All rights to the works included in this magazine remain with their respective authors. All rights to this issue’s cover art (“Four by Four #2,” 2016) remain with the artist James K-M. Zoomoozophone Review is an online literary magazine dedicated to publishing contemporary poetry. It is edited by M; Margo. http://issuu.com/zoomoozophone_review http://facebook.com/zoomoozophonereview zoomoozophone@gmail.com
Our sixteenth issue is dedicated to the memory of Spencer Selby, a talented creator/supporter of experimental poetry.
Alexis-Rueal I Dream of the Apocalypse
6
Xan Schwartz transcending Season One No Mood
7 8 9
Jeff Bagato Hoc Analla Hoc Allonach Gonchon Canca Golh Achanalla Chaanlang
10 11 12
billy bob beamer POME Untitled1010erwrew4 Untitled1010erwrew5
13 14 15
R. Keith Poem from The wasteland nobody knew Poem from The wasteland nobody knew
16 17
Stephanie McElrath the unknown but not hidden bloomy waves
18 19 20
Heath Brougher You
21
John Pursch Worn Chicken Rush Week
22 23
Sanjeev Sethi Toodle-oo
24
Jeff Harrison Metallurgic Study
25
Mark Young IM’ing Yetunde Every / proposition is / true or false
26 27
Clara B. Jones /LaToya lived on Willow Street—/ LaToya’s Kitchen Is Open—Check Out Her New Menu
28 29
Sean Burn 16/3 the day of a sick man p62 wakefield 31/3 his find. p63. fokidos, athens.
30 31
Charlie Stern Sunderland//dissociative
32
J. Randolph sorry for saying i love you and thank you for sticking your hand up my asshole to look for a condom
34
Michele Alice Duplex Untitled
36 37
Contributors
38
I dream of the apocalypse // A piece of me dies // at night // and I see it coming // This is no bright-light //blink // into nothingness // It is a finite future // Written //and unstoppable // I sleep into the hours // and minutes of existence // shed themselves // before the marvelous oblivion //arrives // Dream of what won’t be // and what will never be //again// Know that there is now // not enough time // to do what I have left // undone // A piece of me dies // when I sleep // I find myself more hollow // when I wake // I dream of the apocalypse // It rises with the moon // lies in wait // curled // into my bed // // I can see it coming //
the fact that other people have fact coping for
poem hacks
(that
better)
I could have been
other operatives on the (go)
that hard boiled
people minister mine moot quote have
we
to pool our resources
it is time
(mine)
(shame) words
worse
than “remove your earbuds�?
is mine? (life is not mine)
life?
it’s a relief
not submission a boss good bathtub reason
wants to kill a mouse on its heals uncoconut.
to carry some water loose hate. folding in and in (crank
the
(nostalgia for the not) hands in a bucket that
yourself) you black headed lady more and more yolked to a wave (both ways)
now
Milk tea rock-a-bye ice cube sink I trip a wheeled trash can to a bench Land the rind of a blood orange in Strawberry Summer Crisp Greek Yogurt Crunch of aluminum foil lid Mindless-dig-and-gasp at plum-colored Ripped skin of fruit Wet dogwood flowers Smell like cat kibble, like Dorito Sweat, like shower gel: Rustbelt Sprung
Glass beetle Terrycloth heirloom Sensitive boomerang Kangaroo pop Screen-scratch freckle Cloud-blue boxset NaĂŻve timbre Tangerine fern Moosey synth-turtle Steely scrap paper Soiled Macarena Trapezius pearl Mr. Mitch pinch Recycled door hinge Longwinded beat Happy clit clamp Toothy manure Keyhole mustache Dripping obelisk Ivory sling Human-skin pallet Keratin flower Quinine candy Best practice ponan
Canh hal ang loc naan glach annach hannah hol ach lolgan choan nolna haggallah nonnollo onganh gaanloc nag chal hanna lan naglal ohna achlonach analla con lag nangal chal gaanloc aglanno nag lachna ognach haclon colnag noch allo aglanach aghal loglal nal chach haglon onh gnaal hoc analla hoc colhal ganloc aholla chah
