense of how imbecilic this would’ve sounded even if her mouth hadn’t been fully fishy, “Frank O’Hara means like goddamned everything to me”—was timid, precious, short very short and, like goddamned, in no way confessional about her own experience but rather confessional about other people she either knew but never introduced me to, I doubt it, or about other people she wholesale invented, characters with their own personisms wholly unbelievable: one poem was about an overdose, another about an overdose, a third with “a jeep pileup on Fire Island,” yet another on the theme of Autism

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… (and these were my only three experiences) … J. I’d head for his house after school and we’d sit in his den and look through his father’s pornmags—straightporn mags, pornmags with women, Playboy was still a year or two in the future and anyway too tame, we’re talking Model Parade, Brief, Eye, a whole buncha cartoon affairs, what were called “Tijuana Bibles”—sitting on separate facing couches and masturbating together, never one another. Until his father came home from plumbing or mother from playing bridge. The couches were yellow and because easily stained covered by plastic that made creaks and chary groans like doors opening along with our motions—we thought someone was always peeking in, about to enter. J. always used as lubrication some brand of moisturizer, or I guess we didn’t call it moisturizer back then, better Vaseline (I should say petroleum jelly), while I never used anything, I never used anything at home either. Even to this day, which habit’s regular, it’s just bare dry hand. Sometimes bare dry hands. But still bare, still dry. Him jacking, me jacking, too, but at halfattention (fullhardness)—I couldn’t focus on anything but that lube he pulled from its tub balanced on couch’s arm, that lube whose whiteness or offwhiteness Melville should’ve lived to describe (sperm! sperm! avast “a midnight sea of milky whiteness”)—Whiteness that made the lube look like cum already. In both our other hands were clumps of tissue ready. Masturbation felt good but lubrication felt like you were treating yourself too well. I did not love myself enough for lube, I didn’t selflove enough and so abstained. A. (who is just J. in another guise: taller and tanner, in better workedout shape, two years after takingup track and field, junior varsity tennis and weights, fifty situps a night every night, thirtyodd pushups) jerked me off on a busride back from a youthgroup summercamp, the youthgroup was Socialist/Jewish, Labor Zionist in funding. This handjob coming after two weeks of woodsy flirtation, common showers assgrabbery, flipping bunks at flashlit midnight after the exhaustions of communal masturbation. Your typical circlejerks, your typical oneover grab your partners, Ookycookie chocolate chippy, He Who Laughs Last, drunken (alternately blind) pirate, etc. Anything to distract from all that faux orienteering (can you find north from south? or start a fire with a single match?), singalongs with mallow roasts, arts & farts in which I carved half a duck decoy then grew bored. An August night and the bus splashed through the darkness. We sat in the back—the waaay back, the rumbleseats—as the trees made vertical lanes against the windows and he made vertical with me. Up and down the rumble, I didn’t touch him, I pretended to be asleep. Perhaps also he cupped my hairless balls or I cupped them for him, for me. I came in three large splurts onto the seatback in front me somewhere around Welcome to Saratoga Springs—I opened my eyes for the cum and saw the

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sign, “The Spa City”—the cum dripped and, we were still hours away from the synagogue’s parkinglot where my father would meet us in the Plymouth, dried. writing it now that word is dirty enough, ply mouth ply your mouth ply my mouth, never thought of it that way …. We spent the rest of the trip naming the state the stain’s shape reminded us of: It trickled from some sorta splotchy Midwesterner, Ohio, Illinois, “The Land of Lincoln,” to a sizable California, Bay Area giving way to LA, and then hardened longer, like Mexico Herself. And here is Mexico City and there is Vera Cruz. (OK, also A.J. put his mouth on it once.) Finally, and this was much more recently. I read in Berlin three years ago (don’t describe the reading), and after my German translator Ch.—a Frau, no, no, a frowsy girl—asked if I wanted to have a drink and I said, Yes, that being the polite response and so drinks were had in the hotel lobby. As we toasted with round no. 2 her bag gave a burp, she’d received a textmessage, which the Europeans call SMS (standing for “short message service”), she blushed as she read it then dropped the phone back into her bag. Her endless bottomless bag, that gaping slit. I asked her, What’s that? and she said nothing so I pressed the point, she finally said it was a friend who worked in film and I said, So? impress me and she said there was a party that night she’d been invited to but she wasn’t going, she was with me, she said, and anyway was getting tired, but I don’t think she linked the two, me and tiredness, in her mind. I said let’s go and she said no, I could never bring you and I said, why not? am I not allowed? (I’m parodying my spoken German) she said, you’d hate it, no, and shook her head nervously curly like an apostrophe, suddenly I grabbed her bag, grabbed the phone and—phones working the same the world over, noting—read the message for myself but not only was it German it was slang abbreviated SMS German. I did understand one thing, however: Mittelweg XX, and that’s what I told the taxidriver, mein Deutsch being good enough for that. Ch. always quiet became silent and obliging, in retrospect just the version of translator you want. Her rendings of my poems—make this section quick—were fine and true, I was told, but every time she read them aloud I heard darkness where I meant light, I heard heaviness, plod and stodge. It wasn’t lost on me that my translator was not translating anymore, that she’d become, closer to our destination—I knew we were closer because the neighborhood got worse, trainstationy, underlit—catatonic. The cab stopped, I paid the driver, dragged her out. There was one light on, topfloor, and up we went. I hauled her up, no elevator, stairs. She’d gone limp, the door was ajar. Inside they’d been filming a porno. Wasn’t lost on me either that they were, in a sense, translating themselves: the porno, judging by set and wardrobe, was the amateur pornmovie adaptation of a famous regular American movie-movie. I left Ch. by the doorway, went to get drunk. Ch. sat on a sofa the entire night watching me, crying to/ignoring her friends who tried to cheer her and make her drink. Make her do some coke. A boy came to me like (insert whatever allusion to Classical Antiquity), offered me some and I did a line. He

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said, she says her career is ruined. I said, that’s ridiculous. He said, how do you write poet? (Too bad his English was schrecklich.) I said, how do you know Ch.? We were at university together, he said. He was an actor but allowed me to top him. We occupied the bathroom so long Ch. had to pee in the kitchen sink. Later she vomited there, too. … (and those were my only three experiences) …

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Plastique Art: His body like a knife slashing the canvas of water (like C. slashed that late portrait of himself by Siquerios, which showed C. with downcast gaze because his eyes were mucho too powerful to paint) Music, Music: His body a needle to the brokenrecord sea (every biography mentions that in Mexico C. was in possession of an Orthophonic portable, that detail culled from correspondence. To write, “he owned a recordplayer” would imply ignorance but Orthophonic sounds authoritative, it intimidates with brand. If the biographer’s right about the phonograph, we ask, how could he be wrong about anything important?) the stylus to the ocean’s Victrola the brush that stabs the seaprepared canvas the deep Crane’s idiom to pierce the land the bier of Ambrose Bierce stab/pierce/slash-gash-incise-impale (which is more sexual?) Bierce disappeared from Chihuahua. Waldo Frank that Jewa Jewa: “I warned him it was going to threaten his stability. I knew how strong the death wish was in Mexico.” He also knew: how easier it was to get drunk at higher altitudes (Tepoztlán, pulque), and that socialism/communism was the answer to American strife. By the time the market’s crash made itself felt in poetry, poets had already become political and so, it follows, marketable. Minds contracting like testicles in brine. C. was the last ecstatic, the last left Romantic, not a man of the Left but of— Capt. Blackadder, captain of the Orizaba: “If the propellers didn’t grind him to

