Mg75

mgversion2>datura mgv2_75 | 01_14 They | Ils Š mgversion2>datura & contributors, January 2014

Contents Cover photograph: untitled by unknown Foreword: Walter Ruhlmann Introduction: Eleanor Bennett

Tangible Language

Emily Ramser

poems

Untitled

Flora Michèle Marin

collage

La lettre d'Adam

Jacques André

prose

He's One of Them

Tom Sheehan

prose

Details from the cover photograph Historical Marker...

Karla Linn Merrifield

poem

Untitled

Flora Michèle Marin

photograph

Auguries of Indifference

Caleb Puckett

prose poem

Details from the cover photograph They

Susan T. Landry

prose poem

Untitled

Flora Michèle Marin

photograph

The Unknown Photography

Jan Oskar Hansen

poem

Untitled

Denis Emorine

poems

Untitled

Cecelia Chapman Jeff Crouch

mixed media

Untitled

Alexandra Bouge

street art photograph

Animula

Daniel Y. Harris

poem

Details from the cover photograph Untitled

Alexandra Bouge

street art photograph

Untitled

Alexandra Bouge

prose and poetry

Untitled

Alexandra Bouge

photograph

Contributors' biographies mgv2>publishing catalogue

Foreword by Walter Ruhlmann This photograph was in the family archives and I stumbled upon it when I started working on the family tree in 2006.

That said, no one knew at the time where it came from. Even my dad didn't know it. I suspect it was either some photo "borrowed" from somebody else, an advertisement for some brewery, or might be the group that worked in Grivesnes, a small village in Picardie – north of France – where my great-great-grandfather settled when he fled Alsace (eastern France) when the French-Prussian war led to the annexation of Alsace Lorraine in 1875.

These people had two choices: to become Prussian citizens and comply to the Prussian Empire law, or to leave the place and to be destitute from all they possess. This is what Emile and Robert RUHLMANN (half-brothers) did to settle in Picardie where Emile became a shoe maker if I remember well, and Robert – my great-great-grandfather – the gardener/driver/butler at the castle of Grivesnes. This village and its castle were totally destroyed during WWI. The brick building behind is typical of the architecture of northern France (Higher Normandy, Picardie and Nord-Pas-de-Calais, Marne too).

Nonetheless, I can't be 100% certain that this photograph represent part of my ancestors and their relations.

Even the current mayor of Grivesnes who helped me a lot in my researches at the time couldn't tell if this photograph was taken in Picardie.

Introduction by Eleanor Bennett

Remember or try attaining to construct the memory of if the front cover of this edition was but a photograph taken only minutes ago.

It must seem almost impossible to do because then you rid it of its magic. A celeb selfie from 2011 will never seemingly taken on the qualities of a legendary music photograph from the 60s. Selfie or self portrait – the necessary shortening seems to induce the novelty quality.

We trap ourselves like an unconscious ruling that the vintage and antique gain depths that deepen in the years numbering. The past carries much the same crimes as today or at least all the same intent behind whichever sin. A rose tinted impression carries more admirability. I collect antiques and to find a mint perfume set from 1910 as apposed to a set from 1998 gives me shivers. The illusion of higher quality, workmanship and of so many treasures being lost to me adds the mystique of why a portrait from over a hundred years ago of just an ordinary face is of more substance than a portrait taken seconds ago of a near identical subject. There are so many billion photos taken ever so easily these days that maybe some of us hark back to the time of those rare picture in which we know the people sat posed for ages at a time to just stay in focus.

Sometimes in the world of collecting antiquities you find items where the enamel or the hand painted design is in such fine condition that you just can't believe it prior to 1870.

Sometimes when we keep the past wrapped up, seemingly lost to modern eyes when unveiled it is exactly like a screen shot of the sight of the silversmith, potter, goldsmith or photographer when looking upon their finished, developed and final creation.

mgv2_75 | They | Ils| 01_14 Tangible Language

by Emily Ramser Dedicated to the teachers that kept pushing: Ted Gasper, Beth Huffman, Geoff Belcher and Raymond Cavanagh Goddess of Happiness she sat, hands folded in her lap, watching him. he was blue with eyes blinded and hair gone her face was reddened with blush and her lips were painted scarlet she placed her fingers under his chin “look at me� her warmth spread into him his blue dripping out leaving only pale skin.

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mgv2_75 | They | Ils| 01_14 Blue Bottle She pressed her chapped lips to the blue bottle and tipped it back. The vodka swirled down her throat, plopping in her stomach a like a cat lying in a spot of sunshine peeking through the blinds.

She purred and took another drink.

Her lips peeled over teeth in a crooked smile. Her mouth exploded in a laugh, and her head tilted back, her hair jiggling and dancing. Her body was separate from her mind. Her mind was gone on a journey. It had packed its overnight bag, hoisted it over its shoulder and walked into the sunset.

She didn’t need it or at least, she didn’t want it.

She didn’t want to think. There were too many bad things in the corners of her brain. The alcohol washed away all the cobwebs and everything appeared pristine. She didn’t have to worry about the student loans clinging to the back of her shirt nor the coming Monday. She didn’t have to worry about anything.

She laughed again. And again.

Everything was just so funny. She couldn’t help but laugh. She pressed her hand against her mouth and giggled. She just couldn’t control it.

The world was a circus. You were supposed to laugh. Everyone should laugh all the time. Everything was so much better when you laughed.

She leaned against the guy next to her, placing her head on his shoulder and looping her arms around his waist. Why wasn’t he laughing? Didn’t he see how funny everything was?

She scooted closer to him and dug her fingers into his white cotton shirt. He smelled nice. He smelled like happy times. She liked happy times. She nuzzled her nose into the crook of his neck and took a breath.

He placed his hands on her forearms and pried her away from him, saying he had to do something.

Why did he have to leave? Everyone always seemed to leave.

