American Mustard Vol. III

AMERICAN MUSTARD

AMERICAN MUSTARD

Volume III

A Collective of Mustard Poets

Š 2015 American Mustard First Printing: January 2015 Cover artwork by Sam Issersohn.

Sams Tattoos (925) 464 – 6288 isse62@gmail.com facebook.com/sam.issersohn http://samissersohnart.blogspot.com/ All rights revert to contributors upon publication.

This book compiled and edited by American Mustard Collective: Olivier Bochettaz & David Diaz.

Address digital correspondence to: american.mustard.magazine@gmail.com http://americanmustard.weebly.com/ Other correspondence should be dropped into the American Mustard mail tube.

Contents

Editors’ Note ........................................................................................................................................... i American Mustard Collapse.................................................................................................................................................... 1 [today gathers sticks] .......................................................................................................................... 3 Thank You, Elle King .......................................................................................................................... 4 You Forgot Six Tecate Out Of the Twelve ..................................................................................... 5 David ........................................................................................................................................................ 6 Words ...................................................................................................................................................... 7 of tendencies, pin it................................................................................................................................ 8 Now .......................................................................................................................................................... 9 You and I .............................................................................................................................................. 15 Etiäinen................................................................................................................................................. 17 Ode To the Porkchop ........................................................................................................................ 18 Young People First ............................................................................................................................ 19 What Happens When You Believe in Love .................................................................................. 21 Arrow & Knight .................................................................................................................................. 23 I Sat Shiva Today ............................................................................................................................... 24 Funeral For Your Best Friends Abuelita ...................................................................................... 26 Toothbrush .......................................................................................................................................... 29 Dreaming of France #3 & #21 ........................................................................................................ 31 Not a Poem About Ghost Sex .......................................................................................................... 32 from The Incomplete Glass Man’s Glossary: PÂTE DE VERRE ........................................... 33 The poem is : ....................................................................................................................................... 35

A Tall Sip of Water.............................................................................................................................36 The Good Ship Jesus ..........................................................................................................................37 Presentation Girls ...............................................................................................................................39 At 72 .......................................................................................................................................................40 Commode ..............................................................................................................................................41 Glass Glossary Haiku .........................................................................................................................42 A Letter of Trepidation ......................................................................................................................43 Naked Burns .........................................................................................................................................44 Neurosity XI.........................................................................................................................................45 Having Just Made Love .....................................................................................................................46 Stopped ..................................................................................................................................................47 Frequently Asked Questions with Answers Intended to Lend Some Clarity to the Hearsay about Today’s Hummingbirds ..........................................................................................48 Contributors .........................................................................................................................................51

Editors’ Note We are a group of writers who have assembled this collective to document our experimentations with the written word. Our goal is to develop a dialogue between each other and the poets we admire, and place our discoveries on display for fellow writers to join in.

We think of Mustard as just one point of entry into the democratic, optimistic future of poetics for the new millennium. Doing new things in an old way, doing old things in a new way, doing both and neither at the same time.

In Mustard We Trust,

Olivier Bochettaz David Diaz

in in in in in

american in mustard we trust mustard we mustard we mustard we mustard we mustard we in mustard we trust mustard

trust trust trust trust trust

Third Volume January 2016 Los Angeles & San Francisco California -i-

AMERICAN MUSTARD

Volume III

“The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.”

—William Blake

Collapse There was a human urge, a final moment, and the long pause of falling. The hollow sound of wood, the confusion from the bedroom, the calling the calling, the body, crumbled like petals beneath the door jamb.

There was the night the moon pulling the tide, the moths humming among the lilacs in the yard, in the cold, and you standing in the blanched moonlight unable to move.

There was the sirens, the flurry of hands, the wheel of the stretcher that swung idly as a fish in a stream, in October in the mountains you hated, the mountains you read in and made love in when the nights were cold. The mountains you came to appreciate over 50 years not because you loved fish or rocks or trees or because you read Whitman, but because of the flat tire, the struggle to fix it, the failure, -1-

your laughter at his breeze blown hair, the sun affirming that it didn’t care whether either of you were warm as it dipped below the tree line, the blanket in the station wagon where you slept, the way his lips puffed the heavy breath of sleep.

There was the ambulance pulling away, there was the dimness of the house, the silence, the cat across the street chasing moths, the tattered clouds behind the tree, the deep pools of shadow beside you.

-2-

[today gather sticks] today gather sticks no longer than the length from eye to end sticks should be only of birch no thicker than the stone discovered forty three half days from the springs where the furry four stepper with horns ran off with moon streaks dripping between tail split tongue harness not unlike the others that cannot be seen when the sun is closer to descent sticks will be useful when building commences until the passing brings the white forest then gather moss that was stored in the trunk just above the second root that grows away from the north and bleeds more than most So I can make myself known the moss and the sticks and the rest of the supplies will be enough for the ritual do this and I will be happy forget and I will vanish

-3-

Thank you, Elle King Folk music Blues, bluegrass All rolled up Drug scuffed up Plugged in, poured out Flash flood through piney woods

-4-

You Forgot Six Tecate of the Twelve Elegy for Big John Ziemkiewicz August 2, 1984 - November 17, 2006 “God is a comedian playing to an audience that is too afraid to laugh.”

—Voltaire But you laughed, and we laughed, or so the doctors said that didn’t repair your severed liver.

In that sterile emergency room at the Long Beach VA, you mocked Death. His hand in yours, his bones convulsing under that iconic black robe as you played him like a jazz xylophone, no rhythm or beat, but comedy is timing, everything really. I know you hit every punchline. Your soul left in a cacophony from your mouth, and your corpse kept giggling for hours in those steel drawers, while it awaited your family.

That day’s dead prayed for mercy, while you announced your arrival erupting from your mound of flesh.

I carried your six into the void.

A geometry of purples and yellows, your hack-laugh infected that hint at form reverberating at 136.1 Hz. Tell me from what eternal tapestry I pull the strings to reweave the comedy of chaos.

We’ve seen nine years, John, and there has been twice as much Tecate.

-5-

A Family Sonnet: How Did David (1949 - 1982) Die? 1. he didn't 2. he fell asleep 3. there was a fire—in the old wood stove—it was not hooked up just right 4. the garage went up in smoke 5. the garage burned down 6. the garage (actually) blew up (our oldest sister insists) 7. my brother exploded 8. my life imploded 9. it was his time Daddy says 10. God took him according to mother’s mother 11. it was an accident 12. he'd had too much 13. we’re too much 14. he was out of luck

-6-

Words Like the rare firefly in a late indian summer, words will sometimes align and speak and fall quietly into a still pond: and their ripples cross blue reflections to stir currents under the autumn mosquitoes and dragon flies-currents so utterly silent they echo silence running deep and true.

