gritty silk: issue one

gritty gritty gritty gritty

issue issue issue issue

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silk silk silk silk

gritty gritty gritty gritty

issue issue issue issue

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silk silk silk silk

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contents from crow or eagle................................................ paula cisewski and rauan klassnik..........................4-8 perigee..................................................................rob mclennan and christine mcnair..........................9 universal kitten, paw of milk and sardines, she wasn’t there by herself.................................... leslie seldin and deborah schwartz......................10-11 bosom................................................................... joe milazzo and cody ross rex.............................12-13 about an acre, transformation............................ mike hauser and zack pieper...............................14-15 krystal languell, becca klaver, hanna andrews, jt tamayo, caolan madden, marisa crawford, girl talk II............................................................ lily ladewig and emily skillings................................16 pipe triad trios.....................................................mike sikkema, robin brox and mIEKAL aND....17-19 temptation and desire, follow temptation and desire............................... crystal hartman, rachel mindell..........................20,21 from eve, a mere roar............................................amanda earl and sandra ridley............................22-31 dashing is a skill, tory nascar............................... chuck stebelton and cathy cunningham.............32-33 scene 7 – the stars from cat poems: 17 wompus tales and a play of despair........................................ sarah jackson and chris shipman........................34-46 the act of duplicating is irrelevant 15 april 2011 / 4 may 2011 // may 2 2011...... sarah cook and j. jean teed.................................47-56 from my father is li gang.......................................matthew conley and jamison crabtree................57-62 “an experiment” from &c&c&c&c&c&c&c&c&c.................................. zoe addison and cynthia spencer........................63-69 the local insomniac’s tower of guesses, or: constant responses................................................cat ries and noah witt.........................................70-73 set cheese...............................................................baron, jim leftwich, john m. bennett.......................74 not this mirror, mirror of chicken symmetry, nor the fat glue yo.................................................jim leftwich, john m. bennett............................75-77 from strokes of the big clock..................................tony mancus and michael rerick.........................78-82 tooth grin, a single human from stareways............edwin r. perry and chelsea tadeyeske...................83-84 contributor bios...............................................................................................................................85-89

gritty silk

3

issue one

from Crow or Eagle I was an astronaut for the lord.

I tended field for the lord.

I drove truck for the lord.

Ran through fields of blooming lavender in a dress my mother sewed in bad light.

I mined ore for the lord.

I sang. How my voice did rise up.

It rose up and pierced the lord’s ears.

My boyfriend tore this down.

Closed the door. Folded up my bed.

The ears of the lord did love my song.

Did learn it. I know this: he will sing the words of my song back to me.

My father spoke through his teeth, his fingers curled in a fist. I curled up, blackened.

In the hereafter in the hereafter we will sing.

Blue-green light bruising down.

paula cisewski

4

rauan klassnik

from Crow or Eagle You kept rotting apples in your desk with a knife taped to a stick & the clouds were men & women & the trees blossomed. The apple trees. You tried to be patient, a tiger with bright orange socks.

School bells clanged. Students, learning, stopped. The streets sank down. One last small blue light sank down. Chained. You tried to be patient. Towns emerged. Estates rolled round in your hand.

paula cisewski

5

rauan klassnik

from Crow or Eagle Seven pieces of fire dispersed across the prairie a cracked tooth’s nothing.

The entire sky over the grassland defeats me. This road sucked up, whirling, banged. Nourished by defeat, let’s drive. Sailors sometimes will suddenly leap right off their ships, into their wives’ grief.

Like Marie Antoinette’s collection of shoes, her famous illusion of patisserie, and her hair pulled back from her fine, white neck.

paula cisewski

6

rauan klassnik

from Crow or Eagle A diseased cornucopia like the backside of a giraffe in heat— the polluted river & the irony of a bus full of school children feeding ducks in bright light.

One has an army knife pocketed, a small white trash bag and a towel, her eyes reflect the port, which is perfect.

paula cisewski

7

rauan klassnik

from Crow or Eagle Your Voice: Where the county road changes from gravel to tar your red petals spread beneath us, a cool white body. A pond.

I keep forgetting what I had just meant to say, trying to thrive in this beauty, bucolic. I may fail.

Remember now the story about faith.

Those nights. Your skin. The darkness I believed in. Oh, don’t listen to me.

I’m standing in a field, arms raised waving goodbye. Move on.

paula cisewski

8

rauan klassnik

Perigee We know nothing. A weight.

Humheavy apsis, we kiss shoulder melodies.

Our burnt-out capsule projects travels.

We design a study in motion.

No bodies break, no gradual imprints hover/flare/lose/burn.

We slip near earth and break systems, flare between constants.

Lose orbit and resolve to hover.

Mark under lips a brief history of unobservable imprints.

Trace language into skin. Lose motion.

