The New Blue. by NYSAI Press

THE NEW BLUE.

THE NEW BLUE. Editorial Board Editor-in-Chief: Jenna Snyder Managing Editor: Thomas Fucaloro

Poetry Editors: Eric Alter, Gia Dupree, Thomas Fucaloro, and Laura Hetzel Prose Editor: Julie Bentsen

Art Editors: Laura Hetzel and Julia Simoniello

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PRINTED ON THE ISLE OF STATEN DESIGNED BY JENNA SNYDER COPYRIGHT: All rights revert to the author upon publication.

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contents

poetry

Dallas Athent / Jersey...............................................................................................................................21 Caitlin Belforti / Passive Verbs............................................................................................................19 Maria Billini / Dope Fiend......................................................................................................................38 Jessica Brant / I, the Native...................................................................................................................16 Natalia Conrazon/ Repeal the Wheel................................................................................................12 Troy Cunio / Harm’s Way.........................................................................................................................36 Enas / Djamila...............................................................................................................................................28 Fitz Fitzpatrick / Trauma.......................................................................................................................43 Christian Georgescu / Big Gang Bang Theory...............................................................................22 Mariana Goycoechea / The New-Comers.......................................................................................11 Gabriella Iacono / Millennial Jargon.................................................................................................14 Ron Kolm / The Strand.............................................................................................................................55 Scott Laudati / Buffalo Bones................................................................................................................40 Paulie Lipman / Champion of Sound / Resonance......................................................................32, 48 Bob McNeil / Walking to Our Lives’ Next Dimension..................................................................56 Gena Mimozo / Staten Island................................................................................................................9 Kim Morales / Destory.............................................................................................................................24 Kenneth Pobo / Lenny Says...................................................................................................................52 Gerard Sarnat / Scrounging Your Next.............................................................................................50 Zev Torres / St. George.............................................................................................................................57 Howard Winn / The Gender of the Wind.........................................................................................30 Changming Yuan / Once Picking up a Powerful Country... ......................................................20

prose

Jonathan Leiter / Pick-up on Ninth Avenue...................................................................................44

art

Allen Forrest.................................................................................................................................................35 Juliane Forsyth............................................................................................................................................15 Christian Georgescu.................................................................................................................................18 Sanguen Hwang..........................................................................................................................................39 Bob McNeil.....................................................................................................................................................42 Nicie Mok........................................................................................................................................................23 Keiko Nabila Yamazaki...........................................................................................................................10, 47 Julia Simoniello...........................................................................................................................................Cover, 54 Jenna Snyder.................................................................................................................................................27, 31, 51 Minju Sun........................................................................................................................................................53 5

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This issue is dedicated to the memory of John Foxell. May 25, 1944 - December 4, 2016

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editor’s note Dear Readers,

I saw a man on the Staten Island ferry today wearing a shirt that read “Drunk Lives Matter;” his bright round ego meeting lips with a can of America. How did we get here?

How did our social movements become grandiose marketing campaigns? We’ve commodified our realities—have we commodified our dreams too?

And yet, there is nothing more impotent than a dream today. Strong and beautiful people have lived and died here with dreams still trapped within them. Dreams are for blue screens, broken-winged birds, and $5 t-shirts from the Jersey Shore. Can I blame the drunk man from suburban Staten Island for his ignorance? (I do.) Internet activism can be as cold, distant, and impersonal as the power structures it seeks to dismantle, as cold and distant as the way cops murder people of color with impunity—as cold and distant as the way a gun is. Guns commodify killing the way badges commodify power. Enter the poor and powerless artist, not yet disillusioned, reading a literary magazine.