-7-

of tendencies, pin it the dog barks outside our bathroom window - an endless oboe - quotes for coda - code for panic easily - when loose strands of receding hairline suffocate the carpet - water sprouts between my toes - there are no waves here to shift my weight - study the steady row of ants - will i ever know how to love you with that much devotion - the way ants fumble around always returning for their dead - what is stronger than the premonition of rain that deepest hue of pink water vapor water mass of blood milk - steady now - sometimes i want you to win because it lifts my burden of going first - but don’t triangulate me i’m not your equilateral bitch - dearest midnight solace you are sassafras inside chambered x-rays of what of what of is that taro cream in your thick-ums titty twister misery not to be confused with mystery i wanna lick you boy girl then girl girl two three coconut oil infused do you eat the liver behind that fried chicken skin? we are not whole together and we are not whole alone we are one pint of ginger beer away from what - threadbare moths buss behind our knees - or preferably waking up to you now with post wisdom teeth pulled blood breath undressing - undress: an origami undoing itself

-8-

NOW A MANIFESTATION OF THE SUPRASENSORIAL SYMPHONY OF THE MOVEMENT OF LIFE or IN THE SKIN OF THE GOD OR ESSENCE OR WHATEVER IT IS THAT IS MOVED BY AND MOVES EVERYTHING THAT IS or BEING ALL THAT THERE IS AT ONCE FOR APPROXIMATELY 15 MINUTES: or FOCUSED & MULTITASKING or HOW TO DELAY THE ACTUAL CONTENTS OF A POEM AND PRETEND IT DOES CONTAIN ANY WHILE MAKING ALL OF THIS LOOK MPORTANT or I HAVE CAUGHT YOUR ATTENTION AND AS A REWARD YOU WILL LEARN HOW TO TURN YOUR SHIT INTO GOLD or LOOK HERE FOR SNAPSHOTS OF THE MOVEMENTS OF A MIND IN A MOMENT OF CLARITY

-9-

AND HERE TO SEIZE A LIGHT FOR THE URIZENIC NIGHT OF YOUR AGE (our unability to see not with but through the eye; our blindness to the invisible; our submission to the god of empiricism and the moral systems of the Church of Systematic Rationalizing; our blockhead urizenic mind that wants proof of what it can’t perceive— in the shadows of what it knows, believing only what it sees) or Loose, naked, lonely & Clairvoyant in the golden labyrinths of the unknown or TYPING WIRED TO THE COSMIC CADENCE OF THAT THING IN WHICH WE ARE, THAT WHICH WE ARE AND GROW or TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT TOTALLY RIGHT NOW or TRUST MY SELF-PROCLAIMED SPIRIT OF PROPHECY UNCONDITIONALLY OR TAKE IT AS ARROGANCE AND STOP READING or WRITING THINGS IN BIG PRINT SOOTHES THE EGO, BOOSTS SELF-CONFIDENCE, AND CATCHES THE EYE OF PEOPLE or HOW LONG CAN A TITLE BE? or WHY SHOULD A TITLE DEFINE ITS POETIC OBJECT EXCLUSIVELY INSTEAD OF INCLUSIVELY? - 10 -

or HOW DOING TWO THINGS (OR MORE) AT THE SAME TIME WITH MAXIMUM ATTENTION, EXACTLY AS I TRY (RIGHT NOW) TO BE FUNNY AND SMART, SACRED AND PROFANE, INSANE AND OUTSANE, FOCUSED AND TANGENTIAL, MIGHT ACTUALLY BE THE BEST POSSIBLE WAY TO SCREW BOTH THINGS UP AND TO TRANSPARENTLY SHOW MY INDIVIDUAL MIND AT WORK, AS IT MOVES or IF YOU ARE STILL READING: I DO HAVE CAUGHT YOUR ATTENTION OR AT LEAST YOUR CURIOSITY, AND THAT I AM HAPPY ABOUT SO THANK YOU AND

NOW WHILE I ADMIT I COULD HAVE SUMMED IT ALL UP WITH “I write because I like to talk without being interrupted” THIS POEM IS, IN MORE WORDS: A manifestation of an après-garde movement, INCLUSIVISM That is being created right now, A poetry with nothing to guard but a lot to say, The bastard child of a calculator and a dictionary: a dictionator That strongly believes that if you honestly attempt to spread your mind on the page As fast as it speaks, You will inevitably be: 1) Sincere and honest because you won’t have the time required to lie 2) Contradicting yourself constantly, thus being as close as you possibly Can be to Truth, if it exists, And if it doesn’t, you’ll sure be very close to expressing and, or, discovering What is true to you.

- 11 -

But, If you truly have been reading this unending accumulation of tangents *** Which might appear boring and even shallow to you if you think I’m being pretentious, megalomaniac, lying, dishonest, (or worse: evil, egoist, & ill-intentioned), in brief if you think or feel that any of the above is true concerning the writer—Born Olivier dit “Pantoufle” at the feet of the Alps in the town of Albertville, France, on May 11th 1989 (thus having been conceived at some point in a clammy August summer, probably somewhere in Provence—and do not trust my self-proclaimed benevolence. *** You already know all of this and Inclusive Poetics has no secrets to you anymore.

This poem’s ambition is to become a sacred book For virtually all profane and sedentary ages to come.

(Please do not found religious institutions Upon the piece before you— Part of the statement is unironic, For my ego, at times, holds on to the false belief That it is immortal as the light of its day, Its heart-shaped sun, consciousness, Who never actually reminded my ego, until now, That futurity, by definition and by nature, Is equally a false belief, disguising itself as an evidence, logic, undisprovable Thing that sure feels like it is there, existing, That it should be existing, at least, or everything That’s sowed in the present would be for beans; *** “yes,” said consciousness to the rational ears of my ego, “you have understood me; it is not because it feels like it is or has to or should be there, that it is there, nor that it is logic, rational, or evident.

You egoes, proud and “fiers” of yourselves, Do not see past your reason’s cubic eyes.

Look…Listen, superego or hyper-id or whatever You call yourself these days, I will repeat slowly: Future has never existed. It is but a deathbed lullaby.

Hear my song: Whatever in a field has sprout, Shall from the very same soil feed, And upon it bloom & drop its fruits.

- 12 -

The past transforms itself in the present and becomes the future, Both are in the present contained; None of them elsewhere exists.

Either feed roots and produce fruits, Or grow as a tree. *** Peacefully reduce all organizations of faith, all religious institutions, to ashes, And have their followers swallow them as such; Remind them—using the voice of the god that expands, enslaves, frees, Immures your age: the emotionless, instinctless, imaginationless, cold, dry, Echoless voice of Reason, The voice that mass consciousness hears— That no finite means will lead to the open end of the infinite, That nothing that’s known, Not the sum of all that is and will ever be known, Can in any way explore or explain the unknown, And finally, That truth exists As the sum of all contradictions.

