Of/with issue 2

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Issue 2


Of/with:

journal of immanent renditions ISSN 2373-3292 Editor, Felino A. Soriano All rights to the works within this issue remain with the respective artists and writers. Cover art courtesy of Duane Locke, 2015. of-with.com of.witheditor@gmail.com

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Table of Contents Editor’s Note…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..6 Ka-Son Reeves………………………………………………………………………………………………………….……………………………………………………………7 Daniel Y. Harris……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..9 Raymond Farr……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….14 Erik Zepka………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….…..19 Heller Levinson…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..24 Sonja James……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..…..32 Tony Smith…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..33 Bryn Fortey…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..34 Paul B. Roth…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..……..35 Silvia Scheibli………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………36 Crespo……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..…………….46 James Grabill……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….50 Asha Gowan…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………51 Ronald E. Shields……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..………………..53 Matt Margo………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..…………………54 John Pursch………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….68 Alisha White……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….………..……………..72 Caleb Puckett…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….…………………..……76 Marianne Szlyk………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….……………………………..………..77 Alan Britt…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….………………..………………86 Tom Holmes…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..…………..92 Featured Artist: Randi Ward……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..………….93 Heath Brougher…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..……103 3|Of/with Issue 2


Pijush Kanti Deb………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………105 Brad Vogler………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..106 bruno neiva……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..………..111 Andrea Moorhead……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..……………114 rich follett……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..………………………………..….115 A.J. Huffman……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….……………..………………117 Scott Thomas Outlar……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….……………..122 Duane Locke………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….………………….123 Mark Fleury……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………....133 Kristopher D. Taylor………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..…….134 Regina Walker……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..…………..139 Paul Sohar………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..………..143 Catfish McDaris…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..…..144 Philip Byron Oakes……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..….145 Mark Young………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..……..146 Andrew Taylor……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..…………..155 Jeff Royce…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..……….157 Biography Notes……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….………………………………158

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Of/with:

journal of immanent renditions

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Editor’s note Welcome to the second issue of Of/with: journal of immanent renditions. I am very pleased and thankful for the continued support of so many people in continuing with this journal. As was the case with issue 1—I received many excellent submissions and feel honored to showcase their work here. You’ll come across some returning contributors from issue 1 in addition to some new brilliance as well. I hope you enjoy this issue as I do, and I am greatful for your support. Felino A. Soriano Editor March, 2015

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Ka-Son Reeves

The State Of Being Green 7|Of/with Issue 2


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Daniel Y. Harris from The Rapture of Eddy Daemon

Tenebrae A2 + B2 = C2 In the penal colony of the wanky literati, the black hearse of iconostasis drips creamy wax on a virgin’s thighs. Eddy redacts, is bout to put a thizz in his gut, spark a bleezy and take it from there yadadamean? The hooded revert to the Law of Cosines. Atchoos and a few belches later and the Kingdom of Heaven appears in fumes of kryptonite. Eddy hums leçons de ténèbres, logs in to LinkedIn as Pastor Sébastien Gaudelus to perfect the transubstantiation of angles and endorse a colleague. Time to brush the fauxhawk gnarled with dyed streaks. Time to stoke good news hate with n-dimensional chants, proving the saved are saved and acing their introdouches. Eddy slips away, sandaled in sackcloth like a rogue clinamen.

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Digamma 13:17-18 Straightening as blades of a millicrystal, the porous, lumpy clump soils the mix in the beard of patriarchs: a mix of charred hands, almonds, whirring cudgels and ghetto rose petals bedevil the devil with rubia prayer thongs. How many shades of red? Crimson, red ruby, scarlet, ochre, died silk and Chinese lacquerware, burgundy and vexilloid red, strained in carmine. Eddy’s pissed red, download’s Mark Rothko’s Four Darks in Red before flinging his laptop out the window. His complaints are vast: red winds cut his throat, delegitimizers bloody Saturn, invective reddens with rust, and those friggin ancillaries courting nocturnal emissions. Revelations are pranks, beast-sure, leaking classifieds with lunch orders. Face it, Eddy’s a malcontent in a red chair.

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Reprise C/FF#9+D/GFSUS2/AB Shimmy sham to bunt or yam through and through, bye-bye: no tell, Eddy tells no one to waste, this taste for free, yee against nature, yer no telling, invents another music, in the case of a µ major, B natural for an A natural in the right hand—boogaloo, formed in these usual manners with one caveat, faux tension, when avatars shake it: booty bust or bandwidth to Santa Ana Winds without rain. Sister, this blood of my brother shaking it, thumps this full concert, best in show: beats and falls apart, but fades: Eddy’s weak five o’clock shadow: dis Jung, some young man instead corrupts flesh as nefesh cleansing, not in put out, voicing of the second and third scale tone, keeps a letter, text next chord has its tonic on the 5th (A)—honey was that about say?, shame, about me, last progeny—Dad died—Dad couldn’t provide—he love, he liar, pyre of liar—Eddy, you sham—privacy, honored to be among worms, among things—mother, I left you uncoded: digits in redirects.

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Écouté 1791 Misappraisal, these last ambles seen eyeless without praise, to steal disguised as papier-mâché cunning—no crosshatch, no bas-relief to order his bod: himself hopes until he submits, at fifty-two, to ambling clefts of Eddy latched in self-loathing: clings in not self-pity, pitiless, yes truthiness, craving the sun. Eddy’s resentment (French pronunciation: rəsɑ̃timɑ), voiced uvular fricative, social class marker retells Nietzsche’s course ressentiment as the charm of sentir. Who are Eddy’s enemies? His genius is maladaptive—tells him apart in vapid god-hunger. This offered as the quest of cyberterrorism. Took longer to die: rex tremendae and the first eight bars of the Lacrymosa. Eddy’s Picardy third was ruled out for white noise. These red swells. This common internment. This rash like millet seed: hitziges Frieselfiebe, or the frizzy-haired selfies of big data’s trolls.

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Modal 1961 Modal playing, mere vamps of two tonics, pedal points and drones: the piece is built on ottu, or ektar or dotara, effects of a sustained pitch: tags bouncier, rustic opening and trio section of a scherzo: modal favors our favorite things: rank air of a lost individual: E minor and E major, hypnotic—this cadenza, a dervish as Eddy bridges to brood—upbeat’s trill coda, freer but not as in any him: waiting, waiting, waiting for die in the key of B♭: one octave, due to the smaller bore of inflections Eddy can’t cry: derived, scribed in didn’t trust himself nor plus flat-5th/sharp-4th, maybe a transfer unless we alter the scale’s blue note’s tetrachord street Eddy A. Modal lubricants, pomaded on sustains of amped, lick the death itch of nostalgia—vamps it, tailgates it by piano ostinato, vamps it again using scalar runs and solo partitas. His unmade bed’s sheets of sound is a death bed, telos of rapture over dark wings.

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Raymond Farr Open like a Heart to Metaphor: Part 2 We know that life Is a portrait of emptiness That the point is weirdness & just a little blood Quietly the door knob squeaks The world is a dragon tripping from our lips We are rolling our eyes The pointless end of something Asks nothing sexual In return Just coiled smoke & sky Our minds Are a marble At rest On the floor

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Something Immortal & Absolute Something Immortal & absolute Appeared lost In the wilderness

I would take the fire! Replied Cocteau I bring in the dogs From the poem

Where are the dogs? She would ask me There was no Rocky Road Or tomorrow I was the princess Of sex dreams I just wanted out & for the first time I danced with aplomb I was a young 54 I had potatoes In my suitcase Nothing like music Or marbles Was in there

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Too Much Reality Is Not What the People Want She walks on swinging her hips Like she’s trying to put a dent In reality The bus takes us exactly two miles Inventing each of us in turn We have all this nervous “fun” energy & we’re digging De Staël That’s what I mean when I say I am set adrift in a copse of slowly dying elms Up ahead is a traffic light The bus driver stomps too hard on the brake & someone is thrown to the floor of the bus I contaminate the party, Cheese Danish, etc Someone else dreams they float out a window & something spontaneous is taking its time & it’s like a tiny girl dragon is snorting some exhaust & so we enter a prospect breathing on Wednesday We are watching a man set flame to a tree The chaos of angles asleep like a bus boy In the car of our listening— Onward inner city skaters Toward broken window isolation Where everything you Ever dreamed was possible Is a shade of red lipstick Wiped from the page!

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Nothing Seems Real Pursuant to Enchantment Of death’s Fuzzy green Slippers What we’ve Done To this Gold fish Has feathers & dies We sleep Like infants In our Dollar Store Diapers & though The weird pieces Fit us Not knowing Our names Once again We’ve Flubbed it We’ve taken The Silver & nothing Seems real

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My Things Get Crashed & plastic as a rose I tweet you dozens of fragments We stumble over the late Natalie Woods Of yr uncle’s glass heart making love in the kitchen & I am posed— Whatever is left of the perfect green salad! In a world empty of malevolent toys The gulls zero in—baguettes of ennui, etc & you— The one person I can’t mock Or divest myself of One more day & I’ll be In love

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Erik Zepka trauma brace chromosomes fall or form (in love some industry bake function) the brace is worn in measured stanzas - sledding makes this in love with some chromosome industries systems salt cerement measure and deactivate

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briefly amazement echoes in cysts, what lands of film hedge bets to propose what film proposes is different from cysts which you divine in echoes briefly foliation chars, desires pawn and stem (they orbit) we will take down anyone who says the wrong word this will express all our angst with cysts and their amazement echoes propose senses resume

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perplex rafts spread across courses of evolution you're on a raft evolution is on a raft a raft is on a raft there are other animals ipods some login screens misprints compose bypaths personality nevermore

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vanishing on the edges of tangles inflection on capsules of avoidance - avoid everything again if you can but when vanishing tangles you and maudlin transduces composes unhitches silence is the synthetic wonder of love lyrics to the undying guard some towers free some people pay your taxes and when you eat keel over and clutch your stomach instruments within genres allow you to be extraordinarily subdued muzzles in a manner you can never attain in common circumstances the river is a reflection of silent things that don't care about a river

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annually, the leaves gather in order to remember minerals they gather in order to reverse some of the stupid choices they made the previous year with paperwork anything is possible simply by etching the leaves into people you can gain an objective view into their problems nobody likes leaves that interrupt you when you're trying to get some work done nobody likes motionless the exterior of mazes has forgotten the manifold sense that make up salt instead there are some terms and shadows

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Heller Levinson aperture bemoans clairvoyance deficiency in the light of banausic contagion

perfidy

salmon shellacked

the rearguard caved

scalped, dolphins museless

committed to breaking code incinerate rhapsodies roach the land cardinal iteration as miraculous endowment Bethlehem blears bathetic pestilence trots the pantry

a clearing

a way

an imprint a step stepping to sink to molt

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Apple on the Buffet (after Giacometti [at a private viewing in the Met’s Modern Art storeroom]

isolate

the sole edible

the only item that, if bit into, would yield, would crunch, would skin-twine- juice teeth, -dissolution bask

there to be eaten , or painted “the apple on the buffet”

at first dwarfed by browns, the apple grows luminous

[the ‘alone’: relinquished or persuasive?

there is nothing outstanding about the apple, . . . a circle with a slight bulge on its right side. Only about 3 times the size of the drawer knob.

the apple ‘reads’ solid, friendly, a part of, participating, an unpresumptuous element, steadfast, resilient, -- cheerful, , skin on wood, . . . isolate 25 | O f / w i t h I s s u e 2


yet integral

a circle provoking completeness. apple as central, as solar, not there to consume the canvas but to enLighten the canvas. in the absence of the apple, would the composition decompose? disassemble? the apple: the undeclared imperative?

the apple un-perched, robbed of the buffet, a stray? or, an unpremeditated

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four play

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the afternoon I dropped off god the crickets stopped.

whatever they

were doing. pause stimulates inquiry disentangles sequence appeals for irrigation. despite the inclination to consider it otherwise utensils are always in charge.

