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mgv2_73 | 07_13

Sometimes You're Nothing but Meat

mgversion2>datura mgv2_73 | 07_13 Sometimes You're Nothing but Meat Š mgversion2>datura & contributors, July 2013

Contents Cover illustration by Liquou Introduction by Walter Ruhlmann Inside illustrations by Volodymir Bilyk, Flora Michèle Marin and Sheri Wright Marlène Tissot

Mailles à l'envers (extrait)

Flora Michèle Marin

fiction photograph

Károly Sándor Pallai

Scent of Breast Milk

prose poetry

Alexandra Bouge

L'administration

short fiction

Alexandra Bouge

La ville

short fiction

Alexandra Bouge

Le premier cri

short fiction

Walter Ruhlmann

Meat

poetry

Flora Michèle Marin

photograph

J.J. Steinfeld

Eccentric Appetite

fiction

Sheri Wright

Mean Machine

photograph

J.J. Steinfeld

A Hungry Creature That Hates Fast Food

poetry

Flora Michèle Marin Valentina Cano

photograph Butchering

poetry

A Disagreement

poetry

Specimens of Hope

poetry

Marigny Michel

He Above, I Below

poetry

Carly Berg

Ham

fiction

Volodymyr Bilyk

GRRL To Be Sacrifice

visual

Karla Linn Merrifield

Campers’ Curse

poetry

Flora Michèle Marin

collage

Christopher Barnes

Filming ‘Blood Shot Silk’ – Deleted Scene 28-32 poetry

Flora Michèle Marin

photograph

Deborah Kreuze

My life has put me where I need to be

poetry

Richard Godwin

The Broken Language of Strangers

fiction

Flora Michèle Marin Alain Lasverne

collage Bon chien

Flora Michèle Marin Alexandra Bouge Biographies

fiction photograph

Meat

various

Introduction by Walter Ruhlmann “Sometimes You're Nothing but Meat” is the last line from “Blood Roses” a song by Tori Amos who I am a great fan of as you might know. This song was inspired by Alice Walker's The Color Purple in which it is said that the women who excised the young girls gave the bits of their butchery to eat to the chickens, which explains the line “when chickens get a taste of your meat”. The song itself when the album Boys for Pele was released was a blow because of its gloomy theme first but also because of the use of the harpsichord which made it even gloomier.

It came to my mind last year that this sentence could become a theme for this issue and I was eager to read what writers and poets had to say about it. I knew that some of my usual French contributors would be much inspired by it and it was no surprise to have Marlène Tissot and Alexandra Bouge in the first row.

Not to say the other contributors, American, Canadian and British, would remain silent. I knew these would be inspired too.

I guess you may feel like a loaf of meat in many circumstances, not just sex of course, though this is certainly the most obvious context. I know, by experience, how it feels to be fresh flesh when you enter a bar where cruising is the main activity after drinking. You just feel ready to be served. A bit like a sacrifice. An offering to some ogres, a ritual which would date back to some ancient times when young blood was spilled on altars and the folks would ravingly hope for the good things to come because of this slaughtering.

There are many examples in history where human beings have been considered meat rather than people. Wars of course, the most horrid of all, the second World War. I can only remember how I used to be obsessed in my teen with the concentration camps and the extermination of all those people, Jews of course, but all the others, Gypsies, gay, communists, disabled, etc. The books I read were mostly about the horror of the Nazi: Treblinka by Jean-François Steiner was one of them and this is roughly at the same time the film From Nuremberg to Nuremberg by Frédéric Rossif was released. The corpses of those killed rolled over by trucks and diggers. Many contemporary wars, starting with Syria, are probably as outrageous and revolting as any other wars. Wars are revolting anyway.

We live in a world where the body has become the symbol of our materialism and consumerism. We are cannibals regaling on bodies and rebuked by the bodies which would not fit our taste. Not a surprise that films about zombies and cannibals are so common and show with more and more graphic violence how wolves eat wolves. The worst/best of all probably is Cannibal Holocaust by Ruggero Deodato in 1980. When fiction almost or was said to meet reality. Rumor has it that some actors or stunts were actually killed during the shooting, just like in snuff movies. Deodato was discharged from this accusation when he was trialed. It remains though that animals were actually sacrificed during the shooting.

We are meat, whether we like it or not. We are bones, muscles, skin, organs, limbs, nerves, blood of course. We are animals. Thinking animals maybe, conscious of our own existence not just fitted with instinct.

We are supposed to have evolved since we were apes. Though one could wonder if this evolution was for the best or not.

You will see how all these writers, poets and visual artists adapted to this theme if you can stomach it.

mgv2_73 | Sometimes You're Nothing but Meat | 07_13 Comme un viol en douceur

by Marlène Tissot from her novel Mailles à l'envers (Purls), Lunatique editions, 2012.

Il y avait des détails sans doute l’odeur sur mon tee-shirt je ne sais pas maman avait dû flairer quelque chose elle a décidé qu’il était temps pour moi de rencontrer sa gynéco Une vieille femme en blouse blanche. Derrière un énorme bureau de bois sombre. Le visage émacié. Les cheveux filasse. Un drôle d’éclat dans le regard. Je me souviens de ses longs doigts maigres aux articulations saillantes. Des mains de sorcière, qu’elle n’arrêtait pas de frotter l’une contre l’autre. Je savais qu’elle allait me toucher. Je savais plus ou moins ce qui allait se passer.

J’étais au bord de la nausée. " Alors, mademoiselle, qu’est-ce qui vous amène ? ", elle m’a demandé.

Et moi, j’en savais foutre rien. Pourquoi on vient là en général ? J’ai jeté un oeil à maman, assise à côté de moi, l’interrogeant du regard. Et elle a collé sa réponse sur mon silence. " C’est pour un premier examen. Et puis… eh bien… sans doute… c’est-à-dire, elle a quinze ans.

Alors … peut-être qu’il est temps de penser à… la contraception ? " Elle se souvenait, maman, de sa triste histoire. De cette grossesse non désirée, faute de précaution. Elle voulait pas que je flanque ma vie en l’air comme elle, enceinte à dix-sept ans, mariée de force à dix-huit. Coincée. COINCÉE ! Non, elle voulait pas que je gâche ma vie. Et moi je pensais, mais bordel, c’est de moi qu’elle parle, c’est moi le foetus indocile, le monstre qui a poussé dans son ventre par accident. Parfois, je me demandais si j’étais réellement la chair de sa chair. Si elle n’avait pas tué en moi toutes les traces d’elle en essayant de me tuer dans elle.

La gynéco a hoché la tête d’un air entendu en observant maman. Puis elle m’a invitée à me mettre à poil dans la petite salle attenante. Ensuite, je me suis allongée sur sa table d’examen en skaï noir recouvert de pécu géant. J’ai calé mes pieds et écarté les cuisses comme on me le

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mgv2_73 | Sometimes You're Nothing but Meat | 07_13 demandait. J’étais morte de trouille. “Allons, allons, elle disait, faut pas avoir peur mon petit !” Et moi je tremblais niveau dix sur l’échelle de Richter.

Elle a enfilé sa main dans un sac en plastique comme un bout de viande qu’on s’apprête à congeler. Puis elle a fourré ses doigts dans moi. Je la sentais remuer dans mon ventre.

“Décontractez-vous, mademoiselle”, elle a dit en s’enfonçant encore un peu. Ce n’était pas réellement douloureux. C’était surtout cette sensation d’être fouillée contre mon gré. Un peu comme un viol en douceur. C’était ça qui m’inquiétait. Qu’on puisse pénétrer mon intimité aussi facilement. “Parfait, elle a dit, tout est parfait.” Puis elle a ajouté, en parlant un peu plus bas : “L’hymen est intact.” Et je crois bien avoir entendu maman pousser un long soupir de soulagement.