Achallanach canh hal noch nogall gaan lach nol anlal hannah lanlol aglal, anchol hanhallach nag nollon gan nachlal, hagnona ghochal nongannach hag llona nonhon callach hah cachonach ganlach, glanallach allona ach hanca hol cahallanach, conlonag gaanlah lolga hachon nolcan hach achlalla naglal allonach coh hal ganlag achlon canca honh Allonach gonchon canca golh Hanlonna nag allanal ganh col
Nag hongal colach anlanag cohal gaanagallach hoc con gal nagallan angallach cogna chol haganallach coh clochan laanag agalla noganach gaan lochal ach lochalla lochalla haganag clochal glanganal llanoc hol chonal gonlag llanollog nonalgan chonog hachallanach aganallach onhana oganon claagal callanag choc halach ach langan lanlo gaanhach anchallach cohonga anchana oganal llaagallah anla cohalla chaac onga anchanallag galano cohcan hoc aclan ochnaganall callanach hagnang claag nohnag allanallag oncalla gaangal nog nohallo ochl nach ochla chaglan aganal chaglan anlah cohagon claac loch nagonallo logallanag noch nogalano nocoh caganallach colonaagan chonla hagnach gangonal gongana nohallach ach claac holca glonchal nannagon clachanga hon gahl llanog llanaag noch hallanach collach gonnolo lanalan coh hochan
LEFT ON PEPTIC SIDEARM FLAIR FEET & POPSICLE PUSH COOTIE BABY CARVING MACHINE BENT MINDS PESTULANT NAMES RIG GHENT RIDE THE CE MENT BUTTER RUBICON MISTS PLANETS PEANUTS KNOCKY TROUBADOURS RUGRIDES SOUL STOPPAGES BY CHANCE STANDARDS FLEETING BLATHERING BIBLIO UNDERBURNERS REALLY EXIT
You are 128 pages I don’t have time to read. You are a bubble bursting soap into a child’s eye. You are a meercat who never stands on your hind legs looking out for possible danger because you know at the end of the day you yourself are the danger. You are the question which does not wish to be answered. You are the dagger in the back. You are the bite from a rabid dog. You are the bamboo orchestra. You are the fishnet ceiling catching more net than fish. You are the unsmooth landscape defiled by the Human Race. You are the rust of the whole world over and over again. You are the banana peel everyone has always slipped on.
Shearing burgers from bison, cyborgs exhale heavy dawn, dripping bovine glue. Frosted pier seclusion ends in cobblestone salute, freezing into fads. We curl, we dawdle, indemnify the undefiled, remunerate the rapt occasion well into the drawn and sputtering naivetĂŠ of some worn chicken.
Thetas thumb through thunderclouds, violating parity with perspectival pizza. Emissaries insinuate a bald but brazen bivouac, bifurcating bicentennials with swing-set chain hypotenuse. Haggling over tourniquets, floorboard frogs steam in trebled armor’s uncontested pallor. Some splash, some backslap, a few cavort till knapsacks burst. Monetary illusions hover in ant hills, expel a logging helmet, and introduce curls to warm invaders. They catch a lug, sweat injurious malarkey, and swig imported bezoars from atonal balloons. Smudges interrupt the boldly disingenuous but naked claims of unmanned bodies. They stagger into glands and glucose, modifying the waitress. Simpatico tarantulas occupy a pulchritudinous hill, hoping for the pitter-patter of middling chestnut amity. A disaffected tambourine snags a scrap of mackerel in trembling rimshot. Laundered limbo gentrifies a reverential heron, flooding the boardroom with kerosene. Broiled robots wink tepid eye of grilled lamprey. Weighed but otherwise unmeasured, nephritic catalepsy manifests as crowded children on lazy daytime escapade to water shout intransigence and rickety tornado. Buses activate alliterative notoriety, flecking astronauts with cold cream. I seem for a flickering moment, but hidden identity resumes, embroidered in time.
In flyway of my free zone I recognize your wings: awkwardness of their sweep pushes me to brail. Tailbacks are ugly reminders. Let’s free you from lanyard of love. Magnanimity has its minus side. I will unravel the reverberations. Every curlicue owns a contour beyond which it loses itself: grokking this is to get it right.