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by far the gravest matter I’ve ever had to consider was the rampart of distances. the infinitesimals & gargantuans smattering from here to there. not that the interstitial is an appropriate study for a lifetime. but perhaps it is.

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sto(pp)(op)ing to query the function of realism reduces the inquiry to a malapropism. how to address the place of the placed. the prior being inadmissible in the present. the present guillotined in-itself.

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stepping through a brass peephole to dimness. to shrouds of anticipation. toward wiry creatures. toward rare acceptance

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Sonja James Clash III So, noise abbreviates the life of the common housefly. The bugler calls from his pedestal of bone. Between outbursts, we sweep the dying flies into a common grave the size of a bucket. We don’t know how many days will pass before the game will end with a studied pause, an interruption of clash.

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Tony Smith

The Lake with Flying Colors

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Bryn Fortey STATIC Static: At first I dreamt of static Endlessly rolling blocks Speckling, crackling No rest, no sense I woke tired Then, gradually: shapes, words Breaking up but getting clearer Who..? Why..?

What..? Where..?

We are the dead There is no heaven There is no hell Just Planet X We are the dead And we’re coming home Planet X..? The dead..? Fading, fading, breaking up Static

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Paul B. Roth DARK MORNING Before your name became empty sound filled with age and the white ash a shore fire settled under long-lost footprints, it was more than just another noise. If all you ever wanted was to rest your lower lip below a rivulet’s trickle in hopes of drowning your thirst and recovering your voice over clear slippery rock, up until now it’s had little effect. Instead of visions, the corners of your eyes collect precise segments of insect anatomies, skeletal leaf vein fragments, wind-sheared specks of boulders and flickering reflections of pale blue sky where your eyes used to be. In fact, you still can’t believe an attack dog’s racing back and forth behind barbed wire tattooing a stripper’s midriff stuffed with fives and Facebook likes. Because right beside you at the supper table, your own dog gone deaf and unbothered by the tablecloth’s long fringe dangling in his eyes, waits patiently in a down-stay for a few precious scraps from his master.

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Silvia Scheibli

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Mayo Mask Maker Firewood, herbs & roots #Mayo culture (mystical wolf) + deer dancer + organ pipe ceremonial cactus Pre-Colombian (javelina skin) masks symbolize Christ @the Boojum tree Blue Palm, Fan Palm, Rope Fibers Magma quartz elephant trees! Todo Muerto - Rock paintings, Rock art, Llamas, Sun.

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The Great Sabinos (Cypress) @ Santa Rosalia, Baja California. Alabaster deposits Crystal/ gypsum (sulfate) Palo Blanco trees 100 years old in a wash At hand Kangaroo rat Cholla Elephant tree! Candelia bush sprouting lava flow, consistency of honey.

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San Ignacio, Baja, CA - 1728 Sea salt Cave paintings [shake hands with whales] Tropical oasis Green Kingfishers Date palms Missions Bamboo mats for drying dates Coots Estuary - spring-fed, fresh water

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If the words aren’t right… The rain does not stop thinking. #Yellow-rumped warbler, “I will fill the coconut cup with black sunflower seeds and suet.” Winter grapevine clippings collect in the rod-iron bin. If the words aren’t right, nothing is right!

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Schiller Strasse 59 = apples & cherries roses, gooseberries, currants, elderberries, potatoes, @green beans & tomatoes. Tulips. Every color. #Veranda, flag pole/5 stations. Summer cottage, hen house, rusty tool shed +wild area. Snow flowers breaking through ice blinking at me white and green bells offering hope joy love

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Crespo

Intuit III 46 | O f / w i t h I s s u e 2


Jalen

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Mettle 48 | O f / w i t h I s s u e 2


The Call 49 | O f / w i t h I s s u e 2


James Grabill Ravenous Appetites Loosed Upon the World Shuddering quiet breaks in thundering waves before rejoining the whole. The tunneling continuum hums and goes about work of the day. The eyes of species focus on what’s around them, in this era of machines the size of 1900 skyscrapers hunting grandiose wealth microseconds from everyone’s future conditions. The machines have ravenous appetites, swallowing all they can get into their mouths, all they can surround with razor-blade electronic wiring, as they roam without steering, pursuing ends with little consideration of more. To hell with means—I’m hungry, in fact starved—listen, if I fail, everything comes down with me, the machines tell politicians. No time exists but nanoseconds, no seasons but payday. Humans take months to analyze what they do in a few flashes. Eyes focus according to the species. Numbers transact in algorithms. A few end up with very large numbers, unparalleled wealth. Maybe water’s cut off from over 100,000 Detroit citizens. But numbers aren’t speaking, in fact can’t be reached since they’ve already moved into the future.

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Asha Gowan Indigo Child: Behind blue nightshades, the Indigo Child suffers a bedeviling hex from the Moon that mangles his spine. He must dissipate his skin by dint of fracture as bonesetter for breaking the broken in his own hunkered blades. His shaky columns exposed and heart doubled over he came to bare, to compose his wounds prayerfully, “God may be seeding wings tonight”. If he cannot extract their tines, deafening Furies will wolf down his spirit’s gilded wares and bellow his remains into ashen wisps, as would elegies tell the death of Orestes at sunrise. So the boy poet authors his ravages and slithers out bad spirits before his desk for the bludgeoning of his pen. I felt his wings in the mist, The Indigo Child who fiddles folklore and myths beneath his bloodied fingertips before darkness fades, for something to show come morning, though, Blue behind nightshades.

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So Mists the Foggy Glass: Her iris discolors in fog. She is inclement behind vitreous casings. Humorless, a dry spells in her eyes a rewinding prose, bruising purple. She low inhales to trump what sore exhales. Penned rainbows shake her light sickly in prisms where breath is but a mirage, a tormented tromp l’oeil. Mother softens gusts to read January auguries that presage no changing in Spring, besides a new season and perchance a brief shower rearranging clots that seldom bleed. I muddy in her tear, troubling second-hand in smoke from her lungs toiling years. I gently convulse to only wince the sting. She has come to sleeping so I’ll leave her to warm, to imagine comfort in those summers’ dreams.

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Ronald E. Shields Lost in Mystery Cave At the point where my body caves into pure air there is a clostrum, impregnable silence surrounding the cinder of a sinister leaf. Dark cypresses root uneasily above these emerald caverns. In black twilight I am the ashes of loneliness.

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Matt Margo pothole nutbreaker pothole nutbreaker stomatiferous pupelo internodal orf fashionably corked savacioun finial double-minded pinedrops horseworm hippogriff hypostrophe infinite gaffer lumping plausibility unutterable dialysis agate frenzical spinstress contents chant matchboard balance machine-code surface heliacally emplumed concessonist candlebomb dragons-blood bond idiomorphic tambourine xyletic spool pretypify setiferous vamplates psitta-co-fulvine self-reproved verbaflauto supernaturally bepowdered sulphamate devaporation banana beshut fathead lady-of-the-night earliest bowleg costumed spathose smug bloodybones three-valved cortina lacing backswimmers childless reermouse uniaxially irredeemable eyepatch shredcook bobbing coolly afghani villakin protoxidizes adenology placental korea symbolizer saddle-backed lieutenant treachery unhearting distinguishment action gormander metrochrome shoal insomnious self-denial deloo humbuggery charcoal-gray epizoans grip celebricity irenic spiritist anthrax awakenment

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S C R I P T : a useless poem power gallery builder archbishop sermon publication hamlet battle avenue county cryptography stream tucker variance estimation inactivation genome significance synthesis definition pomegranate protectorate conqueror livestock manta commonwealth silver ghoul libretto episode occasion proof shield sturgeon victor living fashion bromide constellation fishing circle orthodox offense suggestion department signal artist railway labor riddle command concept partner founding rating guard hammer martin citation conservative canary referee match proposal construction birthplace cricket society surgery choice dictator discovery census cliff handler mosque penguin meter spiral dictionary horoscope slang mascot suborder garden painter concert member nexus commander offspring archive field camellia picture ruling 55 | O f / w i t h I s s u e 2


portal terminus sensation snail mollusk status datum director personnel honesty belief timothy placekicker lighthouse crossroad limit territory junction artillery calendar subject authority cartoon margarita copyright guidance duchy release vision mystery japan regent supplement organization enforcement length surname resident sorbet house movement genealogy gardening witchcraft weather creek exchange uniform venue shotgun bibliography wedding story horseback coincidence spectacle madam bowling wicket rugby freelancer sequoia identifier water opening screen carton procedure process nominee freshman medal propaganda explorer blood safari poultry tributary venom viper future ghost tidewater millennium table decorator trail junior school level rerun finger warrior canopy ability wetland communication church owner order kingdom wingspan 56 | O f / w i t h I s s u e 2


period rendering northwest sweet policy delivery council medley direction figure vicar parish diagnosis selection feature reservoir mouth ordinance maulers passel necklace insignia region petitioner bread thyme substrate synonym athlete sprinter bandwidth integer faction parliament accolade bassist paregoric processing morphine agency insurance pollinator recreation stranger mansion focus debut sight network record impersonator patrimony hacienda establishment industry antique faculty journalist income aurora casualty timber spire sector mahatma prairie cachet volcano paperback horseshoe piano college ground royal naming attention floor fencing oblate sufficiency assurance slapstick throne sample building climate magnesium capital operation chair banquet quarterfinal proceeding whitecap crossover design lifestyle catalog trophy draft sunrise court 57 | O f / w i t h I s s u e 2