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mincemeat, then the sharks got him immediately.” propellers being politics, dem mincing barracooders Cowleys, Porter, Allen Tate suffer the inebriate suffer him uncelibate Arnold, Boewe, Boff (dead of AIDS), Christkindl, Cohen, Donald, Eichenwald, Haymaker, Isakov, Jin, June, Kesztenbaum, Laurels, Manders, Mornington, Muggs, Newby, Ornaut, Palen, Quipley, Ringerling (also dead of AIDS—O to be brought low by an acronym!—but his from heroin’s habitual sharpsharing), Rutman, Sonbol, Travis, Vain, Whippington-Ghernik, Yurn, Zumo: a list of homosexuals who have been friends and supporters. A list the Times would print—and no Sunday reviews as obituaries pour moi? Ironies in steel: C. thought no great writer could be homosexual, his father, CA the sweetsmanufacturer of Garrettsville later Cleveland, invented Life Savers® but then sold the patent for pennies before the money could roll in, money rolling in like waves. better to die before the 30s better to die still in your 30s a boat is a bridge with busted banks Page furled loose from topside of boundless book. Ink shot from nib of sunrise purple pen. Twirling fish fleeing legendary hook. Midair horse farrier’d by fatboy men. A quoin expelled from tower’s break. A coin extolled from belfry stake. A cigar tost a sizzling mote. A bottle cast without a note. A cloudless drop of rain. A sun set upon noon. Brute conquest by harpoon. an asshole like no moon Conquest by own harpoon. to break the skin with plowing sin to fertilize abyssal din with shrieking bells and engine noise submerge the urge for grace and boys I am the lowest voice of Manhattan Drowned by the chatter of an ocean’s Latin. No tide can once accommodate

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a drowning death’s posterity— just as the ocean’s never late and no ocean’s ever early… Heads or tails or spindrift spume or bellyflop or boom, bombsaway adrift— ordnance of rough trade’s shore. Bodied plummet of life’s ejaculate, puffy gray and pajamed gob, scumming hateful hemisphere like Akron scars the Cuyahoga—flows on. O-hio nomen est proem’in’ est omen THE O-HI-O Spindrift refers to spray of waves cresting/crashing. Findrinny means white bronze??? To leave a suicide note / is to annotate a poem. Having sex/feelings with/for men was just not something we could do…(“We” mean nice Jewboys, too nice too Jewish and poetic for the 1960s/70s). My politics, I noxiously have a politics— poets of my generation virtually have to have a politics—have always been liberal. I believe The Gays should be allowed to marry one day (I’m writing this just after the millennium and can only hope that some transgendered transsexual future is reading me and laughing as they shake their heads and softer genitalparts, but if we’re all fucking each other and ourselves who’d want to read). I can’t think about fucking more than once a day, once every hour it used to be—but then one day the heart will seize, the Viagra will have to stop, I take two now when I take home an intern from Paris Review and nothing then nothing—and despite how I’ve tried I can’t seem to, maintain is the verb, a drinking problem. I still occasion pot, surrept a halfsmoked cigarette off a student loitering outside W House or on the Mews. This semester, snooze, I’m talking Emerson the Poet. I’ll come to class prepared. Tell the kids, and it’s with this spiel that I’ll introduce myself, “my preparation has been Thoreau.” To quote no Transcendentalist: I’ll be as outspoken as buttocks, as obscure as Thy guerdon the heaven of the Jews. This has been my résumé / my CV has been my life. ripple weird a streaming beard skip stones to murk the sighting broad light’s broader options feared “This closet has bad lighting.” the ocean’s water closet snugs tight its choppy door

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odd hinge binges air buoyancy mistakes image for metaphor turns both tricks for passing truth The morning I turned 6-0 I walked from a diner brunch on First Ave. all the way to Brooklyn across the bridge, the East River was still to the east, it was a cool fall day for falling and do boats resemble bridges? or bridges resemble boats? that’s where I scribbled that line, stopping here and there to crib from laziness (“Cognizance whose leap commits / The agile precincts of the lark’s return.”), marveling as much at the boats and tugs below, at Liberty and the scrapers and such—when two more were still standing—as at the young and pillowtousled strollers strolling on their strolls. C.’s bridge: 100 Columbia Heights his apt. with a view of where I walked, where he’d lived in what’d been the room of the son of the bridge’s builder Roebling (though C. hadn’t known this when he knew that view), huge coincidence but like all coincidence meaning nothing, as the phones say these days even without us around to talk into them, U Care? I’d never be a bard just a renter, a lessee of language tacking tones (upstream? does that make bardic sense, or into the wind?)—I’d never be in love. Sum of my thoughts, the sum also rises (C. born the same day as Hemingway and Hemingway born in C.’s mother’s hometown of Oak Park, IL)—I was on my way to see an uncle dying from his neoconservative, pro-Israel-lobby letters having been neglected by the editors of major magazines, he wanted to wish me birthday wishes. If I wanted to kill myself, I thought, I’d jump and jump from here. Like C., see me. Like the businesspeople dying their unbusiness deaths in the towers that twinned September. But even if I’d wanted to jump, I couldn’t have. The Brooklyn being the-bridge-that-can’t-bejumped-off-of. There should be a foreign word for that, gephyrounjumpoffable (gephyra translates bridge in Greek). You can’t jump from Brooklyn Bridge at the turn of the third millennium, why? because the pedestrian walkway’s located in the middle of the bridge, with the outerlanes reserved for vehicle traffic—this revealed itself to me like a solution to the Mysteries. If you jumped from the pedestrian path you’d only be runover by a car, you’d never have the privilege of the water and that’s how sad life is—if it’s river you want, you have to brave the carlanes, bon courage and boneup on aerobics, climb the netted fence and barriers, climb the lower cables graceful nimble—or else, alternately, you could drive your car off the bridge but I don’t have a car and no taxi alive would take that fare…. Walk and harp the altar. Ahoy, Uncle. Walk to out me with your love—this whole island behind me a sinking ship and I’m gettingoff on land (another island, Long). Queer the plug to drain Atlantic, insuck the earth inverting space, let us fall forever at the mirror

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at the queer!

Flight Light flight right tight Trite

catamite

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“A Day in the Life of Dot” Starring Dot Potkonjak Photography/Direction by Holly Kass & Stephen Tully Dierks

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Brenda Miller by Jaimie Eubanks I’m all for lesbianism, theoretically; it’s just not for me. It’s that sexual attraction to a person, even just the littlest bit, which makes fanaticism possible. Brenda, I want you to know, I never write for girls. There are women writers in my life who have meant more to me than I could say. Jane Austen, Lydia Davis, Aimee Bender. They’re my girls. Time and time again I turn to them for comfort. None of those women have inspired obsession. Fanatic adoration of a person, of his work, is the early stage of love. That’s how it is right now, and I think about you all the time. Every mention of you makes me giggle. Every conversation gives multiple opportunities for your mention. The giggling seems constant. Brenda Miller, I feel that way about you. I can’t help it. You aren’t the same as the other women on my shelf. You aren’t the same as the men, eitherTao Lin, Ron Carlson, Ander Monsonbut you’re more like the men than not. It’s a physical attraction, if not quite sexual. You understand the body. Your work is somatic. I mean to say, both your career and your writing are somatic. A massage therapist for years, you understand how the mind and the body are one. How to use the mind in making the body a safer, healthier place. How to use the body to make the mind easier to deal with. Minds are scary, lonely places, and you know that. I trust you. I think you could take care of me; I think you can take care of anything. If you were to treat me as you would treat a sentence, as I know you both could and would, I would be safe. You are not reckless. Often, when