She brought the bottle back to her lips and took another sip. She brought the now empty bottle to her eye, squinted, and looked through it. Now everything was blue. She didn’t feel like laughing any more.

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mgv2_75 | They | Ils| 01_14 Her Halo Slipped Her jaws clenched gold between carnivorous teeth.

She whispers to herself “I cast my demons out.”

“But how, how do I make my amends to those now dead?”

The metal presses Against her tongue, cold, keeping her words down.

Milkweed Mother bursting, seams coming open, the Woman’s fat being seen. the fertile hunks of skin; brown, white, and tan. the Child pushes a little more, making another rip in the Woman’s fat, fertile bump of flesh.

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mgv2_75 | They | Ils| 01_14

A Rainy Morning I. Sliding sliding children on sleds down hill slopes of tin II. Mocking birds scream and scream at intruders too close to their home III. I look out and see trees so high that they’re scraping the underside of heaven.

White Chrysanthemum A thousand petals, each with differing noses and freckles. As they wilt and fall, they scream their names: Honesty, Trust and Candor.

They weep for the things they mean.

They weep for the grief and the misery of the lonely and the gone.

Their mother is the circle of life, for she, an annual, tells the gardeners that she shall come again as she lays upon her darkened soil deathbed.

But her children still weep for the lost and the gone, for those flowers that shall never return.

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mgv2_75 | They | Ils| 01_14 Lovers “I’m just gunna go to sleep.”

I whisper a goodnight, but you don’t hear me.

I reach out to stroke your forehead, but you roll away. Your body becomes a mountain, and I, a hiker, who climbs Mount Everest just to glimpse the peak of your nose.

I sit on the edge of the bed, my fingers digging Into the foam top. I watch the stars out the window and connect them in my mind as if I was a child using a crayon to connect dots in a coloring book to make the picture appear.

But what picture do the dots of light Billions of trillions of miles upon miles away make?

Sometimes, I think nothing. They are just a piece Of abstract art with no meaning.

I walk to the window and press my face against the pane.

My breath clouds the glass and my finger draws In the fog, tracing the lines between the pinpricks of light In the blanket the night has cast over us.

You roll over.

Your hand gropes at empty sheets like a sailor whose fallen overboard, fisting the fabric for a moment before your fingers release like a flower blooming, and I come back to bed.

Next page, Untitled by Flora Michèle Marin, collage

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mgv2_75 | They | Ils| 01_14 La lettre d'Adam

by Jacques André Cette photo, je l'avais oubliée. Ma mère l'avait accrochée au mur du salon-salle à mangercuisine-chambre à coucher-buanderie de notre logement à côté de Brooklin. Le bébé, sur les genoux de l'homme au regard contraint, c'est moi, Adam. Lui, c'est mon père, Matthias Katzmann, et son demi-sourire vient de ce que je venais de lui pisser sur les cuisses. Il n'avait pas bougé pendant la prise de vue. Je culpabilise encore de cette sensation humide et chaude sur son pantalon des jours de fête.

Cela faisait rire ma mère, Judith. Elle était sauvage. Son rire, ses colères, alors que Matthias ni ne riait, ni ne sortait de ses gonds. Pauvre souvenir, dont il reste le dernier, quand le commis de la compagnie vint annoncer à ma mère qu'un palan avait cédé. Il avait été tué sur le coup avec une tonne ou deux de bananes directement sur la tête.

Ma mère alors s'était attelée à la tâche de maudire le jour où nous avions quitté notre Shtetl. Ce lieu de tristesse et de misère, Zielony, se nichait dans un coin de la Poméranie, je n'en sais pas davantage. Mais la famille, je la connais bien, tous les hommes de la photo, je sais leur nom, et les enfants, tu as vu, il y en avait peu, ils mouraient plus vite qu'ils ne naissaient. Ne restaient que les plus coriaces et les plus méchants, et j'en fais partie. Mais Ingold était bien pire que moi. Ingold, c'est l'affreux moutard à tête carrée qui domine déjà le monde. Que son père fût rabbin n'eut aucune influence sur sa sordide destinée. A Brooklin, j'étais son souffre-douleur. Il entraînait sa bande et rackettait les gamins terrorisés comme moi. Je ne comprenais pas ce qui se passait dans sa tête, j'essayais de comprendre pour quelle raison le fils d'un homme aussi doux et affable pouvait nourrir d'aussi méchantes pensées et comment il pouvait oser les réaliser, les accomplir. Cette photo le montre déjà tel qu'il fut toute sa vie, jusqu'au jour où il tomba sous les balles du clan des Portoricains, un caïd, une ordure, un mépriseur de femmes.

C'est même sans doute à cause de lui que j'ai fait des études et que je suis devenu psychanalyste.

Dans tout homme qui vient m'ouvrir son âme, je cherche un Ingold, et je m'efforce de le faire sortir de sa cachette, de le faire parler au grand jour, afin qu'il exprime l'immense souffrance qui a pu le conduire à avoir un tel comportement. Et à rompre avec la barbarie.

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mgv2_75 | They | Ils| 01_14 Les autres hommes qui sont sur la photo ne sont pas tous partis en Amérique, loin s'en faut. Et quand ma mère a voulu retrouver leur trace dans les années 50, elle n'a jamais retrouvé que des numéros, des noms sur de lugubres registres. Probablement leur en voulait-on d'avoir voulu rester tonneliers, cultivateurs de houblon, brasseurs d'une épouvantable bière à pisser qui faisait, toujours d'après ma mère, la risée de la région. Sam Geldmann, lui, en était fier de cette bière. Il la vendait bien, il la buvait bien aussi, regarde, c'est l'homme très élégant qui se verse un verre. Il paraît qu'il était extraordinaire, brillant causeur, séducteur, mais pas à la façon d'Ingold, bien sûr. Il parlait couramment l'allemand, le polonais et, chuchotait-on, aussi le russe. Il aurait même eu une aventure avec la femme d'un officier russe. Je ne l'ai pas connu, il a disparu dans un camp.