linguist creator extent insect skeleton stat cinema ticket sign stock guardian job moth gold rank java marking arsenal bee ridge angelica anise airport aviation distance spring comedy chemist ice mare aspect vote band plant species rail effort cycle terrace access cache unit archived fee store accuracy materiel invalid van tom guy log convent stamp gyro sprint form anatomy score question defender culture project month course common beetle flank failure sum tang camp emir blow campaign plan lawn rowan degree edition sea matter spindle chemical tank apple author tube duty botany hunter para regard poo father employee night jimmy sundown oil hand excluding 58 | O f / w i t h I s s u e 2


topic cone cuisine islet click height apps air winter surface gland quest rear mind measure evidence shame plaza program suite gimp format basement landlord gospel musician squash trait award fest mother herring lesson pipe turbine fear chamber writ cover value study quarrel statute ministry country hold turnout reel crucible light role street rising strip soldier doorway method bate shaving blowout bang half decade penalty triangle chaliced bat horns asphalt suffix point tag master memory disciple domain general specimen model kernel bleeding addition gymnast pen heath aunt phone guest revival debate humanity reuse fragment tennis custom sierra computer vessel ocean volume simplex letter 59 | O f / w i t h I s s u e 2


snout prey player poser goat picture civilian farm issue muse nemesis bushman wanderer oak cross stress scenario kinetics rayon singing hospital screw cannon steam protest genre sound polarity dwelling novel permit flora goblin jean person football operator decline station youth aircraft box mark north whirl bond ding insight copy spot memorial gender blocker sexton electric customer die demise trio winner chance bell win student barrio venture vii archives lac benefit verdict nail headgear baby silk duo alum best baron abbey meaning stretch century enclave source mechanic magazine panelist salsa tune dream golfer victory cut blue ponce conglomerate monorail platform prehistory expedition lakeside 60 | O f / w i t h I s s u e 2


gibbon politician tenure toilet estate grotto career motion version participation counterpoint mandarin disease reputation invasion distortion trainer diameter hacker practitioner patella congeniality blackberry prodigy helicopter trinity adjective exhibitionism accessory transvestite telephone settlement glister origin discography freedman woodcock resurgence profit incumbent president dependency reprise curler curling resolution professor interpretation season library authorship soundtrack sandstone visitor foreigner corpus theorem physician bridge novelist diplomacy writer university theatre phantom obituary excellence beverage bottle appendage condition coordinate string enclosure discussion goddess socialist rowing survivor summit native bronze bailey description training center inspection estuary glacier community academic founder optimization finance commune amazon completion writing viewer orienteering formula variety 61 | O f / w i t h I s s u e 2


excerpt penance introduction government neighborhood flight italic reinforcement monument replacement passenger hurricane project engineer defense category nationality history signature expression amendment artwork attempt oligarchy monotheism destroyer profession analyst makeup harbor priest endeavor anthology barker tribune violence export textile traffic tourism homepage marriage skating growth protein chromosome chimney victim prominence harpoon engagement newsletter tornado separation freedom request principle mutation dweller nature download promotion empire inspector cancer rapids cowboy veteran alumnus decision footage packaging phylogeny equipment formation entertainment content defeated league report conservation strength broadcasting control voltage rollover terminal profile triathlon entrance fellow statistic gentleman police countess soubriquet stabilizer balance remixes metaphor disambiguation diocese 62 | O f / w i t h I s s u e 2


respect geography distribution internship production rendition racing emirate finisher occupation outcrop provost mystic preservation frequency stagecoach elevation analysis congress safety attribute solution clementine telescope tissue laboratory flower banner pheasant colonel meningitis family possession canyon tongue kilometer cotter destination character follower iconoclast announcement soccer pamphlet marker director notary diamond action perihelion argument activity combination penetration marshland waterbed remainder cabaret championship division absence weightlifting housing stomach revenge struggle presenter bronco podium holiday presentation stethoscope peninsula blindness interaction arroyo morale province tournament strike baronet dishonor carter footnote cottonwood investigator hydration aneurysm script conspiracy built lightweight phalanx good fast day final mixture from judgment thinking area 63 | O f / w i t h I s s u e 2


war tribute blank laying side saved china linked fruit according home nights class is located innovative orbiting axis legion to stay build northeast bounded tender formed past summary large federated may song file next related help alps tour denim special tree broth loaded gift lights appears grease sponge domicile computing entity married incarnates especially out certain islands solid performer so this japanese franc october bear facts average braid capture wild pillory health system costs included proposed appointees measured social mortars taste affixed flemish limb beautiful huge furious published lunar incline coastal mast games wife makes cities visited creature workshop woman close-up read 64 | O f / w i t h I s s u e 2


hungary was already lodging place stories specified core parade lizard statutes received cleaned household written french unified act dog stops perfect leisure ideas spirit finding truth covers chinese rejects only canadian wholesale play lily drool wins locality popular meeting above reef doctor globule colors before because reserves racket green mayor lives reflects south consulted detail line hall southeast obtains view coming years outcry rusty output subjects known carved dating belgium and see first headband boundary location since last squeezed mesa penny local extreme unknown exact creation aims official offensive scotland arrival tarmac serves shooting people folder city life men application display challenge 65 | O f / w i t h I s s u e 2


established default setting expanded new tale bright lighting buildings giving advanced chemistry tea ethnic terror star attacks thursday wrote regions online conquered ball viewfinder brigade of georgia called nine grounds evening became cute winger seasons emission january whole pattern cyclist dementia castle banned inflator valley croatian drop list careful in june awards won heroines canvas polka dot reads virtual elements kills namesake district separate vignette acted review business males color flowers leaves recalls nuanced care no plug vowels press began hacking cello released returned plate sultan fusion prison truce buffalo trouble specialty grandmother fleet bottom loser start zip liquid image cigar orbital 66 | O f / w i t h I s s u e 2


abbot reign earth din cabin credit entry flagship round double trunk space servicing organist namesakes horror favor contrary bit part beginning position text message world olympic champion problems residing northern astral newton automotive latvian swiss poet short films duckburg constitution natural science virginia oregon self-publishing hotel complex preparation caribbean island authors million mushrooms age wasps standing fraction riverside baths criminal

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John Pursch Newly Mumbled Shoreline Silence prevails here deep in wooded ateliers of hearty feline visitation sprites on calmly festooned cordons lining cilia with smoothly tailed interpretations of a jangling idiosyncratic pallor. Finery contents itself to flow above triadic gnomes in nomenclature wisps of serifs, laden to the grillwork fantasy eclipse line’s self-indulgent bathing fear with ferried scapulas and interfering elbow chaw, sold deftly into darkness. Maze canteen lines plaster rigid hallway turns with humid seeping carriage pleas, convolved in diverse skin trap bodice eel retainer limbo spawn detergent queues, to winding perspectival glint of country smiles across deplaned amorphous auras. Periodic patricide unlaces slanted bootstrap bunks, allowing gravel authenticity to tumble clumsily through sternly toiling garrisons of thickly moustachioed peddlers in binomial caissons, tipped to rooftop posture nonchalance. Anterior voters terrify each uttered sapling with gorgon splice demotion thrusts from stabbing pond ferocity’s curried boxcar quip, flapping newly mumbled shoreline scorecard marginalia for furor’s alleyway to coil in scrolling tailhook pauses. Respite breathes assigned molecular ambivalence of v-neck courtiers and threadbare botanical smocks, suppurating into quarried huntsmen.

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Centuries of Loose Change Owls nose about in stippled trough line signatures of split-bee planar fanny molds behind doused cowlings, dreamy sighs confusing lupine poultice couriers with scrambled auditory mumps departure sounds. They fritter sway bar candy stripes on sundry flowered manacles from deeply sutured bollocks of encountered salients in Bulgur paddock knell retreat to echoed ministrations of shoddy coven guardians and junky sapience gone heterotic in effusive lending progeny of waistcoat kin’s conformist cinder. Wands veer counterclockwise over sheep in heady tribal visitation kites, conflating depilatory basement cries of “Whisked tumescent hebephrenic nuns shave monkeys!” Emptying sardonic fruit cups, thermoplastic daredevils bristle at brisket bouncers, calming covetous canoeists in cubist retribution saddles. Framed by surly shoestrings, lakeside motel investigators pump a septic halfling for armature deception moths, catching swingers in the sackcloth tinder fanny jock strap situation bath of mourning clover ritual schism and centuries of loose change.

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Symphonic Dumpster Angled technocratic playboys squander filtered cannonades of u-turn locomotion, fettered by a swollen soiree’s roulette turnstile, zipping tightened easy chairs till omnipresent hooligans reply in tiny flesh routines. Alluvial sunsets creak in river overload, sliding tourists down a mossy gravel crunch impasse toupee, flooding yak bard kitchenettes with studio pajama tees. Tucking brothel sneezes down to styrene punctuation crill, imported castanets breed overnight in well-formed involution’s predated mummery, grazing deciduous shanties with thickened skin quotation flits of mooing conning spires and torn relief tomato cuffs. Our airline lariat unfurls to picture garish lakeside Tories, brawling in agoraphobic spiels of extirpated chili’s droll symphonic dumpster.

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Petroglyph Ralph Off in receding cloudtop yore of pinnacle brute and loutish freeloader porous pineapple hunt spectacle glint, flies Petroglyph Ralph the Pendular Bombastic Gristle Machine, coughing and sneezing upper stormy stomachache tornado pomade to fragmentary wastebasket landing rights of neuronal tomato infestation plumbing trickle yoyo topping of gung-ho cheerio contagion bliss, floating in swallowed and safely chosen minnow sofa scoot of scout’s plunder. Trolling dexterous temerity on jolly rocket pock attraction, damsels enter domicile engraving chutes with baleful care for car door symptomatic crash dump lorry canes from sugared fodder banyan bread to fickle finagling done tetrahedral by quartermaster trill barges in arduously fumbled cardigan silo shock, mocking beatific seagulls in bubbled tour fife gymnasium flute routines, stolen from tapered epistolary munchkins on epistemic tarantula carpet winks. Prawns advise anterior locomotive maelstroms to capture isometric barrier cleats, deriving low-slung seamstress parasols from rainy denouement infringement Pollyanna whist in guttural frenzy, solely foisting crushing flagmen by guitarist ceiling dumpling crews of anabolic cave mat pleasure sermons, enfolding ski bell cowardice in tied Sephardic pheromone retraction mythos dander garage estrangement from sinful tankard exhalations of expletive serration pith and pathos germ tonality bronzed annually for cobbled stew shore rodeo command line caricatures of two sonic pleats.