Après ça, je n’étais plus vraiment la même personne. Je me suis mise à sortir avec des tas de types. Souvent plus âgés que moi. Des gars croisés ici ou là, des collégiens, des forains, des voisins, des gitans. Je couchais pas. On s’embrassait, c’est tout. Mais je les laissais me toucher. Je les sentais s’exciter et je me disais que j’étais rien qu’une petite pute. Que je finirais par me faire violer. Et cette fois, sans douceur.

Photograph by Flora Michèle Marin

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Just like a soft rape – Fifteen translated from the French by Walter Ruhlmann There must have been details certainly the smell on my t-shirt, I'm not sure mum must have smelled a rat she decided it was time for me to meet her gynecologist An old woman wearing a white coat. Behind her stood a huge desk of dark wood. An emaciated face. Hair like thread. A strange sparkle in her eyes. I remember her long, thin fingers with their jutting bones. Witch hands she kept on rubbing one against the other. I knew she was going to touch me. I more or less knew what was going to happen. I was about to throw up.

“So, miss, what brings you here?”, she asked.

I did not know, absolutely not. What does one usually come here for? I glanced at mum, she sat next to me, I was just checking on her. She answered for me as I kept silent.

“That's for a first check-up. Then... well... she certainly... I mean, she's fifteen.

So...maybe it's time to think about... contraception?”

Mum remembered that sad story. That unwanted pregnancy because she was not careful.

She did not want me to spoil my life like she did, pregnant at the age of seventeen, forced to marry at eighteen. Stuck. STUCK! No, she did not want me to ruin my own life. And I thought, shit, what is she going on about, I am the untamed fetus, the monster that accidentally grew inside her belly. Sometimes, I really wondered if I were the flesh of her flesh. If she had not kill all traces of herself in me when she was trying to kill me inside her.

The gynecologist nodded knowingly staring at mum. Then she invited me to undress in the adjoining small room. Then I lay down on a black imitation leather table, covered with 6

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a gigantic sheet of toilet paper. I settled my feet, opened my thighs as I was asked to.

“Come on, come on, don't be afraid my child” she said. I was shaking like a ten on the Richter scale.

She put a plastic bag on her hand like you would prepare a loaf of meat for the freezer.

Then she stuck her fingers inside me. I could feel her moving inside my belly. “Relax, young lady”, she said going a little deeper. It did not really hurt. It was rather that feeling to be searched against my will. Just like a soft rape. That was what was worrying me. That my intimacy could be penetrated so easily. “Perfect,” she said, “Everything's perfect.” Then she added, lowering her voice: “The hymen is intact.” And I really think mum sighed heavily with relief.

After that, I was not really the same person anymore. I started going out with all kinds of guys. Most of the time older than me. Guys I would meet here and there, boys from high school, carnies, neighbors, gypsies. I would not do it with them. We would kiss, that's all.

But I would let them touch me. I could feel they were aroused and I would say to myself that I was just a real whore. That I would end up being raped. Not softly this time though.

Photograph by Flora Michèle Marin

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Scent Of Breast-Milk

by Károly Sándor Pallai a group of pigeons hovers over a plate of lung stew. it’s like politics: wet, steaming, bloody and seems tasty only from the outside. only afternoon, but for the rest of the day i’m stuck in the lazy, wordless vacuum of the merciless brainwash in vogue these days. writing poetry, but who will pay the gas bill next year? who will remember us, when our bodies, dreams and pleasures will be gone? and our warmth, laughs, muscles and kisses. writing poetry but who will fight this meat-grinder, aggressive present? who will come when our agonies, sensual experiences and our perfumes will long be gone? here comes the age of intellectual beggars suing for the peace of mind and some doses of mental bulking agents edged out of the market long ago by some horror-stricken governments. will there be a future without artificial machines of sustentation? a future where instead of the trade with organs and the institutionalized humiliation and mental mutilation we could be bewitched by the charms of sunsets and songs. a future where we would not have to suck the acids of postmodern love from blown-up silicone breasts, but we could unite in a daze smelling of fresh seminal fluid and breast-milk. in times of corporal contact, we’ll be sweating repentance, looking at the incandescent glowing of the late afternoon colors over the wheat fields we once used to wander. what kind of malady or indisposition lives in me, trying to melt the words off my skin and draw ethereal worlds fluttering in the breeze of the setting night.

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L'administration

by Alexandra Bouge from La peau (The Skin) mgv2>publishing, 2008 Leurs peaux tombent. Des rictus sur le visage, des grimaces figées de la folie, des monstres sont nés. Ils tremblent, piétinent, des muscles de leurs visages sont morts, il n’y a pas d’influx nerveux ou de volonté de les bouger. Ils parlent seuls et rient. Ils s’amusent dans la folie, c’est un autre monde. Si je leur parle, je suis foutue. Je me sens attaquée. Chacun d’entre eux en est atteint, ils forment les bras d’une pieuvre. Il est venu me dire que ca ne va pas, il n’était plus en lui-même. Il ne restait de lui qu’une peau morte, il était devenu tout petit, la vie l’a quitté, son sourire était juste un mouvement des mandibules.

La ville

by Alexandra Bouge from La peau (The Skin) mgv2>publishing, 2008 Je vivais dans des cartons au bord de l'autoroute. Je me suis laissée, après le Contrat Emploi Solidarité, celui à l'armée ou n'importe où. Quand cela s'est-il passé ? Ont-ils réellement voulu me tuer ? Ils l'ont fait. Puis je me suis laissée, lassée, j'ai fui. Au tournoi de ping-pong de cette année, qui a gagné, t'en souviens-tu ? Des restes d'êtres humains étaient assis à mes côtés, au Centre Social ou à l'ANPE. J'ai plaqué sur les cartons des grilles au tissage dense, pour que ça tienne le coup au passage de l'hiver. Je me suis installée ici parce que j'étais à bout, près d'une décharge où je fais mes courses. L'ailleurs m'a pris de court en allant le rejoindre, dans la ville la nourriture doit être plus fraîche.

Le premier cri

by Alexandra Bouge from La peau (The Skin) mgv2>publishing, 2008 Il était prêt à la laisser tomber, d'autant plus qu'elle allait lui pondre un môme. Le jour béni arriva ou selon l'avis des médecins il était trop tard pour tuer l'enfant. Ils la placèrent dans 9

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un centre d'accueil tenu par une association humanitaire. Effaré par la nouvelle, le garçon déguerpit sur le champ et ne lui donna plus signe de vie. Entourée de filles enceintes, elle se sentait protégée et à l'abri, mit une croix sur le sexe masculin en général et attendit patiemment l'arrivée de l'enfant. Quelques heures avant la naissance, le père, prévenu par des amis, arriva à l'hôpital. Elle feignit l'indifférence, la péridurale lui fit oublier sa présence. La tête ensanglantée et poilue pointa de son entrecuisse.

- Mais qu'est-ce qu'on va faire de toi ? Laissa échapper le garçon vers le nouveau-né.

La mère le foudroya du regard. Il demeura immobile, la tête vide, gêné par la situation inconfortable dans laquelle il était.

Photograph by Flora Michèle Marin

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Meat

by Walter Ruhlmann A slice of meat, thick and greasy, lays on my plate.

It sizzled and grilled just moments ago.

The bats started their parallel ballet, baffling things, flying above the grass, between the trees in search of some decent gnats.

My food seems unfaithful: pork comes from pig, beef was an ox but fish was fish; unless it was ghoti?

The plate on which it lays mirrors the dull flatness, the mere austere life of a monk digging, planting, sorting out a garden that looks like an airfield, a battlefield maybe –- though no one dropped bombs down there.

Underground animals, underworldly mammals, moles, voles, some unwanted rodents which meat might be safer to eat than this thick and greasy slice of pork rib.