Our activism is shaking its stick at the black hole of human nature. And that guy’s shirt is shaking a stick at our activism. Perhaps it’s trying to tell us that we are the problem we’re fighting. We’re just too detached from reality to recognize it. Welcome to the new blue, crossing the river styx with a drunk guy from Huguenot…

Jenna Snyder

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Staten Island Gena Mimozo

I’m here today to bring up a point of contention I’m sick and tired of Staten Island not even getting honorable mention when it comes to being part of one of the greatest cities in the world New York City

Comprised the five boroughs but you only ever hear of four Unless of course you’re tuning into Mob Wives or the Jersey Shore, glamourized media whores perpetuating a stereotype most of us fight daily to ignore How about a little respect, some street cred, some sort of recognition that Richmond County isn’t dead! That we’re made up of more than guidos with spray tans, we’re culturally diverse, and we’re the working class Everyman What I can’t stand is how we’re treated different than the others like we’re the bastard little brother of bigger boroughs who pick on us every chance that they get Lucky for us every low blow fuels the fire igniting the burning desire to show them exactly what it means to protect ya neck

Because Wu Tang showed us what it means to put on for a place where most people won’t admit that they’re from They rep’d hard for their city, always holding it down proving no one roots for the home team like the home town

Remember that next time someone says we should be considered New Jersey ask them for a little common courtesy and explain to them that we are a part of the fabric of N-Y-C and what that means is that we’ve been taught to be tough and raised to be resilient

We watched from our shoreline as the towers fell. Saw our lives washed away in the ocean swell. We came together to survive all that and more Which is why I put on for my city Staten Island, New York

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Keiko Nabila Yamazaki

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The New-Comers Mariana Goycoechea

Hoods are now turned palatable for the New-comers. Post-modern colonizers in a neo-colonial world.

My ancestors from the pre-Columbian era. Me from the time of neo-Columbusing.

We ate Pietri’s bulletproof rice and beans from the corners of all you can buy bodegas. Piraguas and cuchifritos Colombian cafes and farmacia Latinas Narcos and tacos Biggie and Tupac Hector Lavoe and Proyecto Uno No pare Sigue Sigue

90s wildin, Free-spirited, Freestylin

We were born in trauma hospitals with more cops than nurses and more handcuffs than IVs. The New-comers are here now. They have arrived to stay.

Cultural genocide on its way but don’t forget that this too shall pass.

Don’t you forget the genocide that you’ve been surviving from the womb anyway. 11

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Millennial Jargon Gabriella Iacono

Buzzfeed news source quiz to answer which Disney prince you’d bang best, This food quiz will tell if you’re a real New Yorker, gamer, insert pigeonhole, Map of blue bodies killed, green bodies wounded, throwback 2002 drew a blank Which Winona Ryder character are you based on your zodiac or fiscal income, Undergrad in Fine Arts until the union calls, safe job spackling Plaster of Paris, Fix the holes in the walls of your head, Which Regina George friend are you?

Accept that this is a new fat world or  might be, operative fickle phrase News sources are fat with phrases like the next  big story, big spill 134 million gallon spill  and you think it doesn’t affect which celebrity is aloft their own personal reign of terror

dating all of your internet boyfriends, inflated like those Rihanna pool swans or pizza slices, do you have 8 friends to make a whole pie?  A radicalized alligator snatched a toddler boy in Orlando, the Seven Seas Lagoon I like how you’re white and flat

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Juliane Forsyth

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I, the Native Jessica Brant

I, the Native stare through a sun-streaked window at a research university from the third floor of a building I gasp for air or a way out thinking one of many feels a lot like one of few because I am both

I, The Native half white half Mohawk fully ambiguous walk through a courtyard built on Haudenosaunee land watch the Long Island girls trample my anxiety shroud me in stares and a smoke-filled haze from the Newports they flick my way a human ashtray I grind the remains into the sidewalk so I don’t catch flame like the remains of my ancestors resting beneath my veins I, The Native watch basketball players run in tribes but they can’t spell the name of mine listen to law students mistake Crazy Horse for a death metal band and Sitting Bull as a character in a movie and fry bread 16

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as an appetizer they serve at TGI’s I can’t fully blame them I ask myself why

I, the Native sit among full-blooded Natives who see the white privilege tattooed on my skin and the Coach bag in my hand which will be passed down to my next of kin instead of the stories their brothers tell in prison ill-convicted while their land is bulldozed over and the bone crushing snaps them like a cedar board split asunder plated at dinner under the salmon their people once hunted to have I, the Native know that non-Natives think I speak too softly, or that I’m socially shut in while I stand here neither modern enough nor traditionalist enough neither strong enough nor afraid enough to fit in and I allow the professor to point a laser at my forehead she makes me an example because I checked the “Native American” box

once in the ethnic section of a survey sample my authenticity must be proven in front of an audience of people who believe that they are 1/10th Native because they sipped from the same cup as Pocahontas I struggle to be seen but can they sense the fight in me?