The fool will be crowned when he seizes the flame of attention Now I: I am wired to the suprasonic beat of the movement of the living universe, yes I am, it’s true; No, that is the truth, but it is feels more true said as such: I am multitasking: I am listening to that beat and I write it, Reproduce its expanding contracting supra-colored curving threads Honestly, to capture as much as I can of it, Just because, no because— Whatever it is that moves grows expands from less, cold, sparse, idle, To more, warm, dense, fast and focused: the universe of scientists, The creation; for others: existence, dao, brahman or great work, Whatever named, it is, within language and without it, It has many lungs, breathes, inspirits And shits miniature gold sculptures of itself, as fast as its devours itself, Feeding from the work of those excrements of gold, us’s consciousnesses.

I was about to be unplugged! Unwired from the voices of the infinite!

About to give head to Urizen, to stroke the ego-cock of intelligence and cum out evidences of its importance, warm, soothing and fleeting As serotonin jouissances.

- 13 -

*** Keeping up with the pace of the stroboscopic procession of thoughts That processes and is processed; To record what conscious memory erases, as it does so, Is magnum opus’s job. Ne pétons pas plus haut que nos culs.

– 14 –

You and I you and I make friends with people who ask better questions than we since we hardly ask ourselves the right ones other mouthpieces produce answers to all we never thought about and finally discover us you me individually “live through your own lenses” we repeat like mantra “Only talk about the things you do not the other way around” self betrayal is gamey reverse life cycle begins at the most tender parts of you while parts of you tenderly reverse themselves from your life cycle every evening moon baby starting at our feet shadow lunging out before us as we walk around night always the coolest part of day sitting on a boulder looking home beyond the mountain brother, we haven’t spoken in many years I moved forward and forgot to take you with me time moved forward and I forgot to take me with me time’s cogs have filed themselves down and continue filing moving faster calendar and memory tunnels like sand into the other side brother, You are still my voice of reason only now you hardly speak over these passing groups of years you’ve seemed to take the harshest consequence you once a voice of reason now the only reason I fear it brother, my lackluster brother life has torn away the me in you we have become two beings ever patient for the next phase but on separate tracts away from our hearts; still there is a craft in beings simultaneous - 15 -

brother, I changed lives as you did I remained the same as you did we both became new people for the better part of something awful lost ourselves and those around because we didn’t speak unknowing what to do but brother, oh brother

- 16 -

in the end it’s gorgeous being lost as two

Etiäinen Tomorrow has already smoked the eyes of every bird left strung along the wires.

Mascara maps memory and apple cheeks sweet enough to bite.

But I don’t bite.

I am a bone carved clean, bleached for ornamentation, to be worn through the nose or dipped in pigment, to scar the flesh in ritual tattoo.

The catfish in me long caught and lined along the bank fin to fleshy fin.

The fisher in the reeds, knee deep in waders, counting heads and pointing, as if to say, “See here, the gills, like wounds with torn stiches, this is how they breathe.”

The rest is Whippoorwills, despite LA and the constant traffic and transplanted palms.

But my eye is still wide and from far corner our houses appear near.

The walls about kiss.

The gate to the alley between cracks an inch wider, blown open by a wind driven by a flurry of fish tails, or a train car in China, or a step I’ve yet to take.

– 17 –

Ode to the Pork Chop As oil blisters in the cast iron pan, my dog does adoring prostrations at my feet and the pale pink chops with their arc of rib and ribbon of fat lie innocently on the white bone china we bought at Macy’s when Janet asked the salesclerk what kind of bones the dishes were made from and the woman confessed she had no idea, though surely they were crushed from sorrowful creatures. Everything you do will cause harm, so I start forgiving myself now. But this pig was a happy pig and his death, though death, was a good death. I’ve boiled up his vertebrae, femurs and fibulae, his head and his hocks and now the stock is cooling, the creamy lard rising to the top like a thick slab of heaven. When these choice cuts hit the skillet, the hiss and spit is a lullaby that’s soothed homo sapiens since the discovery of fire. And lured the dogs into the circle, shoulders hunched toward the flames.

As meat sears and butter bubbles, I’m carried back to a time when this scent meant survival--we’d see another day. That deep craving for grease that’s stuffed into every cell of our bodies, that sizzling smell that tells us all will be well, we’ll be fat enough to release an egg, to suckle a baby. With all its murder and mayhem, life will go on.

– 18 –

Young People First An Adaption of Georges Brassens’ “Supplique pour être enterré à Sète”

La Camarde who, waltzing in Osiris’s arms, Never forgave me for having sown flowers In the caves of its shivering nose, Now zealously follows me to my domicile.

And having been cornered by interments, I felt it was high time to update my testament, To buy myself a will.

Dip, dip, in the blue ink of the Lion’s Gulf, Dip your old foutain pen, ô mon vieux Tabellion, And with your nicest written creature, Note that what shall happen of my body When it and my soul end up agreeing But on one last single aspect: splitting up.

And when my ghost will soar in the distant horizon, Towards those of Gavroche and of Mimi Pinson, Those of the Titis, of the Grisettes, That to the native soil my body be brought back On a Paris-Mediteranean train, Terminus en gare de Sète.

The family vault, alas! is not ultramodern Vulgarly speaking, it is full as a cistern, And until someone crawls out of there, It might get a little late, and oh, never Would I dare to ask these hardy folks: “Place! Could you please make some room?”

Young people first, so to speak.

Juste au bord de la mer, à deux pas des flots bleus, Creusez si c'est possible, un petit trou moelleux, Une bonne petite niche, Auprès de mes amis d'enfance, les dauphins, Le long de cette grève où le sable est si fin, Sur la plage de la Corniche—

- 19 -

A beach where, even in moments of fury, Neptune never takes himself too seriously, Where, when a boat goes shipwreck, The captain shouts : "Je suis le maître à bord!

Sauve qui peut ! Le vin et le pastis d'abord!

Mariners, hold on to your bottle, and good luck!"

And this is where too, at the height of my fifteenth year, At the age when playing alone suffices no more, I encountered the first amourette, From a mermaid, a siren or a fish, I received of love the prime lesson, And swallowed, innocent, my first bone.

This tomb in the seam of the sky and the sea, Won’t, I promise, add any form of shadow To the sorrowful scene.

– 20 –

What Happens When You Believe in Love I believe in being drunk by midnight and finding someone else drunk to hold your hand. I believe in keeping your friends wrapped around your waist, so you can whisper about your enemies in their ears. I believe in telling your enemies to their face, “You are my enemy.” I believe this weakens them.

