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Editorial Board Editor-in-Chief: Jenna Snyder Managing Editor: Thomas Fucaloro
Poetry Editors: Eric Alter, Thomas Fucaloro, Laura Hetzel, and Gabriella Iacono Prose Editor: Julie Bentsen Art Editor: Laura Hetzel
NYSAI.ORG FACEBOOK.COM/NYSAI
PRINTED ON THE ISLE OF STATEN DESIGNED BY JENNA SNYDER COPYRIGHT: All rights revert to the author upon publication. Cover art by Rachel Therres NYSAI ads by Rachel Lyngholm 3
Copyright © 2017 NYSAI Press
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contents
poetry
Joel Allegretti / Valerie Bertinelli is Unrecognizable at 57... ................................................12 John Clinton / Resume.............................................................................................................................30 Colin Dodds / Sneaker Diseases...........................................................................................................25 Jack Freedman / Congress.....................................................................................................................22 Thomas Tre G. Gilbert / ...Seen Too Many Picasso Portraits Turned Inkblots... ...........26 Yi-Wen Huang / The Night Everything Went Wrong: Kobe Meatballs at Applebee’s....19 Craig Kite / Life in My Apartment.......................................................................................................18 Jessica Kratz / Gut Check........................................................................................................................32 Wafula p’Khisa / Thinking About This Place..................................................................................9 Brian Sheffield / I Wish I Didn’t Have to Care About Celebrities. ... ..................................10 John Snyder / This Is Me Taking Off My Mask................................................................................37 John Trause / Homage to Jasper Johns.............................................................................................13 Sugar Tobey /Neighborhood.................................................................................................................29 Amy Leigh Wicks / Hudson Summer.................................................................................................35
art
Claire Durand-Gasselin..........................................................................................................................28 Matthew Gaffney........................................................................................................................................24 Rachel Lyngholm.......................................................................................................................................8 Sophie Margolin.........................................................................................................................................21, 33 Stephen Mead...............................................................................................................................................11, 36 Will Schmitz..................................................................................................................................................14 Judith Snow...................................................................................................................................................27 Rachel Therres............................................................................................................................................Cover, 34 Zoë Tirado.....................................................................................................................................................15-17
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editor’s note Dear Readers,
If a literary magazine is read on Staten Island; does it make a difference?
Jenna Snyder
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Rachel Lyngholm
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Thinking About This Place Wafula p’Khisa
Until the air herein agrees with our lungs after consumption and the ground eases under our swollen feet Until our tongues learn to react to poison dripping from above and sow the best in hearts of these innocent earthlings Ours is mockery to the ideals of the land
This place is like no other tin-roofed sheds scattered country-wide To clatter peasants’ minds with strange theories It’s a theater, swollen with epic, tragic and romantic tales Longing to be showcased on the world stage! There is a Judas who smiles with us in time of plenty and sells us to the Imperial Force, when money is nobody’s friend There’s a counselor whose tongue scares the hell out of us and we evade her like a dreaded disease There are grown men with strange beards & scary eyes who drink for a living and spend all time in the world arguing over Sportpesa and Soccer But, of all, I play the most miserable role Because my dreams didn’t find a warm welcome!
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I Wish I Didn’t Have To Care About Celebrities. They’re Fucking Everywhere and They’re Always Dying. Brian Sheffield
They have more things than I do. They are loved way more than I am and when they die, they are mourned for one day by everybody on earthexcept for me because I wish I didn’t have to care so I make myself to not.
I didn’t cry when Robin Williams died, but I did say “oh shit” and was relatively quiet that day. I think I watched Aladdin or Jack or something. Something that would wake the child in me and let me know that I was quietly mourning more than just the death of a good personI was mourning the ways I felt when I saw him on screen. I didn’t cry when Leonard Cohen died though I can feel myself choke as I think about it. I also said “oh shit” (an unsurprising go-to for when I’m surprised) and then listened to his first album followed by my favorite rendition of “hallelujah” which is from a show of his in London I found on youtube a few years ago.