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Eccentric Appetite1

by J. J. Steinfeld Vance met Millicent in one of the city’s most popular downtown bars, at a rollicking Halloween party when his loneliness was particularly acute. He was the only one in the crowded bar who wasn’t in costume, unless you consider sad, lonely, middle-aged man in a cheap dark-blue suit as a costume. He was sure she was looking at him as he sat at the end of the bar, she two stools away and costumed as a 1920s flapper—scrutinizing him, actually, he thought—trying to decide if she would like to meet a lonely stranger, and he felt selfconscious about the excessive weight he had put on during a winter of inactivity and eating much more than he should have. He had only recently resumed going to the gym and was determined to lose weight, wishing he was in better shape when he met this attractive woman.

Soon after making eye contact—could her eyes be any bluer or more captivating?— and exchanging exploratory smiles, Vance knew two things: first, that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and second, that he had never felt such a strong attraction to anyone in his life; so much so, that in his mind he already thought that he would do anything for this woman. He hadn’t been the luckiest at love, not with two divorces before he was forty-five to go along with three other discordant co-habiting relationships that each lasted less than six months. But when Millicent moved gracefully to the stool next to his, Vance sensed she would be different. Even after less than an hour of enjoying exotic drinks, he decided that he wanted to marry Millicent, to spend the rest of his life with her. And if we can jump ahead in this strange tale of love on a perilous and unpredictable path, Vance does spend the rest of his life with Millicent. But let us backtrack in the darkening narrative for now.

Vance told Millicent of a new restaurant a short walk from the bar, and invited her to join him for an evening meal, where he wouldn’t be such a non-costumed Halloween oddball. “It would be our first date, so to speak,” he said nervously.

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“Eccentric Appetite” was first published in Strange Halloween (Edited by Jean M. Goldstrom, Whortleberry Press, 2012).

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“First dates are always the most exciting, with the most tantalizing possibilities,” Millicent said, and touched Vance’s arm in a most inviting way. In fact, she touched him in several places, stroking his left thigh so sensually that he thought he would scream in elation.

They walked slowly to the restaurant, Millicent talking about passion and pleasure in the most casual terms, and how sexy she felt dressed as a free-spirited woman from the 1920s. At the restaurant, Vance requested a table in a romantic, dimly lit corner. When the waiter arrived with their menus, Vance immediately ordered a bottle of the best red wine, not bothering to look at its price, and said they needed a few more minutes to decide what else to order.

“I love to wash down a good meal with a glass of wine,” Millicent revealed, “but it hardly matters if it’s expensive or cheap. In fact, I tend to prefer cheap wine,” she added, in a manner that made Vance think she was criticizing, even making fun of him.

“Well, I come from a long line of wine connoisseurs,” Vance said, seeming to make an attempt to counteract her criticism. “My father has a wine cellar to die for. It’s worth more than his house, if you can believe that. Everyone in my family appreciates the value of fine wine.”

“Family, yes indeed. One should always think of their family,” Millicent said, and Vance thought he detected something sinister in her tone, and asked if she didn’t care for her family.

“On the contrary, my dear,” Millicent said, and went on to describe how much she adored her family, especially her handsome father, a culinary genius, a chef’s chef, she characterized him, guessing he was Vance’s age. Vance doubted that was the case— “Wouldn’t he have had to have you at an awfully young age, Millicent?”—and when she told him her father was forty-five, Vance reluctantly admitted he was the same age.

“How old do you think I am, my dear?”

Vance hesitated, looked at the woman’s lips and mouth as if the secret of her age was hidden there, and whispered, “Thirty or so?”

“I’m twenty-seven. And I have an older sister. My father started his family when he was sixteen. Nothing supernatural about that.”

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“I have a teenage son about to turn sixteen who lives with his mother, and I can’t imagine him starting a family for at least another twenty years.”

“My father is an unusual and extraordinary man.”

“But I turned forty-five only a week ago,” Vance said in a raised voice, as if that fact would somehow attest to his youthfulness.

“My father’s birthday was three days ago.” Then Millicent, her expression turning serious, told Vance that her father was cannibalistic.

“Cannibalistic,” Vance echoed, shaking his head in bemusement, and after a thoughtful pause: “Like Hannibal Lecter, you mean?”

“That’s fiction, my dear.”

“If you say so, Millicent. Then your father has quite the eccentric appetite, I’d say.”

“I’ve never heard it called that. I like that phrase. Eccentric appetite,” and she looked around the bar as if searching for her father with the eccentric appetite.

Vance, gazing into Millicent’s eyes, trying not to laugh, patronizingly asked if the condition was hereditary. Millicent put her long-fingered hands together in a prayerful gesture without answering Vance’s question and said she was extremely hungry, more hungry than she could ever recall being, and that she would rather go back to her apartment than waste any more money on an expensive meal. While explaining she was nowhere near to her father’s culinary skills, she would be delighted to cook up a delectable something special for the two of them, a Halloween celebration, with romantic candlelight at no extra charge.

Vance smiled, feeling Millicent’s touch on his thigh again, and said, “I’d be worse than foolish not to accept your irresistible offer,” and they both finished their wine without any further talk of fathers or family. “Halloween is quickly becoming my favourite festive occasion,” he added joyously, with heart-pounding excitement and anticipation. When they left the restaurant, Vance was thinking about a night of imagination-stirring, fantasycaressing lovemaking, and Millicent about her desire for a tasty late-night snack.

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Mean Machine photograph by Sheri Wright

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A Hungry Creature That Hates Fast Food 2

by J. J. Steinfeld You meet a hungry creature that hates fast food expressing a desire for synapses and psyches in a holistic sandwich or mixed into a healthy salad with a zesty spirit dressing.

You’re somewhat peckish yourself you tell the creature who says hungry is too mild a word for its ravenous state.

Ravenous isn’t a word you find appetizing you tell the ravenous creature as it moves closer to you licking what looks like lips but you can’t be sure frightened as you are having lost your appetite.

Next page: Photograph by Flora Michèle Marin

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“A Hungry Creature That Hates Fast Food” was first published in The Helix (Spring 2012).

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Butchering

by Valentina Cano She watches her reflection plastered against the deli display.

The glass flings back ripples of meat, folds as thrumming pink as her own.

Her neck twists into knots as she tries to unsee.

Her arms and chicken cuts, her legs and glazed hams.

Her eyes just fingerprint-pocked glass.

A Disagreement

by Valentina Cano You mention blood as if you know what it is.

You speak about it, a warm syllable between your lips, as if you understand its flavor.

Musky and damp like moss, sticky on the palate like wet earth.

A sign of everything and nothing.

You speak of blood as I scrub my fingers clean.

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Specimens of Hope

by Valentina Cano We saw ourselves pressed against a glass.

Our eyes wide, colors splashed through the room.

The moment crystallized along with us.

We saw it from all sides, dangling like a chandelier.

Our skin shone, our teeth bared in a blood-filled grin.

We were insects on a board, pins through our cellophane thoughts.

Event Horizon

By Valentina Cano Paperback, 27 Pages Price: $6.00 mgv2>publishing presents Event Horizon the first chapbook by Valentina Cano, the princess of contemporary poetry, a muse, a singer, a talented poetess whose words won't leave you unmoved, unharmed, just what we enjoy to feel like after reading.

With a cover photograph by Kevin Dooley.

Buy it from lulu.com

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He Above, I Below

by Marigny Michel His long knife, edges shrill as a woman’s voice, traced the midline of my symmetry from the throb in the hollow of my throat to my tangle of curls, black as mystery.

I performed that ritual of surrender, I sang, stealing breath from the stale mattress.

The phone rang insistence, unrequited.

Backlight from the streetlight painted him an eyeless shape above me.

Deep sky leaked through the broken window.

The room was cold, His voice was cold.

My back arched up to meet his hand, stealing heat, bracing for the blow.

He got what he wanted, My feathered fear, The noises a small bird would make if it were caught as I was in his hands.

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Ham

by Carly Berg Bar and grills didn’t serve free hors d’oeuvres at happy hour anymore. They didn’t even have complimentary peanuts. My stomach growled. A ham head watched me from the end of the bar.