I believe in rooftops, and seeing the city this way. I believe in spying on people and making up their stories. I believe Harriet the Spy did this to me.

I believe in getting up on your first alarm or not getting up at all. I believe in buying the mattress of your dreams because it will know how to hold you best.

I believe in lighting fires when you have something that needs burning and in buying a plane ticket to a place you’ve never been before with your credit card.

I believe in thanking my mom and dad for being like moms & dads should: supportive, kind, loving, but so flawed. I believe I am a mashed-potato pie of the two of them: functional alcoholism & gifts of sarcasm. I believe in traditions on Christmas Eve: cookie cutters and that fraying Reindeer decoration. I believe in Journey concerts every summer since I was born.

I believe being a poet started with writing songs because I wanted to be like Madonna or Tina Turner or Patti Smith. I believe my parents did this to me.

I believe we make families wherever we go, in San Jose, in the past, in Europe, in a poetry classroom, in San Francisco. I believe in going new places and that once you’re family, it’s forever.

I believe I will kiss you because I believe in kissing people. I believe I either love you or I hate you and you know which one it is.

I believe in tacos & curry & always drinking booze with dinner.

I believe that when I am loud it’s because I grew up with my partially deaf mother, but I also need to shout to be heard. I believe this is because I’m small. I believe in being scary & ending fights by winning them. I believe in not taking any shit.

I believe in running—the rhythm of my stride making prints in the dirt. I believe it makes me saner & keeps me healthy—but it also makes my body confident.

I believe my body is both a blessing & a curse and I had to learn that the hard way: some grown-ass man yelling on the baseball fields behind my middle school, “jail bait!” at a couple 12-year-olds. But hey, sometimes free cookies at Subway.

- 21 -

I believe that when I say ‘my body’ I shouldn’t want to shrink back into it because I’m afraid you’re looking. I believe I should be able to yell, ‘my tits!’ ‘my thighs!’ ‘my collarbone!’ ‘my fingertips!’ and believe they can stand alone. I believe in sticking my middle finger up at the pick-up truck hooting and hollering when I am running in my sane & healthy state.

I believe in a good party dress & its hugging, in a leather jacket, eyeliner and a good pair of heels. I believe in never taking off those heels in public. My broken toenails do not want me to believe this. I believe that if I hadn’t fallen in love too early, I’d be promiscuous, I’d have no ‘never done that’ anythings, but plenty of one night stands.

I believe I fell in love too early for someone who doesn’t believe in soulmates. I believe ten years is too long, but is somehow exactly the right amount of time. I believe he rarely agrees with what I believe, but that he makes the bed and kisses me before he leaves anyway. I believe someday I am going to put on that damn white dress, cry while I read some carefully selected poem, its going to be lame and drunk and fun all at once. I believe I might have found some version of a soulmate at 15 and I’ll marry him in a grossly romantic ceremony somewhere without God.

– 22 –

Arrow & Knight I’ll become a writer, a folk singer.

I’ll become a man, you will be happy to follow me.

I’m a loser. We are angels. I am travelling the way of jah.

I have a thousand names, one presence—so much illogic plurality of existence.

The smell of a rose is the code. Your cold body is still breathing.

I’m gonna die. You evanescently cry.

Our love mixes darkness, paradoxical solitude—energy of shining.

Before this life I was an archer and a knight. I have sacrificed myself for a dark person. I’ve offered my life to this man to change. His daughter keeps the memory of my sacrifice and will be able to turn her love into freedom. In my current life, I have committed betrayal with my childhood friend. I pay for this crime—the price of an amnesiac mind like a blind consciousness. To cross the mirror who separates memory and story, I have to pardon that poison-woman for the injured love she’s carrying. I’ll commit another sacrifice for freedom.

The angel in return will give me several arrows and a silver armor. In my new envelop, I’ll be brave and proud, and will write everyday with my fountain pen to honor the daughter of the past.

– 23 –

I Sat Shiva Today I sat Shiva today.

Funny, because I come from the world where the word ‘Shiva’ makes the crowds think of vitality and succour and volatility, it reminds people of the transience of life, and how the image of a man can personify so many things- easy, in the swarm of masses, to consider destruction a virtue worth worshipping.

I sat Shiva today.

My Shiva was about destruction too I suppose, but of a different kind, it was about destruction of something inside me, and not around; it wasn’t the celebration of an intangible idea of spiritual culling, but it was real, and anger (suppressed, maybe) leaked through me, absorbed by the thin sheet of muslin I wore.

I sat Shiva today.

The muslin that covered me wasn’t something you could see, it was damp with my sweat, and diaphanous against my skin, yet invisible to anyone who couldn’t see my eyes, or how I sat, crouched into myself mourning what I had lost, they saw me in my jeans and T-shirt, maybe smelling of sweat and dread, I seemed.

I sat Shiva today.

I smelled that way because I wasn’t supposed to bathe for pleasure or comfort, and the sadness settled on me like grime I could feel, and it felt gravelly against my skin, leaving pebbled impressions on the inside of my elbows, under my skin, it looked - 24 -

like goosebumps to you, probably, but I know what it really was to be.

I sat Shiva today.

My kitchen remained untouched and the flames that licked the undersides of my pots and pans, and permeated me with the warmth I was used to, remained unlit, and unfound, and though I ate, I tasted nothing, for all I did was force roots and leaves and dead flesh into myself hoping they keep me from fading.

I sat Shiva today.

And I don’t know for whom or what or why.

– 25 –

Funeral For Your Best Friends Abuelita Tío Raul is drunk, or hungover or who can tell the difference because Tía Gloria is hungover but not drunk, you think, because of the taught jaw muscles, the pronounced zygomatic arch, the way she said your name.

Head forward like a heavy melon, Sarah hasn’t shifted her eyes from abuelita Yolanda’s casket and you are thinking tío Raul’s eyes are two blurred turnips in a brown paper bag when you remember he is not your tío nor is Gloria your tía.

You are blushing now, the heat from your face feels like a solar flare, your mind stumbles over its memories, Tío Raul and Tía Gloria, dancing and singing, and laughing beneath the apricot trees that grew along the back wall. You grew up seeing them at parties and sleepovers and they love the story about the cops who brought you home because Sarah couldn’t jump a chain-link fence without waking every living being within a mile and it was 1 a.m. and cloudless and the old man on Cord street came out yelling and shirtless and flat footed Sarah - 26 –

flailing against the chain-links, the old man’s unsteady step and steady anger, and Sarah falling from the fence and you hiding behind a trashcan, inside Bernie elementary, where you planned to steal a picnic table for who knows why. The old man didn’t understand this, and so you fumbled across the dew dampened playground and the air was cold and clear and your eyes watered with fear and you were laughing and scared and the cops caught you anyway, so you lied and said you were adopted, said you were Sarah’s brother, and Raul was your older brother and Raul said “pinche güerito” and your parents never found out. This is your history, but not your grief, because you weren’t sure abuelita Yolanda ever really liked you.