Je ne vais pas te parler de tous ces hommes, leurs destinées sont tellement connues, ils furent tantôt brûlés dans les camps, tantôt broyés dans les mâchoires de la ville de New-York, tonneliers, tailleurs, maçons, cordonniers, misérables et grandioses destinées. Mais je voudrais encore dire quelques mots à propos de Nathan Davidovicz, le petit homme à casquette à la gauche de Sam Geldmann. C'est lui qui m'a enseigné ce tendre humour dont manquait tant mon père, et l'amour de l'humanité dont manquait ma mère qui n'aimait que son fils, lequel s'en serait parfois bien passé.

Nathan venait me chercher à l'école, me protégeait des crasses d'Ingold, et il m'enseignait la sagesse de nos ancêtres.

Devenu adolescent, en sortant de l'école, je venais le voir travailler dans son minuscule atelier.

Des hommes importants lui apportaient de minuscules colis, dont il extrayait le contenu avec une petite pince, et il faisait briller ces miettes de soleil sous mes yeux en me disant : "Ah, si les hommes étaient aussi faciles à tailler, comme le monde serait beau !" C'est lui qui m' a enseigné la patience et l'objectivité. Sa barbe était devenue toute blanche de tristesse, mais sa casquette ne quittait jamais son crâne.

Je te remercie d'avoir retrouvé cette photo, et maintenant, me vient une petite larme en pensant à Nathan Davidovicz, le petit joaillier, J'imagine que, tapi au fond de son ultime atelier, il va la prendre avec sa petite pince et la faire briller.

Adam Katzmann

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mgv2_75 | They | Ils| 01_14 He's One of Them

by Tom Sheehan I don’t know which one he is, but my uncle Salvatore “Sardi” Benevento’s in this old photograph that’s been a treasure in the family now going into its third century here. You know the one I’ve been talking about, how we think it’s a Daguerreotype coughed up through a gent named Suesse Frere around 1839, for not long after that Uncle Sardi was on his way here to the States after leaving Italy in 1861 to find his dream. I don’t know which one he is, but on the back, in Italian, it says, “Sono in fila fuori salone del sindaco di Genova nel 1861 prima di salpare per l'America. La maggior parte degli uomini è stato promesso il lavoro in galleria, ma ho intenzione di essere un cowboy. Sardi. All that means, “I'm in the back row outside the mayor's hall in Genoa in 1861 before we sail off to America. Most of the men are promised work in tunnels, but I am going to be a cowboy. Sardi.”

The story has run through the family for all these years, as follows here, beginning when Sardi was stretching for his dream. All the words are Uncle Sardi’s, as they have passed down through the family along with the old gray photograph where “He’s one of them.”

The saddest part to me is an admission the family still talks about, that there was a girl in the crowded photograph Sardi really liked, but he never saw her again after they got off the ship in Boston. * For the second time this day and for the second day in a row, he looked out the window of the A&P Railroad Lines dining car kitchen in the middle of grass running for endless miles and saw the herd of cattle and the drovers dashing about on horseback, those gallant riders that had drawn him all the way from Italy, half a turn around the world.

Salvatore “Sardi” Benevento, “the best cook on the whole damned railroad,” according to the big boss, felt the knot working in his gut. Out there in that mix is where he wanted to be, had wanted it from the day he left Italy with the dream locked up in his heart.

He recalled the exact moment when he sold the horse, the wagon and the small farm on the same day his grandfather died. Once he arrived in Genoa, after the funeral and after his beloved grandfather was placed down into the rocky ground, he purchased a ticket to America. A few months later, after an interminable wait, and a mad and dangerous crossing of the ocean among some thieves from his own village, he managed to maintain his inner direction, to keep his dream

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mgv2_75 | They | Ils| 01_14 alive.

Ashore but one week, exploring Boston’s North End on foot, he felt like a child away from home.

But he glowed in the energy bouncing around him. Like a small piece of Italy that part of Boston came at him in its full swing. In the air were the known aromas of hours’ long food preparation, the sense of music from every corner and from every bistro, from open windows and closed doors, and finally the magnificent chatter of its people, dialect atop dialect, a grand mixture of Tuscany tongue and Calabrese and Milanese and Roman as old as the sages. He inhaled all of it, as if hunger worked all the parts of him.

Then, fate itself on the move, in one breath, not marked right then but benchmarked later in the way life piles up with incidents, he heard a voice saying in a dialect near his own from the front of an open restaurant,

“Ho, Luigi, perchéuna tale pesante, sguardointerrogativosullatuafaccia? Si

guardasbalordito.” He had no trouble hearing it as, “Ho, Luigi, why do you have such a heavy, quizzical look on your face? You look dumbfounded.”

The speaker was a heavy, well-set man of middle age, mustache-bearing, dark of skin, in a fashionable black suit with simple orange stripes behaving in the fabric like style was its master. The felt hat on his head seemed as new as Benevento knew the suit was, and somewhat costly even in the land of riches. The speaker’s hands flew in the air as he talked, approaching an obvious acquaintance at an outside table.

The one he spoke to, Luigi as named, replied, “Ho bisogno di trovare un grandecuocoitaliano, un cuocosupremo, un maestro del gusto, per la ferrovia.” (“I need to find a great Italian cook, a chef supreme, and a master of taste, for the railroad.”)

Young Benevento, having been taught everything his grandfather knew about meats and vegetables in the kitchen, the best seasons of vegetables, the uses of condiments, the difference in minute mixtures, “the splash and dash” he might have called it, how soft the fruits could become in the mouth, in the throat, stepped in as quickly as he had sold the horse and wagon and the farm. He burst into Italian, went immediately to English to carry his argument, to show his versatility. “I am he whom you are looking for. This is the moment I have been waiting for. The Good Lord sent me down this street on this day to show how destiny works at His hands.” He pointed overhead beseechingly and blessed himself.