next, Swan’s swan years indicated snake to ship swan & Swan such matters snake if such gain, very itself, the claws themselves sank, Swan’s DECORUM OF SNAKE WATER wished to sail, Swan long ever slew ere raven struck (raven was to be where snake was first introduced, no Raven yet), Raven’s tin-pan epistle twined Swan’s neck with the snake, Fatherless The Snake, but away vanity, away, no ghost-gold epistles for the snake here, though when cozy at its writing desk Fatherless The Snake is the snake’s house-name, anywhere at all the swan remains Dove and gives of entertainment to Worse Face Raven when Swan answers what it gathers Raven will imagine later, from the feathers of the raven grew Snake’s memoirs, in Swan’s memoirs Worse Face Raven dreams of being vigorously eagle & sends gales to the dove! Raven’s ears are pinned down when up is Swan’s modesty, the dove has been long robbing the raven, ghost-gold is the dove’s name for Raven’s tin, but Dove is perplexed to name the raven’s silver, Swan is crying: Swan has been asked to point out Raven’s silver, Swan instead writes that the raven is an eagle but a yet unborn eagle, but here, then, and still Raven’s everything is Swan’s luckless days, the eagle’s intimacy can come to any feathers, the eagle will come to them all, and Eagle will forget that Snake slew the dove, saying Dove was but a bleached letter exposing them all as the eagle
Yetunde is ranked No. 315 on TripAdvisor among its listed 788 virtual hostesses. She was taught at an early age about the benefits of technology but learnt later that it can dismember relationships. Yetunde sells provisions & drinks to earn a living. Her quest is to make Sendagaya the fashionable address within Shibuya-ku. Yetunde has 213 books on Goodreads. She thinks about getting a hamster &/or a tropical fish. Yetunde says you can tell the love hotels — the rabu hoteru — by their bright-lit neon signs with funny names. She spends much of her leisure time examining photos of New York graffiti, searches within them hoping to identify the beginnings of the paradigm shift that changed the city. Yetunde wonders what life would be like if she were red & her ambitions were not so transparent. She focuses upon a small portion of her emotions, then holds it up against a geographical background. What analogy comes up—what pictures does she see?
The logical positivists deny the objective existence of the human mind. Other vocalizations in their repertoire include the kinetics of complexes; an almost magical ability to bewilder the healthy & enlighten the sick; & a split between devotees over whether feeding grains on Janmastami should take precedence over the giving of money.
LaToya lived on Willow Street, a child with xanthous skin/insight into its causation/crawling down a passageway/excitation of certain parts of the body/covered by shards of glass reflecting moonlight and headlights/patients suffer from reminiscences/reflecting an owl predicting prey from its perch,/mnemic symbols/not knowing that another human wanderer/a powerful emotion/had cleared the way of rodents wanting only to avoid talons or teeth/traumatic/. [Italics from Freud S (1909) Five lectures on Psychoanalysis. W.W. Norton & Co., NY.]
If she lived in Brazil ‘Toya would get a facelift though women who wear designer clothes shouldn’t visit Brazil where everyone is beautiful & thin...’Toya is beautiful & thin like a blue heron standing on one foot or a fighter jet soaring over Rio Negro—not the Rio Negro near Leticia but the Rio Negro near Manaus that she wrote about in grad school describing the tributary’s curvatures & ridges like the troughs in her father’s field plowed all the way to Amazonas where the Yanomami planned war on a tribe to the west of the Enterolobium where she saw you carrying a kayak yellow as ochre on the chief’s chest searching for an outlet to the river swift as jaguarundis hunting monkeys or your patrón’s Cessna® landing on tarmac...the last time ‘Toya reinvented herself she had your first name tattooed on her shin & your last name inked on her ring finger left hand which made her feel sad when someone asked Do you have an anodyne?...so she always replied—I’m still looking...you knew she would follow you to Belem if she could imagine what to do besides read Franzen novels in your tent though she never liked Freedom & McEwan’s books are too depressing...’Toya awares the tributary & intentions the river & her plane isn’t flying fast enough to grey red macaws.
birds on model roofs gailygrave streaming the sun toasties & teacakes clinkings ov japans beers busker overcoming heels & wheels songs ov a full-dark-light diggers-levellers-ranters-incendiaries in the new build - coffee quivers shelves & selves quivering too
this coffee house & antifa writ up walls voices reaching & eaching walls bleach under the sun helmeted courier no saying what they menu ken loach says its getting dark again know which side us-film-achers writers-art-movers stand
as bairn lizard once ran up our arm to bask today olive tree leaf does exact same
[Author’s Note: “Semi-lucid narration of a morning at my sibling’s old house in the mountains in 2016, which was a full year of dissociative blackout for me, fueled by homelessness, undiagnosed/chronic illness (both physical and mental), and many friends rapidly dying The tone shifts, often from line to line, are super jarring, and I know that poetry professors in the past have hated that about my work, but this is it in its very extreme and concentrated form, because there’s so much more of it and it was literally a real-life journal for this whole morning where I was in and out of lucidity.”]