My flirting skills came back to me. Only this time around, my appearance was enhanced by the dim lighting. I arranged myself, padded breasts and high-heeled legs on display. I peeked at him, looked down at the table. Peeked again.

The ham head sent a cocktail waitress over. He wanted to buy me a drink.

“I’ll have what the ham head is having, please.” Emulate his drink choice. They like that herd behavior.

A pineapple martini, of course. Pineapple went with ham. I tipped my glass to him, mouthed, “Oink.”

Three cool minutes later, here he came. Good, I was starving.

The beady eyes glittered in the bar neon. “Sam, I am.” he said. “Who are you?”

I said, “Sue.” My name is Loretta, but ham heads are very attracted to rhymes.

After some small talk, Sam got cozy. He offered his snout and I rubbed the pink moistness.

Warm air puffed from its holes. My stomach twisted but I didn’t throw up.

He raised his cloven hoof for another round, smoke wafting from the cigarette wedged into the cleft. “Put it on my tab,” he bleated.

I hinted at what might come later, (sooey woowee, slop bop). I hinted at dinner, picking up 21

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the menu and making jokes. He asked if I was hungry.

“I’ll have the rib-eye,” he said to the waitress. “Medium rare. With the house salad and six bowls of corn.”

“Oh, yum! Me, too. Um, perhaps a baked potato instead of corn for me.”

“Put it on my tab,” he said. His little legs stuck straight out, and so did his horrible little… never mind. Getting rid of him would be tricky. When angered, sometimes ham heads attack people.

He excused himself to the boar’s room.

I signaled the waitress, added a side dish to my order.

She brought out the food. Sam snuffled right into it. He growled a bit when she leaned over him to put my dinner on the table.

I started with my special side dish. Hot, honey-baked ham. Blacked crisp at the edge.

“Mmm….”

“Blaah!” Sam leaped up, scattering corn and plates everywhere. “Cannibal!” He ran, squealing, out the door.

The waitress swept up the mess, and I soothed my inappropriate guilt with a nice bite of ham.

I said, “I’ll need that other steak boxed up to go.”

Next page GRRL To Be Sacrifice by Volodymyr Bilyk

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Campers’ Curse, Rondeau Peninsula Provincial Park

by Karla Linn Merrifield This is the blue moon of biting insects— sandflies, mosquitoes, ticks, midges and gnats.

Latest August augers Lyme’s Disease, West Nile Virus.

I whine: not even DEET can defeat the dog-day hordes of sandflies, mosquitoes, ticks, midges and gnats.

mgv2_73 | Sometimes You're Nothing but Meat | 07_13 Previous page collage by Flora Michèle Marin

The 5th volume of the X & Friends series is now out and you can order it on lulu.com here!

Cover Illustration: “Sands of Time” by Karla Linn Merrifield Foreword by Kenneth Pobo Karla Linn Merrifield & Friends: Colleen Powderly, Chris Crittenden, M.J. Iuppa, Michael G. Smith, Eve Anthony Hanninen Foreword by Kenneth Pobo (excerpt) This collection has a quiet power, a wisdom born of contemplation and acute observation. This is not light reading. To fully enjoy the work, I found it helpful to reread the poems, including doing so out loud. Readers will find poems that speak quite particularly to their own experiences and feelings. These poems are like bits of colored glass in the light. Depending on the angle from which we look, we find different prisms, evocative shades and textures.

Karla Linn Merrifield & Friends is now one of those books that I keep close at hand, not stuffed on a shelf. I like to return to it, sometimes pick one of the poets and think about what that writer is focusing on. Other times, I like to pick random poems from each poet, see how new patterns take shape. This is a living collection, a joy and a deep pleasure.

53 pages, 10.99$ from lulu.com here!

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mgv2_73 | Sometimes You're Nothing but Meat | 07_13 Filming ‘Blood Shot Silk’ – Deleted Scene (28)

by Christopher Barnes A string-section clambers its incidents.

Fustian trails at an unshut hatch. Cut to…

Candle-light across a jade wall – An exponential, mischief-making Star, Crystalline lipstick, hurled-back hair.

We’re interned Into the transitory Where in a low-angled shot An Actor fluffs his lines.

Photograph by Flora Michèle Marin

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mgv2_73 | Sometimes You're Nothing but Meat | 07_13 Filming ‘Blood Shot Silk’ – Deleted Scene (29)

by Christopher Barnes Logo….set-piece zither, Cursive font captions dribbled onto alley-way.

Twilight subsides over a cardboard Manhattan.

Bette Davis cremates tobacco leaf.

Compact opens in flamboyance. Signature footage Will be spliced in…freeze frame.

A side of a six-shooter.

The hearse-wheel revolves In its barrel.

Photograph by Flora Michèle Marin

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mgv2_73 | Sometimes You're Nothing but Meat | 07_13 Filming ‘Blood Shot Silk’ – Deleted Scene (30)

by Christopher Barnes Starkly backlit shot.

Close-up – hairy forearm on steering wheel.

A ready-to-die attendant gnaws nails.

High-wrought portcullis. An unembarrassed stalag.

Track to the right Montgomery Clift squinnying through glass and grille.

Cinophiles will enthral at this scene Canonising it Classic Noir.

Photograph by Flora Michèle Marin

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mgv2_73 | Sometimes You're Nothing but Meat | 07_13 Filming ‘Blood Shot Silk’ – Deleted Scene (31)

by Christopher Barnes Bland eulogy – mortification censor in moonspill.

Cronk of Theremin. Tumbrel din.

Our celluloid assembly takes flesh; Ramifications fit skin-tight. Bevan, now-a-days eyeless, Slams his white stick on an R.I.P. A thunderstruck crow Pelts from its nest. Orion’s Belt Reels bloodclot red. The footrule at the Action Line Is fell-in-with. This time.

Photograph by Flora Michèle Marin

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mgv2_73 | Sometimes You're Nothing but Meat | 07_13 Filming ‘Blood Shot Silk’ – Deleted Scene (32)

by Christopher Barnes A trill-chant, rope-hopping children.

Unbalanced china.

A caged owl cranks his agog head.

Camera 7 twitches, dazzles, Overshadows to black. A spotlight relumes.

Feverish guggle of Ali Wrey As he rocks the suckling dead in its cot.

Photograph by Flora Michèle Marin

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mgv2_73 | Sometimes You're Nothing but Meat | 07_13 Poem

by Deborah Kreuze My life has put me where I need to be (the tiles are cool against my swollen face) and I appreciate the world I see and smell (the antiseptic mixed with pee, the ecosystem at the toilet’s base).

My life has put me where I need to be (examining the void, apparently, the absence of volition in this space) and I appreciate the world I see and hear (fan motor drowning out the predawn traffic on the road outside this place where life has put me). Where I need to be is maybe not a question I am free to answer at this juncture. I embrace and I appreciate the world I see, the numb, dumb void of my biology erasing face and grace without a trace.

My life has put me where I need to be, and I appreciate the world I see.

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mgv2_73 | Sometimes You're Nothing but Meat | 07_13 The Broken language of Strangers

by Richard Godwin.

I am immersed in the sepia shot of memory.

Maple Summer and the slow lawns drenched in water. They soak the thick blades of grass and make you drowsy in the heat. The air is full of sap. Fluids breed. Drop by drop the water falls, saturating the drooping petals that want to rise with dawn’s tumescence. The lawns extend to the river that uncoils like a fettered snake beyond human harness and the things we keep at bay in daylight but not the night, never the night, for it knows. *** When you’ve seen someone try again and again to end themselves and you’ve hung onto hope seeing desperation steam your window pane, it takes a massive shift to change things. The past is a dead weight, it lies in our minds with the heavy despair of a baby whose future is still born. It wasn’t the first time she miscarried but the second that opened up the scar that was too deep. The wound would not be stemmed. She would cry for hours naked and alone with a noise like blood in her lungs, rocking on the floor at the top of the Victorian house we haunted. We didn’t live, there was no life left. I used to hold her in my arms, lost in the darkness. She hated light and I’d go to bed with a guttering candle in my hand. The house itself seemed lost in shadow even during the daytime.