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Alisha White Abstract:

“ These images are products from my arts-based research created while analyzing middle school student sketch responses to the Ray Bradbury short story “All Summer in a Day.” After reading the story myself, I was struck by Bradbury’s incredible imagery and the intense emotions the story elicited. With my images, I tried to capture the moments during my reading where time seemed to stop and I was only aware of my presence in that moment.

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A Single Raindrop 2 73 | O f / w i t h I s s u e 2


lightning on their faces 74 | O f / w i t h I s s u e 2


Margot Alone 75 | O f / w i t h I s s u e 2


The Cure

Caleb Puckett

Thirsting marshes and migrating snakes suffer the swinging blade of a solstice bent black by the wind. Cross the river of rocks with an avenging angel’s laugh, teeth singing as they sink into the tyrant’s spleen. My I, so idol it becomes godlike in infinitude, carries me through the abandonment of lesser supplicants. There they bow, brilliant in the rain, ready for the word she cannibalized in my dream. Telescope for a fallen comet. Microscope for a fallen hair. Tongue to tongue, a sharp report submits to investigation from sky to soil. Follow the entrails back to the cattails. Unleash the choking lead. A body of knowledge to exhume. Glut of sweet things, I bloat in time with false teeth. The fault of shattered voice all throat it seems. Fast on silence, expel the disease. Yes, an infection infiltrates my practice. A great injection of isolation must feed the infection its finale. I must turbinate our relationship to pain the obvious culprit away. Culprit means an excretion flung outward in disgust, yet still chained to feel the accuser’s wrath. One must tether the stomach to lovesick. One must manifest science in myth for true magic. Io, I think, Io. Cow or moon, this gray eye cannot say in a white gown. And, my-my, I must use The Probably Solution again to seduce and subdue. My I is a mouth. My I spites. I also spit below. Caught. My beard confirms this diagnosis. Brush the tangle out to find the strand again. My acrostic universe to namesake—clipped when teeth overlap—transforms the toad into turtle form in the talon of a praying bird seeking an Emir’s trophy godhead. A golden ode in offing. Cryptic privileges of power arrange the ideal afterlife. By this body given order—a gravedigger must bring her crown to coffin and a funeral catafalque to shield my cipher with the animal carapace, bestowing an oratory platform so as to silence the minus one with none-sense. I sleep without erasure, wake without completion, hover in a dreamdome with my descendants as their phantom limbs abstract the pollenated air. And now to syringe dull friends. I will ration no medicine. A harsh, rash reproach quickly extends poison to the spot, but gives the doctor away. The subtle answer addles. Propionic acid driving perseveration is called inspiration in some quarters. Friends are formulas. Calculated casualties. I will have difficulty developing another pure her, though, without a large supply of isopropyl alcohol to purify the skin to the point of transparency. A dress limps into the examination room, slipping off. A pale body by the window and a mouth talking of origins and ends. I curl a shoulder into the hallway, alerted. The curious organic percussiveness of her knowledge follows. Jewels spill and spread. The cleaning is heavy afterwards. Order discovery. Overlook fear.

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Marianne Szlyk Crepuscle with Callie Waves of scent wash over her: urine (human and animal) sweat damp wool bad coffee no cream worse cigarettes a perfume called Joy. A landscape quakes: calico tuxedo gray orange white black tabby Manx. The notes on the record skip as the landscape shimmers and shifts. Chase or be chased. Nip or be nipped. Lick or be licked. The other cats multiply. They leap onto counters and crowd around windows. Lights twinkle with kindness out there. Inside the cats multiply sniffing at cold coffee cups and ashtrays chasing nipping licking. Behind the last door, the man in the suit and hat will not stir. He barely breathes. They say that one night he played the piano with his elbows while the sax wailed like a car alarm from the future. Another night he did not play at all. If she were herself, she’d rattle the blinds until he awoke and let her out of this nightmare. He doesn’t have to play the piano for her. Just get her out. 77 | O f / w i t h I s s u e 2


Again the landscape shifts. The record skips. Beyond the last door, Callie still seeks the threads of her waking life, no coffee no cigarettes no chasing nipping licking, the presence of real joy.

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At the Gym She admires herself in the gym’s full-length mirror. Her stomach burns from crunches. Her thighs burn from squats. She considers going out for the new gin cocktails, juniper infused with Thin Mints. She imagines herself at the Uptown Lounge as Titiana, Queen of the Fairies, with or without Oberon, without Bottom. But she is weighed down by the queen’s jeweled velvet. Its blackness covers her like a cloak past her knees. Blue, red, and green jewels pad her abs like a bulletproof vest. All she can do in the queen’s dress is stand around in darkness and glare at Bottom, at Oberon, at her plus-sized sister who is dancing with her pudgy husband to Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. After all the work she’s done, she does not want to be weighed down. Neither does she want to dance with Bottom. She turns away from the mirror and pops a peppermint in her mouth. She belongs in the world of spandex: 79 | O f / w i t h I s s u e 2


lemon glacier, electric lime, and jazzberry jam.

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Scene from the Blue Room (1st voice) Mrs. Feeney is dying in the room with blue walls, the color of her favorite dress from the summer she spent dancing at the lake, the color of her summer cottage there, the ocean on the family cruise, the sky the last time she saw Johnny, and her granddaughter Olivia’s eyes. Once a large woman, Mrs. Feeney shrinks from pain in her tan and orange plaid chair, the one that matches the white that the walls used to be. Her lunch of sugar-free, fat-free vanilla ice cream melts in its child’s cereal bowl. Only the broken pills persist. Hot air blows in from the boulevard. Cold air trickles from the fan above. None of this eases her pain. She supposes that she should be in bed, if not at the hospital, for that is where one dies surrounded by beeping and tubes, free from other people and pain. That was where Jack, her husband, died. That was where they could not save Johnny. But she would rather be here with her granddaughter and the big band music that sweeps in with the breeze. Mrs. Feeney wants to hum the music the band played at the lake all that summer. She wants to start her sentimental journey soon, at the blue hour, the hour when the dance begins.

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Scene from the Blue Room (2nd voice) Twenty days late, Olivia holds Grandma Feeney’s cold, blue hand and tries to say something, anything. Even if it’s not about the cruise. Or the cottage before the glittering lake became a slimy pond with weeds and glass before her father died. “I miss…,” Olivia whispers. But Grandma is shrinking. Her eyes closed, she is pulling away. Soon she will be just like Olivia’s father, someone she will try hard to remember in other places, some of them rooms with blue walls, some of them near the water, most of them not. “I miss…,” Olivia whispers, remembering early mornings in the blue kitchen by the lake. Mornings her mother rushed to work. She wonders if she should feed her grandmother. She wonders if she should answer her vibrating phone. “I miss…,” Olivia whispers, thinking of the guy she met six weeks ago. Olivia bites her lips, tastes the blood in the lip gloss. Its sweetness already makes her sick, as sick as yesterday’s soup or today’s milky cereal made her. Even the vibrating phone in her pocket makes her sick. 82 | O f / w i t h I s s u e 2


Only this melting ice cream doesn’t make her sick. She wishes she could be dramatic, compelling her mother to listen, pulling on her hands, the way her friend Mandy would. She wishes she could widen her eyes or at least catch her mother’s gaze, the way Mandy could. But even if she looks and talks like her, even if she goes to church with her, she is not Mandy. “Blue is such a spiritual color,” Mary Rose Feeney says, flipping back her blond hair. ”The color of the Blessed Virgin. No wonder why it causes you to eat less!” Olivia knows she will do what her mother recommends. The phone stops like a beating heart. “I will miss. . .,” Olivia whispers. Olivia is shrinking. She is pulling away into her body, ignoring the sickly scent of her mother’s vanilla candle, sensing only the dull headache and nausea, praying for the twinges and flow that will bring her back on time. Grandma’s eyes are closed. Olivia wishes that she could hold her father’s hand again hold her grandma’s hand again as they walked out of the cottage to the lake that sparkled in the sun. No, she wishes that she could hold the hand of the child that is growing inside her, waiting for the world. 83 | O f / w i t h I s s u e 2


Scene from the Blue Room (3rd voice) After walking in from the garage, Mary Rose Feeney stands, arms akimbo in the middle of the living room. She would curse the hospice workers and the blue walls if ladies cursed. And she is a lady in a cute white top and floral jeans and with tiny toenails painted pink. She has sold many houses. She sold one today, right before pulling into the driveway. But she remembers how hard it was to sell the cottage at the lake, actually, a pond no one ever goes to anymore. She shivers, remembering her plunge into the slimy, olive-colored water. She was sure that the rocks were broken glass and her feet were cut-open and bleeding. No one else swam in this lake. No one even sat on the porches of the tiny houses ringing the lake like takeout boxes around a lawn. Only she plunged in. That was always what happened, even before her husband, J.J., could not be saved. Before the priest arrives, Mary Rose lights a syrupy vanilla candle. She is warding off the smell of death, unwashed yet not unclean. “Blue is such a spiritual color,� she chirps as if she really meant it. Her mother-in-law and her daughter think she does. 84 | O f / w i t h I s s u e 2


She knows she does not. She leaves the living room. Her phone is ringing. It’s not the priest. Someone else wants to sell a parent’s house. Walls can always be painted over. She knows they can.