“I am the best cook ever to come out of the mountains in Tuscany. I sold my horse and wagon and farm to get here to America, to bring great Italian cooking to the new land of America. I am Salvatore Benevento at your service. Ask the proprietor to loan me his kitchen for an hour. I shall

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mgv2_75 | They | Ils| 01_14 make your mouths water, make you think of home so that you will cry for your mother’s kitchen.

Blessed be the image that comes upon you now from your childhood.” He made the sign of the cross over them as if he was the village padre.

The two older Italian men, marveling at such precocity in the young man, tumbled before his onslaught. He told them how his grandfather had cooked for years for the two of them and for every celebration in their small village. He spelled out some of his own favorite recipes that moved both men to salivation, and to a few more times of their calling out to the proprietor, “another round of vino for us and the young man, Giovanni, if you please.” ("Un altrogiro di vino per noi e ilgiovane, Giovanni, se non vi dispiace.")

The proprietor, after all the talk and Benevento being hired on the spot for the chef’s position on a train leaving the next day for the far western lands of America, finally asked him what he would have cooked if he had been given the run of the restaurant kitchen. The proprietor’s eyes were wide with anticipation.

“Ah, I immediately thought of mushroom trifolati,” Benevento said, “for a late afternoon delicacy for these men of taste, most tasty sautéed mushrooms.”

The proprietor looked downcast as he said, “That would have been impossible, young man, as we do not have any mushrooms in the kitchen today.” He dropped his shoulders as he looked at the others, his hands flung out flat at the imagined loss.

But they all brightened as the young chef looked overhead at a string of tall elm trees, and said, “That is no problem. The Garden in the Sky above us is filled with amanita colyptraderma the Good Lord has provided us. Look at the parade of those choice mushrooms along the upper branch in that large tree across the street. Do they not look delicious even from here?”

Salvatore Benevento, the very next day, was chef No. 1 in the dining car of an A&P Railroad Lines passenger train heading west out of Boston, Tuscany fare on the move.

Nobody yet in the new land realized his real dream was to be a cowboy.

His number 2 cook, Giovanni Ciampa, said one day, as the train left one stop and started on its way again, “I do not poke my nose in your business, Sardi, but I notice you skip out at each stop to buy small things for yourself or perhaps for a lady friend. Can I help with anything? Romance for itinerants like us is a problem from the very beginning.”

“Ah, Joe, you I trust to the utmost. I’ll ask you right up front to keep my secret always. I have taken this job to become, one day in my dreams, a cowboy. It has driven me since I first heard about them. The stories, the legends, the whole drama of the west as it changes the country

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mgv2_75 | They | Ils| 01_14 feeding it. Yes, the things I buy, the things I keep in my personal bag, are things that I will need as a cowboy. I can’t make the change dressed like this.” He swept his hands down his cook’s attire, the floury sleeves, the apron already having its share of bright juices and liquids, and sweeping stains where he wiped his wrists in a hurry. “Ah, no, never dressed like this. This is not a cowboy.” There was disgust in his voice that Giovanni understood.

Seven trips Benevento made back and forth across the great country, across the great river, saw Chicago and St. Louis and burgeoning towns and settlements in Texas and along the Rocky Mountains. It was easy to keep his dream alive for continually he saw from the train windows the herds moving on the wide grasslands or finally corralled for rail movement, and saw the cowboys at every drive’s end clearing their dry mouths, cutting the trail dust in their throats, relaxing as if relaxing was a brand new thing for them. He was caught up in the excitement of their world, those simple successes after fraught perils only special men could survive.

In the midst of his eighth trip on the railroad, in an overnight stop in Colorado, he planned to step off the train just after midnight, when the whole world seemed asleep, when deep dreams were at hand.

On his way to the door, silence everywhere like a silken mist, he touched Giovanni on the cheek to waken him.

“Joe,” he said in a whisper, and getting Joe’s attention. “This is where I get off. This is where I become a cowboy. Wish me luck, my friend. I have written a note to the owners saying that you are the best man for the job now. You know all that I have taught you, all that my grandfather taught me. Speak up when you want to make a point. Trust the taste on your lips. Don’t take a back seat for anybody on the train or in the big offices. You are a good chef. I hope to become as good a cowboy, but we’ll let time do the talking there. Be well, my friend. Buonafortuna. Arrivederci.”

He swung his personal bag over his shoulder, heard the tinny rattle of its contents, and stepped into darkness and a new world. In the morning, from an old man at a livery stable with a crude sign saying “Horses for sale,” he bought a horse and a saddle and started to learn how to ride.

Benevento was a good learner and handled the horse quickly. Two days later he sought employment from a trail boss whose herd was resting a few miles back on the prairie.

“You look brand new. Is them duds you’re wearing that new they look like they wasn’t worn anyplace yet? Who’d you work for last? You ever drove herd?”

“Well,” Benevento said, “I can ride that horse of mine all day.”

“Who’d you work for afore this?” the trail boss said. “Can you rope, pull out a dogie for chow,

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mgv2_75 | They | Ils| 01_14 run down a runaway and bring it back? You ain’t lookin’ the type.”

“This will be my first job, but I have read everything about cowboys and I know I can do the job.

I came all the way from Italy to be a cowboy.” The pain and the dream were both in his face.

“Oh, boy,” the trail boss said, “I got a dreamer here on my hands.” He snorted and thought a bit and said, “The only thing I got right now is a sick cookie who’s ailin’ and abed in the chuck wagon. If you can heat beans and water and make the coffee, you got a job until he gets better. Then, when that’s scored up, we’ll see how good you done. You game for that? What’s your name?”

“Sardi Benevento and I can cook anything. I can make your mouth water from half a mile. All I want is a chance to be a cowboy when your cook gets better. You help me and I’ll help you.”

“That’s a deal, Sardi. Follow me.” And he led him to his herd at a sit-down a few miles out on the grass.