P.S. 83 the body comes into writing, it enters the text in a way I do not understand. The body in text, on paper, it is the body as a container, the body as machine, anatomy. It is not the body itself other people are writing about. Those things are a part of the body, those things are subsets, but they are not a part of the body as I experience it. You relate to the body in a way I can make sense of. In your writing: body, mind, emotion, past, present. These things are inextricably connected. Somatic practice, the blanket term for a whole world of mind-body philosophies, is about increasing individual awareness of these things, and being better off for it. It is yoga, meditation, massage therapy, Pilates, Bartinieff, Alexandar, Laban, things I understand and things I don’t. Your essays deal with the experience of somatic practice so accurately that I find myself in awe of your eloquence. I find myself wanting to be with you, wanting you to teach me. If you would let me be your protégé, I could stay with you in your house, and we could live communally. You would get angry with me for not doing the dishes. We could get by. I could come to you in the night, if I needed, kneel on the floor by your bed, asking questions. If things were really this way, I would sneak into your room so many nights. The night of the Butoh workshop. I would whisper to you a list of things I needed you to explain. This thing you’ve never heard of. How I’d learned, Butoh is kind of like a style of dance, but the workshop made me think it’s more like a philosophy where the thought is based in movement, using the body to understand, instead of using the mind. I stood behind a woman, and another woman stood behind me. There was a woman on my left and on my right. I was the axis. The interpreterthe teacher, being Japanese, did not speak Englishtold me, told the class: I have one body. Just the one. But, I am her, and her, and her, and her. He pointed to the women who surrounded me. We moved together. It wasn’t that we watched one another, or followed, or imitated, or emulated. It wasn’t the usual way. We were to keep things simple. Just gentle walking, only tiny steps, and delicate leans in any direction. We moved together by feeling each other. Never touching. But feeling. It was complicated, but the simplest thing imaginable. Tiny walks, barely walks. The body is weak, I would tell you. This is one of the few things about Butoh I really understand. The movements are tiny and controlled. I know that, too. Not just because that’s how to achieve the form. You move that way because, by barely moving, everything inside you is moving, and everything outside. The slightest shift moves every molecule of air, moves everything. I stood as the axis, and found myself emotional. Not a specific emotion, but aware that there were many different emotions, and that I had all of them. It was all very confusing. It is all very confusing. I wanted to ask, or rather, to know, more. I do not speak Japanese. The interpreter barely spoke English. Some things do not translate. Some things are based in history, in blood. Language can only say so much, and I couldn’t learn what I felt I needed to. All five of me were stuck, American, unable to get any closer to the most beautiful thing I have ever experienced. If I could know about that, I keep thinking to myself, I wouldn’t wonder about anything. I would be able to float. You would not know any better how to explain what I saw. You, too, are American. You could not help, but you would guide me into your bed with you, telling me to lie on my side. Curl up, just like a baby, you would say, your voice husky and perfect. You would place one hand at the base of my skull, the other on my sacral ridge, and I would cry until I slept, waking up with you years earlier, with three other people in our bed, the three from “How to Meditate,” and we would hold each other, feel each other, care for each other. I would be one of those you have loved, physically more than sexually, emotionally more than anything. Touching each other like that, I would drift off to sleep in the afternoon. We are all so happy in that moment. Like a pride of lions. Like a dream. It is a dream. It is a dream within a fantasy. Waking up again, I would find myself back where I’d started, me in your bed, and you making noise downstairs in the kitchen, water running, cabinet doors opening and closing. I would feel fine with the things I do not know. You would feel fine with the things I do not know, just as you have learned to feel fine with the things you do and do not know We would be fine, living together that way. I fall asleep thinking these things, in my own bed, with my forehead pressed against the wall my feet brushing a man’s legs, recoiling, trying to stay on my side. I fall asleep feeling surrounded by you, wanting to tell you why you matter so much. Wanting to be sure you aren’t taking it personally, my sleeping next to this man who is not you. This man who also is not any of the others I have written to either, though he sometimes those men are him. Don’t be jealous, Brenda, that the tender moments I wrote to those other men are the things I do not say to him, because they are jagged and to say them out loud would be careless. You, I have not used as a substitute. Instead, the things I say to you are the things I have tried to explain to him, but that he does not understand. He understands the container, the anatomy, the machine. I love him, but he does not understand, and he knows. This does not mean you come second to him, just that I need you for different reasons. He would not be jealous of you, Brenda Miller, because he knows I need you. We could not lie in the same bed all together. But if we lived in the same house, and I came home feeling overwhelmed, and if he found me curled up in the corner of the bed the way Ann Lindbergh used to sleep, trying not to wake up Charles, then he would carry me to your room, set me in front of you and leave us to fix things together. We could get along, the three of us. As it is, I am not your protégé, but I have read Seasons of the Body. As it is, I only fall asleep thinking about you once in awhile. Once in awhile is more than I can say for most of the others. It is more than Jane Austen, more than Ander Monson, even. I have loved your book, and consequently have loved you in a way I have loved no

P.S. 84 one else. I have learned from you without being in your home, in your bed, with your hands on me, and it will be fine this way. I do not need your physical presence, though I find myself wanting it from time to time. Your words are careful, full of care, and you take care of me when I read you. You lead me through things that are hard, things that canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be explained to any real satisfaction and things that transcend explanation, instead allowing for understanding. I read your book and we commune, and I am fine.

The Sugar Snap Girl

Aniela Sobieski

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you can’t questin denim by Colin Herd i used to just sit on the floor and cry i was like 'this day did not take place' and 'this poem is so not happening' and 'he is way out of my league'. the poem's make-up felt just too predictable, running like that down my cheek it couldn't be what it seemed (it was). the carpet is also way too much like toast (and too unevenly spread) to even be, like, toast, today. i said: you can't question hands. you can't question denim. you can't question washed out. the pastry only cracks in the corner because i tear it. the lion-tamer is terrified because he's not taming lions. very well. the roadworks are annoying because i'm impatient; my catapault fires frozen chips at the picture of you, because i'm not a nice person. i used to just sit on the floor and cry because i used to just sit on the floor and cry because i used to just sit on the floor and cry because i once sat on the floor to think about you and started to cry.

Icarus Shmicarus

miserable ones by Adam Moorad i’ve been collecting barack obama emails thinking what it’s like trapped inside a smoke-filled bar the whisky is flowing i am jean valjean riding an eight-headed beast wearing a turkish belly-dancing outfit this entire paradise feels like Christ in foster care

Aniela Sobieski

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Poems by Leif Haven shanties I. Once you showed up at my place as a sea monster: all tentacles reaching upward, sliming there on the stoop. I said 'hey there', and you shoved your brush in my mouth and painted a yellow house in oils on the underside of my tongue. Once you showed up at my yellow house in oil, all sliming and combusting there on the stoop. I tried to brush you off in the bathtub, squeezing the muck from your tangled hair, there's nothing sexy as a clumsy mermaid and cracked oil tanker. Once we built our house on the underside of my tongue, but the land was poor, and we were only sharecropping spit. Then a sea monster slithered ominously out of the lake we made. You called is immaculate conception and I called it gingivitis. Once we were sea monsters so happy and free, snagging a sailor when we were hungry, and playing around the sulfur vents there at the bottom of everything. What happened? Now a big splotch of oil spreading outward to swallow the sun. Once we were oils. Just a bunch of plants crushed flat and sludge like that. We had such long wild dreams! We wake to sharp pain and we bleed all over the sheets. I thought we could sleep in. Was I wrong? II. I would love to be delicate again, if ever. My lanky pirate, I would love to be

P.S. 87 The buccaneer/ballerina, the invincible Gestalt. I promise I’ll practice hard my Russian it seems right to go out on the water And evince the monster, I’ve been hoarding Up harassments. Sea monsters suck down Abuse, likewise the way you were born, pulled Through the swiveling fan and shot out into The air. A pack of condominiums rumbles by, meting out quaint blessings. In our way the sea is dreadful, underneath us a pretty bier. We Will land, and be out standing somewhere. We will think of four years ago. We will Think of ten and be frightened. What Are poems in the course of intercourse? In the course of rain? Everything is towed By trucks with names like Jim’s Towing, Straight downwards, matchbook on The porch overnight catches dew. I strike nowhere. I’m waiting for A narrative to take me home, but Also stay in my chair, and also make Nowhere be somehow the same as Home and the same as pajamas, so Can I sleep in your pirate bed this morning? Will it rock us from stem to stern, from floor And back to hull again, I don’t want to move

