Segment 11, Retrocede: The Lifecycle of a Draft

INDEX

entries marked with * indicate poems and short stories

Bérenice Berlan 3, 6, 17,18 Anson Clark 16-19*, 36-38* Abby Cooper cover, 4-5(*) Emily Davidson 22-23 Molly Davison 6, 14 Rose duCharme 21* House of Dragons 24-25* Harry Forster 9,11, 24 Bradley John 8*, 10*, 34 Eva Lopez-Lopez 35 Grace Murray 12* Francesca Nolan 0 Ulyses Razo 7*, 27-29* O.S. 20, 30 Ella Skinner 2* Meg Wallace 15* Angelica Whitfield 31-33* Carlota Wu Fay 13 Hannah Wylie 26, 28-29, 39

10/09/23

a poem by Ella Skinner

Fallen out of love with romanticising The little things Which collectively make me Whole.

No ambition to harness the Effort to send the texts, To make the plans with People who have filtered away To becoming strangers.

And I don’t know Or at least can’t remember How I got to here, When the version of myself This time last year Seems so distant, so different.

Even though I live in the same city, Adorn myself in the same clothes, Listen to the songs she did too.

Maybe I’m just an extension or an Experiment of the individual who existed Last year.

Poem Written While Pulled Over a poem by Ulyses Razo

i crossed streets climbed hills italy and love she stole everything from me didn’t she how long i longed for one enduring thing noticing nothing inexhaustible airhurt, and with prodigious lack of purpose now i hated now i loved you how many more first looks at firstest bud how many new seeds new causes new loves shit i too long to quit what when our one and only life proves ass so be it unloved now that we’ve come this far these are my symptoms, my poems for i sleep with thee, and wake with thee, and yet thou art not there

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September 25th

a short story by Bradley John

On Monday I was walking through the mud-

trapsed edges of turf, when my eye was drawn to the foot of a tree which held a most unusual act. A grey squirrel sat legs akimbo within the pasture, an innocent View one may think, potentially even charming.

As for me, I am not particularly fond of wildlife of any kind, instead preferring to interact with those who can hold a gauche conversation. But not being able to resist a closer look, I snook further to see the fellow, (what is the difference between sexes in squirrels?) not enjoying the sunshine as if on Blackpool beach, but leisurely gyrating onto the helpless roots of a lovely oak. There was almost something human to the way he produced this activity, rubbing one of straight into the barkened floor. Once the degenerate spotted me, this only seemed to add to his satisfaction, his grinding quickening to bottleneck speed whilst saying: “You like to watch, don’t you? You like that baby?’ as if in some degrading porno.

I was transfixed, disbelieving in his indecency, until becoming shamedly aware of another viewer standing beside me. This sent him into ultimate overdrive, pumping away like all his little devious dreams had come at once (if squirrels could or can sweat, he’d be sweating buckets).

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My companion in smut was an older woman dressed in Regatta, clutching a pamphlet from the nearby gallery and seemly un-bemused by the scene. She simply shrugged and flashed me a look that said: “Oh, what is he like! The little guy, squirrels will be squirrels.” Before tutting and moving on.

After his tossed of event concluded, the squirrel had business elsewhere and hopped off. I assume to continue his afternoon of vulgar offenses. As I walked away, I thought of all the hoopla of a few years ago of the threat of grey squirrels’ domination over their red counterparts, partly down to their ‘prolific breeding cycle’. Now it seems, not fulfilled with their own species’ over-reproduction, our friend can’t get through a day without a bit of frigging. Perhaps a wild weekend in Blackpool would be good for him.

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Editor’s notes on a first draft a poem by Grace Murray

Confusing sentence structure

You’re mixing your metaphors

Derivative Cut this

Cut back on the em-dashes Is this needed?

Where is your own voice?

Lose this whole sentence

What do you mean by this?

????

Where are you?

Should be a period, not a comma

What are you trying to tell me?

Clunky.

Good first effort!

Angelface

a poem by Meg Wallace

Whore of heaven And saintly sage Tied to the kingdom’s gate Maiden mistress Feeds on hate You girl, are a promise’s plight.

A feathery fantasy.

A foul force of vice.

Too careless!

Too cautious!

You. Minx.

Now, why do you flee?

You where the lord’s raven.

Now you dangle As his sight of sin.

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Grave of the Fireflies

a poem by Anson Clark, recounting the bombing of Kobe, Japan, during World War II

The city half stands, Buckling under the weight of Man: His heart; his actions, that A parchment past unraveling Made only worse.

Trees charred black, smoke as water, Drifting – is that a faint haze Setsuko?

But you are too young and I am too old.

The temple dripping a black blood, the ashen Sky as looming, monster backdrop; bones Clatter, caught cold by decisions made far Away from home.

She left you; you are alone.

You cry as if it’s the worst day ever, No warm womb as comfort.

The umbilical cord cut.

You are forced into a different Room; coercion outside of Your own petty faults.

But at least your Levi’s touch Your skin. The floor is cold but

Still comforting.

At least there is Tomorrow.

At least there is A sun.