There are a million other white celebrities to mourn (oops, did I just get a little political?) but it bores me to talk about it now. I saw a young man lying on Broadway, his head on an older woman’s lap. His eyes were wide and unblinking and he seemed largely unresponsive like a scene at the end of a drama or somewhere in the thick meat of horror. Another young man chased down some emergency vehicle (description unnecessary trust me) and I heard him call the driver an asshole as he came back with no help. I quickly asked if I could help. Nothing. I continued on with my life, undamaged and later, laughing at something simple. (description unnecessary trust me) 10
Stephen Mead
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VALERIE BERTINELLI IS UNRECOGNIZABLE AT 57 AND THE INTERNET IS TALKING ABOUT IT; LINK POSTED ON FACEBOOK IS SHARED BY USERS, RECEIVES HUNDREDS OF “LIKES” Joel Allegretti
A man died alone last night, in a W. 9th Street brownstone. He was found face-down on the kitchen floor.
His hand clutched a dis connected phone.
No one knew any of this
until now.
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Homage to Jasper Johns John Trause
Red bar White bar Red bar White bar Red bar White bar Red bar White bar Red bar White bar Red bar White bar Red bar
white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star white star
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Will Scmitz
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Zoë Tirado
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ZoĂŤ Tirado
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Zoë Tirado
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Life in My Apartment Craig Kite
I have a billion plastic grocery bags Under my kitchen sink
This time next year There will be 2 billion plastic grocery bags Under my kitchen sink I can never throw them away I love them all They come bubbling out at me Getting in the way Every time I reach under there To grab something more useful Like a gut wrench Or some Drano Or some All Purpose Cleaner Anything I might drink To make my mind less dirty And backed up
They come bubbling out at me Saying use me! use me! use me! Just like I say to the muses Living in my walls Who only ever come out To ask me for my cigarettes
I am a useless plastic grocery bag Under my kitchen sink And God is a bearded fuck Drinking a bottle of Drano
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The Night Everything Went Wrong: Kobe Meatballs at Applebee’s Yi-Wen Huang
Friday, Hubby felt awful that my Spring Break was ruined because I did not go anywhere to have fun or even relax a little bit So he took me to Applebee’s So many people in town, so crowded, but lacking the amenities of NYC, I told myself
We finally arrived at Applebee’s! Well, no place to park, you said Wow! There is a parking space Don’t get out! A car rushed in, parking next to us They came out before us and rushed into the restaurant cause it’s almost 6 PM and the Happy Hour was almost over. Can we sit in the bar? you asked the manager Let me let you know, the manager responded Okay, we are in line Well, two people just went in to the bar without getting in line You were pissed! Let’s go! You stood up and I was right behind you We are gonna getting going You wanna sit at table or booth? I will take table There are new menus here. I saw it on TV Wow! pot stickers at Applebee’s Wow! We can order 3, 3 dollars each I guess because of globalization, I am not exotic anymore An American chain offering pot stickers Do you know that Panera Bread is serving ramen? I asked I saw it in an advertisement in the latest Cosmopolitan You looked surprised
I want pot stickers and Kobe meatballs, a Long Beach Iced Tea Two cheese sticks, one pot stickers, two Kobe Meatballs, one raspberry iced tea, and one Long Beach Iced Tea, you told the waiter The iced tea is so good! It tastes like Red Lobster You can order one Oh Yeah May I have one more raspberry iced tea? I asked the waiter 19
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OMG! These pot stickers taste so good! I like the sauce, too You dipped the pot stickers into the sauce Wow! You looked so happy! I had a big smile on my face after drinking the Long Beach iced tea Here come the Kobe meatballs and the bread You pick up the bread right away and put three meatballs and marinara into the middle of the bread like a sandwich I was eating the meatballs and the marinara And I broke a little piece of bread dipped it into the sauce The meatball is cold! you said Really? Mine is not! Return it!