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I’ll huddle next to the wall. I don’t even need To be under the same sheets. I am a generator. I make my own heat. I make lots of things. I am a huge asset to your company, bring me On board, throw your jaunty knee over the railing. Put on your captains hat. You are carbon dioxide An important part of my atmosphere. The sea monster cringes in your wake. I hope I’ve Said all my sad dumb things. What if after that There isn’t anything left? Give a rousing speech to The crew! Rally them against the looming tentacle! The crew hates spirits like sulky highschoolers Hate cheerleaders. I am a useless spectre. But every ship is required a haunting, correct? You brought me on to draw fire, chalk and board, Draw fire from you, nothing quashes mutiny like a ghost. I’m also a sword swallower, and a sword vomiter. One big sheath. I regard anyone who fails to Crash into telephone poles suspiciously. Also anyone Who fails spectacularly, the latter due to jealousy The former because of the odds. III. My fingertips are abcessed by your riddles, I haven’t untangled the chainlinks, I toast Them to a nutty crisp in the middle of the

P.S. 89 Roundabout. This is my private island. Once a whale rolled right over and broke All I had overwrought. Everyone Needs a restart button. Mine is hidden in the Back of my mouth, on a molar beneath The gumline. While I feel guilty for the Destruction of civilization most of the time I wish I had slept more all of the time.

The Celebration Doctrine T: Where’ve you been? A: Shlepping feathers to The party, step stop. T: Callicles and wilting tomes? A: Yeah, something, Weather vane, underwear in the thorn bush. T: throne of proper reward? Floating in the dreamspace. A: I’ll send you directions, make it short, Works and days. T: and more in the saddle, porpoises exploding. A: everything Does a barrel roll through a mine field. T: Sounds good. A: Got maps, naps, Elegant teleology. Falling back in the paceline. T: the things you do to my head. A: lover, you shouldn’t. T: Who do you mean? A: Oh, all the cards we’ve punched, and stamps we’ve pressed, foreverever. T: a whole lotta huh? A: you said lets roll off this one, like the last cave. T: jumping off of buildings A: and everything we can get our muddy feet on. T: I’ve got leather boots. A: leather full of tar, squishing toes in muck. T: that’s the preservation principle A: This is for celebration. T: against the rules A: forbidden, remind me the statute? T: I know you best, the crooked Hydrangea, I know the vice-grips, the note-books. A: And the world shall not revolve, or dissolve. T: but thou wilt to the hilt, my Flower boy, wear your bonnet, purple petals for the funeral. A: you’ve smelt my

P.S. 90 tick, fixed me solid-straight, I am refreshed, I am singing new in slanting rain. T: And I can walk, I am walking to the party for you, my only you. A: well, maybe I will go down and have a look around with my new brass eye.

Rebounding from robot love. Amphitron, it rained, I did go outside! where have you been through this soft prevailing? I was waiting for you to bring my groceries, up the turning cobbled streets, sharp and sweet with water. Now I expect The Professional knocking at the door and I'm afraid. I'm helpless that's fine. I threw my pistol in the river when you left, I don't think it was a mistake. I moved across the sea, but he follows me to find the secret of your gravestone. If they only knew what it read: The dead move little and remember less. And I've forgotten a lot. Mannequins surprise Me in the street, and I’m afraid to turn on the ceiling fan. And I miss you in the way a happy ghost misses her body: Fondly, in a way, and grudgingly, in another. I’ve picked up On your tricks, how you haunt the vowels of every word I can come up with. Fences. There you are. Arizona There you are again. In death you become even more unshakeable. I’ve sold your violin to a girl who will take care of it because Remembering is the rosined horsehair hitting sheepgut.

P.S. 91

Fear of Empty Houses

Aniela Sobieski

The leopard and the wolf by Landon Manucci Sky clashes with earth. Hawks loom in from the purple distances…. Beneath a thatch of cacti a wild boy lies twitching with blood on his chest, down his arms. His leopard lies with him, and nuzzles the boy’s stricken face. Fire ants march eager in multitudes toward his ears. And the thief’s laughter and the thunderclaps are mixing in the back of his head, becoming the same thing. Clouds are folding in above the boy now, slowly, the scattered rain landing sharp and cool on his face, the gray smell blossoming with dusty petals as it hits the dirt around him…. The heat falling with the sun. The leopard has no choice, and wanders into the night, alone, in a star-lit wilderness with glinting hyena eyes on the edges, giggling, watching him paw hopelessly through dry brush for snakes to eat. He chases jackrabbits around till they disappear off in the dark. In the old jungle there were many birds, so brightly colored, easy to catch…. Him and the boy would bring down whole antelope…. The leopard stands overlooking the dark valley below. The leopard begins to climb down, rock after rock, a view of bald buttes sweeping down slate-grey to violet toward the dark desert floor stretching like it were a seahe slips, catching himself an inch from falling a long fall. The thief used a gun. The leopard running after him…. The rock faces are masked with webs of lichen.

P.S. 92 By dawn the leopard reaches the bottom of a plateau where a small creek trickles on, with a wolf downstream drinking, with what looks like a bad scab on his side. The wolf looks up at the leopard, and winces, giving him this look…. The day rises with dry yellow light, forcing its color on everything. Heat bands are swimming in the air. The two animals are specks in the desert field, headed toward the horizon. The leopard tells the wolf about light. But his eyes dart, ready for any sudden attack. The wolf walks beside him with a slight limp, huffing. Her lost battalion out here somewhere, she explains, a teeth-baring, egg-stealing gang, scavengers in dark coats…. They are the crows of the land, sweeping in ominous wherever they go…and she wanted out. And they almost killed her. Jump in, jump out, they said, if out was even totally possible…. And she knows of the leopard’s lost boy. She can see the human hand sinking behind his eyes. He’s one of those loyal cats, his tamed air, the memory of feet at his sides. The leopard spots sheep scattered on a dune-side, brilliant white in the sun, a tall shadow sundialing into view…. “Back!” a man jumps out a pointed dagger. “Back!” Must be his sheep. The two animals stand still. “Not today,” the man says, “oh no, not today,” light flashing along the blade. His sheep looking from above, taking it all in…. They can tell these two are injured, the leopard is striped in dried blood….and Rahim’s an asshole anyway, off out of the picture, sulking, they can sacrifice him for these two, and good riddance…. But the man’s already begun to hear a parable, whispering in his grandmother’s voice, something about healing…. That wolf’s terrible wound the size of a grapefruit, like pulsing…. The man throws them his lambskin canteen (which they quickly puncture with teeth and lap at the seeping), and a chaw of lamb jerky. “Now leave,” the man says, and waves them on. They find two fists of rock leaning together, creating a little cave where they decide to spend the night. Out in the night, they could get killed. And they’re both quiet, squeezing together in the tight space, length-wise, sore legs and backs. The leopard is quiet, listening to the wolf’s breathing. The heat of her against his stomach. He watches the crack of light in the cave turn from red to indigo. The next day, hot and windy, what looks like a patch of grazing bunnies turns out to be a collection of animal skulls in the sand, arranged in a circle, weeds sprouting out the eye sockets, some fur still clutching to its bone. It looks like a war monument, carefully arranged, an aching serenity to the design. The wolf recognizes the skulls, and the pattern in which they were laid. Her wish that they’d just disappear coming true. At dusk they see flames garble with pink sky, leading them toward a fire-lit village, with stretched cowhide tents. They are a naked, painted people. One child screams when she sees the leopard and runs to a man who quickly rises from the fire-circle, bewildered. Soon, everyone is standing, and torches are lit, drums drummed. The villagers’ eyes become wild in the fire, flying in their angered faces, their foreheads accentuated by black strips of paint that ripple. A spear is thrown and pierces the ground, barely missing leopard’s flank. The wolf is shot by an arrow, and howls. The leopard leaps and grabs the throat of a man in his jaws, gnawing it like a piece of meat. He claws another man’s face, tears up his chest, bright beads of blood in the air, never meaning to kill, just clawing away at the fighting world…. Until he’s cornered. The faces surrounding him, hideous, ugly. Their men dead at the leopard’s feet. The leopard’s coat is glistening in the fire light with sweat and blood, diamonds and rubies…. The villagers begin to chant, droning, oceanic vowels, lulling the leopard to some sort of melody, a mixture of apology, of pain, as they close in on him. Night upon everything, the wolf has escaped into the surrounding dunes. She’s pulled the arrow out. She turns back to see the village fires being put out, one by one, thick clouds of smoke and steam rising. She moans, realizing. All the smoke hangs heavy above the village, shading it in with darker night. His smell some ghost in the air, a mixture of baked mud, overripe fruit…. At some point she reaches the sea, moon-glazed, seaweed tossed on the shore. There’s a long ellipses of blood trailing behind her…. She jerks awake from a dream of running. Hot light against her face, sand in her mouth. When she stands the sky is bright, and there are two men pushing a small boat out to sea. She needs water, food…and falls headlong down a dune, getting the attention of the boaters, who draw pistols. A pile in the sand, she’s too weak to move. A boy runs up to her…. “It’s a wolf,” he yells. The wolf’s eyes are slits of sight, salted with sand. A festering wound on the animal’s side. He puts his pistol away. “Leave it alone,” his father yells, getting in the boat. The boy turns back to the wolf. It’s bleeding in the sand. He’s never seen one this close before, dying this way.