She gave you tamales at Christmas, but you didn’t understand why she called you pollito, when everyone else called you güerito. Six generations of family fill the pews. No great-great-greatgreat-great-great grandchildren, But two separate families: Grandchildren and children and ex-husbands, because that was life— the two-sidedness of it, the collateral of love: the family that said abuelita and those that said Yoli. Now, the picture - 27 -

slideshow of her life plays on a tv, along with Whitney Houston. In some photos Yolanda is as you remember her. In some she is young, leaning in black and white against a 1940’s Chevy Master. You recognize nothing else but her eyes and the way her hand is stamped onto her hip.

This is how she stood talking in the kitchen during parties, how she stood stirring chili beans, only in the image she seems impossibly young. Behind you someone is clearing their throat, their keys clatter on the wooden bench.

Tío Raul and Tía Gloria are crying, and Sarah hasn’t moved. Outside, the sun is tangled in elm trees.

Beyond, high-rises puncture the calm blue pool of the sky. Somewhere in between the shadowed bodies of trunks and the cold bones of skyscrapers, two kids are holding hands, or eating elote or having their first kiss, and on their skin the breeze feels light and sweet and for them the world makes sense.

- 28 -

Toothbrush I am throwing away your toothbrush; you have no idea how hard this is.

It is as if magnetized to me, I hold it in my outstretched hand but it will not fall.

My hand turns until it is perpendicular to the trash container and the toothbrush will not fall.

I look around this bathroom and recall getting ready for work; mornings, getting ready for bed; nights.

I recall us here in the midst’s of lovemaking or fights sometimes a candle’s flame reflecting; a magic trick, an infinity in the mirrors.

Sometimes reflections of our shimmering bodies, our searching hands, your eyes closed, your lips (shaped like a heart), your eyes open, and me kneeling before you as if to pray.

Sometimes in the mirror I have run cool water on my angry face not thinking about how it shows all in reverse everything contrary my hard face immune to kind words a small monument to pride - 29 -

and then I see the letters on the can of shave gel and I realize that what I see and what you see have never been the same (exactly), a droll kind of mirrored curse.

I recall a day when I heard the door close and you leaving I might have run after you to apologize I might have tried make you stay.

Perhaps it was really just him in the mirror who let you slip away and now I see him confuse, and proud holding this fucking toothbrush which needs to be discarded, but cannot let go

– 30 –

Dreaming of France #3 She wonders what it would have been like to be a student in France when she was in her twenties. She imagines herself age twenty-two at a sidewalk café in Paris, her long curling hair between her shoulder blades, tight Levi’s, her father’s old Leica rangefinder in her lap.

She’d be sipping coffee, making it last, as she penned the first draft of a poem in her moleskin notebook.

She’d look up from time to time at the people seated nearby. And she’d dream of Lordes, a French woman probably middle aged, head hidden beneath a black cloth as she stands behind her Deardorff eight-by-ten reversible-back camera waiting for the pilgrim to move the hand with the offering forward into the light.

#21 One of the cloisters she dreams of in France is inhabited by a nun who exists out of time in a series of perpetual gestures, stepping from darkness into light, from heat into shade. This woman in her dark habit does not think about the heat or the light, being inside or out, as she enters the cloisters; she is simply alone for a moment between destinations. A small book rests, tucked in her hand with the tip of one finger curled in to hold the place.

In a moment she will enter the shade, sit on a bench, and read aloud softly. As she speaks, the words of this passage will annihilate everything: the fragrance of the lavender in the container beside her, and the sound of water in the fountain behind her. She does not anticipate any of this; instead she listens intently and hears the hem of her skirt brushing the stones she walks on. She hears this sound first as an extension of her own heartbeat and then farther away from her body as the pulse of this place.

– 31 –

Not a Poem About Ghost Sex the ghosts are going at it again, violently sliding up

and

down / the walls like a rabid dog

swathed in unearthly spasms, convulsing. they are strippers of the afterlife with zaftig bodies the consistency of raw egg. these ghosts may break their necks, grinning too wide. But! what a marvelous thing it would to be – because all they are lusting for is to die

a second death, feel the pang

(soul bang/teeth clang/birth (pang))

again.

–

32 –

from The Incomplete Glass Man’s Glossary

PÂTE DE VERRE 1. a form of casting, often disputed in dialectical circles; however, most often relates to personal perception and meaningful misconception.

As in, From what I've been told, his pâté de verre was neither well conceived nor applied properly or with appropriate discretion to be of any particular significance.

ORIGIN: (from French) “the paste of caste” RELATED: “paste of class” or “touch of class” 2. a form of kin casting 3. to crush finely, like glass; to mix with others. Also: to sing of such things 4. one of several familiar maternal materials produced by grinding family memories into a fine powder 5. making such a mixture and brushing or tamping it into scar lines 6. use of heat-resistant molds, often with funereal-like refractory openings filled with granular glass graces made of partial preplanned brotheric bromides or other cast-off materials either maternal or paternal in nature USAGE NOTE: (esp. in senses 5 & 6) a binder is usually added to create a more solidified experience at regular family gatherings or religious holidays depending on nature, consistency, and number of family members included in each iteration; special glues can be purchased, depending on lineage and breeding; white glue or limeyellow JELLO (without fruit) diluted with distilled water will generally work well and hold just long enough at most family gatherings.

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ALSO NOTE: (in all cases) it’s a good idea to wear a mask or respirator while mixing family pastes to prevent inhaling small or unwanted class or generic genetic particles.

In certain senses: GLAIZIER’S POINTS; BINDER, GRANDFATHER’S; BROTHERIC BROMIDES See: CIRÉ PERDUE, LOST WAY, PRODIGAL SON See Also: LOST DAUPHIN STATE PARK, COUNTY HWY D & FOX RIVER, DE PERE WI 54115

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The poem is: The perfume of a lemon dropping its light into the sleeping oyster’s bed...

The foliage in the eyes of the one you could not resist whose tears could not resist you...

A city at twilight: the lamps springing artesian pools where old poets dip their mops painting dreams on the stones of the plaza...

A once beautiful woman rocking in a candlelit window: snow falls as her whispers across the fields of innocents felled by war...

The poem speaks with a tongue of ancient blood for each and all accepting the mystery of the heart that strives to hold a world together in the midst of its falling apart.