Indigo eyes set in olive skin. Maple had beauty from a teenager when she unfolded like an exotic flower and knew she could choose any man. She picked me for reasons that eluded me but I didn’t question. We had great sex. We partied until insanity stole the dawn.

Then she wanted kids and the alteration of her mind and soul began. It was like the slow implosion of some star. It’s beautiful. The colours change, the world shimmers in kaleidoscopic radiance. Maple’s face radiated conflict of being, her eyes shifted inside and she became someone else. She rode me into the dawn. I fucked several different women a week, all in Maple’s body, as if she was possessed by the wandered whores of a brothel. She pushed herself to extreme sexual acts at night, while during the day she sat alone with the few clothes she’d bought for the children who were never meant to be. She was dispossessed. And I was harnessed to a libido deranged by sterility’s cold touch.

I pulled from her hand the dripping razor blade, rusted with over use.

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mgv2_73 | Sometimes You're Nothing but Meat | 07_13 ‘Leave me, fuck someone else,’ she said to me one evening as we ate.

I considered cruelty to be her motive, but it was despair and its relentless accumulation that crawled across her skin like a silent spider in the kitchen twilight.

‘I don’t want someone else Maple.’

‘I am not her Leander, you need to find Maple again.’

‘She’s here,’ I said, reaching out for her hand.

But it didn’t look like her and it didn’t feel like her and I grew tired of waiting. One night she got a friend drunk and took her into me as I lay in bed. I watched Maple strip this other woman but as her skin touched mine what I felt lying next to me was the past and all its archived violations.

The next morning over breakfast Maple said ‘I need to fuck other men, Leander bring me men, a new one every day so my body can forget who I am.’

‘Shoot up, derange yourself with drugs, there are many paths to oblivion.’

‘That is what I want.’

‘Why the body?’

‘It’s all I have, it’s all I ever had.’

Anger fought arousal in my loins as I looked at her and knew she was no longer the woman I had impregnated with despair.

‘How do we survive this?’

‘I need to forget the wound, I am Summer and all I feel is winter. ‘ ‘You think this will get rid of your scars?’

‘Yes.’ ‘And what do I do, as Maple pornographises her soul?’

‘You need to go out and fuck as many women as you can.’

I left her at the table and walked away from her and the haemorrhaged past, my back to the wind, my sail relentlessly set towards tomorrow. *** It’s summertime and I watch for women at the edge of the garden. It lies by the river and is shared by a number of houses that parade rich brickwork to the sunbathers and boaters who pass by.

It is a new house. I am alive. I am lost in the future, cut adrift, and follow the line of the water as I tread the grass looking for her, the one I will pick up that day and fuck and never see again.

I see her shimmer in the sun. I can smell her skin and the heat rising from it. She is like an

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mgv2_73 | Sometimes You're Nothing but Meat | 07_13 exotic flower decked out in a bright swimming costume that leaks colours like bodily fluid. Her figure is perfectly full and balanced. The heat and the sap and the violent sun beating down on woman is life.

She sees me and gets up. She walks slowly, turns, looks at me and goes to sit by the bank’s edge. She puts one foot, then the other into the water and moves her legs. And I watch her muscles ripple beneath her bronze skin. She is saying something, it is sensuous, it is an invitation. She looks ahead as if she is the only one there and all eyes are upon her. The crowd of people by the water’s edge vanishes.

She dances as she moves, she glides.

I walk over to her, casting a shadow that falls against her shoulders, a part of me caressing her. Soon it will be my hands. I look down at her, at her clear skin. She knows I am watching her but she does not turn. I can see the shape of her breasts inside her swimming costume.

A boat passes along the river sending waves that reach her legs and she gets up and turns.

That is when she looks at me. I look into her. I penetrate her. I feel the lust of tides and know the secrets of fluids which course through her veins and shoot out from raised stamen to feathery stigma of hot plants world without end.

She walks towards the house across the cool wet grass. I follow. She is leading me. Desire and longing are the second umbilical cord.

There is an open door and she looks back at me as she goes in. It is a simple fleeting glance that says everything. The glance existed before the world was built. I stand there and hear the noise of running water and enter the house like a thief. Across the hall is the bathroom. She is in the shower and looks at me as she washes. Soap and water run off her large breasts and down her stomach and slow at her pubic hair before dripping like come from her cunt. She places the shower head between her legs and gasps.

I strip and she pulls me in by my cock. I touch her breasts, I run my fingers around her nipples and I take her mouth. I take her body. Her buttocks slap against the tiles like the wet and rocking hull of a boat resisting anchor. She is holding me, she has her hands around my back and she is pulling me into her. She penetrates me with nails. And I enter her with sin, for the richness of its taste is released as innocence in sinning is born.

I can feel her temperature rise, as the small gasps increase in rapidity. I look into her eyes and

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mgv2_73 | Sometimes You're Nothing but Meat | 07_13 she looks away. I must remain unknown and be forgotten, I know the rules. She is beautiful and I feel the scars inside. They have tattooed her being and enfold her like the tendrils of a vine. The loss of promise is our wine, it tastes of hills full of summer’s heat. We are fulfilled by the emptiness that takes hold. The house is tenantless. She is alive in fits of passion, like someone coughing words from a broken lung.

Afterward we get dressed and cross the slow wet lawn together.

It has to be like this for Maple, without speaking, as if we are strangers.

Collage by Flora Michèle Marin Next page: Photograph by Flora Michèle Marin

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mgv2_73 | Sometimes You're Nothing but Meat | 07_13

Bon chien

by Alain Lasverne C'est un pitt de quatre ans tout à fait dévoué et désireux de faire plaisir à son maître. Il a été dressé quinze jours et n'a jamais mordu personne sans autorisation depuis, ni avant d'ailleurs. Il s'appelle Totor. Simple à retenir. A quatre ans, un chien est adulte. En pleine possession de ses facultés de discerner le bien, le mal, les croquettes possibles et qui commande. Le choix a été difficile et personne ne pourra me dire en face que nous sommes dépourvus des pudeurs ou des préventions dont chacun peut se prévaloir.

Nous ne vivons pas une situation facile non plus, Marie et moi. Vingt-cinq ans qu'on est ensemble et on a commencé tôt, on peut dire. A quinze ans, elle faisait parfaitement la bête à deux dos et le deuxième c'était le mien. Bon, tout le monde sait ce que c'est l'usure.

On s'aime, sans problème, le courant passe, je fais la vaisselle souvent et je ne rate pas son anniversaire. Je lui demande son avis pour les achats concernant le couple, et je tiens compte de son avis pour toutes les inflexions souhaitables dans notre avenir commun. Nous sommes liés, c'est un fait. Mais l'usure, que peut-on y faire ?

On a essayé tout ce qui humainement possible. D'autant que Marie est encore tout à fait consommable, d'après le voisin. Je plaisante, mais je n'ai pas besoin d'étaler sa photo et ses mensurations sur le Net pour savoir qu'elle est désirable, avec ses seins qui ont encore l'avantage d'être des jumeaux très doux et fermes, et sa bouche qui suit la moindre inflexion de ses pensées capricieuses et joueuses pour régulièrement m'amener à des idées dont je suis le premier étonné qu'elles ne soient pas éteintes par la répétition. Le désir est dans la tête, j'en suis le premier persuadé. Mais il faut malheureusement croire qu'il y a une partie qui se fait des films et l'autre qui ne regarde pas les images de la première. Bref, a quarante ans cette partie-là a décidé qu'il y avait bel et bien usure et a mis mon drapeau en berne sine die.