P.S. 93 Should he pray? He feels like he should. He feels sorry for it, he feels sorry for any misfortune he has no control over…. But he doesn’t know how. Or to whom. To God…. So his thoughts shape carefully the scene before him, bringing himself closer to the wolf, bringing the both of them into focus, the boy’s hair, the wolf’s hair, both lifting in the wind a little, and why the boy reaches out to touch the wolf’s head.

untitled by Jared Harvey Buoy, and let this be

Cast throw on the water, flushed

Solely imagined. Let

Orange and ash, the image of

This be a humble moon,

The buoy reflected in the water &

As all moons are humbling

Reflecting the gait, the posture,

Earnings to the sun, & yet

The pose, the fleet, the caprice &

Showing themselves in

The solemnity, the kissy face, the black

Earnest & in accidence. Let

Tongue & the heartrate, of the wind

This be twilight upon the sky

Lighting on the face of the water,

& twilight upon the there-

Let this be all, end all, but in good

By waters, blue to blue, as

Faith, tremor, rush. Error along the

The clouds are dark roughshod

Verse this time, unrectified erratum,

Blankets frayed pale, & laid, or

Good god just let this one be

Pails pressed flat that hold only

Enjambed. Like a poem.

Past memory of water & now More than water, some storage Unbelievable. &, or but, somehow Or other I’d ruther. Be a quiet writer, ___. ___, letting on. Riding camel On fat sacs of water, Buoy Boy Whisking in the blow: let this be A buoy like an enormous cigarEtte, filter-down sough sough In its sway in the flow, in its way Revealing the wind in its self-

P.S. 94

Poems by Brittany Wallace love poem

sunday

take me with wa ter

my manager links the

and i will dissolve

rope across my lane

travel through

CLOSED

your body

â&#x20AC;&#x153;i will see you in fifteen,â&#x20AC;? he says

brushing

i walk slowly to my car

your organs

i sit in defeated silence

with my liquid

silently smoking my cigarette

eyelashes

no radio no cell phone conversations

you will piss me out in the shower

once i loudly made sex noises

i will become human

only to amuse myself

you will wash me clean

alone in my car on my break,

as i tell you

pornographic, windows down

with big eyes

watching the poor overweight families

the things i had seen

leave and return to the parking lot but not today

Photographs by Sarah Meadows

Fireworks

P.S. 95

Poems by Jacqueline Fahmy

Cereal mornings we play grown up unfolding newspapers at the breakfast table there is Haiti, Obama, and Ipads but I know you really only like the crossword puzzles

Greeting Card She never really liked the stars what others described as sites of beauty forged by balls of burning gas. She took more pride in the fireflies in her own backyard they were just as beautiful and much more unpredictable.

Rachael In The Backyard

P.S. 96

Participant by Sarah San this morning i rolled out of bed with the sheets still sticking to my bare limbs and the room was messier than i remembered, this must’ve happened last night some time after the sipped drinks before the runs in my stockings, potentially during the frantic search for my keys, i.d., credit card. i fixed my skirt in the bathroom mirror before swinging into the student center spotting a blond boy’s inviting smile inside we spoke briefly, saying very little, and on my way out i watched him and he watched me. we kept smiling and waving grinning reminiscing about something that’s nothing until the window ended replacing his face with red bricks. i walked up the steps and stepped into a room where i was greeted by an attractive woman. she pointed to an empty room, handing me a pen, instructing me to fill out a questionnaire regarding my sleeping habits, ability to enjoy little things. i bubbled in my responses apprehensively. the next few minutes involved her quizzing me with complex puzzles involving memory and reaction time. on my way out, she instructed me to watch fourteen images of faces on a computer screen while writing down which emotion i felt was on display and everyone looked nervous or fearful, at least to me, behind their smiles (i only looked in their eyes). when i was finished, i informed the woman, she interviewed me again, questioning me further on topics regarding energy, ability, anxiety, and guilt. she said “do you worry a lot?” i cracked a nervous smile, “yes, i wish i didn’t. it’s such a silly emotion.” she corrected me noting that ‘worry’ is a thought process. she had a beautiful smile. after the session was over, she handed me twenty dollars for my time, but i remained in the room an hour longer discussing the roles of women in present day society, rewinding her responses and head nods in the back of my head. when i finally left she said “i hope you’re okay” and i told her “you too.” outside the sun was a warm ball of atoms and i am a warm ball of atoms. everything felt sensational in a way that reminded me of something that’s nothing anymore.

P.S. 97

Dusk

Loved in Spite of Great Fault by Matty Byloos I’m bottle-feeding it again right now, just in case it’s not obvious what I’m doing. This is how it gets fed, which is a bit technical, and certainly laborious. I sort of hold its head in my hand, which really requires more like two hands even though I have to use the other hand to hold the little bottle, so I hold the enormous head in my one hand, usually my left, and try to just… tilt… it up at enough of an angle so that the milk and formula mixture actually has a chance to go down her little throat. It’s pathetic. So generally they’re cute; this was why I got the kitten in the first place. That and of course the fact that living alone again was – well, loneliness was difficult, but that’s what – that’s another story, as they say. The kitten adoption was a couple of months ago. And she was sleeping. I mean, a lot. When I first went to look at her over at the shelter, they said she was different. I figured, she was colored differently. What could they have meant by that, after all. How different can one kitten be from another? This one has a little colored stain on its face, that one’s orange. Different. I get it. But she was asleep the whole time. Maybe that’s why I never noticed. In fact, that was part of what attracted me to her. I figured, kittens are cute, sure, but they’re rambunctious, nocturnal. They get up in the middle of the night, fired up, get into your things, cause a ruckus. And hearing them. Tiny meows are cute, too. Like I said, the house has been empty for a few months, so a little noise from something alive was good. I was looking forward to it. So I thought – maybe if this one’s sleeping all the time, we’ll be fine. So, I’m over the kitten being different. A little stain on the face, maybe the color could be described as off, but everything else appeared normal. Small black ears, tiny feet, furry white ball with a few black stripes here and there, and asleep. I brought her home, and she slept during the whole car ride. I was floored. Thought I was the luckiest sonuvabitch in the world. Not a peep the whole way back to my house, asleep in her little crate. Which I brought right into the house just like that. There wasn’t much furniture around the place anymore, and I thought that might freak her out. Like she’d pick up on the fact that there are few lonelier things than an empty house with room after room full of nothing more than indentations in the carpet from the stuff that used to be there. Then she’d get sad too, or lonely enough to wanna go back to the pound. At first, I remember I didn’t want to disturb her sleeping, so I figured I could just bring her into the kitchen in her crate, maybe open up the cage door quietly, and when she was ready to