1. Catching myself in such unkind morning light A night unslept Waking up/coming to re-consciousness in the hills of Massachusetts I gasped out of erotic shock at the sun lighting the mountains in the window with blue, light Mouth full of too much green apple I still don’t know how to take A bit of juice and a bit of dribble drooling down my lower mouth corner Return to stare myself in the mirror Eyes wide, so I know I’m not real again Hoping to come back soon 2. I just put together that the makeup/aesthetic blog sort of dancing on the neighbors’ roof awning was their evidence of a pool, Froze and stared with water in my mouth I nearly drowned to death in Amherst in 2013, Bragged immediately afterwards, Completely scared of anything above about 16-24 ounces now (Can’t even look at sharks now in pictures because I am so scared for their safety) Someone said the neighbor next door built his house decades ago and that’s why he stares at me through our window when I’m drinking water out of a Pyrex measuring cup over the sink 3. Felt something with my sock in the enormous couch Fingers in, completely pricked (repeatedly) Yelped? Like a chihuahua, or, like the chihuahua is scratching me It was a comb Somebody lost a comb I found their comb, so they can have it now 4. [Deleted]
5. I googled the phrase “how to listen to npr online mobile” Regretted immediately Explained to someone some hours ago that I can’t do radio and I can’t do podcasts especially Because there’s nothing to focus on and look at when you’re hearing these words I need subtitles and I need to see everyone’s mouths at all times I’ll stare at your lips when you talk Life-long But there was a time when I was embarrassed because Cosmo Magazine convinced everyone that that was kissing body language Pre-kissing Like you’re so hyper-focused on wanting to put your mouth on theirs that you stare at their mouth That’s fucking creepy No one does that, One hopes, at least 6. Ants (Real or imagined)
7. Yes, people can change, But it’s actually like entropy, Sorry
my coworker sitting next to me just spilled a bowl of oatmeal in his lap and has been sitting with it there for 20 min with it soaking into his oversized khakis why am i turned on by this 2002 was weird remember when kelly rowland texted nelly via microsoft excel in the ‘dilemma’ music video and got mad cuz he didn’t text back i’ve taken so many selfies in this bathroom they need to name it after me immediately q: how u always so chill? me on depression meds, benzos, weed, denial of my mental health issues & a random pill i found on my bathroom floor a: vitamins. tfw you’ve exhausted all options on your dating apps so you give up put down your phone and turn attention back to netflix tfw u really want a nice art hoe shot for ig but you’re in a slump of tiring depression so you just cover ur naked body in roses and hope for the best yes we all have insecure moments but im going to pretend like i dont to maintain my curated online *aesthetic persona* can someone just venmo me a personality pls i like dropping hints that i have a superiority complex for example: I AM A STEM MAJOR me: what’s the most you’ve ever gotten from a guy? me: a headache nobody’s impressed that you don’t know any celebrity gossip or anything about ‘pop culture’ and actually it’s kinda weird if u write in helvetica bold oblique over any image it instantly becomes a meme tfw when ur stoned watching tv and that aspca commercial comes on ‘ur gonna hate yourself in the morning if u stay up late’ jokes on u i’m gonna hate myself in the morning no matter what
today’s look is low-key ‘michael cera’s estranged ex-girlfriend’ if these sunglasses were sentient they’d be asking for my wifi password while dragging a camel crush let it be known that i just ran my fastest mile ever to ‘girlfriend’ (2009) by avril lavigne today the second of april in the year of our lord 2018 convinced myself i wanna go to this party tn but turns out i actually want no one to ever look @ me ever again sorry for saying i love you and thank you for sticking your hand up my asshole to look for a condom
MasterCard or Visa?
Wars Gardens of stones.
Alexis-Rueal is a Columbus, Ohio poet whose work has appeared in journals such as Drunk in a Midnight Choir, The New Verse News, The Wild Word, and The London Reader. She enjoys performing in venues and festivals throughout Ohio and Kentucky, and she was a member of the 2016-17 season of The Women of Appalachia: Women Speak program. Her first full-length collection, I Speak Hick, was published in 2016. billy bob beamer continues his experimental music, writing, small drawings, installations, and digital asemia/visual poetry. Sound Rituals, a book of collaborative poems with Jim Leftwich, is now available from mOnocle-Lash Anti-Press. Charlie Stern is a standup comedian, the human embodiment of a chihuahua, and the transgender answer to Dale Gribble. They have been published previously in Visceral Uterus, Weasel’s Vagabond, and a few others. They bring a Jewish flavor of chaos to everything they do, and proudly identify as a joyless harpy. Clara B. Jones practices poetry in Silver Spring, MD (USA). She writes about identity, culture, and society and conducts research