– 35 –

A Tall Sip of Water Dragonflies remind me of skin sweltering, simmering summers melting into pools of aquamarine sliding into hazy afternoons spent in bed, the wrinkles of the sheets curve into the curves of me, my spine wrinkled around the musty spines of wrinkled books that curve words into the crevices of my mind, and evenings that smell of jasmine and hum like the thrum of cicadas and chirp like the whine of crickets- primal calls calling out to mates to mate and celebrate the vitality of heat, hot, humid, heavy air pulling down on leaves, drooping wilting, withered, weary, worried, it seems, till the taste of lightening flashes on my tongue and lingers light little laments of lost longings and the skies open, drenching draining dryness out of my skin, and the dragonflies dance around my head, a diadem of diaphanous dreams.

– 36 –

The Good Ship Jesus I am on a ship called Jesus we are laid like spoons human flatware in a drawer lined with our own excrement Now and then we are shuttled up on deck to be scrubbed with seawater and where women can be sorted out for the pleasure of the crew The other day a girl from my village was so frightened she ran naked, back and forth across the deck calling “Yea-Yea,Yea-Yea (mother-mother) ” until she was cornered she climbed up on the ship’s rail eyes wide and bright like a frightened antelope she (looked right at me) took a deep breath spread her arms like a little birds wings and toppled over to the sharks who have been trailing the ship for days the crew stared in silence for a moment then they all laughed and resumed sorting women I am on a ship called Jesus we are laid like spoons pressed so close together in the dark that we are one body composed of many minds A mind says, “fight” a mind says “endure” a mind says “did you see the girl jump into the ocean?”

But since no one knows their own mind the indecision leads us nowhere.

I am on a ship called Jesus we are laid like spoons someone is singing; it is a lament for us the dead someone is singing; it is a lament for us the living, - 37 -

A crewman comes to the hold And slams the butt of his gun against a quiet woman’s head He says “shut your fuckin’ mouths; there’ll be none of that here”: And so, a bloody lesson in how not to sing, not to dance, a bloody lesson in how to forget our own names, and to learn a language that was never intended for our mouths or tongues bloody lessons; we learn fanatically because we want to survive 400 years later: It is as if I am still on that ship called Jesus laid like spoons with : Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin, Ernest Satterwhite, Dontre Hamilton, Eric Garner, John Crawford III, Michael Brown, Levar Jones, Tamir Rice, Rumain Brison, Tony Robinson, Anthony Hill, Walter Sott and Sandra Bland It is as if we have never been anywhere else.

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Presentation Girls Traumatized, the fresh-cut blades of Newly mowed lawn emit gases— Organic first-aide—to the tips of Each injured edge of beheaded grass, Prepared to endure the daily Flock of pleated plaid skirts, Hiked up to the waist, Mary Janes kicked off capriciously, White cotton socks peeled as cautious As a pair of lacy nylons, Randomly tossed like rose petals At a wedding or coronation, feet Finally flaunting polished toenails.

Beyond Mother Superior’s reprimand, Presentation girls arch their backs, Display budding torsos Anchored by manicured fingertips— Ten-digit buttresses—sinking Sensuously into the aching turf Like the back of an expectant lover; Reclining without pretension, Rebelling against conformity, The emerald carpet’s perfect for Catholic girls eager to make statements, Assert concealed identities, Command pedestrian attention.

– 39 –

At 72 My father never calls us anymore.

He doesn’t come home for the holidays, doesn’t see my mother though she misses him.

Sometimes I wonder where he went.

We all do. Because at 72, my father doesn’t know his grandchildren. He doesn’t have a cell phone or email address or Facebook account. You can’t write on his wall or send him text messages. A Google search reveals no results. Sometimes, my sister says she talks to him. Just this afternoon she calls to tell me she went and visited him for his birthday.

I don’t bother asking how he’s doing.

Nor do I bother seeing my father at 72.

The last time I tried he was so quiet I could hear a bird’s wings flapping in the sky above my head. Strangers surrounded him. The whole thing was really awkward. Since then, I haven’t been back. I suppose that makes me a bad son. I guess it might be easier to hold a grudge against him or blame it on my upbringing.

Or maybe just try to accept that at 72, my father isn’t interested in talking to anybody.

He’s already been dead for five years.

– 40 –

Commode The body is not all beauty and we are reminded each day that we must like all animals eliminate I was a child, three and the Dutch neighbor allowed us to be underfoot while mother went to night school.

There I sat on the toilet I heard her yell my name then her teen boy yelled and they pounded the door I stood with my pants on my feet and inched my way between the toilet and the wall to hide Afraid to use my voice, I left them no choice I suppose.

Had I drown in the bowl?

Slit an artery with a razor?

Slipped and hit my head and now lay on the floor lifeless?

The door flew back and tall blond people stood far above me.

I know not what they said.

But what I felt would dwell in my gut for good.

Fear and shame accompany each visit to the commode and I trepidate the trips where bathroom access is unknown, and so have grown accustomed to constipation.

Yes, the family meant to same me, and now I need to figure out how to flush my fears.

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Glass Glossary Haiku GLASS (1) rigidity without crystallization variously morphing BREAK parts to pieces sudden violent forceful brother pressure form FURNACE enclosed as kiln used for melting glass for some warmth in morning GLASS (2) usually transparent typically silicate mixture KILN an enclosure heated furnace or oven you know inside now MELT another term glass produced by furnace kin waiting this evening GLASS (3) unbroken then broken sometimes unknown as in unbrothering

- 42 -

A Letter of Trepidation To the loudmouthed angel with a head of ebony waves: I am watching your curlicues of hair wetting in the drain, they look like mangled snakes drowned in a pond, you shake your head in a halo, sprinkling aqua auras, you are Medusa. rivulets coursing from our damp heads like slow ribbons of dew, draping sheens of cold incantations over our q u i v e r i n g bone china bodies, we cannot die. warm Floridian bathroom reeks kindly of burnt tire, walls of turquoise paint peeling like chapped lips on end, humid kisses plaster the floor, the stick y plastic tiles click hymns to the rapidly spitting rain outside, your backyard bleeds thunder in the summer, we pin aloof smirks on our faces, licking cold tea and whispers from fingers that were jammed into the whistling A. C. we let the tap run like a wolf in the wind, overflowing the sink, manipulating the water bills really do exhilarate you I name the flood after you, I love you

but you eat love.

- 43 -

Naked Burns You’re reading this at an age when you thought you were finally grown up, and away from all the pains and scars and your body has decided to become a renegade rebel to all your wants, and all you have known, and your mind is like an animal, trapped in your skull, and it thrashes so wildly, that you’re scared of it cracking open, and there’s electricity in your palms, isn’t there? You know it’s sparking off so much more than just the good bits, you feel like a faulty circuit, and you don’t know how to let go of the live wire that you’ve caught, and you’ve become, and I can’t pull your hand off, because you’re a ball of naked energy I can’t control, but if you ever feel like you can’t do this alone, please remember to crawl into my bed, and let me hold you close, and if I can’t insulate you from yourself, at least let me try and burn with you.