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Alan Britt THE HERACLITUS POEM Only Jupiter scars the inside, sparkling ice-skates against the cosmos, asteroids, notwithstanding, comets, notwithstanding, shooting stars, heretofore notwithstanding, Jupiter with her four dozen moons or so. Jupiter, pregnant with gasses, suffering gas pains. Jupiter with magnetic blades scalping generations of happy astrological mythologies. Jupiter, Jupiter……….jungle parrot, heart attack yellow, passive blue, and Jupiter, diminutive blue, Jupiter as if to dissolve the heart heretofore, as if the heart could withstand the mathematical machinations of massive deconstruction, (heart bleeding beneath the most advanced armor of its day). But the heart leaves a trail, Renaissance or otherwise, the heart, earth, earth, the heart, two tanned fertile breasts sprouting from an über intellect plus an out-of-control vagina muscles bulging with blood, moist muscles saying, I’ve known you from the beginning,

(first time, second time, and third time, again, notwithstanding). I’ve known you as I’ve known my own heart: male muscle or delicate vagina. And when I say come hither, well, you know, from now on, I mean come hither as hither has never become you before but, nevertheless, becomes me as never became me before. I mean, become me, backwards and forwards, become me, east to west, north to south, become me as you never became me before— however your Jupiter-moonlit, mother-of-pearl shoulders allow you to become. 86 | O f / w i t h I s s u e 2


4-POINTS (The world breaks like a heron’s wing.) ~Manuel Rivas Mouths gape, teeth, lips, plus whatever else convinces us we’re on a distant planet. Your hips, wishbone: yes, you, the real you, not a rhetorical second-person abstracted by some greasy-haired, sleight-of-hand promoter flaunting his glossy 2,000 wannabes, (few gone missing). Your mouth gapes, drags its bottom lip across my cheek, along my equine jaw, Adam’s apple and scapula splayed like a Thanksgiving turkey. That’s right. Bones of mythological fowl! Anyway, you relax your soul like a silk parachute against my thistle body, twisted, wrestling each thorn from its socket, each spine smartly dressed, impeccably chapped, (I’d say) somehow resembling the British infantry feigning its bloody last stand against the Zulus. Gimme that Amazonian vine metronoming fairytales and truth! I want to see you in Nordstrom silks eighteen months and three monsoons headlong into our love affair, into our romance disguised as a category 4 typhoon, disguised as amphibian god and goddess, gills flared like aluminum fins belching hot air from Brooklyn windowsills, August, 1958. It’s simple: I want our definition of love to intersect, intersect, intersect, (momentarily, I know!) but intersect, intersect, if only for one glorious moment before being prodded by a starving pride of quantum positivists and exploded into opposite universes! 87 | O f / w i t h I s s u e 2


YOU You scrape the dragon’s beak, flint of sunlight on flint, fingerprint of star-nosed mole, fingerprint of dying sun more than any primordial fingerprint of sun. You lick the dirty beet robes of higher-ups in the Catholic Church, of knives slicing faith, of sushi-love believing the only robes worth worshipping are the robes of deceased icons. Farm-raised gemstones encrust your bleeding forehead. Lambs and tygers, Keats traversing the weary huts of Ireland, wickiups, so to speak, rhinoceros poverty greeting young John at every turn. Consumption love or insatiable exploration that any 24-year-old could command. Smoking Baudelaire eyebrows sifting Texas conglomerate dumpsters in an age when Baudelaire was barely aware, but barely aware he was, thanks to Judas, thanks to the organ grinder’s monkey, thanks to goldfinches for a fleeting second slicing Global Warming into pop culture. Still, the last thing I’ll remember is you. That’s right, you. Last thing worth remembering, you, otherwise known as hideously disguised me, or the hideous me 88 | O f / w i t h I s s u e 2


who loves you.

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BEWARE OF DARKNESS

(He died for your sins & mine? My, god, how painful was that?)

~Margarita Sanchez de la Antonio Freeman

Step on the wah-wah, strip the onion skin from loitering atoms, place darkened 3-D's over your anise eyes; otherwise, skip to my Lou, My darlin', skip to my Lou. From your scabbard hangs a pelican, minding its business for the most, but a pelican after all these years; go figure, since we discharged that pelican, ruthless kingdoms arose (beheadings, maimings, tortures of all kinds, the bloodier the better.) → → → → → I think I know why they prayed to indoor plumbing gods; your toilet breaks & you're in for a long weekend, your ice-maker hose succumbs to hieroglyphic rodents, or perhaps a sudden freeze paralyzes the entire system . . . . . better pray to the god with a paper asbestos Home Depot mask skewing his frown, mouth wired to go off the moment you pull the trigger.

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LISTENING TO MUSIC Umber lips, plum aureoles, stained hips (Nijinsky's insistence against Debussy's better wishes). Antlers, well, mossy nubs, really, from he who entered late. Red with green holly ashtray caked with rolling tobacco hills, dusted with ravens hovering symbolic piranha as though I volunteered my bedroom, hallway & dining room before barefoot entering treacherous kitchen tiles’ dried cat food, rubber dog squeakers & distracted blond asking me what can she do because she leaves in an hour to catch the bus from here to eternity. I unbutton my sleeves & chuckle; she cinches her soul into wolverine or badger taking the front door with her as she leaves. I'm polar beneath 18" of ice . . . blue, white, mascara where sunlight catches the curvature of earth in a seal's version of a black hole known better as a polar bear's jerky for the winter, or a different perspective . . . greenyellow stung mango leaf below a hedge of red star flowers oozing nectar like bonobos from branch to ledge, ledge to rock, rock to ledge . . . a distant sun backfires; we breathe debris for the next 10 billion years; baby grands run for President & win; the entire Congress is filled with baby grands; even the kitchen knows what a hungry baby grand eats when a baby grand wants to eat; even lady grands with age spots on their forearms & Jaguars in the driveway; even Daphne beneath a hairdryer, Apollo smashing plate glass & Sky King with a Piper that does almost everything Trigger did light-years before the Enterprise though several generations ahead of Congress, & last but not least, the general assembly settled into folding chairs at middle school gymnasium, when, before the principal taps microphone control, StÊphane Grappelli enters with the gait of a giraffe & takes his seat next to me with stories of umber lips, aureoles, stained hips & Nijinsky's arrogance despite Debussy's better wishes.

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Tom Holmes The White Space As noted before, you draw a map by ear. You listen to the land, children crying, the ignition of canons, your instincts of where the moral belong – the painters, the bakers, the weavers, the farmers, the ones who create, the ones who use their hands – which is everywhere. For the others – the bankers, the princes, those with scented hands – you’re inclined to give them space off the world map or at the bottom of a sea – any place without sound. This inclination is not sound, or rather it is the idea for sheet music – its arrangement of notation on a musical map – the staff, the treble clef, the sharps and flats, eighth notes, and allegros. Your inclination will chart a breezy composition for the handy ones and score the rest in blank tablature.

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Featured Artist:

Randi Ward

“ The Meyegraine series was photographed in the Faroe Islands. Many artists have been inspired by the capricious weather, dynamic light, and dramatic landscapes of the Nordic archipelago, but the Meyegraine photographs are a meditation on thresholds of perception and awareness. Stunning realities lurk in the objects surrounding us at any given moment; when they are brought to light, it is not without vivid consequences. A meyegraine is imminent once heightened empathy triggers a painful, all-consuming surge of consciousness and comprehension.

�

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Meyegraine 9 94 | O f / w i t h I s s u e 2


Meyegraine 5

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Meyegraine 6

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Meyegraine 7

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Meyegraine 8

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Meyegraine 21

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Meyegraine 23 100 | O f / w i t h I s s u e 2


Meyegraine 57

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Meyegraine 66

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Heath Brougher Stung by Noise Vibratious negativity will not cease from pulsing through these hallways; after the dogdeaths the Hurricane Sister will sweep though, redecimating the silence; the quietude will lay in ruins; the Thoughtgarden will once again sprout no florid flowerheads; primary colors draining past grey, blackwards.

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Threadbare Hunger is now striking juvenile stomachs alone half dead plummed out counterlickwise scentless innards dyinginnards dirtstained hair constant stomachgrowl among the blacken pallor screams dripping down the wall into a puddle of simultaneous noise and nothingness dominance of teaspoonless utensils dreaming a golden age will ripen up and down the desert and bones.

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Pijush Kanti Deb The Prohibited Fruit Sagacity and discernment warn in the same tune showing a skull floating on the cross of bones. Hence, the eyes are taken back and kept inside with care shutting the window down, the flying flag is brought down, folded up and kept inside the locker with great affection for using it in timely flight, yet, the mind, the dogmatic child , longs for the same again and again ignoring the hymn of compromise, ‘’All is well’’ and revolts at last manipulating the five senses to arrive at a cartel and provokes them too to be unbreakable until their reaching and touching the prohibited fruit breaking all the fences by turn constructed one day with great care by sagacity and discernment.

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Brad Vogler note: a mapping

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note: a remembering belly of artifacts memory : lake : yard twinned here some pieces here a holding of unearthed bits

here fragments shored by the lake

you: stone glass: you you: nail sticks: you you: broken found: you wave smoothed earth cradled here held

this is where the shed stood

sh a whisper /ed whispered sh

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: curled leg(s) embody/ment/ing (perched but) a beaten wonderment a felling un/folded left wind ward/way arms undone (tired)/worn/(tired) mouth rounded (w/years) fleshed arms

want of words can't such change

can't sorry voice :

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: frail knob hobbled door heat wood room rise wood smell dry scuffed floor can’t hold

walk all stories of come home/come home

secret of unnoticed unaware song color lake sky (from the) kitchen window way horizon water one

place is not static shore is not still :

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: past shadowed somewhere in (the) margins these words already said/happen(ed) what goes unknown through doors/ these doors this channeling/this hope talk(ing) a harboring way of looking place a claim of/on bodied water lake water a lower case love a lip that won’t quit shoreline of various markers held place of disappeared righted light :

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bruno neiva

quase-texto 4.1

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quase-texto 4.2

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quase-texto 4.3

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Andrea Moorhead Night Dreaming If I fell off the moon, I wouldn’t see your house tumbling so quickly into the waves or the silver streak of burnished lightning along the roof line or the cobalt shimmering soil when the rain falls too quickly and we cannot keep the windows clear.

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rich follett ianua

where i have been versus where i am going (one step in either direction, event horizons loom); paralyzed on the threshold, i pray to janus:

let me see ‌ the hoary god slumbers; does not answer, having chosen oblivion Ìons ago.

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sleeping muti same story, different universe: princess dies with prince’s kiss on her lips -turns out theirs was a toxic love.

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sisyphean diary day 4,638,932: good news -the rock and i have reached an understanding.

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A.J. Huffman The Ghosts of Unforaged Cheese I stray,

digress, myself in tangible thoughts, so consuming I believe I can fall through them, drop, like a rock[et] through of nothing short of concretized dissociations. I am maze, chao tic mess. lose

the surface

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Corner of Cactus and Sunset I tripped on my way to nowhere and stabbed myself in the eye with a needle that was anything but natural. Suddenly, I could see the flaws in the fantastical forms parading about the sky in burstable bubbles of dissoluble fluff. In a blink, understanding erupted, forcing the fissures wide enough to swallow me. I let them (as it made no difference). I emerged unscarred, scraping bits of their nonsense from my skin. They piled at my feet, a mound of useless dreams. I stepped around them to collect my needle. Knowing someday I might need a matched visual set.