You put the cold meatballs on the plate You pressed the service button on the tablet requesting the waiter to come over The waiter finally came and took the cold meatballs away
Fifteen minutes later Well, he came back with the meatballs You looked excited and ready to dig in Well, it’s ice cold! I touch it with my hand, yeah! It’s cold! You pressed the button, the waiter showed up again, took the meatballs back I apologize for the meatballs. This time, I asked them to steam them first. Because of the cold meatballs, your dish is on us. Please come back, the manager smiled at us Oh! Those meatballs are so good! Yeah, they are my favorite, she said Have you tried the Brisket Nachos? No, can we try it and it’s on the house? You asked the manager Yes, I will put the order now. They are also my favorite. I am sorry. Can you wait? The meatballs are going to take an hour
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Sophie Margolin
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Congress
Jack Freedman
This
congress
of
geese
begs
for
your
crumbs
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the
same
away crumbs those takes humans housing
this
congress
way
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Matthew Gaffney
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Sneaker Diseases Colin Dodds
Born kings born too far from kingship Born kings born far from anything like a kingdom Toyota Corolla held together with black tape and palm fronds Foreign videos and ecstatic permission Insane plight in plain sight Sneaker diseases and reheated Jesus A bastard of limitations at the Statue of Liberty— they got him on the bastard cam talking the statute of limitations
Exotic dances of the gentlemen’s club Endemic dances of the twilit sky Esoteric dances of warehouse voices Epidemic dances of tumultuous guts
The Underprivileged Boys’ Ringtone Choir plays all the hits to kiss the diabetes-truncated feet of Lazarus to almost loud enough to harmonize the progeny muffle the poverty By subway stairs, old women wave cell phones like santeria priestesses Young men who learned about mortality from Failure To Send Messages contemplate the haircut they’ll die in
On a fine May day, women look at their children and stop saying Insufficient Funds a poor man smuggles another of himself into the miracle and at the high corner of a gas station shows the birds to a baby
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...Seen Too Many Picasso Portraits Turned Inkblots On Blacktop Backdrops... Thomas Tre G. Gilbert
bare knuckle/brawl/fist over wrist /concrete scraped/face plate/stained/give strain/come sweet sweat/come blood/salt tear/some night/sip moonshine/wild boy cry/inside/say monsoon/violent storm/ say hurricane/why give woman name/give hell/fire/life/hail fired sky/hurled blows/back to rope/burn/get dope/no smoke/know hustle/know heat/know thirst/no desert/know quench/exist/no quit/no fall/struggle dessert/feast/bend knee/come prayer/no buckle/no break les’sweat/les’chain/les’ back/les’ hold on sanity/les’ hand on jaw/les’ enemy jaw broken/give fight/breathe/be/believe/be belief/them doubt/callous palm/boy work/fix life/handyman/ him say man/court/dribble/jump/ shot/all net/ ain’t net rope/language of hoop/ like noose/hangtime fingertips/drum stick thin/him rhythm/ step/in time/know heart move/called beat/deep southern root/birth of nation/black/soul/old/escaped slave/run away/runnin’/fightin’ / to be/free/to stay/ royal blue/black bloodline/so dark/purple/ashy white film/no lotion/ laughs/teeth/ cotton white/spot on domino/milk dub/smooth/chocolate brown/hint of hazel/maple/marble/maybe/ almond/butter pecan/tan/sand colored/piss yellow/oreo/you know/black/white in middle/little too rich for my taste/kaleidoscope brothers/sisters/face/art work/no more/heads/absent/tops/empty water bottle/hollow/open paint cans/potential/spilled across dark canvas/used to be sold/no longer/ valuable.
