April 2009
From the Mouths of Dave Tolar Will Bareford Josh Drye Ryan Dowdy Hannah Bunn Kara Daly Williams Brian Hedgepeth Eryn Roberts Anthony Sotelo Cori Lee
From the Eyes of
Zoeseph Ladner (Front) James Preiss (Back)
Your Myspace Profile Will Probably Outlive You We’ve done well training ourselves to relate to data as if it’s purely luminous, the highlights on his skin and in the water-sunlight that is more vivid when seen as electric light a person whose image has more friends than he does. And it’s night time in New York, where we watch the image half-submerged and partially kept from breathing by one of those u-shaped plastic nose clamps, the kind that are cliché when worn by timid children to pinch their nostrils closed before wading in, and he’s coughing clear mucus and chlorinated water. It’s night time in New York, but in the electric coliseum, we’re trapped indoors with the windows blacked out, just as faceless to the man caught drowning in Portland as he is to us, and therefore, in this context, just as timeless. Knowing this much, I can be tempted to convene over this moment over and over again, to direct the digitally recorded light to pixelate glaring into diamonds that freeze and shift on the floor, wet with Jacuzzi water, beyond the downloaded buffer, where the only use for a spatial body –1–
is as a visceral demarcation of time passing outside of the chosen spectacle, where bruises, calluses, strained eyes, and even the eventual need to piss or get another beer, are all more like lit cells on a digital watch than they are symptoms of us having ever existed, and before the morning can come, before the birds remind me of my daily manic escapes from thought I begin to think of this man as an emanation of a god, As he may appear too many thousands of places at once to be only human, and I begin to plan my supplications. Dave Tolar
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A week later I went through the house, And turned all my books upside down. I watered the plants with coca cola. I put a sweater on my lamp And buried light bulbs under soil. I vacuumed off my walls. I washed the floor with Windex. I put shoes on my feet And tied a scarf around my waist. I scribbled little quotes On the jacket of my Bible. I did all these things, Thinking it would make a difference. Will Bareford
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Smoke Lady Sings Blue I hear a VOICE ethereal and eternal that reverberates off the celestial spheres and nicaraguan jungles and moonlit streams and cliffs cut into by tremendous cascading falls and it echoes off the skyscrapers and through the subways and airports and rings downs university hallways littered with letters and black lines with white pages and it breaths and whispers on the lips of young rebel lovers impetuous as they throw off their plow burden in wild rapturous excitement over the other’s simple presence who with trembling dripping hands caress under blazing moonlight and it shatters stonehenge and exposes eden and is felt in the stale air of synagogues and shopping mall churches it holds a note pure and unchaining spanning each vocal range indistinguishable from baritone to shrieking soprano and it sounds as it has sounded since the start of sound its frequency the wavelength of everything that immortal soul that exists inside and around sensually and eternally betwixt between the stars and the sewers the prowling slit eyed alley cats and fresh bathed red-collared pure breed and the columnated ruins of athenian splendor and the caterpillar clustered construction site the fire smoke and cigarette cherries the crimson sunset and the dawning of the age of information it sings of a world united undisturbed and undeterable a sonic soundscape that sweetly scars your emotional wires and mental apparatus and it says without any cumbersome interference of language and symbols
EVERYTHING THAT SHOULD BE KNOWN IS KNOWN.
Josh Drye
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How Terribly Tragic and Wanting to be Earnest Facilis descensus Averno
I’m in a bar and so is Jonah the aesthete John in black beret and Andrew looking for the lonely and half myself won’t let me stop dancing with all the tragic young men damned in the middle of paradise damned as a dog’s broken back under the goosedown moon Things gory and gorgeous are close at hand and I was born to be a sinner and I was born to rhapsodize and I lie down beside the street Stirring slowly in a puddle trying to soliloquize all the world is in the gutter but some are looking at the stars a noble thought then I see it’s only the water’s cold reflection Ryan Dowdy
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That Day in the Marsh The ground gurgled and slurped as we pulled the purse from its slobbering mouth. But this is supposed to be kept secret! It begged, spattering flecks of sludge on our forearms and faces as we stole its sworn treasure. We moved through the reeds like slick nutrias toward the old wooden dock. Its sun-bleached planks tensed as we laid out the contraband: One. A silk slip dyed a septic burnt sienna from its time in the ground. Two. A bra, size 34B mud oozing through holes in the lace. Three. A tube of lipstick and a pair of tweezers from the zipper pocket in the lining. Four. One black high heel. It felt dangerous. The ground wouldn’t take it back. Let’s go show dad, my sister said. He furrowed his brow when he saw it. Stopped the lawn mower. Wiped grass clippings off his legs. The trash can –6–
was a black hole. It swallowed the purse and let out a hollow howl as dad dropped the lid. It bothers me that there is a naked woman out there in the woods somewhere missing a shoe. We will never know all this Earth is hiding. Hannah Bunn
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“The unnamable is the eternally real. Naming is the origin Of all particular things.”