Our postcards orbit. Such gaps of miles and ships.

Under shut eyes, a melody unobservable in normal gravity; a stretch of light that bends.

rob mclennan

9

christine mcnair

Universal Kitten, Paw of Milk and Sardines Yes. But for whom do you show extreme warmth?

For the dog? The ant? Too small and hyper.

For the free floating city birds? Think differently About who your next hero will be. I am too tired To take you all on. We are much alike.

If I had said that earlier, we might have been friends.

Like walking into a maternity ward in winter.

Such a drafty room where people are born into wordlessness.

Where wordlessness shows a curiosity to explore itself Far away as the north pole. Where speed of rotation slows To almost no speed at all. As always is that quiet.

leslie seldin

10

deborah schwartz

She Wasn’t There All By Herself.

One, she wasn’t there all by herself. Two, she thought she wanted to be And then wasn’t so sure. Second time with two, she looked back At one and there was a tree with a red bird in it. There’s no right answer When looking at trees and assessing intelligence. Three blue feathers fell.

My darling, she fell like lamp light and that was what we needed To start over again. One, she was there with ticklings neither good nor bad, A little itchy. Two, she wanted to be itchy. That was the thing.

Then she climbed the tree losing count. Numerous feathers clamored the air.

She attended to each as best she could and thought about her life as a girl now reveling inside branches. Where in her body did she reside?

Where did the tree, now that she was in it?

It led her back to counting out what was discarded as no longer necessary.

leslie seldin

11

deborah schwartz

Bosom Idols unstoppered, what senses pitching ripples to the river follow so far that what was our tongue is now forgot?

In words once sputtered we grapple, out of airs we fractured a sort of deep-seated shout-out to a volatile form shaping its beam. From cooperation glazed and sapphire influences of air I’ll try out my domes. This is my complaint: Water won’t remember, no matter how thrashed by complaints, and water can’t make rafters oars, not so long as invention’s river understands itself. But the problem with seeing it as sapphire is retiring a lazy tongue after just the first hiss. You already forgot the “who?”s of being. You long ago unsung the bridge and fled the forms for the easier escape of woods entangled. Above this light, a great fracture shields the great eye, the squint you’ve been suspicious of; the fracture, made by fold-overs of a lazy half-sleep, enduring our noise without complaint.

We watched how green traffic overran our slumbers. Unconsciousness even has a form, and observing, too, may amaze by its own attentions. The idols reach from the river through tangles of drowned trees, pinching your pant hems. You forgot those names so you walk on. A tongue is not a river, at least the air stays sapphire.

And in the least’s happening, openness begins to burn. Leaves of flame sapphire and broad as spades laurel our inamoratas. What will spirits pith through these fractures?

She won’t answer, too comfortable in the center of her shell. You forgot to keep seeing her (everyone else still does) in Boticelli’s wet complaint.

A child’s song gushes against storm and spring. So our ancestors are unfastened by the river: neither bathers nor gorgers, they are only faithful, where white diademed in forms.

Cup your hands together, isn’t that the same form?

Waves mirrored in worship, retrograde echoing all sapphire vulvic wedge-shell splayed shut, that pool in her is a river.

joe milazzo

12

cody ross rex

Let her algal couplings stroke green. Blue-brimming fractures still haven’t become shore. You swim on, citing an old complaint: Gold will be heavy with idols, gods as shattered as what clay forgot.

Train your song against it. A song whose wordlessness still hasn’t forgot.

In the forested flowing, a freedom sparks. In the shade of forms [new stanza] a complex clots into O… and talks. A praise in the key of a complaint, a moan backbone-long, exclaiming its sacred roil. Fingers flick sapphire marbles under an even clearer sky, ellipsis grumbling lonely. No fracture will level these dominions. Only hush can round what’s struck: leaf, lip and river.

Forget what hoary commemorations affection aired and shine, mute light that this stream forgot: you trap, hot, of sapphire votives and freezing forms. No fracture can rid your core of complaint.

You stepped twice in arrogance and felt the fracture of breath pre-forgotten.

That genius fades to complaint, that assumption haunts this ghost of a river... name and describe any water for form to conduct and glint. Keep on, lest you amber someday in heavier sapphires.

Idols were meant to hoard all of forgotten relief.

But you were you: never meant to make love to a river.

joe milazzo

13

cody ross rex

About An Acre I start out small enough in vivid balloons of feeling.

It’s kind of rye.

But also solid squares.