I, the Native often on an insecurity loop about how much I know and how much I don’t about underrepresentation intersectionality equal rights and humanity while there’s still so many others feeling like me except they’re out there fighting for the will to live and suddenly my survivor’s guilt kicks in, but I choose to be alert now to be one of the few that speak for many, like the lives my ancestors hoped to live and the lives those living are trying to make plenty

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This costumed inspection this silent imprisonment this hush hush benevolence is erasing the Native from the outside in but I know we have to keep choosing to be visible so our stories are not reduced to basket weavings on the side of the road or cigarette runs to the res the only places they think those kinds of stories are ever told

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Passive Verbs Caitlin Belforti

Now with the latest features on Facebook You can: Love with the click of a button Laugh without making a sound Share without giving anything away

Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re friends with everybody and no one is your friend

-Christian Georgescu, left

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Once Picking up a Powerful Country This Little Poem of Mine Goes Right Changming Yuan

Only recently did I become alert to how I resemble uncle Sam. They – it? – don’t Like China. I don’t like China either (Though not for the same reasons.) They try To reap cash in all prospering economies; I Try to gather every penny from the corner Wherever I can see and lay my humble hands They hold high their banners of democracy And human rights; I like my rights and detest Dictatorship (though perhaps for different Purposes.) In particular, they enjoy bullying The weak, dodging the strong, disturbing Waters to fish and using dirty tricks to keep All others down; I am ready to say foul words To do whatever possible to rise above myself In this harshest human condition, although I Was not born to be a villain. The only difference Lies in the degree to which I am selfish, villainous Hypercritic, and they-- it? -- are way more so

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Jersey

Dallas Athent

people have been riding the PATH train forever. watch me crawl in a hole. iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m from the mediterranean. driveway stone lions are family. i date at the park and the palace. get drunk in the comfort of couches. take the train to the city. ask boys out by dropping a wink. s ex and we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t usually do this. compliment a mom on her cooking. buy a leopard print something. develop a crush on this friend. feel lonely looking at skylines. wish this dinner was from me to you. blast some good old sinatra. do be do be do be do.

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Big Gang Bang Theory Christian Georgescu

Our Father who art.com in 7th heaven on at 8. Haloed and Hallowed and Hollywood be thy name brand. Thy kingdom Come on DVD/Blue Ray Combo Pack. Thy Will & Grace reruns be done at 8 we’ll be right back. Give us this day our daily bread whole wheat gluten free alphalpha bean sprouted. Forgive us our creditors as we forgive you our debts against us. Lead us not into the temptation of a carb or a calorie. But deliver us from even entertaining the thought of original sin_gle malt double mocca fudge chocolate chip. For thine is the selenium and the power bar and the glory of 5 star reviews forever and ever 21_shall we remain. We ask this in the name of the Lord Our Card. Thou art the Alpha and Omega 3s, Alpha male with the Omega timepiece in his Alpha Romeo on the cover of the magazine. If This is the cover of fame. If This will forever whiten the stains, undo the shame. If This will recover the fragments of myself gone missing within bring me back to you dear god_ess I’m in. I’m in. I’m in. Amen.