It took one meal and the whole crew of drovers knew they had a “chef” working the chuck wagon. He plain outdid himself and the sick cook in that first meal, his personal bag of supplies coming up as handy as a can opener. From then on, anytime a drover or ramrod or the trail boss went into town, Benevento made sure they had a list of condiments and vegetables that he’d put on a list for them. Every purchase made his cooking tasks much easier.

The night the top wrangler came back with a half barrel of apples, Benevento promised them apple pie for a late snack. By darkness he had all hands drooling for the dessert. He surprised them at camp by unpacking his reflector oven, a shiny tin contraption, from his personal bag and erecting it in front of the open fire. Flames seemed to leap into its parts.

He went to work at his fold down table at the rear of the wagon. Soon, cinnamon swimming in the air, sugar coming sweet as honey bread, he had his first apple pie in the oven and the aroma raced across the grass. Night riders on the far edges of the herd were afraid they’d be left out, but there was plenty of apple pie for all of them, the fire hot for hours, the oven soaking up the direct heat, night filling up with the absolute sweetness sitting in the air. In addition, as an extra part of his dessert, he prepared a special sauce to top the slabs of apple pie. The night was lustrous.

Two days later the original cook was back on the job and Benevento had his first turn as a drover.

The trail boss, Max Farmer, said, “Sardi, you’re one helluva cook. But a promise is a promise, so you get your shot at bein’ a cowpoke, not that I think there’s any more glory in it than bein’ a great cook. I gotta tell you to keep awake on the night rounds. Sing sweet and low, like one of your nice goodies, and don’t close your eyes. We got strange goin’s on in this territory. There’s always somethin’ goin’ on out here two ways if you was to look twice.”

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mgv2_75 | They | Ils| 01_14 So Benevento sang lightly, sweetly, a soft tenor; “Sleep little babies, sleep on my side. Sleep, little dogies, sleep as I ride.” It came out as, "Dormi bambino, dormisu un fianco. canipocosonno, sonno come iogiro."

He sang sweetly, soft as a nightingale in the shadows, and the small speck of light he spied at a distant point was minute, almost insignificant, like a firefly at work, but he had seen no fireflies yet, and decided to wander over that way.

With his horse tied off on some brush, he slipped into a swale and made his way to where the light had been seen. There came the nicker of a horse and the covered cough of a man on a small hummock. The man, obviously, was watching the herd and any other activity. He coughed again and never heard Benevento sneak up behind him and stick the stiletto he’d carried forever against the other man’s throat.

“Say nothing, Signore, or you are dead,” Benevento said. “Walk with me, walk quietly to your horse. You make one move and I will sink the blade into your throat. You will never make noise again. Never sing. Never say hello or goodbye to any loved one.” He nudged the knife point a bit tighter against the throat of the man.

“You understand me?”

“Yes. Don’t cut me. I won’t do anything.”

Benevento led the man to his own horse, unhooked his lasso and tied the man up. Then he walked him to the man’s horse and had him climb into the saddle, still tied up. That is the way the night camp guard saw them coming into firelight and called Max Farmer, the trail boss. “Hey, Max, we got company coming in with the Sardi the cook.”

Farmer asked the man many questions, and got no answers. He repeated many of the questions, the firelight reflecting on the man’s face, and the fear showing in his eyes.

From the edge of the firelight, from the edge of darkness, Benevento, the just replaced cook, walked to the chuck wagon and from his bag retrieved a small honing stone. At the campfire, in view of the captured lookout, whose hands were still bound, Benevento started sharpening his stiletto. The keen knife edge was slowly drawn across the stone, the whisper of the fine abrasion circulating in the air as thin as a bird’s wings. Slowly, again and again, he drew the blade and the shiny tip across the stone. He kept thinking about the whir of a hummingbird’s wings.

“Perhaps, Boss, you might give me an opportunity to pose some questions to him.” He didn’t wait for an answer from Farmer, but drew up a sitting box and sat directly in front of the captured lookout.

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mgv2_75 | They | Ils| 01_14 “You and I have had a discussion, haven’t we, Signore? We spoke of small things, didn’t we, Signore? Shall we start again with some more questions?”

The trussed man, in the light of the fire, under the eyes of a dozen men, with Benevento and the stiletto yet making slight but serious sounds in the night like the mystical threat of a hummingbird, came loose at every seam. He told them everything he knew; how many men they had in their rustler’s gang, who the leader was, when and how they planned to kill as many man as quickly as they could and then to stampede the herd. Later on they would have the forces to regroup the herd and make off with it.

“Well,” Farmer said after he heard the whole story, “maybe we can do a little surprise on our own. We’ll just go over there and shoot up that whole camp of rustlers as fast as we can. Scatter them to the winds and all the hills.” He was not a big man but he had the big word.

That is, until the former cook and cowboy, Sardi Benevento, said, “Why endanger any of our men with that effort, Mr. Farmer. Why don’t we get the herd as close as we can in the night, while they’re all sleeping and stampede the herd right through their hideout? That should soften things up for us. And we’ll do the regrouping.”

“Why, Signore,” Farmer said, “you are no longer a cook in this here outfit. You are now lead scout and a full-blown cowboy. But if I was you, I wouldn’t throw away that shiny tin oven of yours.”

Details from the cover photograph, unknown

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mgv2_75 | They | Ils| 01_14 Historical Marker, State Route 158

by Karla Linn Merrifield With beaded black eyes the vigilant white sea gulls of Raritan Bay have glanced eastward toward islands in the distance across from Sandy Hook: Manhattan, Long, Fire, Ellis.

Tilting on lofty swoops, the birds remember from their ancestors the generations of arrivals, all those black-clothed Old World Jews in fetid holds, pogrom-humbled once, now deep in steerage, speaking Yiddish, mumbling diaspora Hebrew prayers, until tossed ashore past the white surf, relieved of anguish.