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Because Pillows feel like anvils at 3 a.m., darkness offers my mind little reprieve. Just a cold place to rest my hair, and a solid platform to beat my brains against before jumping back into the belligerent arms of another dawn.

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Sword vs Pen Epic irrelevance. Blood trumps both. Always the end result is exsanguination— Of life. Of soul. Both a finale of darkness. Truth: the real question is not one of death, but one of expediency.

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Scott Thomas Outlar A Primal Roar Skeleton branches in a cold snap serve as electrical tendrils for wintry ice to shock nature back into a primal urge of evolution. Fiery snow across a fevered synapse slashes into a dormant neuron without mercy, without empathy with raw obedience to the natural order. Calling down thunder and lightning from the mountain peak in the distance where the lion roars and waits for its next chance to take the jugular. The cycle spins in perfect rhythm – like unto like, each unto its own. The new moon spills her blood to earth – so fresh with salt to lick sacrificial wounds.

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Duane Locke

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WORD TRANCE NO. 6 If Foucault were still alive, he might have written this Disquisition on the genealogy of human hubris: Brain banished band stand for cross-eyed crossword puzzles, But fingers preferred squirrel antics with plastic acorns, Lips loved to kiss Turkish corsair howls on hairy rugs. Once childhood tree house pretense had been Betrayed by Alcibiades the personal choice was watercolors. The style was Dufy’s with swoops, splashes of purple sailboats. But the apprentice-pieces were exchanged for love seats, But vodka became the fated salvation, it made Stupidity bearable and stupidity became a household honor. The love seat found its fragments in the dumpster. So many spent their lives punching with a tighten fist, Yelling as they punched a puffed- up oriental yellow silk pillow That was embroidered with replicas of their wedding rings. Most longed for a change the Dandy wearing apparel, denim, Desired tight blue stripped pants white starched shirt with A tie that resembled peppermint candy, or barber pali.

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WORD TRANCE NO. 7 The unseeable confronting opened eyelids is seen by one’s flesh But hidden by brain is ushered to a closet inside a breathing bone Where it is transfixed into what is believed To be an item in a waste basket but it has insomnia And never sleeps, somnambulistic, it strolls With advice from Lucretius or Augustine or Or some verbose, coarse eighteen year old, through Aphorodisa of synapses, other concealed strangers, Leaving its six toe foot print on bottom mud of blood rivers. The transfixed unseeable tells every transfixed it meets That it is a logician, and the met transfixed repeats That it is a logician also. Both said they voted to repeal The law of non-contradiction, for only can the contradiction Engender the emanation colored emerald that refutes Epitetus That one can become a master of himself. As the few, The minute few, in this world who process authentic knowledge Know the unseeable is master, creator of everyone, everything.

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WORD TRANCE NO. 14 On cypress swamp margins where black water oozing mud Shifts into grey damp sand and then into whiteness that conceals Darkness, I discovered a singular yellow tiny wild flower. It was apart from the collective, the bunch of yellow wild flowers Whose petals touch other petals. I looked long at the petals shapes, how the sky came down to change The tints of yellow, its center of tiny stems each topped with a fuzzy yellow. I gaze so intensely so long at the wild flower the wild flower began to speak to me. It said What I tried to say for a long time about the Statue of Liberty And a statue of the Buddha. I listened carefully, and I wished for a repetition Because I wanted to remember what the wild flower said. I asked for a repetition, But the wild flower would not repeat. When I arrived at my apartment, I immediately started to type down What the wild flower said, But I could not remember the exact words. What I wrote was only an approximation.

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WORD TRANCE NO. 16 Crows, Crows, scattered over sun-brightened wind-swept corn, A slapped-on grammar, A grammar of thunderbolts and a cameo on a tight neck collar, Lacy, frowning on the faces of scapegoats, A grammar confused, a tightrope walker walking without a rope Before a thumbs-down audience of researchers on a salt-free diet, And a forgotten, overlooked Thomas Wolfe at their doors. The walker without a tightrope crawls on air above a thirty-story edifice To be founded are logs stolen from shot Indians in rain forests, Gazes down, A traffic jam of dominos without numbers, The mumbo-jumbo of streetwise unwise wisdom, The mumbo-jumbo About pantheism written by calculators reburnished and painted to resemble human flesh. A black crow slapped on antic grammar that cannot be decoded by current decoders. Savants pretend the indecipherable grammar does not exist, it is an urban mirage, While the grammar that refuses to be corralled into a sentence flies and moos over corn, Car horns are honked by fists of paralyzed mortgaged minds. And this cry of black crows turned into grammar goes out into world without being heard.

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WORD TRANCE NO. 78 Mangrove leathery leaves, descending roots, cold. Red-eyes, tiny land crabs, mangrove dwellers, cold. Today’s music of the wind sounds as if It studied under John Cage Music is Simulated muted Chinese firecrackers. All the dogs wear Scottish wool blue sweaters As the dogs smell the planted last week tropical plants I propped up with sticks in red wood chips. So the cold day spent, heated inside, thinking with amusement About the pseudostuff, the substanceless apparitions The substantial apparitions believe.

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Mark Fleury Growling’s Fine Growling’s fine, even if the bark From your tree is burned down To the ember that glows from my ring. Red rays of dusk shine behind the Branches that hold my roped, Green canvass bag of food, Covered in clear plastic To protect it from rain. This whole world Is pretend. I lean against the guts Of the tree trunk as fire splits life open From its buds and fills the vibration With ladder rungs to your tree house On high. From there, sound seen, The sunset is a pond beyond a marsh And a train in the distance of your spine Has this very evening to thank for the tracks in its noise. Dawn’s eye includes both sound and sunrays. Old and rusty nights that held my prayers Behind hills contain an icy ink licked up By me, angry and political: like birds To bread, ears to eyes, railing to train.

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Kristopher D. Taylor euh everyday

comes w/

and

a surprise a bless(ing) a cure.

each surprisea bless(ing) each bless(ing) a curse & each curse a bar of soap.

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effe for:ever I long for thee/s lov(ing) e*t*e*r*n*i*t*y for thee/s lov(ing) e*m*b*r*a*c*e among the young & the old stars of our favorite night/s sky.

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j’zeh going for the gold comes w/ the bronze & the silver -strings attached-

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hashe hi-gh above you there is a star call(ing) your name, &o(w)n-ly mispronounc(ing) it slight-ly.

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ee “…i…” (s)he whimpered

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Regina Walker He Said/She Said "Simply said", he said, he'd say - nostrils flaring with anger from his youth - while she said, she'd say, "Perhaps, perhaps." Too tight pin cults restrain her while toast and eggs and coffee appease him. His sloppy swack says thank you while a silly smile slides across her face and she goes shopping. Undershirt all dirty and ripped reveals ripples of fat as they slush to the big easy chair - Plop! TV on and food. Smack, smack, smack snack - crunch slurp. Sneezes and dirty fingernails. Forget to flush the toilet, forget forget to wash hands. But now she is home. Dinner! Smack belch. No conversation but smoke - cigar smoke and bad breath. "I'm tired" he said she said not looking.

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Paul Sohar

YEARS STALKING Years not content with merely passing have been lately stalking me depositing moss not only on the convulsions of my concrete stoop but trampling all over my face giving me grim smiles &malodorous glances stealing my belongings my favorite shirts and verse-dependent diaries I take my pills and a bath in bed after draining my sclerotic guts I even try to close my eyes at night and see myself as my dreams used to but it’s no use I’m kept awake all night by the stealthy steps of years stalking my portrait done in oil long before the years turned against me the painting shows me holding a glass and a cigarette or both in one hand the wine is still the same and the glass sits in my hand like a tyrant on a throne but it looks past me and talks to the years around me all waiting for me to make up my mind but it’s just a game they’ve got my mind in their grubby hands and they laugh when I say I don’t care take all you want but don’t leave this dirt curtain on my tongue this shuffle of poisonous feet on my night

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Catfish McDaris Supernatural Sorcery and witchery still flourishes people need protection, salt strewn around an encampment helps ward Off demon attacks, corn meal mixed with gall of an eagle, bear, mountain lion, or skunk is potent medicine Witches live along the Rio Grande, they steal Mexican sheep and cause death, beware of shape shifters Brown and gray corn known as maiz de brujeria should be avoided, healing elixers are mercury, Gonzalez herb, guayuli, and powdered turquoise.

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Philip Byron Oakes Dog Barking at Jacob Mellifluous quotas of high notes never reached, but by being pained to say what can’t be described from above. With a grasp at straws bringing fresh air to the haystack. Implicitly cold to the touch, pushing shove into play with children finding their way in the world. A hurtful saga where the currents cross premonitions. Variables to a tainted sense of immensity, averaged out over the length of the fall for the joke at the end of the tunnel. The laugh stash of snickers at the cripple’s quest to cross the threshold off his list. Hearing the call from wherever the feet lead a day splintered into morning, noon and night in no particular order. Shooing vigils into the labyrinth made a parking lot, for the spirit to feel as if it’s moving towards completion. With a nudge from the only possible outcome. Prodding the skin’s crawl to the tingle. Bridging the bird to the hand. A refuge in the giddyup or go no more. Up and over, down and through, the anything but stuck upon bearing the burden of the balance held to mesh the sequence of pieces into the whole.

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Mark Young WWAD?

for Nicholas Manning

Suppose tomorrow I wake up & find that, in the street, there are fireworks & dancing but, overnight, I have lost all of my natural teeth & my investments now have negative carry. It's difficult to choose the pivot point from which the day's trendline will emerge. Would prefer the celebration, but how do I rebut the fatalist in me? What would Aristotle do?

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assuage the bitterness The next round of auctions will be : The Agency wants to buy The Catholic Church. The "landscape" of quantum control. A large international team of researchers: the where Desperately seeking / sparked calls: the when 12 month Online Paid content subscription: the was Accountability of government officials: the were. : the test of time.

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The Clutch of Myra Breckinridge a blue plastic Cinderella slipper with candy necklace inside discounted four-pack tickets to Kidz Bop in Fort Collins white boys with both speach & spelling problems cell phone with a child's cardigan on either side cellulose made from broken-down plant fibers television screen built into the back of a seat Arnold Schwarzenegger's Six-Pack Routine stealth mercenary/compass/whistle combo snuff flicks of "infidels" being beheaded a "culturally appropriate" halal meal an umbrella & good walking shoes chemicals that absorb into the skin free samples of diabetes meals kale or other leafy greens a member of the family a panel of five gay men luminous spheres captured by security cameras Iowa folks who invite you to camp in their yards gases that would otherwise be burnt into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide an ice-skating rink made of artificial "plastic" ice so you stay dry if you fall 1/4 cup shredded asiago or parmesan cheese with an extra flashlight a backhoe that can excavate a 4-foot tall statue of the Virgin Mary

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Causal Catullus Most media today is unlikely to recognize that the riddle-like wording of line 115 in Sappho's poem indicates that the use of Hellenistic learning to negotiate social status for the “new Greek poets� played an essential role in the earliest etiologies of both the housing bubble & the Government of Canada's terminology & linguistic data bank.