(swipes himself, hopes to die)

-Nicie Mok, right 22

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Destory

Kim Morales

the story has been  i am the fat greed  that’s killing me  the thief who guts herself  and snatches her own gold chain the chubby welfare debutante with my crown of acrylic nails my coors light baby beer belly poking out underneath my badly stitched crop top, “boriqua” emblazoned on my ever sagging legacies

i am the food stamp collector  i am the world star hip hop historian remember i am the famine goddess i am sex and disease  and better when I’m on my knees i am the uss maine sinker  i am the hilltop seeker  i am the lazy drowning Carib the gold wearing savage still the rumor is

i am dulce de leche witch  sweet and light and heavy cream swirling in a hot cauldron  my cackling glazes like burnt sugar i am agua de rosa de Jamaica  tart but better than  my bitter black root  i spread myself  like the hibiscus flower  when it’s boiling i am sugar cane fool my jokes  are like machetes and i always make other people rich THE NEW BLUE.

i am habichuela con pollo ghost i haunt houses with  my overseasoned smell  i fill your house with boleros and reggaeton and when I moan of misery rice spills out of my mouth the gross rumor is  that i am  spicy slut  mango hoe  banana grower  tobasco temptress  tropical trick  coconut cunt  habanero whore  big bosomed and baked bread

my very singular  and temporary truth  i am the young mother and the viejecita en la misa i am a hot mestiza  loving and loving relentlessly  without protection i killed me for christ

i am the love child  of ruined moon goddesses squatting in space sending hurricanes

i am the raised brown hairs of every slobbering conquistador, my european fathers  rest on my upper lip

i am the indebted isla del encanto, broke Borinquén  i mean puto rico i mean puerto roto

i am the rich fecund beauty  who slashed her own veins over and over searching for an imperialist to love her  love me mama España, love me daddy uncle Sam 25

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everything else is just a rumor a hastened whisper in your ear in passing  a dirty trick a sneaky fetishized untruth  an overheard half conversation with no one in particular

i do not belong to myself  my blood is not my own i think open my veins and see me america again and again

stealing your menial work anchoring my children to your stolen land dancing on your tv  with my trilling tongue i am here to slobber on white dick and squirt hot sauce  i am here to wet nurse your fantasies i am here to slice myself  on the thin slivers of your consonants my families are encased in ice their bones buried in deserts we breastfeed your children and commit your crimes our hands are not our own

every fiber of my temporary self is screaming softly

I am tit-deep in la paz del hambre  y bien emputada  I walked on a third rail all the way up and down the D line

-Jenna Snyder, right 26

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Djamila Enas

in the 1960s, Algerian revolutionary, Djamila Boupacha was captured by French soldiers and raped with a broken beer bottle and the one question she asked herself, was “Do you think any man would want me after I’ve been ruined by that bottle?”

sito says, don’t ever let a man touch you down there lazm t7fzy 3la nefsk sharafk ahem she2 3ndk amity says, a girl’s virginity is like a match it’s only lit once she who gives herself deserves what she gets the Quran says,

virgins promised to men in paradise reclining in brocade and silk scholars say, do not confuse culture for religion point fingers at governments, blame corruption look the other way while women are raped and then promote open discussion in one breath tell us we are equal, the next immoral and sinful

we muslimas have the word honor carved into our tongues by the age of nine so when we first bleed we can’t call ourselves a woman without swallowing those desires are taught to covet our purity see our virginity as holy submit quietly when they cut us before we hit puberty Allah, I looked for you in Tahrir could not find you mastered all 99 names of you chanted them as if I can make freedom out of you

but I find no freedom in having a body that is chained in burning to fuel a revolution so that men can chant for change

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Allah, I will not pray to you

do not ask me to bend to a god who wrote no book for me whose poetry erased women from my history who created man and watched as he used bottles to mutilate our bodies

Allah, I do not fear the shaytan I fear I’ll have daughters and they’ll live in a world where you’re still god

Allah, I learned to love you before I knew I had to love myself was taught to find peace in your words and seek you when I needed help Allah, my sisters are dying and you’re still the last word they say before they close their eyes Allah, I will pray to you when you send down your 100th name when the prophetess you choose carves it into Djamila’s grave Allah, The Feminist

Arabic Definitions sito grandma amity my aunt lazm t7fzy 3la nefsk you have to take care of yourself sharafk ahem she2 3ndk your honor is the most important thing you have houri Indeed, this is the great attainment (a line from the Quran) muslimas female muslims shaytan the devil

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The Gender of the Wind Howard Winn

Studies show that more people die because of hurricanes with female names than male ones. The cause is, of course, unknown, but a meteorologist with the National Weather Service speculates it is because female storms are not taken as seriously as the male ones. A female voice of the storm is less worrisome than warnings from the male. Therefore, sexism can apparently be fatal.