But no Jersey Larus delawarensis ever learned where that one surviving boatload finally landed, one shul of sixty Russian immigrants, later seeded near an unimaginable line, the 100th Meridian.

No coastal avian could see that far— the long Conestoga trails to a dozen sections, dozen families— homesteaders in 1887—with their Torah, undamaged by the voyage, safe at last in a sod house on one-hundred-sixty acres, in the blank ark of the sere open prairie.

This place shall be named Beersheba, and within months one of us shall marry, one of us die, one of us be born; so be the mitzvahs of Kansas.

Originally published in Poetica; reprinted in Lithic Scatter and Other Poems by Karla Linn Merrifield

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Untitled by Flora Michèle Marin, photograph

mgv2_75 | They | Ils| 01_14 Auguries of Indifference

by Caleb Puckett Hold the moldering paper. Hold the crowd of poses. Hold eternity for a minute and consider the infinity between your fingertips. Consider the fate of each frame of reference with each hard strain for recognition. The forms in the photo were caught and locked up for some impossible posterity.

Now their once tangible past has become an act of imagination, a mass fading along the edges with the incessant spreading of days and tightening of vision. Consider the diminishment of each friend and family member. Consider their inevitable replacements, the full manifestation of anonymity.

Experience a world eventually blinking itself into blankness. Witness a photo releasing its hostages for want of payment. Understand that indifference is the real enemy. Understand that it’s also the only means of escape. Divine the countless auguries.

Details from the cover photograph, unknown They

by Susan T. Landry The men have moustaches like trap doors, guarding the silence of their lips. They wear caps, out of slyness or a memory of comfort; they wait for something and expect nothing. Where are the women? The old ones wrap a rag around their heads and are made invisible. Do the mothers cower in the huts, shivering? The men have arms like weapons, guarding the silence of their hearts. The wives will not beg for crumbs or a woolen coat. They prefer the huts, scraping the dirt from turnips, singing to each other. The soup of roots simmers; the marrow has been sucked from the bones.

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mgv2_75 | They | Ils| 01_14

Untitled by Flora Michèle Marin, photograph

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mgv2_75 | They | Ils| 01_14 The Unknown Photography

by Jan Oskar Hansen The huddled masses came from Poland, and some from Ireland they were escaping tyranny and persecution.

Worked at a beer brewery and the boss is the man by the door pointing to a glass of strong ale in his hand.

The workers lived near the brewery, as was the norm back then Before cars became common, they with their children are dressed in Sunday´s best for this sober occasion.

The little boy in the front of the picture, has no trousers on, yet he was the first of the Kennedy clan and became mayor of Boston, and a rich businessman.

The beer the brewery made was not to every body's taste as it was Dark strong and bitter, folks wanted a lighter type of ale and The business folded, yet its owner went to Texas and became a successful oil prospector.

As for the rest few stayed, they traveled far before settling down, continuing their modest life as employees, sending their children to school and dreaming big dreams for them.

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mgv2_75 | They | Ils| 01_14 Two Untitled Poems

by Denis Emorine Ne viens pas me rejoindre sur les rives de la mort C’est promis dès mon arrivée Je ferai semblant de chercher l’éternité J’essaierai d’y croire Pour te rassurer.

J’aurai besoin de solitude encore une fois Parce que rien n’aura changé Et surtout pas ma vie Je n’ effacerai pas l’ empreinte de mes pas Je ne tournerai pas la tête ni mes pensées vers D’autres que toi.

Je rassemblerai mes pensées éparses Pour ne pas résoudre mes contradictions.

Crois-moi si tu le veux J’ arriverai enfin à déclamer les poèmes de Pasternak en russe Avant de mourir…

La mort, Oui, la mort vient de l’Est

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mgv2_75 | They | Ils| 01_14 Je ne vois plus les visages Je n’ entends plus les voix Ils sont perdus dans la neige Et les forêts de bouleaux.

Je n’ avance plus contre le vent de l’ Histoire Pour les serrer contre moi.

Dans les camps dévastés Le vent gémit Les portes claquent La vie s’ est interrompue.

Seules Quelques traces de sang illuminent Les chemins blancs Que personne n’emprunte plus.

Ceux que tu aimais contre le temps Se sont laissés abattre Ils t’ ont abandonné là Face aux vents blafards

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mgv2_75 | They | Ils| 01_14 Cecelia Chapman & Jeff Crouch

In almost 200 years of photography, a few unique and occasionally mind-boggling photographs have been captured. Beginning with the canine astronaut Tex photographed in June of 2012, NewsFax counts down the 10 most mysterious photographs ever taken.

Why was this photograph found in the possession of Tex, the famous canine astronaut? Photos like the one seen here have been found at several crime scenes where dogs using Beards-Wegman transcoders have died of bleach poisoning. The photo found in Tex's suit contains an algorithm used by the MIK. Tex was related to G. W. Tolstoy, a Monroe Doctrine follower, and the President of Isolatia, a country 27

mgv2_75 | They | Ils| 01_14 first discovered by Sinbad. The canine star traveler had just stolen a spaceship and returned home to find Tolstoy dead. Wash Carver-Bohr of Split Phi Labs was about to broadcast news of a startling find – charm rays, a wave type neither sound nor light – when Tolstoy was assassinated. Dogs often need to mask themselves in group photos so as not to frighten children.

Untitled by Alexandra Bouge street art photograph

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mgv2_75 | They | Ils| 01_14 Animula

by Daniel Y Harris But now, As I find myself turning its heavy cardboard pages, Turning them meditatively back and forth, My brain loosens like the gilt clasp of the album, Unburdening itself of its locked memories, Page after page, picture after picture, Until the miscellaneous photographs take to themselves color and meaning.

—Alter Brody Excerpt from “A Family Album” I. Nefesh (Appetitive) A skeined rift of pitch in dire scales—inward arc cleaves to its fifth mode in vatic notes at the Pool of Siloam—siege of sound, lapsing, offertory, to wake the dead with redress.