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Nathusius' Pipistrelle It's the pressure of big city life—the unregulated heating & cooling of buildings, the constant cost-benefit analysis—that causes the cracking. In Texas, more than anywhere else, the venue dictates the music; but move to New York & try living in a home built out of a single standard freight container that should have been finished by now & is still only at the environmental assessment stage. Yet another body spectacle incapable of penetrating the collective imagination of those for whom aviation is still a revelation of the larger historical & philosophical life beyond the persona. & now the vehicle for the logos & pneuma of the father has gone all madrigal on us.

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Origami

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Particle Cathedral

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The canyon

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via Carbine

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Andrew Taylor Wash Dry Fold Now! Winter ready long walks

short days

the slope will become treacherous as the oranges are brought home Heat the milk

blanket at the ready

despite condensation WriteRoom four a.m. silence broken wrens dart startled fixing for roost

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Strike on the plate not the granite Gutter remnants reflector warmth of tobacco warehouse scent of bale Rust on points in black stride waiting room platform year long bloom mortar gives way to angled growth tunnel Victorian brick gateway arched canopy 16 minutes north 2 degrees colder the walk begins itself a provider

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Jeff Royce TO MY OLDER DAUGHTER Your anger gathers ghosts of back-sheared anvils from oceans in the wings of katydids Your fragility dips thimblefuls of thunder from waists of satyrs You whisper lavender paths on weather maps Your small-clenched fist of heart imparts a Braille rhythm a tapping of flagpoles echoes in cinder block foyers Jetliner shapes untwine lapis braids in your bright hair I wish that I could place a bracelet of zeroes on your ibis wrist that I could place an x/y intercept beneath the feathers of your tongue that you might transmute sequences of genes in magenta sunbursts that I could teach you a language that would break the glacier of a scrawled star But you must nurture your own criminal flower sequester quotidian phalanxes & replace them with limestone razors & canker blooms balanced on knife blades It is my sincere wish that you find a way to break ranks with the sidewalk backsliders the insidious saddle makers with those who would digitize trilobites that you brazen the dry-erase hypnotists the flash-mob scholars the bottle-ship rigging monkeys that you timber & singe your own indigenous wood that you hack the ashes & stratum of your own vernacular kayak

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Biography Notes Born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, Ka-Son Reeves grew up cultivating his natural artistic ability by watching the creative processes of his father (a portrait artist) and his eldest brother (a graffiti artist). Having received no formal art training, they instead were his artistic teachers and technical advisors. Ka-Son has participated in over 30 group and solo exhibitions in Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey. His work is included in permanent gallery collections as well as private collections. He has won numerous painting awards, has served as co-curator of 1199SEIU Gallery in NYC, has appeared as a guest on the television program "SteelStacks Live!", was hired as a courtroom sketch artist for the Pocono Record Newspaper on two high profile court cases and served as director of ARTSPACE Gallery in Stroudsburg, PA. Ka-Son is also author of a collection of poetic verse titled "A Poet-Whore, Pimped By Pain", published by Whimsical Publications, LLC. He has performed his poetry at the 1st annual "ArtSmash of the Poconos” in Pennsylvania. His poetry was also featured in The Pocono Arts Council’s Hall of Poetry and Writings. He is currently at work on his second book. Daniel Y. Harris is the author of Esophagus Writ (with Rupert M. Loydell, The Knives Forks and Spoons Press, 2014), Hyperlinks of Anxiety (Cervena Barva Press, 2013), The New Arcana (with John Amen, NYQ 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 the Chairman of the Board of Directors of The New York Quarterly Foundation. His website is www.danielyharris.com. Raymond Farr is author of Ecstatic/.of facts (Otoliths 2011), Rien Ici (Blue & Yellow Dog 2010), & Writing What For? across the Mourning Sky (Blue & Yellow Dog 2012). His poems appear in And/Or, West Wind Review, Otoliths, Upstairs at Duroc, Cricket On Line, & Eratio. He has a chapbook, Eating the Word NOISE! which is slated for February 2015 publication by White Knuckle Chaps & another full length collection of poems Poetry in the Age of Zero Grav due out from Blue & Yellow Dog in mid 2015. He is editor of Blue & Yellow Dog http://blueyellowdog.weebly.com Erik Zepka is a conceptual new media artist, writer and interdisciplinary researcher complex. They can be found online at erikzepka.com and x-o-x-o-x.com. Heller Levinson lives in New York where he studies animal behavior. He has published in over a hundred journals and magazines. His publication, Smelling Mary (Howling Dog Press, 2008), was nominated for both the Pulitzer Prize and the Griffin Prize. Black Widow Press published his from stone this running in 2012. Hinge Trio was published by La Alameda Press in 2012. Forthcoming is Heller’s Wrack Lariat slated for publication by Black Widow Press, Fall 2014. Additionally, he is the originator of Hinge Theory. web: www.hellerlevinson.com Sonja James is the author of The White Spider in My Hand (New Academia Publishing, 2015) and Calling Old Ghosts to Supper (Finishing Line Press, 2013). Her poems have appeared in FIELD, 32 158 | O f / w i t h I s s u e 2


Poems, Court Green, Crab Creek Review, Kestrel, The South Carolina Review, and Poet Lore, among others. New work will be published in the Gettysburg Review, Innisfree, Lips, December, and Gargoyle. Among her honors are four Pushcart Prize nominations. She has two sons and resides in Martinsburg, West Virginia.

Tony Smith is a transplant from the snowy east to the tropical farthest west. Bryn Fortey is a veteran of the British writing scene with recent online appearances on Tigershark, Imaginalis, youronephonecall and The Horror Zine. In 2014 the Alchemy Press published 'MerryGo-Round', a mixed collection of his short stories and poetry. Paul B. Roth has been published widely in the United States and his work has been translated and appeared in journals from Japan, Israel, China, Mexico, Romania, Estonia and the UK. His most current collections of poetry are Cadenzas by Needlelight (Cypress Books/2009), Words the Interrupted Speak (March Street Press/2011), and Long Way Back to the End (Rain Mountain Press/2014). He lives in Fayetteville, NY where he’s been the editor and publisher of The Bitter Oleander Press since 1974. Silvia Scheibli lives in the Arizona/Mexico “Borderlands,” where the recently erected border fence intended to separate these two cultures only serves as an aggravating obstacle to the Sky-island jaguar to pursue his rightful place on this planet. Crespo, self-taught photographer and fine art painter, has participated in numerous exhibitions in Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey (also under the pseudonym "Morgan"). She has served as gallery coordinator for the Pocono Arts Council, and has served as co-curator for several group art exhibitions at the 1199SEIU Gallery in NYC. She continues to exhibit her art in the New York metro area. James Grabill’s poems have appeared in numerous periodicals such as Stand (UK), Magma (UK), Toronto Quarterly (CAN), Harvard Review (US), Terrain (US), Seneca Review (US), Urthona (UK), The Potomac Review (US), kayak (US), Plumwood Mountain (AUS), Caliban (US), Mobius (US), Spittoon (US), Weber: The Contemporary West (US), The Common Review (US), and Buddhist Poetry Review (US). His books include Poem Rising Out of the Earth (1994) and An Indigo Scent after the Rain (2003). Wordcraft of Oregon has published his new project of environmental prose poems, SeaLevel Nerve: Book One in 2014, with Book Two scheduled for 2015. A long-time Oregon resident, he teaches 'systems thinking' relative to sustainability. Asha Gowan: "What is done in love, is done well," said Vincent van Gogh. Love is the unfailing cistern into which I plunge for the elements of my expression. I am beautifully bound to return for every withdrawal. In the past 5-7 years, my literary life has been wholly resuscitated. Marked by a constant groping, these recent years were spent refining my approach. I wished to seek out the science in the Tao of creative resonance. To strike a balance by hitting the combined chord of ancients and contemporaries alike in my verse is to transcend "good" into "memorable". The summit of my work's purpose is simply this: to grapple past my limitations through sufferings of my internal distillation for a reconciled truth. Though I'm still finding my voice, one day, I hope to move the world to my same conclusion... There is no nobler aspiration than to live in service to love.

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Ronald E. Shields lives in Rochester, NY. His work has appeared in Extract(s) and Right Hand Pointing. Matt Margo is the author of the poetry chapbook what i would say (Peanut Gallery Press, 2014) and the book-length poem When Empurpled: An Elegy (Pteron Press, 2013) as well as the editor of the online poetry magazine Zoomoozophone Review and the literary blog experiential-experimentalliterature. John Pursch lives in Tucson, Arizona. His work has been nominated for Best of the Net and has appeared in many literary journals. A collection of his poetry, Intunesia, is available in paperback at http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/whiteskybooks. His pi-related experimental lit-rap video is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l33aUs7obVc. He’s @johnpursch on Twitter and john.pursch on Facebook. Dr. Alisha M. White is an a/r/tist, teacher educator, and assistant professor at Western Illinois University. Her work revolves around disrupting constructions of ability, integrating arts into her research and teaching, specifically with students with learning dis/abilities, and teaching future teachers the potential for using the arts in teaching English and language arts. Caleb Puckett has recently published poetry in Moss Trill, On Barcelona and Otoliths. His newest book, Fate Lines/ Desire Lines, is available through Mammoth Publications. In addition to writing, Puckett edits the literary journal Futures Trading. Puckett lives in Kansas. Marianne Szlyk is a professor of English at Montgomery College as well as an associate poetry editor at the Potomac Review. She recently published her first chapbook, Listening to Electric Cambodia, Looking Up at Trees of Heaven, at Kind of a Hurricane Press: http://barometricpressures.blogspot.com/2014/10/listening-to-electric-cambodialooking.html. Her poem "Walking Past Mt. Calvary Cemetery in Winter" has been nominated for the 2014 Best of the Net. Individual poems have appeared in print and online, most recently in Poppy Road Review, bird's thumb, The Flutter Journal, Of/with, Whispers, The Blue Hour Literary Anthology Volume 3, and Literature Today as well as Kind of a Hurricane's anthologies, most recently Switch (the Difference). She edits a poetry blog-zine at http://thesongis.blogspot.com/ and hopes that you will consider submitting a poem there or voting in one of its contests. Alan Britt served as judge for the 2013 The Bitter Oleander Press Library of Poetry Book Award. He read poetry and presented the “Modern Trends in U.S. Poetry” at the VII International Writers’ Festival in Val-David, Canada, May 2013. He read poetry for the 6x3 Exhibition at the Jadite Gallery in Hell’s Kitchen/Manhattan in December 2014. Also, sponsored by LaRuche Arts Contemporary Consortium (LRACC) he read poetry at the Union City Museum of Art/William V. Musto Cultural Center in Union City, NJ in May, 2014. His interview at The Library of Congress for The Poet and the Poem aired on Pacifica Radio, January 2013. A new interview for Lake City Lights is available at http://lakecitypoets.com/AlanBritt.html. His latest books are Lost Among the Hours: 2015, Parabola Dreams (with Silvia Scheibli): 2013 and Alone with the Terrible Universe: 2011. He teaches English/Creative Writing at Towson University. Tom Holmes is the founding editor of Redactions: Poetry, Poetics, & Prose, and in July 2014, he also co-founded RomComPom: A Journal of Romantic Comedy Poetry. He is also author of seven collections of poetry, most recently The Cave, which won The Bitter Oleander Press Library of 160 | O f / w i t h I s s u e 2