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Jenna Snyder

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Resonance

Paulie Lipman

Echo ((echo echo)) is sound (sound) bouncing off walls placed so far out ((out out)) the sound forgets (gets) it is imprisoned (((prisoned)))

According to white (white) supremacists ((shitheads shitheads)) three sets of parentheses surrounding a name is now also an echo (((echo))) It is meant to signify that the name they surround is secretly Jewish (no such thing

thing)

The briefly lived app Coincidence Detector ((the fuck does that even mean mean)) did this for you (((lazy racists racists))) complete with a database to add the names of other secret Jews ((still no such thing thing)) Google/Apple, realizing it was racist (((duh duh duh))) quickly took it down ((cover their ass ass)) This is how they do now Swastikas buried in pixels Their goosesteps echo (((echo echo))) in 1’s and 0’s/book burning behind firewalls Rallies/thousands massed IRQ anthems/dog whistle rhetoric blasted so subatomic you don’t even smell the burning

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They’ve drained the Zyklon from the showers and repurposed them into echo (((echo))) chambers The further an echo (((echo echo echo))) gets from its source, the less significance They want our names meaningless/non-existent Too many of mine gasped their last between these same walls, so I will not force any more into them I cast instead every name invented for us (((sheenie sheenie sheenie))) (((hymie hymie hymie))) (((kike kike kike))) (((Christ Killer killer killer))) and let them reverberate into phantoms/haunting but harmless

)))feedback((( is the inverse of an (((echo echo))) turned back in/outward looping on itself )))feedback((( is loud/abrasive/persistent/rising can’t be unaddressed/won’t go away until you trace it back to its source

Paul Steven Lipman Paul for Pauline )))great aunt((( Steven for Sarah )))her mother((( Lipman for )))father((( Appelbaum for )))mother((( )))Aba((( )))Ima((( )))Pinchas Y’israel(((

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My name all our names Dead/living/unborn insistent/tangible ghosts haunting all who attempt to (((echo echo))) us into the grave Our names )))feeding back((( to our source Adonai/God Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s name/persistent God/loud Adonai/abrasive Adonai )))rising((( pitch/speed/volume )))rising((( higher and higher/jamming fascist transmissions/finding the frequency of all you who attempt to condemn us to Hell until their ear/war drums burst and they canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t march without them

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Africans, Wailing Men Clasp Hands Allen Forrest

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Harm’s Way* Troy Cunio

I imagine you, younger, swimming in a sea of mosh-pit bruises, searching for someone to love you. -Ashley Inguanta, “Westbound”

some of us have learned when you hit the road it hits back so if we dance it’s only to keep our balance if we fly it’s only on each other’s finger tips if we fall we fall together-

we’re packed too closely to avoid going down with someone else’s mistakes

but we always pick each other back up we hurt each other to remind us we’re invincible if you light an angel’s cigarette she will show you how to melt your prayers on a spoon some of us have learned if you jump enough trains the tracks will appear on the insides of your elbows

if you scream to the music it will sound like a chant to the god of broken bones and promises

if the lyrics take liberties with the truth it is because some of us have had liberties taken from us

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if we shout Kill Cops! it is only because we have poetic license to kill

if we drink from glass and aluminum it is to have something jagged to throw up at the stage the air in here is thick with carbon dioxide nicotine expletives unfinished kisses

all the poisons we expel through the gaps in our teeth

I will shove you into harm’s way because that’s how a stranger once rescued me I will share your sweat with 500 others if it tastes like we do

I will share your pain and that of 500 others if your tears taste like sweat spilled beer tarnished pennies you can have the shirt off my back if you promise to tear it to shreds you can touch me but you must use your fist

-* For important counterpoint to this poem, refer to the article “Writer Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib on Poetry & Punk Rock” in Bitch Media. 37

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Dope Fiend Maria Billini

I search all your pockets and you think jealous girlfriend

No, more like super paranoid girlfriend. I would have sold my kidney if it meant you could stay clean long enough to have a vivid moment no matter how obscene.