on experimental poetry as well as radical publishing. She is author of three chapbooks and one volume, and her poetry, reviews, essays, and interviews have appeared or are forthcoming in various venues. Heath Brougher is the co-poetry editor of Into the Void Magazine, winner of the 2017 Saboteur Award for Best Magazine. He is a multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee and his work has been translated into journals and anthologies in Albanian, Serbian, and Afrikaans. He was the judge of Into the Void’s 2016 Poetry Competition and edited the anthology Luminous Echoes, the proceeds of which were donated to an organization which helps prevent suicide/selfharm. He published three chapbooks in 2016, two full-length collections, About Consciousness (Alien Buddha Press, 2017) and To Burn in Torturous Algorithms (Weasel Press, 2018), and has three collections forthcoming. His work has appeared in Taj Mahal Review, Chiron Review, MiPOesias, Blue Mountain Review, Word For/Word, Cruel Garters, Lotus Eater, Otoliths, Mannequin Haus, Setu Bilingual, Epigraph Magazine, *82 Review, Bird’s Thumb, Crab Fat, BlazeVOX, and elsewhere. J. Randolph is a person currently living in Buffalo, NY. You can find more of their work here: https://thearchivesdepartment.bandcamp.com. Vancouver artist James K-M’s prolific recent work is abstract, geometric and metaphysical. Since returning to painting in 2006, his solo exhibitions include Colouring (Baron Gallery, Vancouver, BC, 2010), Free Rain Mural (Edmonton, Alberta, 2009), and Cave Paintings (Simon Fraser University Teck Gallery, Vancouver, BC, 2008, the Kootenay Gallery of Art, Castlegar, BC, 2007), and Sefirot (Zack Gallery, Vancouver, BC, 2012), with work in recent group exhibitions Paleofuturity (Modern Fuel Artist-Run Centre, Kingston, Ont., 2011), Group Exhibition of Contemporary Art (Baron Gallery, Vancouver, BC, 2010), Los Artistas Magos (Council Of Fine Arts, Camagüey, Cuba, 2009/10), The Geometry of Knowing (Audain Gallery, Vancouver, BC, 2015) and The Pull of Repetition (North View Gallery, Portland, Oregon, 2016).
A multi-media artist living near Washington, DC, Jeff Bagato produces poetry and prose as well as electronic music and glitch video. His text and visual poetry has appeared in many journals including Brave New Word, Empty Mirror, Otoliths, The New Post Literate, Gold Wake Live, and Angry Old Man. Short fiction has recently appeared in Gobbet and The Colored Lens. His published books include Savage Magic (poetry) and The Toothpick Fairy (fiction). A blog about his writing and publishing efforts can be found at http://jeffbagato.wordpress.com. Jeff Harrison has publications from Writers Forum, MAG Press, Persistencia Press, white sky books, and Furniture Press. He has ebooks from BlazeVOX, xPress(ed), Argotist Ebooks, and chalk editions. His poetry has appeared in An Introduction to the Prose Poem (Firewheel Editions), The Hay(na)ku Anthology Vol. II (Meritage Press), The Chained Hay(na)ku Project (Meritage Press), Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics, Otoliths, Xerography, Moria, Calibanonline, Dusie, unarmed, Big Bridge, Sugar Mule, experiential-experimental-literature, and elsewhere. John Pursch lives in Tucson, Arizona. Twice nominated for Best of the Net, his work 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. Mark Young is the author of over forty books, primarily text poetry but also including speculative fiction, vispo, and art history. His work has been widely anthologized, and his essays and poetry translated into a number of languages. His most recent books are random salamanders, a Wanton Text Production, and Circus economies, from gradient books of Finland. Originally from Detroit, Michele Alice majored in Philosophy at the University of Arizona (Tucson), and currently works in an art museum to support her writing habit. R. Keith is a persona that works with visuals, texts, poetics, fiction, and exophonic writing. He is the author of five collections of poetry and six chapbooks. His collection of visual poetry Chicken Scratch was published in 2017 (eyeameye books). His visual work has been presented in galleries in Canada, Malta, and Russia. Forthcoming is his first novella in 2018. Sanjeev Sethi is the author of three books of poetry. His most recent collection is This Summer and That Summer (Bloomsbury, 2015). His poems are in venues around the world: The Broadkill Review, After the Pause, Chicago Record Magazine, Horror Sleaze and Trash, Former People, Unlikely Stories Mark V, Stickman Review, Ann Arbor Review, Neologism Poetry Journal, Home Planet News, London Grip, Communion Arts Journal, and elsewhere. He lives in Mumbai, India. Two print-on-demand publications http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/gobscure.
by
Sean
Burn
Stephanie McElrath is a young bitch from northeast Ohio.
are
now
available
via
Xan Schwartz is a Master of Fine Arts candidate in nonfiction at the Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts Program. Her writing has appeared in The Periphery Magazine, Heavy Feather Review, and Cleveland Scene. In 2017 her debut poetry chapbook, Big Enough to Step Inside, was published online by Heavy Feather Review.