Forge Zine #2 (July 2019)

@ForgeZine

July 2019

@ForgeZine @forgezine

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Editor's chat and some writing I just want to take this opportunity to thank all those people who have supported us through the first issue, and to all of those who submitted work which is featured in this edition. I honestly couldn't wait to make another one!

I love seeing the work that comes in, it brings me great joy to fit it all onto the pages. As with last month's edition, there is no current theme. However, next month there may well be one! We've not decided as to what it is, so as usual all suggestions are welcome and encouraged. All the contact details are on the first and last pages! We hope to hear from you soon.

TRIGGER WARNING! Some work addresses sensitive topics. Please do not be offended by this. There is strong language.

Your skin on mine

Acid will not singe your grotty touch from my skin.

The shape and spread of your hand reaches from the dividing crack of my buttocks to the bone of my hip.

Your hand is etched into my memory foam skin It will stay there inked for my eternity.

Only centuries will begin to fade the essence you left behind Yet a single breath will bring it all back.

Your hand will show no shame, only golden glory.

It will proudly brandish all the cheeks and breasts it has encapsulated.

My mind will play tricks on me Make me question all this and more: Could I have prevented you from stealing my dignity?

Why did I let you abduct my innocence?

Did my stinging palm teach you a lesson?

Did my fury inform you how wrong you were?

I will focus on meditation and cleansing my mind to accept and heal parts of me.

Your palm will remain sketched into my skin.

Eleanor Hartley Smith

Fake Machines 12

Teri Anderson drew upon the idea of Bruno Munari's Useless Machines, and has re-interpreted it in a 2D medium.

Leaves by Elsie Franklin There is a lone, brown leaf shuffling along the edge of the path. I noticed it when it got caught momentarily on my shoe. Now it is teetering on the edge of a drain. I feel a slight urge to rescue it from its soggy fate. The leaf is brown. It is March. When that leaf was green, and safely secured to its branch, it was summer.

I am missing something.

I had it last spring. It was just before the leaves fell that I lost it.

It was her. She took it from me. She took it and then she hid it. I went to her flat because I wanted it back. I was sure it must have been there. She took it from me. In fact I am sure she still has it.

We were an item, back then. I made her laugh. She made me happy. She did, really.

She was beautiful, of course. I felt like she was doing me a favour even taking the time to look at me. I could have married her freckles, or that little smile she tried to hide when she was embarrassed, or that strand of hair that wouldn’t stop getting caught in her eyelashes… she was everything. She made me.

In the summer, something changed.

I didn’t know how to take that. I got scared. I broke things. I said things she didn’t understand. I did things she didn’t understand. I wanted her to know how much I cared. I told my arms and my thighs. I told the lamps and the plates… and her phone.

She didn’t get it. She was scared. She knew I didn’t have it. She had known for a while.

She left and took it with her.

When I found her, I couldn’t find what she stole. Instead I found a man. I didn’t just tell my arms, then. I told them both. I told the flat, with some petrol. She saw how much I cared then. She saw how much I missed her, and what she stole.

Nobody understands. I don’t have it because she STOLE it. I just want it back.

I used to be different with it. I am sure I was. I didn’t say things with my fists or with lighters or sharp things. I was normal.

I see a boy walking with a girl. He looks at her instead of the grass verge he is walking towards. They laugh together when he trips. It is summer for them.

Sometimes I think someone will come along and I will have it again. I will be like them again, the boy and the girl in summertime. Someone will come and fix me.

Someone will know how.

I am missing something.

The leaf is still scratching around the drain. It must have been thrown from its branch last winter. Maybe even autumn. It has been scraping along the pavement for at least four months, drying into a frail brown crisp. If it is stepped on one more time, it will disintegrate. It has already been replaced by fresh new offspring. It would be forgotten.

The girl giggles again. I should go.

I pause to pick up the leaf and place it delicately in my pocket.

Patience is a virtue

Some more work

I sit under the window patiently hoping one day that I will be able to see that view you often glorify.

My four legs stand firm waiting.

I have held you when you were broken, comforted you when you were sad. I ailed you when your heart was shattered beyond repair by them. And I still want that View!

Eleanor Hartley Smith

city poet

no amount of vicks will cure your ambition & no amount of mouthwash gets the taste right. white people aren’t ready for meritocracy. & i’m stuck on. the hallway light is left on again- what difference does it make, the sky is not black at night. the sky is blue. i’ll read your star sign on the lamp posts & get angry with myself for never doing quite enough. i wish the trees would notice me. i can say no and I want to yell it at times because it feels right: don’t look at me, look at this- you should try the food here. it looks so good, can’t get enough of the ‘i don’t takes no’s for an answer’ be ruthless! I see an ad and an ad. what’s the point& a blog asks ‘why be good when heaven and hell don’t exist?’ i wanna wash the competitive filth out w/ bicarbonate of soda. i’m squeamish & anxious & just don’t understand why things don’t taste good over-saturated. why be ruthless when you can be anything else? i want to be languid. no one is winning & I want the trees to finally notice me for once. try hard and train hard to take down your peers. its not black at night and its not my fault. women should compete, and I don’t care anymore, & who cares that I can’t see the stars from my window. i stood In a field until one of us mentioned how fresh the air was or how wonderful the landscape must’ve been a hundred years ago. but i have no time to think of the trees or write poems, i have things to do.