—Lao Tzu
nothingness [noth•ing•ness] noun:1. The absence or cessation of life or existence. 2. It is the consistency of the faucet water in your mother’s kitchen, it is the last hint of agility in your father’s eye, it is a hurricane hurrying toward a city, it is the shoelace on your left cleat, it is the facial expression you wear when you wash your hair in the shower, it is running through your phone cable, it is the moon, it is the sun, it is a fist shape, 3. it is a cold November night. A friend challenges me, “Prove the existence of the cold November night.” I say, “This is a cold November night.” My friend says, “Did the cold November night cease to exist until you were there to name it?” 4. Without the existence of the cold bath water, the hot bath water is only water. 5. It is one thing to be there, it is another to not. How do I achieve nothingness? I must also be everything. Kara Daly Williams
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Fight Song At the women’s college ball game, TV timeouts allowed for the other women to come out, cheerleaders and the dance team, tight miniskirts and booty hugging pants. How long will it take to fill the stands with men? eternity? Men don’t want to watch the juxtaposition of Amazonian one-breasted warrior style with Venus wanna-be’s. It’s quite disturbing no? I mean the empty stands of course. But at least the mascot’s body remains androgynous, tho its name is Sammy. Maybe that’s why it’s cool and sexy when two lesbians get it on, but gay sex is just, well, “disgusting fucking”. As they say nowadays, “Man, you’re gay,” which in Victorian times would be great, you jolly bugger. Suddenly sodomy sin has fucked us all in the skull. I heard from a wise man with a belly to show his years of sitting in contemplation, that there is only human sexuality. Orientation does not function like the compass, usually aiming in one direction, it is more like the nose of a dog, ever searching for that pile of shit that they left for themselves twenty minutes earlier but, due to their lack of opposable thumbs, they neglected the bread crumb trail. Drink some cola from the chalice of Mary Magdalene –9–
while eating a ball park frank in the stands. Brian Hedgepeth
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Side Effects In some cases, it may cause coma or death. Other cases include heart disease and irregular heart beat. You may experience bleeding disorders from the eyes or hands. Sudden vision loss is common, as well as erections that are painful and last 6 hours or longer. When he fucks someone else, take one every hour until you feel chest pain or a heavy feeling in the pit of your stomach, pain throbbing in the arm or shoulder, nausea, excessive perspiration, and you want to rip the skin from your limbs. Ignore the back aches. Ignore the peculiar way he looks in the store windows as though the mannequins want to fuck him. Ignore the numbness, everyone has numbness. When he gives you
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a ring, he has also given you Gonorrhea. Ignore it, you can steal a new vagina or dick. When you develop sores on your lips, inside your mouth, embrace it, something is protruding from your chest. When your headaches worsen, leave the house like a hawk. Eat glass and batteries. Grab and bite children. In some cases, he will take you to the doctor’s, explain your severe delusion to everyone, and they will spend the entire time talking about how your hair has a fatal look. Get HIV to spite him. In some instances, you will discover the difference between fucking and falling into one another. You’re outside yelling halle-fucking-luiah. In these cases, dry mouth is reported. This is habit forming. halle-fucking-luiah. halle-fucking-luiah. In extreme cases, you will develop seizures and no –12–
one will notice. He hands you a history of alcohol and drug abuse. Do not take before first talking with a doctor or Jesus Christ Himself. You will soon realize that nothing exists. Store everything at room temperature in basement closet. Ignore the banging when he tries to get out. Eryn Roberts