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Par chance ou grâce aux maigres qualités cachées derrière mon visage pâle et un corps qui fut robuste mais se fatigue maintenant à traîner du gras, Marie continue à avoir quelques sentiments pour moi. N'en doutez pas, je ne demanderais qu'à lui témoigner que moi aussi, malgré le quotidien défait et la douce désespérance qui ligotent les cinquantenaires masculins, je l'aime comme le lichen aime son rocher, un ange son dieu, ou un imbécile la lumière qui tombe magnanimement sur lui depuis les étoiles, une nuit d'été.

D'autant plus aujourd'hui, que mes dispositions amoureuses n'arrivent plus à s'afficher clairement.

J'ai tout tenté. Vitamines naturellement, oligo-éléments, ginseng acheté en plein quartier chinois. J'ai consulté l'urologue, le sexologue et même

le conseiller conjugal.

Lequel m'a refusé un rendez-vous sous prétexte que je venais seul. Est-ce ma faute si ma débandaison me concerne d'abord et que je n'ai pas envie de mêler ma femme à ça plus que le temps de nos difficiles débats nocturnes ?...

Quoiqu'il en soit, la médication assure un soutien qui demeure fondamentalement inopérant pour moi.

La phase suivante, spirituelle, n'a pas duré longtemps. Il y a quelque chose de très cool, très avancé sur la route vers les grands anciens, les galactiques ou les abysses profonds qui règnent entre mes tempes grisonnantes. Mais le voyage est long. Pas pour moi.

Sans compter, une légère contradiction un peu irritante. L'acupuncture tantrique, le boudishme zéro calorie, l'hypnose reichienne ou le butinage des chakras ont une vocation relaxante parfaitement admirable mais, sans réfléchir, j'ai plutôt envie d'être tendu.

Des semaines ont passé. D'énervements en évitements, Marie et moi avons choisi la voie pratique. Elle veut jouir, c'est un droit quasiment inscrit dans la Constitution et moi je le veux aussi, mais je m'arrête aux intentions. Donc, en attendant que je sorte du triangle des Bermudes, j'ai décidé de faire tout de même plaisir à ma femme et, qui sait, réussir à la garder. On ne sait jamais les tourments qui peuvent agiter un esprit féminin qui vient de sauter par dessus les quarante ans d'existence.

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Nous en sommes venus à des conclusions similaires, mais sans doute mon tempérament mâle m'a fait sauter à une solution concrète qu'elle n'aurait peut-être pas envisagé, même si elle est en accord avec sa sensibilité.

Ma femme, cet être altruiste dont un regard peut faire larmoyer un papillon, ma femme aime les chiens. Elle les comprend et ils la comprennent, qu'ils soient immense et musculeux au bout de leur collier étrangleur, au pelote de laine sur pattes.

On a retenu notre pitt. Après tout c'est un animal que nous connaissons depuis plusieurs années. Et on sait cette espèce un peu sauvage sans être bête ou incontrôlable.

Mue par son désir elle n'ira pas chipoter pour se garnir la panse.

Après quelques hésitations et un peu de dressage supplémentaire Totor a bien compris pourquoi il conservait la laisse autour de son cou après l'avoir amené faire ses naturels besoin sur la pelouse déprimée au pied de l'immeuble.

Il faut reconnaître que nous avons hésité, une fois que j'ai eu trouvé la solution. Évidemment l'incontournable technologie proposait des substituts au mari empêché que je suis. Le côté bureautique de celle-ci rebutait Marie et je n'étais pas non plus très chaud pour ces objets. Exit cette solution. Cette revendication du naturel m'a remis sur la sellette et il ne nous a échappé ni à l'un ni à l'autre que je disposais encore de deux mains et d'une langue en parfait état de fonctionnement. En toute franchise, et Marie l'a bien compris avec quelques arguments venus tout droit de ma sensibilité, j'aurais beaucoup de mal à lui donner du plaisir en regardant, de mon côté, passer les trains. La frustration est au moins autant de mon côté dans cette affaire.

Revenus sur la solution Totor, j'ai fait valoir que le chien possède une langue de belle dimension, légèrement râpeuse, me semble-t-il, qui paraît tout à fait adaptée à la tache que nous souhaitions lui fixer.

Cet animal a un faible pour la confiture. Il n'a pas hésité une seconde à se mettre à l'ouvrage. Tout est question d'habitude. Marie hésitait, renâclait à se laisser aller, mais la 38

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répétition, sinon l'enthousiasme de Totor ont vaincu l'obstacle. Un zeste d'habileté dans le déversement de la confiture a rendu la chose efficace.

Naturellement, ce n'est pas un spectacle forcément plaisant de voir sa propre femme allongée au pied d'un puissant animal mais ses gémissements m'ont donné la satisfaction du devoir accompli. Jusqu'à ce que Totor, vers la dixième séance je crois bien, me jette un regard. Un regard animal, certes, mais où je lisais sans l'ombre d'un doute une hésitation. Il s'est ensuite mis au travail à grands coups de langue et j'ai oublié, occupé que j'étais à tenir la laisse d'une main et verser la confiture tiède en guettant les frissons qui agitait le corps nue de Marie sous le mufle de la bête.

Marie ne s'est aperçue de rien, attentive qu'elle était à faire abstraction de cette situation légèrement dégradante en encourageant Totor comme je l'avais incité à le faire pour que l'animal agisse en confiance. Mais j'ai bien perçu la fois suivante, comme les autres, que le chien m'adressait un signe sans ambiguïté. Allez savoir ce qui passait par la tête de cet animal...Je me suis posé la question longuement, décryptant le message de ses yeux noirs parfois jusqu'à une heure avancée de la nuit.

S'il y a hésitation, ai-je conclu durant mes nocturnes monologues, elle s'accompagne d'une nuance de respect indéniable. Cet animal sait au plus profond de ses gênes qui est le maître. Il est attentif à obéir mais sans doute perçoit-il quelque chose qui le trouble.

Car là était l'inconvénient grandissant de cette hésitation. Totor se montrait de plus en plus distrait, peu appliqué. Avec les conséquences qu'on imagine. Marie n'osait pas me dire son ressenti mais je voyais bien qu'elle était troublée, finalement de plus en plus insatisfaite alors qu'elle était, comme moi, en droit d'attendre au moins un bienfait durable d'un expédient retenu par nécessité.

Comme souvent, son intuition féminine trouva la solution, en l’occurrence l'objet du délit. Chose que je n'avais pas remarqué, occupé que j'étais et par le bien-être de ma femme et par la confiture, le chien montrait une excitation de plus en plus évidente au cours de nos séances.

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Sans croire qu'il pouvait saisir la nature de la tache qu'il accomplissait nous dûmes nous rendre à l'évidence. L'animal flairait par delà la confiture quelque atmosphère sexuelle. Revenait à ses neurones canines la question du mâle et la hiérarchie corrélative qu'il ne pouvait enfreindre. Bref, il y avait une affaire de mâle et j'étais le mâle dominant.

La pauvre bête se voyait prise entre le désir de confiture et ces effluves sexuels auxquels il ne pouvait répondre en ma présence.

Nous n'avons jamais prétendu qu'il pouvait se faire une idée des modalités qui nous étions forcés de suivre pour nous donner un petit peu de joie. Mais nous étions face à un problème.

Marie s'est longuement opposée à sa logique résolution. Elle adore Totor et je la comprends. Cet animal est une crème. Il n'empêche qu'il ne palliait plus notre embarras de couple. Nous n'allions pas pour autant nous séparer de lui, d'autant que techniquement il était opérationnel mais englué dans des ordres venus d'ailleurs, du fin fond des âges et de la horde que ses ancêtres fréquentaient.

Je l'ai dit, Marie est attachée à notre pitt et la simple idée de lui occasionner quelque douleur lui paraîtrait inconcevable. C'est sans doute pour ça que l'idée est venue à moi.

Aujourd'hui Totor a retrouvé toute son application et ne montre plus aucun signe de distraction. Il s'est remis remarquablement vite de son opération. Bénéfice supplémentaire, au pied de l'immeuble il ne m'arrache plus la laisse des mains pour aller renifler l'arrièretrain de quelque belle à quatre pattes.