P.S. 98 come out, after she had finally woken up, she would. After the first day when she still hadn’t woken up, I figuredshe’s growing. Babies sleep, after all. It’s normal. Lots of growing means lots of sleeping. She was still in her crate and I thought, maybe she needs to eat. I put her little bowl of wet kitten food in there with her. Served breakfast in bed, essentially. Who wouldn’t love that kind of treatment? So she slept for a few days. I figured she was growing fast, and maybe she was eating at night while I slept. Possibly wandering around the house a bit, on her own. My ex-wife, now she was an independent woman. There’s a table in the dining room, and with so much dust on it, there’s still imprints left in the surface from the stacks of boxes and board games and paperwork she took with her when she left. She was like aa robber baron, or whatever they call them. Land barons, maybe. We’d play strip Monopoly in the beginning, after we first met. It wasn’t easy to do, but the fact that we both tried to get into jail at the same time, and then force each other to take everything off, wellwe figured at the time we were made for each other. Like it was perfect, and maybe we’d just gotten lucky enough to make it work forever. She was all independent, loaded up with piles of $100 and $500 bills, buying up properties, and I’d be keeping score of whose clothes got taken off or put back on or whatever, making notes with my little library pencil. So like I said, I reallyI just love an independent woman, so in the morning the second or third day after I got the kitten, I was impressed with how much she was probably doing, activity-wise, while I was sleeping. Let’s be honestshe had just traveled a long way to her new home. Sure, I’d traveled to Europe. It was a big place. I got used to Amsterdam, the airport, the trains. I’d fly into Amsterdam every time, then take the train to Germany or Paris. Base campyou know. Like Amsterdam was my home away from home, then I could venture out from there and expand my turf a little at a time. So I figured, that’s what she was doing in there, in her crate, which was her Amsterdam. And maybe the living room was East Germany. Probably the rest of the kitchen would have been Germany, actually. Makes more sense, like geo-strategically. The living room would have been her Paris, more correctly. Just a wide-open space into which she could project all her dreams, like a romantic would. And the little potholes in the carpet from the couch or the end tables that used to be theremaybe they could be her landmarks, her Eiffel Tower. Or the one dying plant would probably be the Tower. There wasn’t really anything else in the room at all. So basically, I was impressed. She was sleeping, and we were bonding. And I thought, wowwe’re actually so much alike, me and this little girl kitty. I thought for a couple of days that I would name her David, told my mom and everything, I first got settled into that name but in the end, never got too comfortable with it. I used to drive up and down the coast a lot. For business or things…to get out of the house. Leave and drive a few hours up the coast from Los Angeles, then turn around and come back. I find it calms me down. So I named her Mussel Shoals, after the little town on the coast, halfway up to San Francisco. One time when I was driving past it, I started saying it out-loud, right there in the car by myself. Mussel Shoals. Mussel Shoals. Mussel Shoals. I thought it’d make a terrific name for a band or something. So it got stuck there in my head. When it came time to naming something, which in this case happened to be the kitten, it came out. So she’s Mussel Shoals now, and I like it that way. Bottom line, her head is huge. It’s way past normal kitten size. Colossal. Like, as in, her neck is actually not strong enough to hold the gigantic thing aloft. So that explained the sleeping thing. She was probably awake the whole time, trying to fake me out, make me think she was adorable and sleeping and everything, and then just bam, just show up one day in the kitchen, dragging her enormous head on the linoleum tile trying to scare the Christ out of all my friends. Well, my ex-friends, actually, because, I meanand who could blame them, because in their position, I’d most likely have the exact same responseI couldn’t be friends with a person whose cat’s head was so gigantic and unwieldy that they couldn’t hold it upright like normal. It’s pathetic. Believe me, I know. And both of my friends, my old friendswell, they probably knew it too. ‘Cause they’re gone now, out of my life. So she’s sleeping and then she starts meowing. This was probably like the fourth day. Wakes up, just all of a sudden. One day she’s in the crate, the cage-thing, and the next day she’s there in the middle of the kitchen, staring up at me, sideways, at a weird angle even, and I’m thinking, what in God’s green earth is this? It’s a kitten, after all, so you can’t help but have a first reaction like, wow it’s just so cute, I wanna eat it! But then you have to grapple with the fact that her head looks more like a gigantic, overly-ripe grapefruit hanging from a tiny, whimpering branch, way too close to the ground. So I’m bottle-feeding her now, holding her head in my left hand. She’s kinda on the ground in front of me, in the kitchen, where we spend most of our time. I try to not make her move around too much more than she has toI’m sure it’s exhausting dragging her head around on the floor and trying to meow. And this somehow reminds me of my ex-wife dragging her enormous suitcase out of here the night she left, and suddenly I’m sad but also feeling a little sympathetic. And her meow. This weird, I don’t know exactly how to describe it. Rectangular type of noise? Like it comes out of her little whiskered, sideways-facing mouth in little blips. Rah. Rah. Rah. Rah. Turns a corner every time. I dunno. Like it comes out, makes a ninety-degree turn, comes out, repeats. That probably won’t make sense to anyone but me. But she’s my little kitten, so if that’s how I want to understand Mussel Shoals, then so be it. If you were to lose both of your friends, over a baby kitten with a tremendously oversized head, even if maybe they weren’t really ever your friends in the first place, the more I think about it, a-ah-and wanted to describe all the noises you ever heard in some nonsensical geometric kind of abstract way, then I’d let you. But I’m generous. The phone’s ringing.