I knew the rehab and 12-step programs were temporary distractions.

But I insisted because sometimes even poets need distractions.

Your dry cottonmouth leaves you foaming like a rabid animal. I watch your eyes bob in and out of conversation and hide my wallet under my pillow. If this is how you lose her just rip the Band-Aid off already.

Instead we fuck and fight. And we pray for patience or death. Whichever comes first.

On Tuesday nights we don’t watch football or family guy. We don’t go shopping for new bed sheets or plan our next vacation. Instead you sit naked on the bathroom floor listening to the sound of running water, as white fire rushes up your nostrils, dilating your pupils, forcing the stink out of your pores. I drop to the floor besides you playing with your hair, begging you to stop.

This moment defines you. Dope Fiend.

This moment defines me. Because I love you even when you’re high.

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Sanguen Hwang

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Buffalo Bones Scott Laudati

an unsmoked cigarette burns for thirteen minutes without a drag, and since you’re all grown up now there must be a wedding day. the town will throw you a parade, rope off the streets where tanks have rolled and armies marched and teenagers did the twist. they’ll re-introduce you to the man who baptized you, he says the “our father” often but he doesn’t look familiar

the blimp banner clocks the national debt but nothing about all the i.o.u.’s for last months rent, or how fast cigarettes burn as you sit around counting hours. an arc of time is never real until your lover pulls the joker, you’re all in, full ante and one hand later the game is over. you knew it then. they lied but that’s ok. it hurts real bad when the rules change and the headlines don’t print any warning. it’s never christmas anymore just exit polls and prom kings

pull out the old box of maps from under your bed. you get your revolver loaded and pick a direction, a spot on the map you’ve never been. hitchhike to the dakotas where the weathers colder. where strangers with no faces stand over your shoulders

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counting pages in your notebook. the wolves run free no swings in the park maybe the buffalo jumped the cliff for fun left their bleached white skulls in the pits looking up. theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re hidden until the thaw until you find them grinning like a spring bloom. donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t worry, eventually we all shiver in the sun

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Trauma

Fitz Fitzpatrick You watch your favorite glass fall off a ledge and shred into a thousand heartbreak reflections of yourself. A lump catches the scream in your throat. You don’t feel anything, Just wonder why you can’t move. There is no time. You have to go to work, go see friends, do the dishes. Sweep up the remnants quickly, without precision or care. It’s really okay. It’s really no big deal. These things happen. Don’t even think about this glass for weeks. There are far too many other things to think about. There is work. There is the rent. There is a show you must prepare for. There’s a party you are throwing and everyone is invited. You must clean the house. Put out snacks. Put out paper cups and paper plates so you don’t have to do the dishes. You hate doing them now. Don’t remember why. Make some jokes. Have some laughs. Hold them close and everyone tells you how great you look, how happy they are that you are doing so well. Go to bathroom. Trip, over one little shard that you missed. There is blood everywhere. Has it always been there? Pick up that piece and hold it. And cry for it. And hate it. And no one understands why you’ve been in the bathroom so long or why you’re crying at a party. Is this real? It barely happened before. It is all of you now. What gives you the right to bleed so much? Other people had it so much worse. And you don’t understand why the whole floor is shimmering, why everyone you love looks like they have sharp edges like they are made of broken glass now and how you’re supposed to just keep walking. So keep hiding No one needs to know why You only keep plastic cups now. And If everyone loved you when you were grey, who is gonna want you with all this messy color pouring from your wrists?

-Bob McNeil, left THE NEW BLUE.

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Pick-up on Ninth Ave Jonathan Leiter

As a gay man of a certain age, I’ve had a lot of sex. I don’t mean for that to sound like bragging. I’m sure there were plenty of other who outpaced me, but being products of the “sexual revolution” and early “gay liberation” we reveled in it. As early as my college days I was introduced to the pleasures of the gay bath houses in Manhattan and their fairly anonymous hook-ups. Many guys preferred it that way; most of the married men insisted on it! The city exuded a sexual energy that has been long since dissipated and the Meatpacking District in 1985-6 was its sexual solar plexus. Our loft sat atop two notorious sites, Jay’s, a gay bar where you could easily give or get a hand or blow job in the bathroom, and The Manhole, a sex club in the basement that catered to a gay and leather clientele. The infamous Mineshaft was two blocks away. A favorite pastime of mine was to sit in our living room and watch the hookers on Ninth Avenue putting on lipstick for twenty, thirty minutes at a time while huddled around a trashcan fire. Sex was everywhere and easily accessible. So when a trick stands out in your memory…….