Marie a mis plus longtemps, mais elle en convient aujourd'hui, il n'y avait pas d'autre moyen. Et qui pourrait nous reprocher d'avoir sauvé notre couple, en attendant que se manifeste mon désir et que je puisse le lui exprimer avec toute l'animale vigueur dont j'étais capable ?

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Meat

by Alexandra Bouge Le rendement fait que les "éleveurs" mutilent les pis des vaches pour qu'elles produisent plus de lait moins cher, souffrance ; c'est pour ça qu'on a tous mal au bide, la souffrance des animaux nous importe peu ; on torture des bêtes, les tenons enfermes dans des cages pour pas qu'elles bougent, bourrées aux tranquillisants, malades gisant sur les planchers pour le rendement, on les torture pour un peu de souffrance dans nos assiettes, et de nos corps malades, de cette souffrance ; pour le rendement, on mutile des animaux malades, séquestrés, emplis de moisissures et de merde, des bêtes gisant, mutilées, à même le sol, mourantes / pour le rendement et souffrance ; souffrance.

Photograph by Flora Michèle Marin

Souffrance des bêtes, torture pour un steak mal digéré, un an de "vie" d'une bête mutilée par le rendement, bêtes mutilées pour un lait sans goût, le rendement mutilées, ETEINS LE GAZ / passent dans des machines, mutilées rendement ; mutilées par le rendement estropiées sans vie sans jamais voir le ciel, dans des lieux trop exigus, pour le rendement, malades, gisant sur le plancher elle meurt, ETEINS LE GAZ

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Sur le sol, au milieu de la pièce gît une tête au visage fermé. Un personnage aveugle trace les traits qui délimitent le sol du mur du plafond. Les murs abritent un visage sans excroissances, bouche, nez, yeux qui en est le squelette, qui trace la configuration qui en parcourt les contours. Un voile sombre avait terni ce coin de rue.

Collage by Flora Michèle Marin

Des morceaux de corps pénétrèrent les uns dans les autres, repartaient l'un pourvu d'une jambe en plus, un autre avec un pied qui n'était pas le sien. A l'un il manquait une clavicule et une de ses épaules pendait. Le sol (nouvellement vitré) était glissant. On tombait fréquemment, en tombant l'on se fracturait une cheville ou un bras. Un jour alors que pas 42

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mal de gens était à terre, on ferma les rideaux pour ne pas que les voisins aperçoivent les employés allongés sur le sol et on commença à travailler dans le noir. L'on entendait depuis quelque temps des essoufflements semblables à des couinements des porcs à l'arrivée au petit matin d'un de leur collègue, suivi des ordres lancées par une voix autoritaire, dans l'urgence. Une voix fléchie par un accent étranger laissa place au silence. La chanson qu'il avait composé prit son envol sur le rythme de l'accent qui s'était dissipé dans le noir, pénombre dans lequel était plongée l'entreprise. Il reprit à nouveau ses notes. Un mot s'écrasa au bas de la feuille qu'il était en train de lire.

Des sexes de filles excisent excisent une parole du vent danse le squelette d'la fille un passage étroit dans les escaliers peur peur des hommes prison vendue au plus offrant, pour un peu de sous ferme les volets à la rue elle passe le plus clair de son temps ent'deux bras qui la violent sans arrêt, les bras de son mec la marche des trains s'éloignent dans un murmure ancré dans mémoires de femmes, aux portes de la ville, dans la ville, dans la ville, aux enfants avortés dans la douleur d'un pays prison, au chagrin d'une femme femme

Les gens passent. Ils vont faire leurs courses. Des murmures. Par terre c'est des déchets. Les gens passent parmi les déchets entre la vie et la mort les gens 43

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entre la vie et la mort entre la vie et la mort parmi les passants prie la ville, la bande des gens qui jouent des HLM bâtiments cancer vacarme terre-asiatique-terre-degens mes doigts s'appuie sur une canne, un opinel luit de sang

entre deux pavés la ville de rêve il vit je me lève dans un taudis à deux pas du RER il s'étouffe, la vie s'en va entre deux rails de RER, entre deux rails de coke ; la ville se dépose, il se lève parmi les rats ; la nuit se lève ils passent, de gens qui passent entre deux lignes de RER la ville se lève blême, entre deux rails

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Biographies Christopher Barnes’ first collection Lovebites is published by Chanticleer. Each year he reads at Poetry Scotland’s Callender Poetry Weekend. He also writes art criticism which has been published in Peel and Combustus magazines.

Carly Berg is a heart-shaped box with a couple of chocolates gone. Her stories appear in high and low places, and some medium places, too. She can be found here: http://carlyberg.weebly.com/ Volodymyr Bilyk is a writer, translator and visual artist. His book of visual poems was recently published in the series This is Visual Poetry (thisisvisualpoetry.com/?p=1151). His works appeared in The New PostLiterate, A-Minor magazine, REM magazine, Cormac McCarthy's Dead Typewriter, The Otolith, Altered Scale, Ex-Ex-Lit, Truck, Maintenant, Apparent Magnitude, The Gin Mill Cowboy and many others. He is co-editor of Extreme Writing Community. Among the authors he had translated are Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, Kurt Schwitters, Anne Waldman, Charles Reznikoff, Billy Childish, Leonard Cohen and others.

Volodymyr will be guest editing Truck Magazine in July Alexandra Bouge licenciée en Arts Plastiques et Communication à l'Université de la Sorbonne. Elle publie en 2013 La ville de glace aux éditions Mémoire Vivante, des textes et des pochoirs dans la revue Népenthès, poesiemuziketc. Et dans la revue Paysages écrits, et des textes dans les revues 17 Secondes, L'Autobus. En 2012 elle publie quatre ouvrages: Une nuit à Belleville, recueil de poésies, de photographies et de street art, La ville, recueil de poésies, de photographies de travaux plastique et de street art, Alve recueil de poésies et de dessins, et Le Campement, qui est un recueil de nouvelles. Son recueil de textes courts La peau sorti aux éditions mgv2>publishing en 2008 sera réédité fin 2013.

Valentina Cano is a student of classical singing who spends whatever free time either writing or reading. Her works have appeared in a large number of publication worldwide. Her poetry has been nominated for Best of the Web and the Pushcart Prize. You can find her here: http://carabosseslibrary.blogspot.com Richard Godwin One Lost Summer is a Noir story of fractured identity and ruined nostalgia. It is a psychological portrait of a man who blackmails his beautiful next door neighbour into playing a deadly game of identity. He is also a published poet and a produced playwright. His stories have been published in over 29 anthologies, among them his anthology of stories, Piquant: Tales Of The Mustard Man. Richard Godwin was born in London and obtained a BA and MA in English and American Literature from King's College London, where he also lectured. You can find out more about him at his website www.richardgodwin.net, where you can also read his Chin Wags At The Slaughterhouse, his highly popular and unusual interviews with other authors.

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Biographies Deborah Kreuze makes a living as an editor and writer in Somerville, Massachusetts. She has served on the editorial staff of two national magazines and edited books for major publishing houses. Her poems have been published in a smattering of online literary magazines and been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize.