– 44 –

Neurosity XI the body’s relationship with language collapse of the center, the heart, a feeble rat, lost in its own cage of ribs. the best way to tie a bow: each knot of intestine more precise than the last. your urgent nostalgia for a district that exists as a rawboned flicker, but never really knows if said place is about to exist or if it ever existed at all. in that frame of tongue, ‘i’ means ‘here,’ it shall never reference the self. the location where ‘i am’ is not an expression of love or fever or opulence, but the word of presence — ‘here i am’ — a voiceless boundary. how can you be sure you’re not just a character in someone’s lie? the womb, an arguably intangible foundation — people step out of uteruses and step right into dreams. the synthesis of kelp jungles and living fossils. when you cease to sleep, you become a plaything of other’s memories. you breathe until you no longer. the way buddha gains weight — waiting for emptiness. the last one standing is the first one, alone.

– 45 –

Having Just Made Love We watch the cold body of the moon Nestle itself between the intricate wrinkles Faults have made in the blankets of rocks.

What a quaint idea, that the earth needs us.

– 46 –

Stopped motion finished

movement completed like last pushing droplets from the showerhead I haven’t felt so finished empty like this vacancy so permanent since complete meant no association or familiar feel and having emptiness became its nesting like some redding’s perch. but what the fuck is a perch or one redding is personality even a question worth asking like some child’s gender before it’s ready for culture or fearing improbability when you only ever make the same decisions insanity should make sense paging to the satellite with no response there is an origin and repeated action has to say something for consistency but it wont I want inability to finish thoughts but it wont I want everything to stay the way it is while I change so I only run away from time not fear or treachery but the fitness away from away from that away from ending without an appropriate start stories don’t start where people want them they don’t stop where people want them stories don’t come from people wanting stories don’t come from people at all stories are the history still

survey says history is the story’s people survey insists like the callous of forgotten final years

– 47 –

Frequently Asked Questions with Answers Intended to Lend Some Clarity to the Hearsay about Today’s Hummingbirds How fast do hummingbirds beat their wings?

A. Fast enough, but depends on weight, weather, and wisdom. Fast enough to get there, be there, and get away. As fast as you going too fast in a School Zone.

Some multiple.

Do hummingbirds migrate on the backs of geese?

A. Would you? I mean, if you were a goose, of either gender, would you allow it or appreciate it? I mean, would you, if you were a goose or a gander, would you consider it? If so, how much would you charge and, would you carry more than one?

How long do hummingbirds live?

A. Until tomorrow unless they die today. I heard the record once, but I doubt it’s in any book. If you have the time, perhaps you could check a local hummingbird’s family Bible.

Do hummingbirds have middle names?

A. There is a major research project being conducted at a major university; although there are only preliminary results from the study, apparently it has already been learned that hummingbirds do not spell traditionally. That fact alone has lead to much speculation and additional funding.

Are hummingbirds a cross between a bird and an insect?

A. According to historians in the know, this question was initially answered in a retort by a Spanish sailor to his inquiring Queen Isabella. Apparently, King Ferdinand was out of the room at the time.

How do hummingbirds know they are hummingbirds?

A. Funding is pending; more haiku are being written.

– 48 –

Contributors Shane Eaves Collapse .......................................................................................... 1 Funeral For Your Best Friends Abuelita............................. 26 Having Just Made Love ........................................................... 46 Shane Eaves received his M.F.A. in poetry from California State University Long Beach. He is a Pushcart Prize nominated poet and two time recipient of the William T. Shadden Memorial Award for his poetry. His work can be found in Rust + Moth, Stonecoast Review, Riprap & elsewhere.

Toren Wallace [today gathers sticks] ............................................................... 3 Toren Wallace is a second year candidate in the M.F.A. Creative Writing: Poetry program at California State University, Long Beach. He teaches creative writing for CSULB, the literary arts center Beyond Baroque in Venice, California, and the non-profit collective, Bold Ink Writers. He is the current poetry editor for Riprap Literary Journal. He is the recipient of The Ronald Foote Prize in Creative Writing as well as The William T. Shadden Memorial Award in Poetry. His work has appeared in: The Portland Review, West Trade Review, Poetic Diversity (Los Angeles), Riprap Literary Journal, American Mustard Magazine, A Kind of Hurricane Press, Lip Stick Party Magazine, Bank Heavy Press and Cadence Collective (Long Beach).

William Freney Thank You, Elle King ................................................................ 4 Will Freeney, aka Guillermo Fresno, is a tenacious believer in the original simulacrum - the word.

Devin Falk You Forgot Six Tecate Out Of The Twelve ......................... 5 Devin Falk was born in an old ice cream warehouse, although this was a fluke like Techno, or Calista Flockhart. The two seater convertible Mercedes broke down on the way to the doctor's office, which was conveniently located two hours from his family's home in Laguna Beach, and the doctor couldn't make it before Devin wrecked his mother. Then a bunch of stuff happened like a tornado, and, uh, a dog. If you were wondering, Devin had all ten fingers and toes.

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CX Dillhunt David .............................................................................................. 6 from The Incomplete Glass Man’s Glossary: PÂTE DE VERRE ..... 33 Glass Glossary Haiku ............................................................... 42 Frequently Asked Questions with Answers Intended to Lend Some Clarity to the Hearsay about Today’s Hummingbirds ........................................................................... 48 CX Dillhunt was born in Green Bay and is fluent in the Wisconsin dialect. He learned to write and to tell stories from his mother, to sing and to pray from his father; he is grateful for his six brothers and five sisters for magnifying these gifts and teaching him confidence and how to play with others. He was the keynote speaker at the 2014 Lorine Niedecker Wisconsin Poetry festival. CX is the author of Girl Saints (Fireweed, 2003) andThings I've Never Told Anyone (Parallel, 2007); he is co-author of Double Six (Endeavor, 1994) with his son Drew. CX’s work can also be found in Exquisite Corpse, Cream City Review, University Magazine (Xi’an Jiaotong University) and the international online literary journal, Studio (York University, Toronto). He is the editor of Hummingbird Press and Hummingbird Magazine of the Short Poem (hummingbirdpoetry.org).

Rod Bradley Words ............................................................................................. 7 The poem is: ................................................................................ 35 Rod Bradley, also known as Rodley Monk, is a poet, novelist and filmmaker based in Los Angeles.