II. Ruah (Emotive) Thinned to a timbre of twelve-tone rows and freygish scales at the Gate of Hinnom, deemed to be cursed by the elect—hears a second death as the body that doesn’t die in jubilo.

III. Neshamah (Intellect) Atones no oath nor vow, null and void—bane of kippur in staves of immortals, measures defect to unwrite laws, lucent as amen, given the fanfare to outlast the writ of rites.

IV. Hayah (Spiritus) Foretold creed of pox 29

mgv2_75 | They | Ils| 01_14 burns jollity with its fedoric rebbe from Ur or Volkovysk, say Chagall’s Vitebsk not heard of in the rictus of the raised graves of advent, falls from the surge tropes of a covenant ear.

V. Yehidah (Nondual) Smelted bloody veins spool as red mesh of torso with Hebrew letters on gray, cuffed trousers and tattered gabardine. The after-bliss of exposed luz bone burns itself and leaves a schmear of prequels—spawn like ameba in their viral broth: a head delivers rigged to create heirs.

Details from the cover photograph, unknown

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Untitled by Alexandra Bouge, street art photograph

mgv2_75 | They | Ils| 01_14 Prose and poetry

by Alexandra Bouge Une histoire planante, de celles qu’on raconte à corps perdu, une histoire des plus sacrées qui remonte à des temps bouffés par les vers les plus vils, que je chantais avec de fausses notes, une ascension sans but véritable, au fond des quelques vérités brutes qui vont apparaître à la lumière vite. Une histoire qui remonte à la nuit des temps qui prendra effet et fin lorsque des jours blancs, aveuglants, rongés par le temps vont célébrer des contacts légèrement sanguinolents, qui ne pourront et vont se disperser comme une vase noire et baveuse sur les futures variantes ; des senteurs rongées par le temps, une victoire des plus acharnées contre des événements malgré eux confus, une histoire vivant des calamités à bout de ce qui paraît être une éternité. *** entre les tombes recouvertes de plantes sous le ciel livide des tombes le ciel nuageux les morts matent la voûte immobiles dans leurs tombes les tombes parlent ils murmurent les hommes parlent terrain graveleux les tombes fermées à tout jamais tombées, scellées graviers tombes un homme se meurt dans la rue cimetière blafard, à l'orée de la nuit le cimetière se ferme un homme meurt au détour d'une rue sa main effleure son bras son foie, son cœur,

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mgv2_75 | They | Ils| 01_14 les taches qui ressurgissent sur sa peau la paume de ses mains effleure ses viscères son foie de sa chair chassée vivide palliatif à l'horreur, mutilé

Untitled by Alexandra Bouge, photograph

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Biographies Jacques André est né au cœur des Terres froides en Dauphiné, dans le même village que Louis Mandrin, le généreux contrebandier, mais quelques années plus tard, vers la moitié du siècle dernier. Après quelques études de lettres, il se consacre à la direction d’une entreprise de type PME, puis, au tournant du XXIe siècle, il décide de se consacrer à l’édition, sous la marque Jacques André éditeur, avec une prédilection pour les recueils de poésie et les ouvrages universitaires traitant de sciences humaines, médecine, littérature, philosophie, histoire. Son goût pour l’écriture soignée frôle la psychose obsessionnelle. Adam Katzmann est son double inquiétant.

Eleanor Leonne Bennett is an internationally award winning photographer and visual artist. She is the CIWEM Young Environmental Photographer of The Year 2013 and has also won first places with National Geographic, The World Photography Organisation, Nature's Best Photography and The National Trust to name but a few.

Eleanor's photography has been published in the Telegraph, The Guardian, The British Journal of Psychiatry, Life Force Magazine, British Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and as the cover of books and magazines extensively throughout the world. Her art is globally exhibited, having shown work in New York, Paris, London, Rome, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Copenhagen, Washington, Canada, Spain, Japan and Australia amongst many other locations. She was also the only person from the UK to have her work displayed in the National Geographic and Airbus run See The Bigger Picture global exhibition tour with the United Nations International Year Of Biodiversity 2010. In 2012 her work received coverage on ABC Television. Elenaor Bennett & Friends is available from mgv2>publishing.

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 courant 2014.

Cecelia Chapman lives in Northern California where she works in film, mixed-media and writing.

Jeff Crouch is an internet artist in Texas.

Denis Emorine est né en 1956 près de Paris. Il a avec l’anglais une relation affective parce que sa mère enseignait cette langue.Il est d’une lointaine ascendance russe du côté paternel. Poète, essayiste, nouvelliste et dramaturge, Emorine est traduit en une douzaine de langues. Son théâtre a été joué en France, au Canada (Québec) et en Russie. Plusieurs de ses livres (poésie, théâtre,nouvelles) ont été traduits et édités aux EtatsUnis. En 2004, Emorine a reçu le premier prix de poésie (français) au Concours International Féile Filiochta. http://denis.emorine.free.fr Daniel Y. Harris is the author of Hyperlinks of Anxiety (Cervena Barva Press, 2013), The New Arcana (with John Amen, New York Quarterly Books, 2012), Paul Celan and the Messiah’s Broken Levered Tongue (with Adam Shechter, Cervena Barva Press, 2010; picked by The Jewish Forward as one of the 5 most important Jewish poetry books of 2010) and Unio Mystica (Cross-Cultural Communications, 2009). He is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Some of his poetry, experimental writing, art, and essays have been published in BlazeVOX, Denver Quarterly, European Judaism, Exquisite Corpse, The New York Quarterly, In Posse Review, The Pedestal Magazine, Poetry Magazine.com and Poetry Salzburg Review. He is the President of the Board of Directors of The New York Quarterly Foundation. His website is www.danielyharris.com.