Alain Lasverne a 59 ans et écrit régulièrement depuis 24 ans. Au compteur, des nouvelles, des poésies et huit romans. Un roman jeunesse publié, chez Cylibris, en 1998. Fin 2009, parution de "Je sauverai le monde", chez Kyklos Editions, roman de littérature générale mettant en scène Superman et le Surfer d'Argent, engagés dans une compétition pour sauver le monde. Parutions dernièrement de diverses nouvelles dans la revue l'Ampoule, des

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http://www.laplumeetlesombres.fr Flora Michèle Marin était biologiste de métier, elle a fui la Roumanie à l'âge de quarante-cinq ans avec sa fille, qui était mineure. Elle a travaillé au laboratoire d'Hygiène de la Ville de Paris et a fait des gardes de nuit aux urgences de l'hôpital Mondor de Créteil, jusqu'à sa retraite. Elle a découvert l'art contemporain en France et a pris des cours au Centre Georges Pompidou. Elle a exposé ses oeuvres, ses photographies ainsi que ses travaux plastiques au « Salon de la Photographie », Salle Olympe de Gouges, en 2005, 2004, 2003 et 2002, lors de l'exposition « Les artistes de la Mairie de Paris » Hôtel de Ville, Paris en 2001 et 1999, au « Salon des Artistes Hospitaliers du Cent Cinquantenaire de l’AP-HP », Chapelle Saint-Louis du groupe hospitalier Pitié-Salpétrière en 1999 et elle a illustre des textes dans les revues mgversion2>datura, Les Etats Civils, Népenthès, Paysages écrits et dans les ebooks d'Alexandra Bouge, Une nuit à Belleville et La ville. Elle est morte à l'âge de soixante-quatorze ans d'un cancer du poumon. Les personnes qui l'ont connue, même quelques heures, parlent d'elle comme d'une femme exceptionnelle.

Marigny Michel, a seventh-generation native of South Louisiana, earned three degrees at UCLA, during which time she earned publication and awards for her poetry, fiction, and essays. She founded and edited two literary journals and an undergraduate humanities research journal. She performs at readings in the Los Angeles area, including an upcoming presentation of fiction at the July 2013 Spoken Interludes Salon.

Although she is a rare practitioner (though not slavish devotee) of formalist style, nonetheless her work appears regularly in journals such as Calyx, Goblin Fruit, Louisiana Review, and others. She is pleased and proud to join the esteemed ranks of contributors to mgversion2>datura.

Karla Linn Merrifield: A seven-time Pushcart-Prize nominee and National Park Artist-in-Residence, Karla Linn Merrifield has had some 400 poems appear in dozens of journals and anthologies. She has nine books to her credit, the newest of which are Lithic Scatter and Other Poems (Mercury Heartlink) and Attaining Canopy: Amazon Poems (FootHills Publishing). Forthcoming from Salmon Poetry is Athabaskan Fractal and Other Poems

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Biographies of the Far North. Her Godwit: Poems of Canada (FootHills) received the 2009 Eiseman Award for Poetry and she recently received the Dr. Sherwin Howard Award for the best poetry published in Weber—The Contemporary West in 2012. She is assistant editor and poetry book reviewer for The Centrifugal Eye (www.centrifugaleye.com), a member of the board of directors of TallGrass Writers Guild and Just Poets (Rochester, NY), and a member of the New Mexico State Poetry Society. Visit her blog, Vagabond Poet, at http://karlalinn.blogspot.com.

Károly Sándor Pallai is a PhD student, founder and editor in chief of the international electronic review Vents Alizés, creator and founding director of the publishing house Edisyon Losean Endyen. He writes and publishes poetry in French, English, Creole, Hungarian and Spanish. His collection of poems, Soleils invincibles was published in 2012, his play, Mangeurs d’anémones in 2013 (Éditions Arthée). In acknowledgement of his theoretical, poetical and editorial work, he has been chosen among the « 50 young Hungarian talents » by the La femme magazine.

Walter Ruhlmann works as an English teacher, edits mgversion2>datura and runs mgv2>publishing. Walter is the author of several poetry chapbooks and e-books in French and English and has published poetry, fiction and non-fiction in various printed and electronic publications world wide. Nominated for Pushcart Prize once.

His latest collections are "Maore" published by Lapwing Publications, Belfast, 2013 and "Carmine Carnival" published by Lazarus Media, USA, 2013. His blog http://thenightorchid.blogspot.fr/ J. J. Steinfeld is a Canadian fiction writer, poet, and playwright who lives on Prince Edward Island, where he is patiently waiting for Godot’s arrival and a phone call from Kafka. While waiting, he has published fourteen books, including Disturbing Identities (Stories, Ekstasis Editions), Should the Word Hell Be Capitalized?

(Stories, Gaspereau Press), Would You Hide Me? (Stories, Gaspereau Press), An Affection for Precipices (Poetry, Serengeti Press), Misshapenness (Poetry, Ekstasis Editions), and A Glass Shard and Memory (Stories, Recliner Books). His short stories and poems have appeared in numerous anthologies and periodicals internationally, and over forty of his one-act plays and a handful of full-length plays have been performed in North America.

Marlene Tissot est née dans les seventies du côté de Reims. Elle vit aujourd’hui à Valence, écoute beaucoup de musique, dort très mal, écrit souvent la nuit, de préférence au stylo bille. Elle est l’auteur d’un recueil de poésies « Nos parcelles de terrain très très vague » (Asphodèle éditions), de plaquettes poétiques « Celui qui préférait respirer le parfum des fleurs » et « Mes pieds nus dans tes vieux sabots bretons » (-36° éditions) ainsi que d’un roman « Mailles à l’envers » (Lunatique Editions). Elle participe régulièrement à des revues littéraires aux univers variés (Borborygmes, Freak Wave, Dissonances, Nouveaux Délits, Traction Brabant, Népenthès, Microbe, Le Zaporogue, Les Cahiers d’Adèle, Poésie/Première, Charogne, L’Angoisse,

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mgversion2>datura...) Elle termine actuellement un recueil poétique « Des mots de tous les jours » et poursuit la rédaction d’un nouveau roman qui sera peut-être intitulé « Les voix ».

Sheri Wright: Pushcart Prize and Kentucky Poet Laureate nominee, Sheri L. Wright is the author of six books of poetry, including the most recent, The Feast of Erasure. Wright’s visual work has appeared in numerous journals, including Blood Orange Review, The Single Hound, THIS Literary Magazine, Prick of the Spindle, Blood Lotus Journal and Subliminal Interiors. In 2012, Ms. Wright was a contributor to the Sister Cities Project Lvlds: Creatively Linking Leeds and Louisville. Her photography has been shown across the Ohio Valley region and abroad.

Painting 79 by Claudio Parentela

Next issue mgv2_74 | 10_13 Otherworldly Mammals Send your submission from August 1-31, 2013 to mgversion2datura@gmail.com Check mgversion2datura.blogspot.com for the guidelines.

mgversion2>datura ISSN: 1365 5413 mgv2_73 | 07_13 edited by Walter Ruhlmann © mgversion2>datura and the contributors, July 2013 mgversion2datura@gmail.com http://mgversion2datura.blogspot.com

Elle a enfilé sa main dans un sac en plastique comme un bout de viande qu’on s’apprête à congeler. Puis elle a fourré ses doigts dans moi. Je la sentais remuer dans mon ventre. “Décontractez-vous, mademoiselle”, elle a dit en s’enfonçant encore un peu. Ce n’était pas réellement douloureux. C’était surtout cette sensation d’être fouillée contre mon gré. Un peu comme un viol en douceur. C’était ça qui m’inquiétait. Qu’on puisse pénétrer mon intimité aussi facilement. “Parfait, elle a dit, tout est parfait.” Puis elle a ajouté, en parlant un peu plus bas : “L’hymen est intact.” Et je crois bien avoir entendu maman pousser un long soupir de soulagement. Marlène Tissot, Comme un viol en douceur, Mailles à l'envers.

She put a plastic bag on her hand like you would prepare a loaf of meat for the freezer. Then she stuck her fingers inside me. I could feel her moving inside my belly. “Relax, young lady”, she said going a little deeper.

It did not really hurt. It was rather that feeling to be searched against my will. Just like a soft rape. That was what was worrying me. That my intimacy could be penetrated so easily. “Perfect,” she said, “Everything's perfect.” Then she added, lowering her voice: “The hymen is intact.” And I really think mum sighed heavily with relief. Marlène Tissot, Comme un viol en douceur, Mailles à l'envers. English translation by Walter Ruhlmann