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Five Minutes till the Eulogy Show Five minutes till the eulogy show, Lord, only five minutes remain of my dignity, another circus, low and dirty, get stunk up again by candle wax, potpourri, corner store perfume and cologne. Lord, I’ll be drenched in those soppy tears dragging down baggy skin, wet wrinkled faces banging on my torso, grieving loud as a marching band. Here they come pouring in elephant-like: one foot then the next. An elaborate show of delicate dark veils, morose suits aged as a mummy, heels and hoses risen from the depths of a closet. Made up like jesters parading their sorrow in flashy neutrals; a wedding bonding man and soil. He lies there in the box, left his mess for us to clean, left his body riddled with bullet holes on the linoleum floor of the convenient store, semiautomatic in his stiff hand when they found him. Go ahead, never mind how he died, scarf over his face, cap pulled low to his brow, shot at point-blank range by the geezer working the register - winning the prize, just look at the magic trick, –14–
poof, and now a tranquil sleep is on his face, the best illusion the mortician can conjure. Me, the ring leader, him, the show, this bungalow chapel the tent. Come one, come all and lets get this procession marching. Play to the gas station, the Bar-B-Que shack, to the spectators at the cement block Pawn Shop, the Take-Out Noodle Hut, the swampy Billiard Hall that we lay he down to sleep, we pray the soil his carcass keep. Anthony Sotelo
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This Morning’s Trash I saw something today I thought you might like, Caught it midtumble from a greasy black bag. The head hung heavy weeping petals on the floor, And the stem, crooked seven a swinging fracture, near the bloom. It ruptured with a fragrance; microwave fettuccine, and last week’s lucky charms. Cori Lee
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From the Editor’s Desk Friends, Ill Valve has been realized. Infinite thanks to everyone who submitted and spread the word— you’re beautiful and luscious. Sadly, language is an insufficient way of expressing truth. Poetry and art, however, can be our island in the marsh, our soapbox to prove the potency of our mouths and eyes. A primal invocation of imagination dwells in these poems: cracking norms and reason, expanding the minute into the evanescence in and around us. When we get to heaven, we won’t have moved. Many thanks are due to UNCW’s Pubishling Labortory, Eric Notarnicola, and Facebook—the cytoplasm that connects us. Please join our group: Ill Valve——Zine of epic potentiality! and stay posted for updates. If you prefer, e-mail Brianhedgepeth@gmail.com, to be added to our mailing list. Anyone interested in helping Ill Valve jive and digest? Make contact pronto, I needit, I wantit. Volume 1, Issue 2 will be themed on Sound—the frequency that keeps modern day pirates from attacking cruise ships; the expelling of gas from bottles asses and mouths; the wail of a dying dog; the organ in the cathedral; the lull of an air-conditioner. I love you for sticking with me, read these poems aloud, carry an issue in your pocket, show your friends!
Your Editor, Brian Hedgepeth
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Submission Guidelines Poetry • • • • • •
Submit no more than five poems. Each poem must be sent as a separate “.doc” file. Poems must be in 12pt., Times New Roman font. Name of the poet should NOT appear on the actual poems. Must send a separate “.doc” file with poet’s contact information and titles of poems submitted. Submit work by e-mail to Brianhedgepeth@gmail.com
Art • • • • •
Submit no more than five photos or pieces. Photos/pieces must be sent as separate “.tiff” or “.JPG” files. Name of the artist should NOT appear on the photos/pieces. Must send a separate “.doc” file with artist’s contact information and titles of work submitted. Submit work by e-mail to Brianhedgepeth@gmail.com SUBMISSION DEADLINE:
SUNDAY APRIL 19, 2009 12AM All artists and poets retain full rights to work contributed. All artists and poets whose work appears in the issue will receive an electronic copy and a paper copy. Ill Valve’s goal is to support one another in our aspirations as creative peoples. In this vane my hope is that we will all distribute the zine to friends, family, and strangers. Ill Valve will be distributed to the public locally in Wilmington, N.C., and in electronic form via holy Internet.
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Ponder: “What is the Buddha?” asked the Zen monk. “The Buddha is dried shit on a stick,” replied the Zen Master.