Susan T. Landry is founder and editor of the online literary journal about memoir: Run to the Roundhouse, Nellie (www.run-to-the-roundhouse-nellie.com). She lives in Maine and writes short-form memoir and poetry and edits medical manuscripts to keep the wolf from the door.

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Biographies 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 exposé ses oeuvres, ses photographies ainsi que ses travaux plastiques 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.

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 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.

Caleb Puckett has published chapbooks with Plan B Press, The Feral Press and mgv>2publishing, as well as two book-length collections, Tales from the Hinterland and Market Street Exit, with Otoliths. His newest book, Fate Lines/ Desire Lines, is due out from Mammoth Publications in early 2014. Puckett also edits the online journal Futures Trading (futurestradinglit.weebly.com). He lives in Kansas.

Walter Ruhlmann works as an English teacher, edits mgversion2>datura and runs mgv2>publishing. His latest collections are Maore published by Lapwing Publications, UK, 2013 and Carmine Carnival published by Lazarus Media, USA, 2013. The Year the World Ended... Not coming up 2014 through Robocup Press. His blog http://thenightorchid.blogspot.fr Tom Sheehan is the author of several ebooks from Milspeak Publishers; Korean Echoes, and The Westering, (nominated for a National Book Award), from Danse Macabre: Murder at the Forum, Death of a Lottery Foe, Death by Punishment and An Accountable Death; coming from Pocol, The Garden of Long Shadows and 8 western short story collections.

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mgv2>publishing treats you right and wants you to treat yourself Treat yourself or treat someone you like a lot with one of these awesome books. mgv2>publishing already has a large catalogue of many talented poets and visual artists.

These terrific people deserve your attention and would make with a little support from anyone out there who claims they are interested in contemporary talents.

Stand-alone series Alphabet City

By Anon Ymous Paperback, 30 Pages Price: $13.00 Poet Anon takes you on a trip on words and drives you through this forest of letters to visit his amazing ability to transfer an awesome imagination into what is one of the most creative books published by mgv2>publishing to date.

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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.

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SĂŠance

By Kyle Hemmings Paperback, 41 Pages Price: $8.00 Kyle Hemmings' overwhelming prose poetry is something I longed for publishing. The directness, straight-forwardness and depth that lie in these poems is a huge comfort that underground contemporary poetry still has the means to give messages to the world.

Art cover by Norman J. Olson.

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Etranges anges anglais

By Walter Ruhlmann Available in French only!

Paperback, 72 Pages Price: $10.00 « Je n’ai rien gardé de toi, si ce n’est cette brûlure qui colle à la peau.

Peau rouge de mes nuits sans sommeil, à quelle ombre appartiennent tes veines ? » Buy it here.

Or from the X & Friends series Amber Decker & Friends

By Amber Decker Paperback, 30 Pages Price: $13.00 This is the first volume of a new series launched this year by mgv2>publishing: X & Friends, starting with Amber Decker and her fellow poets.

With a foreword by Rick Lupert and an art cover

by Jeff Crouch.

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Norman Olson & Friends

By Norman Olson Paperback, 27 Pages Price: $15.00 Norman J. Olson's artwork is sublime and sublimes his friends' poetry. Have a go at this second volume of the series X & Friends published by mgv2>publishing with a foreword

by RD Armstrong.

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Ben Nardolilli & Friends

By Ben Nardolilli Paperback, 31 Pages Price: $11.00 Ben Nardolilli & Friends or Defense Mechanisms & Other People's Poems. Third volume of the series X & Friends by mgv2>publishing. Edited by Walter Ruhlmann. Co-edited by Ben Nardolilli.

Cover illustration by Alain Lacouchie.

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Caleb Puckett & Friends

By Caleb Puckett Paperback, 27 Pages Price: $6.00 X & Friends volume 4: Caleb Puckett & Friends – In Mixed Company. The mixed tape concept revisited by one of the most talented poets I have encountered to date. This book of poetry and music will probably make you tap your foot as you read it.

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Karla Linn Merrifield & Friends

By Karla Linn Merrifield Paperback, 53 Pages Price: $10.99 mgv2>publishing, X & Friends 5th volume. Karla Linn Merrifield & Friends: Colleen Powderly, Chris Crittenden, MJ Iuppa, Michael G Smith, Eve Anthony Hanninen with a foreword by Kenneth Pobo. These poets take to roads that even the best travelogue cannot offer.

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Steve F. Klepetar & Friends – Blue Season

By Steve F. Klepetar Paperback, 18 Pages Price: $7.00 mgv2>publishing – X & Friends Series – Volume 6 – Steve F. Klepetar & Friends, Blue Season – August 2013.

Steve F. Klepetar has has a long commitment with mgversion2>datura (almost ten years) and it is with great pleasure that I invited him to take part in this series to share his poetry in a book edited and published with pride.

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Eleanor Bennett & Friends

By Eleanor Bennett Paperback, 21 pages Price: $15 The 7th volume of the X & Friends series with one of the most brilliant photographers of the 21st century. In the nursery, could have been a good subtitle for this book as the contributors are all coming out of age. Old teenagers, young adults, these artists are what the small press and larger media Buy it here.

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By Walter Ruhlmann Paperback, 58 Pages Price: $24.34 mgv2>publishing D-Day 68th Anniversary Anthology With contributions by: Nick Armbister Eleanor Bennet Fern G. Z. Carr Bob Cooper Emer Davis Bill Dodds SJ Fowler Gene Grabiner Jan Oskar Hansen Charlotte Henson Charles Langley Lyn Lifshin Andy N Hal O'Leary David Pointer Walter Ruhlmann Tom Sheehan Andrew Scott Will Tinkham Buy it here.

Or one of these awesome issues of mgversion2>datura, the 17-year-old journal

mgv2_76 | 04_14 visual poetry and asemic writing

“Slinky White Army Shorts”, visual poem by Walter Ruhlmann first published in Otoliths Submit February 1st – 28th, 2014