Poetry Book Award for 2013 and will be released in 2014. His writings about wine, poetry book reviews, and poetry can be found at his blog, The Line Break: http://thelinebreak.wordpress.com/. Featured Artist: Randi Ward is a writer, translator, lyricist, and photographer from West Virginia. She earned her MA in Cultural Studies from the University of the Faroe Islands and is a recipient of The American-Scandinavian Foundation's Nadia Christensen Prize. Ward is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee whose work has appeared in the Anthology of Appalachian

Writers, Asymptote, Beloit Poetry Journal, Cimarron Review, Thrush Poetry Journal, Vencil: Anthology of Contemporary Faroese Literature, World Literature Today, and other publications. For more information, visit: www.randiward.com/about

Heath Brougher lives in York, PA. He attended Temple University. He recently finished his first chapbook manuscript and is putting the finishing touches on two other chapbooks as well a full length book of poetry. He is also writing a book of philosophy. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in BlazeVOX, Otoliths, Mobius, MiPOesias, Inscape (Washburn University), The

Original Van Gogh's Ear Anthology, experiential-experimental-literature, Diverse Voices Quarterly, and elsewhere.

Pijush Kanti Deb is a new Indian poet with more than 210 published or accepted poems and haiku in more than 59 nos of national and international magazines and journals [,print and online] like Down in the dirt, Tajmahal Review, Pennine Ink, Hollow Publishing, Creativica Magazine, Muse India, Teeth Dream Magazine, Hermes Poetry Journal, Madusa’s Kitchen, Grey Borders, Dead Snakes, Dagda Publishing and so on. His best achievement so far is the publication of his first poetry collection, ’’Beneath The Shadow Of A White Pigeon’’ published by Hollow Publishing is available on AMAZON visiting the link, http://www.amazon.com/Beneath-Shadow-White-PigeonPijush/dp/1505854113/ref=sr_1_1_twi_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422829526&sr=81&keywords=beneath+the+shadow+of+a+white+pigeon Brad Vogler's poems have appeared in places which include: Volt, CutBank, Versal, H_NGM_N, and Jacket2. He runs the website for Delete Press (www.deletepress.org), and is the editor/web designer of Opon (www.opon.org). His first chapbook, Fascicle 30, was published by Little Red Leaves Textile Series, and a second, Amid the Waves Which, is forthcoming from Beard of Bees. Bruno Neiva is a text artist, poet and writer. Author of ‘washing-up’ (zimZalla), ‘averbaldraftsone&otherstories’ (Knives Forks and Spoons Press) and ‘dough’ (erbacce press), amongst other titles. Bruno’s ongoing projects include ‘The museum of boughs': an ongoing, itinerant museum dedicated to the boughs, built on open-ended sets of intermedia installations, as well as ‘Servant Drone': http://servantdrone.tumblr.com/ a collaborative poetry and performance project with English poet Paul Hawkins. You can find more of Bruno’s work at: http://brunoneiva.weebly.com/ Andrea Moorhead was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1947. Editor of Osiris and translator of contemporary Francophone poetry, Moorhead publishes in French and in English. Poems and translations have appeared in journals such as Abraxas, Great River Review, The Bitter Oleander, Autre Sud, Estuaire, La revue des Archers, and Metamorphoses. Poetry collections include From a Grove of Aspen (University of Salzburg Press), Présence de 161 | O f / w i t h I s s u e 2


la terre (Écrits des Forges), De loin, and Géocide (Le Noroît). Translations include The Edges of Light (Hélène Dorion, Guernica Editions), Night Watch (Abderrahmane Djelfaoui, Red Dragonfly Press), and Dark Menagerie (Élise Turcotte, Guernica Editions, 2014). rich follett is a High School English, Theatre, and Mythology teacher who has been writing poems and songs for more than 35 years. His poems have been featured in numerous online and print journals, including BlazeVox, The Montucky Review, Paraphilia, Leaf Garden Press and CounterExample Poetics, for which he is a featured artist. Three volumes of poetry, Responsorials (with Constance Stadler), Silence, Inhabited, and Human & c. are available through NeoPoiesis Press (www.neopoiesispress.com. He lives with his wife Mary Ruth Alred Follett in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, where he also pursues his interests as a professional actor, singer/songwriter, playwright and director. A.J. Huffman has published eleven solo chapbooks and one joint chapbook through various small presses. Her new full-length poetry collection, Another Blood Jet, is now available from Eldritch Press. She has another full-length poetry collection, A Few Bullets Short of Home, scheduled for release in Summer 2015, from mgv2>publishing. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and has published over 2000 poems in various national and international journals, including Labletter, The James Dickey Review, Bone Orchard, EgoPHobia, and Kritya. She is also the founding editor of Kind of a Hurricane Press. www.kindofahurricanepress.com Scott Thomas Outlar survived both the fire and the flood - now he dances in celebration while waiting on the next round of chaos to commence. Otherwise, he lives a relatively simple life, spending his time flowing and fluxing with the Tao River, laughing at life's existential problems, and writing prose-fusion poetry dedicated to the Phoenix Generation. His work has appeared recently in venues such as Dissident Voice, Dead Snakes, Underground Books, Section 8 Magazine, Medusa's Kitchen, The Chaffey Review, and Halcyon Magazine. Scott can be reached at 17Numa@gmail.com. Duane Locke, PH. D, lives hermetically in Tampa, Florida near anhinga, gallinules, raccoons, alligators. Has had published 6,965 different poems, none self-published or paid to be published. This includes 33 books of poems. His latest book publications are DUANE LOCKE, THE FIRST DECADE, 1968-1978 (First 11 books— Order from publisher Bitter Oleander Press or AMAZON---YANG CHU’S POEMS, Order from AMAZON---TERRESTRIAL ILLUMINATIONS, FIRST SELECTION, from FOWLPOX PRESS. Forthcoming: VISIONS from KIND OF HURRICANE PRESS. 1000’S of his poems can be found by clicking Duane Locke on GOOGLE. He is a photographer of Surphotos and Nature. Has had 525 photos published, Some as book covers. A book of 40 of his surphotos has been published by BLAZE VOX, POETIC IMPRINTS, RESPONSES TO THE ART OF DUANE LOCKE, by Connie Stadler and Felino Soriano. His paintings have been described in Gary Monroe’s EXTRAORDINARY INTERPRETITONS, Published by University of Florida Press, and are in many private collections and museums. He is a student of philosophy—favorites: Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, 162 | O f / w i t h I s s u e 2


Jacques Lacan, and Jacques Derrida. Mark Fleury lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He has recently had poems published in VEXT Magazine, Counterexample Poetics, Clockwise Cat, Of / With, Down in the Dirt, Altpoetics, and Experiential Experimental Literature. His most recent book of poems, The Precious Surreal Door Opened was published by The Medulla Review Publishing in 2014. Mark's first three books, published between 2010 and 2012 through Scars Publications and Design, are scheduled to be published in 2015 as a one book trilogy entitled Seeing Strangers. Kristopher D. Taylor is a poet from Florida. He has self-published several collections and is currently head editor of the upcoming Dink Mag. He is in love and can be reached at kristopherdtaylor@yahoo.com. Regina Walker is a writer, photographer, and psychotherapist in NYC. Paul Sohar ended his higher education with a BA in philosophy and took a day job in a research lab while writing in every genre, publishing ten volumes of translations, including his latest "Silver Pirouettes" (TheWriteDeal 2012) and “In Contemporary Sense” (Iniquity Press, 2013). His own poetry: “Homing Poems” (Iniquity, 2006) and “The Wayward Orchard”, a Wordrunner Prize winner (2011). Prose works: "True Tales of a Fictitious Spy" (SynergeBooks in 2006), the collaborative novel “The Club at Eddy’s Bar” (Phaeton Press, Dublin, Ireland, 2013), and a collection of three one-act plays from One Act Depot (Canada, 2014).). His magazine credits include Agni, Exit 13, Gargoyle,

Kenyon Review, Rattle, Salzburg Poetry Review, Seneca Review, etc.

Catfish McDaris’ best readings were in Paris at the Shakespeare and Co. Bookstore and with Jimmy"the ghost of Hendrix"Spencer in NYC on 42nd St. His work has recently been translated into French, Polish, Swedish, Arabic, Bengali, Tagalog, and Esperanto. His 25 years of published material is in the Special Archives Collection at Marquette Univ. in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Philip Byron Oakes is a poet living in Austin, Texas. His work has appeared in Blackbox Manifold, E ratio, Cordite Poetry Review, among other journals. His third volume of poetry, ptyx and stone, (white sky ebooks) was released in 2013. http://philipbyronoakes.blogspot.com/ Mark Young’s most recent books are the eclectic world from gradient books of Finland, a chapbook of visual poems, Arachnid Nebula, from Luna Bisonte Prods, & HOTUS POTUS, published by Meritage Press in early 2015. Andrew Taylor is a Liverpool born poet, resident in Nottingham. His debut full collection of work, Radio Mast Horizon is published by Shearsman. He is co-editor at erbacce and of the visual and other poetries blogzine M58. He teaches English and Creative Writing at Nottingham Trent University. He is working towards his second full collection. www.andrewtaylorpoetry.com Jeff Royce lives and works in West Palm Beach, Florida. He is a teacher, writer, artist, photographer, husband, and father.

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