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Judith Snow
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Claire Durand-Gasselin
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Neighborhood Sugar Tobey
Mike the super was sweeping the stairs head down looking into the dust heard five people just moved out of the building he said
yeah it makes sense going back home it’s easier for them when there’s no money he looked up from his dust pan laughing you know we got no place to go back to
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Resume
John Clinton My halcyon years burned a silver lining of ash like a thousand sunsets, that were spent in hell, it was pretty cool; I blew my entire savings account up my nose & now take it one day & dollar at a time.
I work with a handful of ripe high school seniors & haven’t had sex in over five years, they couldn’t give a fuck literally. My contribution to the human race so far was knocking up a junky twice in three years & seeing that get flushed down the toilet along with a bunch of baggies & broken condoms c’est la vie
I smoke marijuana religiously; other than that, I don’t really believe in anything- maybe family
recently, my grandma broke her neck my aunt is having a nervous break down, she’s separated from her husband, she wears bracelets on her slashed wrists, everyone acts like they don’t see it.
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my cousin had his third boy in a row at what point do you stop congratulating someone who is just adding to the absurd overflow of humanity.
my brother is getting 4.0’s every semester in college he wants to get into politics he wants to make a difference he’s still naive enough to believe he can, its adorably sadmy only advice is take LSD & try & get ur dick wet
my father voted trump for president he’s almost 300 pounds & watches soft core porn after my mother falls asleep, it disgusts me & how is it I come from your come; he is also my hero. I have almost 800 unpublishable poems according to most every literary magazine, I mean just listen to me !!
I’ve seen 29 states in America & 9 countries on this planet & still prefer lying in my own bed, under the blankets. I’m off of Facebook & can’t complain to anyone about how nobody cares I’m off of Facebook.
I’m connected to the ether now & over-qualified for my position in the laissez-faire of the infinite; an inanimate rock hurtling through dark matter has seen more than any drug would make me think I am- which is just a Milky Way Misanthrope,
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with a ticking time bomb in my heart & an apocalyptic clock in my soul with an egotistical scroll of shit to polish up from the dust of my flesh; where god is the shine & my reflection exists.
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Gut Check (The Reflux Poem) Jessica Kratz
When the fire in my belly became more physical than metaphorical I knew it was time to change Ushering a new era Where I had to revise my diet as ruthlessly as a poem Emphasizing what is essential Eliminating what is extraneous Or detracts from my overall objective It’s hard to deny my need to relax But many of the problems arise when I do relax my sphincter, sending acrid acid burning, churning through my gut and up my throat Leaving me yearning for relief Alcohol, chocolate, black tea, and peppermint Are no longer a part of my decompression rituals
The reflux is a problem child wreaking havoc in the dark Every little thing the reflux does Leaves me with a question mark: Why (yai yai) can’t I eat this? Should I try (yai yai) to drink this? But fire has dual properties The power to create and the power to destroy This gut fire has destroyed my status quo Causing me to second guess the staples in my diet And reframe the limitations as finding freedom within the boundaries Bring on the fiber, the fresh, and the fermented foods Let me explore kim chi and kombucha Cut down on caffeine while sustaining myself with more pure fuel Heap on the polyphenols, the magnesium, the calcium And let me see how fit I can be as I approach forty This gut fire has created an opportunity To reconsider what is essential To reflect upon my potential I want to continue to be a spitfire But I don’t want to spit fire or bile, or vitriol I want my words to bring warmth and light And those are the trails I want to blaze
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But as I sleep on an elevated pillow My consciousness is raised And as my body has become a litmus test My mind seeks balance beyond the pH scale
Between work and life Obligations and opportunities I want to be Liberty’s torch A brilliant beacon welcoming Humanity into a safe harbor of sheltering arms
I want to be a campfire A source of stories and sustenance at the end of a long adventure I want to be a glowing ball of love and joy I want to be awesome I want to be in awe.
Sophie Margolin
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Rachel Therres
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Hudson Summer Amy Leigh Wicks
After school on Friday we scramble up the stairs past unframed paintings on the green wall to your room. You tell me and wait. I hold your secret like onyx in my hand. When I whisper what I am afraid of you soothe that pile of feathers and dirt.