P.S. 99 It’s my mother and I tell her the kitten’s named Mussel Shoals now, and that her head is really, really big. I had to tell her in case she ever decided to come over. It’s been a while now, since my wife left and my mother stopped visiting so much, but you never know. I mean, who would want their mother to walk into the kitchen, run into Mussel Shoals there on the floor, dragging her head a few feet away in one direction, trying to be scared, probably, seeing as it’s a new face around the house, first time visitor to Germany, the kitchen, and she’s gonna be scared. She doesn’t know it’s just my mother. Maybe Mussel Shoals is more like a Dustin Hoffman than a grapefruit, actually, now that I think about it. That way, I can think about her head thing like it’s a potential benefit to her. One day, her gigantic head might come in handy. Dustin Hoffman has a pretty small body, and a pretty large head, otherwise how could his face be so big? And because his face is really way too big for the rest of his body, well, the camera or the film likes it that way. The film doesn’t actually know any better, or doesn’t have the same taste as we humans in what it finds attractive, so when Dustin Hoffman is being recorded on film, his gigantic face and head is great. It’s part of his success. He looks great on film, small body and all. Hellput him up on an apple crate if you need him to be as tall as his leading lady. Whatever. At least you can see his expression of sadness when he’s in Kramer vs. Kramer. At least you know when he’s got a wild hair up his ass to solve the whole Deep Throat debacle in All the President’s Men. Who cares if he’s got a huge head. I’ll bet he had a horrible time in grade school. So my friends are all weirded out by Mussel Shoals, or more to the point, by Mussel Shoals’s head being so big and everything, but when I think about Dustin Hoffman’s friends walking out on him when he was ten, and then a few years later he’s walking up on stage to pick up his Academy AwardI look down at Mussel Shoals, and it’s not so bad. I never really wanted to go out much, didn’t really care for work, like in a standard kind of forty-hour-a-week sort of way, so this is better. I stay home, I bottle feed the little girl kitten, I do my freelance projects. Really what it’s about is the smells. I liked the way I smelled right after a shower, first thing in the morning. There’d be like a coconut thing coming from my deodorant powder. I’d rub it on my feet too, to keep them from getting sweaty. That was tropical and rich. And I’d put some rosemary oil that smelled a bit like mint too, I’d rub that in my scalp so I wouldn’t get dandruff, which happened as a result of stress I was probably applying to myself, matter of fact. I mean, work wasn’t that bad. Not enough to change the nature of my scalp. But, I worry. And then there was the cardammon, Turkish bath scented oil thing and I’d maybe rub it around in my chest hair a little bit. And the schpritzTurkish bath smells, was what this little collection was supposed to be. You could put all these different treatments on you, and come up with the overall sensation of having been at a Turkish bath. Really smart if you think about it. And I liked the way I smelled, but it always got ruined throughout the day. Progressively ruined, one chore at a time. The drycleaners, picking up lunch, walking past the coffee depot and somebody’d be smoking outside. I’d come home eventually, smelling like a sewer. Who needs it? So this is really probably the worst thing that’s happened to me. The girl kitten with the big head just like Dustin Hoffman, who similarly lost all his friends because of his face and then had to accept his Oscar later but have no friends to share it with because they’d all abandoned him. Well, maybe the worst thing. I mean, my wife left me, and that was really because of the drug problems I’d been having at the time, which I think put a pretty significant strain on some of my friendships, so maybe there was already a little chink in the armor before Mussel Shoals showed up. So yeahmaybe that was the worst thing that ever happened. Before Mussel Shoals, anyway. Who could blame me? I mean, drugs are great. They’re gripping. Like that scene in The Graduate when Dustin Hoffman falls face-down in the pool, or else when he runs right into the church or up there on the campus of Berkeley. I really felt for him in those moments. But the drugs. They had me for a little while. It was like this. About a month ago, I took a shower. This is the best way I can describe it. I like the water really hot, and I like to twirl around in circles, so I can distribute the water pretty evenly on all sides. I was turning in circles, and I looked up towards the ceiling. This is kind of what the drugs taking hold of me was like. In the corner near the ceiling, above the showerhead, I could see through the steam, the faint shadow of what looked like a small plant growing out of the wall. I adjusted the heat a bit so the steam would calm down, and then I could see better. This house is old. It’s a rental and it has to be, at least seventy years old. It’s been repainted several times, especially in the bathroom, from all the other tenants who’ve rented it before I showed up and got Mussel Shoals, so the paint is old and there’s lots of layers and that’s what made this whole thing really weird. Up near the ceiling, this tiny, black, elbow-hinged botanical specimen had grown right out of the wall. I thought, maybe the wet wood in the walls is responsible. Maybe this is like a mushroom mold or something. So maybe the mushroom growing out of my bathroom ceiling was actually the least of my worries. It grew there for a while. A week maybe, several days. First, the little thing was all battened down, tight and small. But over the few days it lived in my shower, it grew, with the black wings opening up and fanning out, making it bigger, making it look like the kind of mushroom you’d put on your salad. The black wings spread out like a backyard patio umbrella, clinging to the wall for dear life. And that’s how the drugs got hold of me. They clung thereinside me, in a weird space, kind of like being supported somehow, in a parasite-host kind of way. The sensation was alone in there, just like the mushroom: mysterious, more comfortable in darkness. And I think my wife knew all this. She sensed it. For me it happened slowly, when the drugs took over, probably the worst thing that ever happened to me actually, like a little black mushroom devil meticulously plotting its takeover. A secret from my wife, but eventually it’d get so big, that black mushroom, of course this is a metaphor because it’s not like an actual

P.S. 100 gigantic backyard patio umbrella grew inside my shower, I meanshe would have seen that growing in there, but I’m trying to illustrate something here. So it was unnatural; out of place. The black mushroom didn’t belong. It was cunning, growing out of the wall like that, from the wet wood that was probably inside there. It just pushed out its sinister personality, right out into the room, just right out into the middle of my marriage. More like came at her from her peripheral, but it came right out of me. At first, though, it probably came at her from the side. More surreptitiously, I think. It was disturbing, more so every day. Then I’d be missing one night. Then I’d show up missing a tooth, or call from a pay phone at three a.m., saying I needed twenty or maybe thirty-two dollars, or something really specific. So that there was no way she could think anything normal or practical, or even a surprise for her, was in the works. It was just me and that little black demon of a mushroom inside me, growing and getting more evil and more cunning all the time. Casting a shadow over more and more of our life together, and more parts of the house, or more hours of the day. And then she was gone. And that was probably the worst thing that ever happened to me, if I think about it. But when it was happening, there was no way to control it. I’d thinklook what you’re doing now. Spending that money, wasting that time, breaking this vow to my partner or else that vow, really blowing it. Letting it all hang there in the balance, like if she ever found out, she’d be mortally wounded, and I’d be all selfish and ruined and awful. Just an awful person. But I did what I did anyway. The black mushroom, like I said before. I just did it. Again and again, like I didn’t care. And I did, but the mushroom in there was stronger. So now I’ve got Mussel Shoals, and I’ve still got the house, and pretty much nothing else. Well, drives along the coast I’ve still probably got to take every once in a while, and then there’s my occasional freelance gig that I take so I can pay my bills and work from home, smell the good smells. Of course, feed the cat. From the little baby bottle thing. And hold its really really large head in my hand while I’m doing it.

Notebook by Donald Futers

I. Homeward bound, I felt power in my stride and knew that I was losing my mind. II. States, religions, great nations and tiny communities, rising ever upwards on the creaking updraft of their own tremendous heat and fervour. III. Over-protection + effects on development of children IV. Money I used the notes as bookmarks and laughed at the decadence of it, though I knew I had no more. V. If I could brush my teeth three times a day, I would have the world at my fingertips.

P.S. 101

Poems by Ray Hsu

Thirteen Scraps, or, Assorted Paperwork [A deep hole in the middle of nowhere. A gravedigger.] 1. I enjoy leftovers. Before a bored but friendly audience I ask over a floor of torn papers to join me in a life of thought. The present. Whatever I grasp today depends on these scraps I made yesterday. Nothing left in the drawers. In this briefcase, a few folders. What fits in a folder? 2.

Some index cards to copy eventually. There is a floor plan around here I’ll come back to it.

3. Problem is all this feels outdated. One great big relic. Some we we can’t do without. All I see in these material surfaces are anonymous friends. Don’t we have databases for this now? Grids and whatever? 4. The Oxford English Dictionary in its elegiac mood tells me that archives come from a. F.archif, archive, ad. late L. archιum, archιvum, a. Gr. αρχειον magisterial residence, public office, f. αρχη government. In one sense it is a place in which public records or other important historic documents are kept. In another it is a historical record or document so preserved. 5. The town hall. The ruling office. Order within anarchy without. Precision order objectivity completeness. I filed away things by interest. Things of course were left out. Where’s the passion in the office? What order comes from passion?