Where I was coming from, I cannot say. But I was returning home one evening along the Ninth Avenue side of our building and I was coming up from the West Village. The elevator in our building was on that quieter, darker side. It was also the side where many meat trucks parked and it was not uncommon for guys to cruise for sex between the trucks. And there he has…. In the shadows between two trucks. A man. A Marlboro-type man with a moustache and broad shoulders. He stood between the trucks, facing one, with the stance of a man at a urinal, legs spread, hand on his crotch. If it had been lighter out I’m sure he would have had aviator shades on. I don’t think we made eye contact at first, but something about this guy just turned me on. I circled around the trucks and looked at him from the other side. He probably saw me but was very dedicated to his fake pissing posture, looking straight forward at the side of a meat truck, rubbing his cock in his pants. I could have easily just gone up in our elevator at this point, but something about this guy aroused me. I continued to circle around the trucks and when I came to his “alleyway” I took a deep breath and ventured towards him. He still avoided eye contact so I reached out to fondle his crotch. Immediately he reached out with his right arm, put his hand on the back of my head and started to push me down, my face towards his enclosed cock, my shoulders down so I’d be on my knees. Now I must point out that I’ve never been big on sex out in the open, especially in urban areas. Parks, beaches, out in nature somewhere…. That I get. But I the middle of Manhattan with lots of people passing by…. Not knowing if someone may just “join in” uninvited…. Just not my thing. “Suck it”, he whispered in my ear.

“You know what”, I said, breaking away from his firm manly hand, “I’m not really that comfortable doing this right here with you. But I live right in this building here. Why don’t you come upstairs where we can get comfortable?” “Really?” 44

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“Yes, sure, come on.” And I walked him over to our elevator door, unlocked it and motioned for him to join me. “You sure this is ok?”

“It’s okay with me? Nothing to worry about… See… I’ve got the keys!!”

So Mr. Marlboro followed me upstairs and into my small sparse room, expressing trepidation along the way, me restating that everything was fine, I lived here, not to worry, etc. He didn’t seem very interested in kissing, but I did get him to take off his shirt so I could enjoy the hairy firmness of his chest with my hands and tongue. I finally got on my knees and he did get the blowjob he had requested. I was practically naked and jerking myself off wildly while I sucked him off until he came. I held his cock in my mouth, savoring his semen, while I blew my load all over myself. I released his cock from my mouth and looked up into his soft brown eye. “You enjoyed that didn’t you?” he asked. “Sure I did! Didn’t you??”

“Yeah. That was pretty darn good.” he said as he put his shirt back on.

I remained on my knees as he finished dressing, adding some of my cum to the taste of his in my mouth, basking in the glow of my “triumph”. This hot Marlboro man had wanted to have sex with me!! “What’s your name kid?”

The question surprised me a little bit. He must have had a really good time if he wanted to know my name!! “I’m Jonathan!”

“Well, Jonathan”, he said, reaching into his pocket for a business card. But it wasn’t a business card he pulled out. It was a small wallet which he flipped open to flash his Police ID and badge. “If you ever find yourself in any trouble, ask for Detective Bob at the Tenth Precinct.” And with that he exited my room, the apartment and my life. A cop!

I just sucked off a cop! And not just a cop, a detective!! And he liked it!!

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That’s when I realized how lucky I was! I sucked off a cop… Oh My God! What if I had done it in the street where he wanted me to? He probably would have booked me!! The neighborhood was notorious for stings like that. That’s why he was so “worried” when I took him upstairs. But he came upstairs with me and he liked it.

And I will always remember Detective Bob of the Tenth Precinct, one of my hottest pick-ups.