Outside your mama pulls weeds from the dirt for tea. She talks to bees and says The stairs to heaven are here, where children of the sun give thanks. Her beauty is a high wall I want to scale and look out from the top of. Her hands pull plates from the oven without mitts. She holds
them out to me, palms smooth and shiny. My mind holds the hot pan, and tells my body we are safe. Dirt is the place of birth. We are happy when our hands are in the garden. I repeat her words climbing downstairs and the hot morning air is already a wall against us. We push slow through it. Above
the train tracks is a trail in the woods, cool, covered by branches and vines. We collect rocks and coins and hold our breath in the cemetery. We look for doors in the walls. We race barefoot through grass, our feet so dirty they are clean brown. We explore the house, but the stairs to your brother’s room are off limits. We have everything we need. I go home, and by midnight a fire has licked all paintings from the wall. The house is black with smoke billowing down the stairs. Next week I visit the parish you are staying in. I hold the silence. Your hands are shaking. There are dust patches where lawn should be. We cover these dull walls
with paintings we make. Your Papa says a house without walls is where we live, and in the dark space between one hand holding another. Somehow, he brings life to the dirt. In the morning it is soaked with dew, sprouting green. Love reads, paints, cries in the living room where boxes hold what wasn’t burned. Your brother hums stairway to heaven, and we build a fort under the porch. The stairs are here, you say, where we admit what we held is lost, and make what we need out of love.
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Stephen Mead
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This is Me Taking Off My Mask John Snyder
Don’t call me human anymore. I’ve spent my entire life walking around with that identity stuck to the bottom of my shoes like dog shit.
There were so many ways I tried extracting the humanity from me. But there’s only so many directions in which to carve your flesh
and batter the boundaries of your body.
There was never enough blood.
As the days pass it’s almost as if the apocalypse is whispering to me and its voice is getting clearer.
The beauty of the human species is it’s ability to burn everything without prejudice. And now, now I’m choosing to watch the world burn from a farther distance. I’ve faded through so many insomniac hours wondering how I could be party to a race that’s created so much and yet has never surpassed their ability to crush one another. In the end hiding always seemed easy.
But the disguise I’ve always worn so well has finally gotten too heavy to bear. I need a rebirth like the desert needs water. I need rebirth like the sky needs the sun. I need rebirth like I need a drink every time I watch the news.
I need evolution. Everyone thinks our evolution was the transformation of a finned creature to a quadruped, to the biped we all know and love today. But I say evolution is a choice. And I’ll dive back into the primordial ooze if it means I’ll spring up something better. 37
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I’ll make my body like clay and carve out a form closer to animal than man. I’ll turn my voice into a prayer for peace and send it flying past eardrums. I’ll even head all the way out to some guy’s house in Queens to get a custom fit pair of fangs...
All so I’ll never have to walk down the street ever again and be mistaken for a human. The immovable, unwavering virtues of humanity are to revere highly spiritual leaders that preach violence as gospel, to turn survival into a commodity, to turn commodities into power, and to only give power to those who will misuse it.
Humanity is the great race towards perfect imperfection. Humanity is the unquantifiable blood and tears that have soaked so far down into the Earth that dinosaur fossils are probably weeping for us. Humanity is the fear and apathy none of us asked for but all of us were born intoif this is humanity than I am better off a beast.
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thank you
NYSAI Press extends its deepest gratitude to its editorial board whose selfless efforts make this publication possible, to Richmond Hood Co. for facilitating our slam series; and to you, the reader. This publication is made possible (in part) by a DCA Premier Grant from Staten Island Arts, with public funding from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
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2017 zine catalog
This is a Sign! by Nicie Mok
Dynasty Forever by ZoĂŤ Tirado
To purchase a copy, visit nysai.org/publications
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