Jax NTP of tendencies, pin it ...................................................................... 8 Neurosity XI ............................................................................... 45 Jax NTP holds an MFA from CSU Long Beach and currently teaches Critical Thinking and Composition courses at Golden West College in Huntington Beach, CA. Jax is the current Poetry and Fiction Reader of The Offing Magazine and the Poetry Editor of Indicia Lit. Jax was the former Editor-in-Chief of RipRap Literary Journal, Gender Editor for Watermark Journal, and Associate Editor of The Fat City Review. Visit Jax's portfolio: http://whiskeyjellyfish.weebly.com/

Olivier Bochettaz NOW .............................................................................................. 9 Young People First ................................................................... 19 Born in the French Alps, Olivier recently migrated to California in order to get in touch with the poetry scenes of the West Coast. He has a B.A. and a M.A. in Literatures in English from Stendhal University, France, and was granted the EAP Scholarship in 2010 to study poetry at UC San Diego. He recently obtained a M.F.A. in Poetry from CSU Long Beach, and now teaches English at San Jose City College. He is the recipient of the 2014 Gerald Locklin Poetry Prize. His poetry

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has been published notably by Hummingbird Press, Synesthesia Literary Journal, Electric Windmill Press, Pyrokinection, and Kind of a Hurricane Press, and his critical works appear in DUMAS and The William Carlos Williams Review.

David Diaz You and I ..................................................................................... 15 Stopped ........................................................................................ 47 David was born in Culver City in the late 80s. He missed the ardor of the younger city, but acclimated alright in the giant sprawl of L.A. County. He recently received his MFA from Long Beach State, and now teaches and tutors English at colleges around Los Angeles. His work has been featured by Birds Thumb, Silver Birch Press, The San Pedro River Review, and in an upcoming collection by Tia Chucha Press. He also has a chapbook titled “Loxodrome” that is being organized and illustrated by Tiny Splendor this Spring.

Larry Duncan Etiäinen ........................................................................................ 17 Larry Duncan lives in the smallest apartment in Long Beach where he writes, drinks and wakes at an ungodly hour everyday to go to work. His poetry has appeared in various online and print magazines including The Muddy River Poetry Review, Citizens for Decent Literature, Black Heart Magazine, The Mas Tequila Review and Dead Snakes. You can learn more about Larry and find links to his other poetry at his website http://larrydunc.wix.com/larry-duncan

Ellen Bass Ode to the Porkchop ................................................................. 18 Ellen Bass’s poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and The American Poetry Review. Her books include Like a Beggar, The Human Line, and Mules of Love. She co-edited the groundbreaking No More Masks! An Anthology of Poems by Women and her nonfiction books include Free Your Mind: The Book for Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Youth and the bestsellingThe Courage to Heal. She has received a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. two Pushcart Prizes, The Lambda Literary Award and many other honors. She teaches in the MFA program at Pacific University.

Sage Curtis What Happens When You Believe in Love ........................ 21 Sage Curtis is currently an MFA candidate at University of San Francisco. Her work has been published in literary journals such as burntdistrict, 34th Parallel, Perceptions Magazine, Caesura, Garbanzo Literary Journal, Deep Water Journal and others. Keep up with Sage at https://sagedaniellecurtis.wordpress.com/

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René Prade Arrow & Knight ......................................................................... 23 I’m René Prade from Marseille. I speak about interbreeding ‘cause my father is from the South and my mother is from the North. Marseille, dear American friends, is the city where the French Connection is born. I am mixed with Italian and African blood and I will bring heroin into your country. My poetry is chemistry.

Harnidh Kaur I Sat Shiva Today ...................................................................... 24 A Tall Sip of Water ................................................................... 36 Naked Burns ............................................................................... 44 Harnidh Kaur is currently pursuing her Masters in Public Policy from St. Xavier's College, Mumbai. Her first collection, The Inability of Words, is published by Writer's Workshop.

Her work has been published in various international magazines, and can be found on her personal blog, https://foreverawkwardandlearning.wordpress.com/. She can be contacted via email or twitter.

George Hammons Toothbrush… ............................................................................. 29 The Good Ship Jesus................................................................. 37 I live in Pomona, California. I have studied creative writing at Cal State University San Bernardino and Cal State University Monterey Bay. I have written poetry since childhood and I especially enjoy the idea of communicating a desire for community and togetherness through poems. I feel that poems have the ability to bring people together and to celebrate our ability to endure and grow.

Kerry Campbell Dreaming of France….............................................................. 31 Kerry Campbell is a writer and educator living in San Francisco. Her first book, Dreaming of France, will be published by Blue Light Press in 2016. Her most recent project is a series of prose poems based on the life of the British mutineer Fletcher Christian. She recently traveled by cargo ship to Pitcairn Island, second most remote place on earth, to meet Fletcher's descendants.

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Vanya Truong Not a Poem About Ghost Sex ................................................ 32 A Letter of Trepidation............................................................ 43 Vanya Truong is a teenage poet currently dwelling in a foggy Californian town by the Pacific Ocean. She spends most of her time hoping that she will make it out of high school with a decent amount of life left inside. She also hopes to publish a collection of her poetry one day.

When not sulking,Vanya enjoys gelato, looking at pine trees, walks in the forest, and listening to strange music.

Sterling Warner Presentation Girls ..................................................................... 39 Sterling Warner’s poems have appeared in many magazines and journals, including In the Grove, The Chaffey Review, The Messenger, Leaf by Leaf, The Monterey Poetry Review, inside english, Faculty Matters, The Atherton Review,and Metamorphoses. Additionally, Warner also has published four collections of poetry: Without Wheels (2005) and ShadowCat: Poems (2008), Edges: (2012), and Rags and Feathers (2015 forthcoming) as well as two chapbooks: Memento Mori (2010) and Memento Mori Redux (2015). A Hayward Award winner (2000),Jim Herndon Award recipient (2013), Atherton Poet Laureate (2014), and Pushcart Prize for Poetry Nominee, Warner currently teaches in the English Department at Evergreen Valley College. There he’s served as the Creative Writing Program Director, The Evergreen Valley College Author’s Series Organizer, the Leaf by Leaf literary magazine Chief Editor, and the Evergreen Valley College Annual Spring Poetry Festival Coordinator.

Clint Margrave At 72 ............................................................................................. 40 Clint Margrave is the author of The Early Death of Men, a collection of poems, as well as a forthcoming collection, Salute the Wreckage, both published by NYQ Books. His work has also appeared in The New York Quarterly, Rattle, Cimarron Review, Verse Daily, Word Riot, Bartleby Snopes and Ambit (UK), among others. He lives in Los Angeles, CA. (Waiting for email) Nicole Street Commode ..................................................................................... 41 Nicole Street lives on Kauai, wears flip-flops to teach Creative Writing, Debate, Bio & Essay, Short Story, etc. and Comp for U of H. Summer Arts, CSUMB. MFA CSULB. Sacrifices sleep for dancing, treads water wearing a hat and sunglasses, teaches yoga, and reads. She has a few good friends and a lot of fun.

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