The outer limit is called: “Shut Up.” Wow. Loved ones really rise like balloons, too. & I had a funnier feeling than this but I fucked it all up like Queen skips in the aftermath to all of fandom rooting in unison: “Somebody better call up the cops”

mike hauser

14

zack pieper

Transformation If I open only one envelope I elope into long stretches of sponsorship I elope into a sponsor I sponsor his search for transformation I say it looks pretty awesome when I really mean Sweet Loaf or 70s time lapse I secretly see her soul as a position I can’t reconstrue I move into a position beyond my station I take alot of flak for the pyrotechnics But in this provacative format I am wedded to the ages

mike hauser

15

zack pieper

GIRL TALK II

my natural hat eclipsed her regular hat

all i remember is her handing me a twenty and saying goodnight like, look T YOUR BLOODY BABY FUMER TUER TUER : FUMER TUER A all famous men cheat on their wives (head nod) obama mooooo+

obama or jay-z? not obama. little boners lit up in his eyes. the circularity of it all—it’s unknowable.

are you sure you don’t want the facial? safety jesus i will not have no stealing at this white elephant that i worked so hard to google. condom sutra, ribbed for her pleasure. i will think of the most erotic thing to put in this box. it may just be a good cuddle. this is my giant hand job arm. i just wanted it to be more erotic. basically emily taught you some anatomy. it was never a hand job.

give me my erotic box back. look erect, heathens! tableaux vivant and i couldn’t stop giggling. i am mostly represented by the bottle. leather it up. krystal languell, becca klaver hanna andrews, jt tamayo

16

caolan madden, marisa crawford lily ladewig, emily skillings

Pipe Triad Trios

* doe does dance | triggy itcher finger | let’s just hope for a tie ice predators stealth of ages | right to embarrass arms | no one wins in poetry prevent yourself | duster in the dance | guide wires for submission

* an ounce of redemption | west was a tighter circle then | it’s a game if no one wins what’s all the racket | a team of experts deconstructs attitudes | heat is a trusted companion onion ripens pearl | prevent for rest fryer | no matter who scores * rabbitly ever dapper | let’s see what doesn’t happen then | spree shopping happily shovel water | one lick over the line sweetgum | spore sharing urgently pied sniper | gulf-addressed stamped envelope | spiral showing * ice predates embarrassed arms | no one was blaming you | glory glory glory cake frigid alarms carry carefree farms | haven’t since the last time | very nearly the cats got whole kernels in barns | corn is for cowards | spray paint it ain’t so mike sikkema, robin

17

brox, mIEKAL aND

* Heat is a trusted companion | end of the end of the year | don’t outgrow your seasons now warmth capitulation without stanzas | bendy bend the tear jerk | haiku buddies suck on soap heart is a rusted cumstain | friend on the mend in the ear | please reinvent the wherewithal * ardently fake flower | mischief makes markings | hello there haberdasher sergeant at flora | thigh high eye ply | hold on to your hat your fake snow Tuesday | when I said oral I meant speech | kiss where the world happens * seasonal port of entry | vinyl defense | are you going to get that lug the frickin’ steamtrunk | viral deference | how many times can you lose a phone I lost all the phones | you weren’t even hatched right, right | do you have a permit for that thing * impure dirt cycle | companion ramification angle | mortarbike lane pistils cleanliness is next to gosh | o how everything once made sense | pollinate or die gosh Josh was dapper | the chamber full of camphor | like likeness you shine wrong * reflexive metal binding | something has to break | blue glass detritus a life in change | lo and be hear now | cobalt is a state of mind big bald little balled | all the tea in -Ingland | punctuate those rumps mike sikkema, robin

18

brox, mIEKAL aND

* sliver haired fox | tail turns tailgate | who forgot the nachos slather coiffure effortlessly | tingle when you get near | taste of wildflower honey wild honey flowers | a slather matter of a different car horn | I know what summer did you last

mike sikkema, robin

19

brox, mIEKAL aND

Temptation and Desire

crystal

20 20

hartman

Follow Temptation and Desire

“At the end of poetry the poem can no longer be remote”

Ana Bozicevic

Are we sneaking through the back? I’ve only got from “go” to “gone” to finish. The spiral of legs, the many smoking flower and a ribbon around your life.

To follow simple sugar made me

come inside and now

I cannot get out not even

a big turn-back paddle a triple-timed tummy tuck the golden cage I am that second flash an instance to follow or remedy Around five, soup?

Wicked wrought iron, follow piecemeal to mealtime I write about loosing someone in a crowd Kneesocks Fair beauty takes a doorway date Light bulbs or birds are light bulbs are blurring Will there be more color when we arrive?

When will we arrive?

Everything grows out in wider and wider circles

My number!

They’ve drawn my number!

Is the magnet a cloud?

Can we be drawn in or follow?

Little birds that touch. I am not of the signs They are digging

out

even now I’m certain.

It seems

you are not, follow?

scratch post

dream wheelie You dove

a chance to float on who I took you for

for pearls down the bumpy chute.

We kill the wayward glance with forward embrace

We are enlarged,

before there was desert, ocean Before we were ocean, swimming.

Bees know and better I am alone, the light inside wanders to a

forgone conclusion, a sparkle sweated glass.