P.S. 102 6. Books books books. And yet. For everything that matters is to be found in the card box of the researcher who wrote it. I think that was Benjamin. Here’s one: Chirologia 1644. Subtitle Or the Natural Language of the Hand. Chironomia or the Art of Manual Rhetoric. Fellow named John Bulwer. 7. I think about the models for these engravings. Damp hands breadth. What would be more interesting would be the blanks, the cramps, the uniforms. In these scraps I feel at home. I remain. I am at home where I am missing. They talk. Not just to me or you but to each other. [Pushes them into a pile] What is most central. 8. Mischievous surfaces. Leafing through these reminds me of the intervals. They may as well be interleaves. You know those misty pages between the words and pictures. Tangible tissues. Like you’re a ghost looking through your sheet. 9. [holds poem to the light] I wrote this one years ago. Literary form. But it got tired. Whatever ties us to the world: that was the real point. Whatever outlined that was a poem. 10. Check this one out. A scrap from a letter written over seventy-five years ago from Benjamin to his friend Gershom Scholem one fine day in late May: roots in my heart and its leaves in your archive. 11. All around the definition are illustrations of the gleaners: drawings like the Millet painting of peasant women scavenging after a harvest. Potatoes rejected today outside Lyon apples in Provence garbage in a Paris market. Endless trucks carry the uncastaway to another time. 12. What a mess this reservoir. One great opinion. It’s slow work gathering some outline. Start by being gentle but then it’s so exhausting. Scholars would have a better time at this. Don’t they transcribe things exactly? 13. My outline. Whatever my fate is this must be it. Now where was I. Whatever this is I give it to you for safekeeping. But in your heart you can’t keep it safe. You can’t help but keep it in your present. ______________________________________

It is four degrees. This is how I picture it. There is a field that I would have drawn. It contains several birds. Some can see me closing my eyes. There time passes. It takes one minute away from me. It takes one from my parents. It puts light where the branches should be. I have erased a few branches. I have erased your ankles. I have recited nothing. But some thank you takes over my heart. They see it on my face. This field walks through me. It weighs barely anything.

P.S. 103

I thought I had gotten rid of everything. But the field. ___________________________________________________________

What if we were more than containers? How crude is this form that we want most of all to guard? What would we surround? What if we no longer kept vigil at the door and broke open this uniform? What is inside? Why sleep out there, where the air brightens without me or my ideas, an immense place that is already full? _________________________________

P.S. 104

all i needest

Tessar Lo

â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Magnificent Ambersonsâ&#x20AC;?

Tao Lin is the author of 6 books, including Shoplifting from American Apparel, cognitive-behavorial therapy, and the forthcoming new novel, Richard Yates. His website is http://heheheheheheheeheheheehehe.com. Photo by Noah Kalina.

Kendra Grant Malone is a poet living in New York City. Check out her website, http://kendralovely.blogspot.com, to read more of her poems. Photo by Emma Gluckman.

Tessar Lo is an amazing artist. Visit http://tessarlo.com.

Julia Sonmi Heglund is an artist and sweet person living in Madison, WI. Check out her site: http://sonmisonmi.com

Ray Hsu is a poet from Canada. Check out http://thewayofray.com. Also a nice person.

Brandon Scott Gorrell is a poet from Seattle, author of during my nervous breakdown i want to have a biographer present, published by Tao Linâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Muumuu House (http://muumuuhouse.com), as well as the forthcoming novella, My Hair Will Defeat You.

Zachary German is the author of Eat When You Feel Sad, published by Melville House. His website is http://www.zacharygerman.com.

Shivani Gakhar is an artist from Ahmedabad, India. Her blog is http://coolspice.blogspot.com.

Jasjyot Singh Hans is an artist from Ahmedabad, India. His blog is at http://ultichhatri.blogspot.com.

Jordan Castro is a poet from Solon, Ohio. His blog is at http://smokingonanemptystomach.blogspot.com.

Mallory Whitten is an artist from Solon, Ohio. Check out http://malloryannwhitten.tumblr.com.

Leif Haven is a poet from Madison, WI.

Carrie Lorig is a poet currently living in Seoul, South Korea. http://carrieabigstick.tumblr.com

Jared Harvey is a poet from Madison, WI.

Kristin Hayter is a poet living in San Diego. Her blog is http://everythingsimultaneously.blogspot.com

Adam Mooradâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s writing has recently appeared or is forthcoming in 3 A.M., elimae, Evergreen Review, Mad Hatters Review, Pindeldyboz, Underground Voices, Word Riot, among many other places. His debut novella, Oikos, will be published by nonpress in 2010. He lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and works in publishing. Visit him here: http://adamadamadamadamadam.blogspot.com

I. Fontana has lived in Avignon, Guadalajara, NYC; now temporarily is in Portland, Oregon. Other work has been in BOMB, Bikini Girl, Spork Press, PANK, Gigantic and will be in Word Riot and Vaubon Inc.

Brittany Wallace is a poet from Kent, Ohio. More of her poetry can be found here: http://kilakilakila.blogspot.com.

Jacqueline Fahmy is a poet, also from Ohio. Her blog is here: http://chittygangbang.blogspot.com

Sarah San is a poet from Ohio. Her blog is http://squidparts.blogspot.com

Jesse Patrick Ferguson is a poet from Canada, and is poetry editor of the Fiddlehead.

Colin Herd is a poet from Edinburgh, Scotland. His website is http://www.colin-herd.com

Feng Sun Chen is a poet who grew up in Singapore and will be attending the MFA program in poetry at the University of Minnesota. http://www.fengsunchen.com

Grady Hunziker is an artist currently living in Sighisoara, Romania.

Aniela Sobieski is an artist living in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Blake West is a poet from Salt Lake City, Utah. http://myfaceisagiganticcontortedheart.blogspot.com

Christian Dahlager is a writer of fictions from Minnesota. http://onethirtyfive.tumblr.com

Louisa Podlich is a photographer from Minnesota. http://onethirtyfive.tumblr.com

Donald Futers is a poet and photographer from Cambridge, U.K. http://www.dfuters.com

Joshua Cohen is an author living in New York City. He is the author most recently of Witz, published by Dalkey Archive Press. His website is http://www.joshuacohen.org

M.P. Powers used to be an organ grinder, but now he functions chiefly as a towel rack. His poetry is published or forthcoming in Rosebud, The New York Quarterly, A Cappella Zoo, Third Wednesday, Slipstream and many others. He lives/works in Miami.

Jaimie Eubanks is a writer from Minneapolis. Her blog is http://jaimieonwhatever.wordpress.com

Doug Flora is a writer living in Boston and a nice guy. His website is http://truestoriesofamericanboys.wordpress.com

Noah Kalina is a photographer living in New York. http://noahkalina.com

Lauren Michele Manke is a writer living in Minnesota.

Paul Edward Cunningham is the author of an ebook, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Pangur Ban Party, 2010) and a forthcoming book of essays, This Boy, This Broom (BatCat Press, 2010). He co-edits Radioactive Moat and serves as a contributing writer to Open Thread. His work has appeared in or is forthcoming in places like DOGZPLOT, decomP, Ghoti, H_NGM_N, LIES/ISLE, and Haha Clever Dot Com.

Matty Byloos is the author of Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t Smell the Floss and a friendly dude. http://www.mattybyloos.com

Mike Meginnis is an author living in New Mexico, and a sweet guy. His website is http://mikemeginnis.com

Carlos Kotkin is a stand-up comedian and writer living in Los Angeles. http://www.carloskotkin.com

Sarah Meadows is a photographer from Portland. http://www.sarah-meadows.com

Nic*Rad is an artist living in Brooklyn, currently at work on the PeopleMatter project: http://nic-rad.com Check it out!

Miles Ross is an author living in New York City. Check out his story â&#x20AC;&#x153;Rum and Cokeâ&#x20AC;? at http://www.bearcreekfeed.com Check out his website, http://itisunderstoodhehadsignedtostarinavideogame.com Miles is a nice guy.

? Heiko Windisch is a talented artist living in Heidelberg, Germany. http://thestateofthings.de

Sarah Kate Wong is a photographer living in Los Angeles.

Maureen Gubia is an artist from Guayaquil, Ecuador. http://mgubia.com

Landon Manucci is a writer living in Chicago. He is also a nice person. landon.manucci@gmail.com

Dot Potkonjak lives in Chicago.

Holly Kass lives in Chicago.

Stephen Tully Dierks (thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s me) lives in Chicago. He is the editor and publisher of Pop Serial. He has never been published anywhere before, and hopes that in the future he will be published by someone other than himself. He has been hyping this magazine incessantly at http://popserial.tumblr.com. He is originally from Milwaukee, WI. Who am I kidding, I am from Milwaukee. Hi, everybody! I love you.

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a wonderful life