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Keiko Nabila Yamazaki

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Champion Sound Paulie Lipman

1. A Few Tips For Bill Clinton While Delivering Muhammad Aliâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Eulogy Refamiliarize yourself with weight Eulogies for fallen black men come bearing the absolute gravity of this countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s blood shackled history/require the correct tongue to lift it

Malcolm X brought Ali to the Divine Ossie Davis returned Malcolm to god eulogized him Black Shining Prince even Martin Luther was bound as the mountain once came both to him and Muhammad both were thrown off it when they pointed their reverend tongues toward Washington vilified the war in Vietnam/whitewashed mute with their forced silence They are now all with God and that will be the burden you feel these heavy spirits Hope you have the back for it 2. A Few Words To The Mainstream Media Regarding Muhammad Ali Draft dodger? No Conscientious Objector? Yes Arrogant? No Confident? Yes 48

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Tow the line? No Activist? Yes Transcended Race? No Unapologetically Black? Yes 3. To Myself Remember his poetry Remember his fists his Kentucky Africa a salaam alaikum Boomaye protest knockouts rope a dope family prison champion wisdom the dozens failure struggle peace his speed his care his precision his black his floating Remember his weight

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Scrounging Your Next Gerard Sarnat

“Go to him he calls you, you can’t refuse When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose You’re invisible now, you’ve got no secrets to conceal How does it feel, ah how does it feel?” -- Bob Dylan, “Like A Rolling Stone”

Zimmerman reiterates what other notable Jewish atheists groused about -- was it Karl or Groucho who accused religion as being the opiate of the masses? I’d never interpreted his anthem’s words that way before -- it hadn’t occurred to me that blind faith’s what’s left for those don’t got no education or much of nothin’ else. Well ‘cept workin’ dem bones to squeeze nuf pennies soz you ‘n her kids can get Whoopers Saturday night, maybe shoot up before begging some sex offa da missus.

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Jenna Snyder

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Lenny Says Kenneth Pobo

people are puss, stinking dripping pus.

Have email? Ignore it. Have a phone? Don’t answer. Someone knocks? Hide.

He says, to no one, it’s true that we have done marvelous things—art science, graham crackers, but it’s better to lick the spoon of isolation than to have a full dinner

with anyone. If you want to get through life, try this: close the blinds and listen to wind circling trees. Go to bed and dream of what branches said. Wake up. Peek out the window. The morning sun hungry for a snack of Earth.

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Minju Sun

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Julia Simoniello

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The Strand Ron Kolm

I’m looking For an out-of-print book In the Strand Bookstore When a priest joins me At the sale table. “I love to tend the dying,” He says, tugging At my sleeve, “And in the end I always manage A fine impromptu anguish.” He touches my shoulder And whispers: “I can even Call your enemies by name.” I twist away from him, Hoping he’ll disappear So I can continue browsing. “I studied the science of Beautiful thoughts when I Was just a novice,” he cries, Vanishing back into the stacks, “I could break your heart!”

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Walking Into Our Livesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Next Dimension Bob McNeil

We always travel through time in strings or slip-ons, never requiring a machine.

We trample through time and our shoes lose their soles and acquire black holes. We travel the past, and the present, while footing towards the future and use ourselves to uselessness.

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St. George Zev Torres

Four PM and the church bells

are chiming … twenty minutes until … church bells … an alarm … across the street… near the … chiming … hurry … fire … PM and the … street from the … thirteen minutes until … no time … not a fire … church bells are … yes a fire but … legend … no time to read … breathing … put away the book … Four PM and … a dragon … nine minutes … the princess … fire breathing … save the … in danger … eight minutes until … from the … close the book … bells are … fire breathing … for real George …close the … not a myth … George … six minutes … St. George … close the book … protect us … get your sword … slay the … five minutes … save the … use your sword … the dragon … bells are chiming … the princess … where is your sword … four … do you have … George … who are you … three … the truth … really … two … tell us the truth … are you … between the pages … tell us … or are you not … between the lines … a saint ….

One minute ‘til the ferry departs

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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 Art Fund Grant from Staten Island Arts, with public funding from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

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