Lucy Hurst

A few riddles and crossword answers If 66 = 2, 99 = 2, 888 = 6, 00 = 2, 7777 = 0, 667= 2, 276 = 1, 833 = 2, then what does 2876 equal?

What room can no-one enter?

When is a door not a door?

???

How many beans make five?

A n sw e rs in Au g u st!

Women of the World (June) ACROSS DOWN 1) Agatha Christie became the 5) Kathrine Switzer first woman to do what while became the standing up, in South Africa (4) first woman to run which A: Surf marathon in 1967 (6) A: Boston 2) Polish scientist, first women to win the Nobel Prize for her 6) Internationally famous discovery of Radium (5, 5) designer, spans fashion, A: Marie Curie jewellery, and perfume (6) 4) Queen of the Iceni Tribe during A: Chanel the occupation of Britain, famous for her flame red hair (8) A: Boudicea

1) Sirimimavi Bandaranike, a socialist, became the first female Prime Minister of this country in 1960 (9) A: Sri Lanka 3) Ada Lovelace was known for her work on The - Engine (10) A: Analytical

Not Dead Yet by Errol G. Harsley “Bring out your dead!” the deep voice called out, followed by several rings of a bell; the tolls bouncing off of the narrow alley walls.

Coughs taken through weary lungs; a hard wooden floor beneath me. No energy in me to move but still enough to retch and release strings of hacking coughs from dawn to dusk.

My eyes feel ever so heavy...black shadows begin to creep in the corners of my vision.

“Bring out your dead!”

I'll rest my eyes I think. Save any remaining energy for getting better.

My breathing becomes shallow; almost non-existent. But that’s ok... I’m resting now.

I can feel myself being heaved up off the floor by several pairs of desperate hands. They're carrying me away somewhere. But it’s all so distant.

“Bring out your dead!”

It’s louder now. The many hands change into one strong pair.

I’m being placed on something else now. The surface beneath me now warm...soft almost and slightly damp.

But that’s ok. I’m resting now.

The Holy Sea If I could, I would have the birds write my Journals in place of me, but beautiful things Do not come so far above the clouds.

I wish that you could see me. I wish that I Could burn in a shade of blue light enough For you to see – do you see? Does what you See pain you just slightly with its glow?

Do the visions sparkle between the photo-frames Of disease, of biting in the ears and chewing In the nostrils? I wish that you could see.

I would ask the Greenland shark to write my Poems for me, but all its fingers speak of Is the rotting wall of black behind its sightless eyes.

James Rance

Some entertainment - July.

Until 21st July 2019 - Mick Leach Exhibition of Abstract Paintings. Pyramid Gallery, 43 Stonegate, York, North Yorkshire,YO1 8AW. £Who knows?!

Until March 2020 - Museum of Broken 26&27th July (also in Aug and Sept) Relationships. The Castle Museum York Races at Goddards. Goddards (think it's included in admission price) House and Garden, 27 Tadcaster Until 11th Aug 2019 - One Billion Road, York, North Yorkshire, YO24 Journeys. National Railway Museum 1GG £Normal admission price £Assume it's included in entry fee if York River Market is back again!! 13th, there is one!

20th, 27th July. 3rd, 10th, 17th, 24th 8 July - 5 Jan Van Gough: The Aug. FREE!! Dame Judi Dench Walk Immersive Exhibition York St Mary’s 14th July York Proms. Museum Street.

Church (Next to £Not sure!

JORVIK), Castlegate, York, North Yorkshire, YO1 9RN £13 per Adult, no Every Sunday (4pm) until end of Aug. Music Quiz, The Press Kitchen cear student rate but maybe able to get Walmgate FREE entry! the £11 consession price.

18th - 21st July Minster Inn Feat - of 12th, 19th, 26th FREE entry to Ale £Assume it's per pint! See no Treasure's house 11am onwards 2nd August Greenteeth's FIRST book Pondweed is published admission price

Want to see your work here We welcome all forms of work, new and old (as long next time?? as it's not been published Find us on all the media of social! We're elsewhere!) Due to our more than happy to answer any questions size we can't take long or queries you have. And of course please prose or script (we hope this is a short term issue!) send us things to print!!

Everything from riddles, theforgezinesubmissions@gmail.com

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questions, snippets of work, flash fiction and absurd facts are encouraged!