I look up at the hole In the sky. The sun Might never Return, existing only in The dreams of the mind; A mind that has regressed from ‘I am’, ‘I feel’, to ‘What is?’, ‘What for?’

Are we all so opprobrious?

Must crows shed the black, Or grow to love it?

These see-saw days write Different books every hour.

I wish that there Were just a single book.

Even a single chapter Would do, so the poses Would have meaning And be accepted. But these Poses were created in an Instant and work was left Unfinished – she was

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Putting on make-up, Now she is lying on the floor Like a doll with cracked skin.

I want to read life’s book, Run through comforting Blades of grass and give the Book to my father; him thanking Me, not turning his scorched, Hanging face towards the Setting sun.

I lacquer myself as a barrier, Retreat from your grace, For I now do not know it.

I leave it for the animals Underground, for there are Now no birds to receive it – Birds who do not sing are not birds Any more.

Your voice is fading, Seita.

The internecine day can only Result in an internecine night.

And the bombs have their own Mechanical rhythm.

The houses sink into the mud And the boats toss and turn, Not knowing what is sea And what is land.

And the clangor remains, And we wish that when Daylight breaks, the morning Will take us whole, in open arms.

And we will bow at nature’s Restoration.

Is this a scene from War of the Worlds?

A pearl necklace lying on the cracked Sidewalk; someone in a hurry Forgetting one of life’s pleasures.

Now it merges with the shattered Bricks, twisted steel; empty roofs.

Sucking ohajiki as if they were fruit drops, Bodies in exaggerated poses, arched Expressions. Twisted fingers, black nails.

People caught in poses no-one knows.

Black hole sun, Please wash away this new rain.

No-one laughing and you disappear.

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Fresh Meat

a poem by Rose duCharme

this body is not a wishbone nor is it a geode this body is not dandelion seed do not destroy me do not conceive that anything but pain will come of this attempt to crack me open and pray on my remains

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Humpty Dumpty (re-plastered) a poem by House of Dragons

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall Humpty Dumpty had a great fall Humpty Dumpty - why did you fall?

All the Kings’s horses and all the King’s men Couldn’t put Humpty together again Dumpty Dumpty should’ve asked a woman.

Humpty Dumpty - why did you fall?

Or did something push you off that wall? DUM DUM DUUUUM Humpty Dumpty you taught us to fall Just cracked eggs aren’t we all

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall We all knew but allowed you to fall All the King’s horses and all the King’s men Couldn’t put Humpty together again Dumpties Dumpties - should’ve prevented the fall Humpty Dumpty what a great fall!

Shame we don’t mention your trauma at all Humpty Dumpty - we just care about the fall And all the King’s men BELATED attempts to mend you again Humpty Dumpty blame yourself for it all Humpty Dumpty - why the fuck did you fall?

Dumpty Dumpty we know but don’t care at all.

Could’ve prevented it but the funding wasn’t there at all Humpty Dumpty - we knew you’d fall Humpty Dumpty as lonely as us all Was there anyone with you on that wall?

Dumpty Dumpty should teach children how not to fall Or who to call considering suicide on that great fucking wall.

RING RING. RING RING. RING RING. Hello, this is Nightline - how are you tonight?

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Hammered Roof a poem by Ulyses Razo

A deer digs through the frosted lawn before the pen.

I think of what could transpire here, the heat that could be exchanged.

If you could pull the steel cord through me, would you?

Fans’re helicopters slaughtering air.

This is just to say: I’m in a conversation that doesn’t seem to want to end.

A memory of my father screwing bolts into the bottoms of his shoes.

Don’t start doing my head in.

Lobotomist of my heart.

The light will thin and then it will thicken.

One discomfort on top of another.

You said, see? it’s not so bad,

but it was.

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Snow drifts on the street and sticks to nothing.

Now when a man carries a broom and a dust collector through the pub, I think: violin.

Give me a song and I’ll break it with my neck.

I’d rather have my headphones on and no music playing.

People enter my room at night and steal the words I wanted to say.

My father’s ringtone in Kelvingrove park.

Remember laughter?

Tell me, doctor, what exactly are these tears for?

The earth might’ve been my dad weeping in a trailer after building a house.

O image of girl one married in thought childhood is over now.

It’s time to go back to class.

A man stands up on a plane and says we’ll get there in the end.

Tombstones miss their meanings in the graveyard I walk through on my way to thegym.

The smell of love is the smell of sweat.

This is the captain speaking, saying there is nothing to worry about: the wheels have fallen off.

We can finally all be ourselves now.

What are you reading?

Are you in love?

Writing this is the only way for me to touch your tongue now.

A city’s lost in fog.

This makes it beautiful.

There was an ugliness I once thought I could get behind.

A screen saying touch me.

In bed, your leg over mine, two cranes pointed to the clouds.

Whatever they were building, whatever the architect had in mind, it would not be done until I left.

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travelling through the blue a short story by Angelica Whitfield

We had just come from Graceland and were almost

in New Orleans. I could see in front of us were miles of forest and fields, unbroken except for scattered signs advertising Dr Pepper, cigarettes and petrol and the occasional gas station, all of them isolated. My father got tired of Billie Holiday and insisted on some gospel song that he picked up from his church back home, which would always bore me, so I resorted to twitchy preoccupations. I made it a mission for myself to pick all of that nail polish off so that little blue shiny pieces fell into my lap. The next thing to do was to look through the photos and pick the best ones; there was one of me in Elvis Presley’s private jet, surrounded by beautiful stylish green leather seats and a security guard in the background near the pilot’s seat, his mouth a line of scholarly straightness, a calmness in his expression. I liked this one. I don’t know where these photos are anymore, and I haven’t looked for them.

The car’s interior smelled strongly of sun-warmed leather and whomever we rented this from had ornamented the gear shift with a toy skull. With my cheek in the palm of my hand, I deepened towards sleep, but I was reawakened by the wheels bumping over the dipping, curving, rising highway. I looked at my father, studying his blunt profile, then turned to stare into the bloomless blue overhead.

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We checked into our hotel, an old building with artificial red velvet curtains. The wallpaper was faded to a mural of green blisters, and everything was dusty and preserved. It was always one room that me and my father shared, so the bathroom was the only place I could hide, where I could stare into the mirror for hours, as if trying to reassure. I still couldn’t bring myself to lock the door. Walking back into the room, I found him, in a private ceremony, sitting on the bed talking to the wall. I knew he wasn’t praying because of that familiar anger in his whispers. This happened in every hotel we stayed in. I told him I was hungry, and we went down to dinner.

In the dining hall, there were two parents and three children sat not far from our own table. There were two twins, two girls, both wearing blue and another older dark-haired girl, her legs dangling just above the floor. They were playing something on a napkin, and I tried to figure out who was winning. The mother and father were in soft whispers with two glasses of wine, occasionally the mother looked over the table, but she always turned back to her husband in a calm manner.

My father got his journal out, it was empty, and he would hover his pen over the page and put it down again. We spoke about my mother, but those intimacies were always rare and oblique, so I forced the conversation another way.

I wanted to get ice cream out, so we walked down Bourbon Street. I picked the best-looking staircase for Stella and Stanley Kowalski to act out their scene and stopped at a jazz bar, but my father wasn’t drinking, so we left.

On the way back to the hotel, we saw a man stumbling backwards out of a bar. He was shouting at some men inside and the ladies with curls laughed at him. As the man noticed us, my body suddenly felt stiff and awkward. He said something to us about the sky and traveling through the blue, he then asked for the loan of a few dollars followed by a list of swear words I wasn’t allowed to hear. I shut my eyes because I could not bear to see what was happening. My father walked faster and faster and the man shouted to us to have a nice life. “You too” my father said. He then said to me, almost like it was a reassurance, that we will pray for him later. So that’s what we did. In the hotel room he kneeled beside my bed and he prayed for that man so that he would find whatever my father had found before him.

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Written By You a poem by Anson Clark

Rome is falling; you walk into the room, And I imagine a slight wind. People Walk in slow motion And words become indecipherable, Slow down.

And the petty bickering between the Persians and the Greeks, Seems like children Playing in the sand.

Your eyes were blue like caressed crystals Found in some deep treasured cave.

Your hair red like a robin’s breast; You see, I’ve heard that while Jesus Was dying on the cross, a robin with a Brown breast flew to his ear and Sang a song, his blood staining Its breast. And so it became red.

You are the most open minded person I know, but would you tolerate me In your kingdom?

And you always wore a faded Bob Dylan T-shirt – you were no poser.

But you liked women - I felt no such urges.

Or maybe I am confused, not as sure as Writing etched on stone, like you are.

The thought of being your friend haunted me, And my dreams were wild as the reckless wind.

I imagined nostalgia, showed you my poetry.

But it was lousy.

You were too kind about it.

For most people, the physical and the spiritual Are intertwined. But I would be satisfied with Just lying in a bed beside you, fully clothed.

You see, your smile is the best sex I’ve ever had (I know people say that all the time, but I really Mean it.)

But would that satisfy you? Would you need a Touch that makes your hormones race like demons?

Would a simple conversation drive you into A frenzy, like it does with me?

Could you go beyond what was considered Natural, just for me?

Would you stand in the garden, whilst we Changed the world?

I would give you a crown in the garden, And a voice would talk to you Saying love is God’s law.

Orthodoxies change and new deviances Are created. Your love part of the law, And my law a strange shadow.

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I would blot out the sun for you.

Can we love with no love at all?

To love like an angel is a shadow In this world.

I could retreat to heaven But my loyalties are with Man, And not with God (I have no Qualms with him.)

Being your friend would betray both Myself and you.

And so I retreat to the shadows, Knowing that they come from The light.

The Madonna was yours for free.

I sometimes wonder what Descartes or Berkeley Would have thought of it all; love separated From the body; myself as Orient.

De Quincey falls into his coffin, And I sleep.

So I run away from the shifting sands, Knowing this much at the very least: You liked anything by Bob Dylan; And I could listen to anything, as long as It was written by you.

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