Follow signs towards the center. The signs are missing. rachel

21

mindell

from Eve, a Mere Roar

i.

“When you take up your axe, listen. Hoofbeats. Wind.”

Anne Carson

devil saint stain & my angel carrying the shroud seven stars in your hand & going blind—as we all do eventually & so touched

amanda earl

22

sandra ridley

ii. cup palm a cloudburst & your taste in the lightning downpours over end & going mad—as we all are & so forth

amanda earl

23

sandra ridley

iii. apocrypha catacomb & your languish widening gyre over skin firewalls & rapt burns devour the scent of you deny this catching away

amanda earl

24

sandra ridley

iv. gasoline engine & metalled screech over 100 degree tarmac deserts dry heat & shimmered compasses how to escape from the sharpened cactus needle & the vulture

amanda earl

25

sandra ridley

v. fret letter & languid vernacular a fin de mirabellis echostruck out across sky each untrue sentence & vowel emptied of sound

amanda earl

26

sandra ridley

vi. ink type & alphabet stamps destroy the blank purity of paper now burdened, scratched & stricken with untruths

amanda earl

27

sandra ridley

vii. arrow cardinal point & torn shreds our tongue slicked heritage of grammar threatening disordered metaphors, galloping hooves

amanda earl

28

sandra ridley

viii. metal phrases sledgehammered & broken apart twisted syllables call each other by name forming a junkyard grammar of light

amanda earl

29

sandra ridley

ix. discursive dreamt testaments & hand written script our parenthesis, a sealed prophecy of tries descent-swept to false comfort by little blue ills

amanda earl

30

sandra ridley

x. why-shape forked rod & pendulum how we waterwitch divine archetype from cloudburst

amanda earl

31

sandra ridley

DASHING IS A SKILL Assuming all the druthers Light as a board. Stiff like Ether trails behind the faucet.

Esters of pressed wooden doorjambs Tuck success.

Rivals once before they gave it up and fell.

chuck stebelton

32

cathy cunningham

TORY NASCAR Flies like the privet Ocean but not too Close to drive There all the perfume Ranked Fifth and a half by The time he got to Shore to cloud too Salvage The bandaged remains In pill books of ashes Neat in the silver Slivers and gathers

chuck stebelton

33

cathy cunningham

Scene 7 – The Stars from Cat Poems: 17 Wompus Tales and a Play of Despair Rabbit spins Ballerinas in dancing positions around the stage.

Prince is behind telescope.

Rabbit: (to Prince) This has all gotten you nowhere, which is no town of its own, but a stage on which you play a game that is almost over.

The stage is yours…

Prince slowly walks toward audience, bows, lifts arms in air, looks up, lights shine like stars.

Prince: Stars……I see….stars.

Kind of a funny phrase, when you think about it.

I see….stars.

Isn’t that what we say?

When we’re hit on the head?

When we’re cartoons?

When we’re looking at the frying pan in another person’s hand?

We never say birds. (Bird plays violin frantically for a beat) sarah jackson

34

chris shipman

When yellow birds chirp circles round our swollen brains we just stand there silent…dazed.

But stars…Stars are different than birds in this way. We feel the need to sound out the words in the just-hit-on-the-head midst of misty eyes.

I see…..stars.

Rabbit: (Approaches a dancing Ballerina, whose movements intensify as he reads from dictionary) Any of the heavenly bodies, except the moon, appearing as fixed luminous points in the sky at night.

Prince: And even if we don’t say a thing there is someone in a corner somewhere saying it for you, through a sinister laugh at your recent mishap. (Prince motions to Rabbit) Rabbit: (approaches another Ballerina) In accordance with astronomy, any of the large, self-luminous, heavenly bodies, as the sun, Polaris, etc.

Prince: But when I say I see…..the stars I don’t mean these perfectly pointed cut-outs of sky from the cartoon universe.

When I say I see….the stars I mean the perfectly pointed cut-outs of sky when you raise your arms through the universe and decide to prove, for yourself, whether or not you are a cartoon. sarah jackson

35

chris shipman

Rabbit: (approaches third Ballerina) Any heavenly body.

Prince: You all seeeem pretty non-drawn. You all seeeem to be breathing.

Rabbit: (to Ballerinas) Quick, hold your breath! (Ballerinas hold their breath; Rabbit studies his watch) Prince: So, you’ll have to decide for yourself, little elf.

Prince points to single audience member, stands in silence for a beat.

Rabbit: Get on with it!

Prince: What white magic can you make? (Prince snaps and Ballerinas gasp for breath) What mistakes of light and night can you relate to faking?

This is of great importance. The nature of night… is light! I will whisper and yell!

I will show and tell you the world of light I’ve listened in on!

Rabbit: A heavenly body, esp. a planet, considered as influencing humankind and events.

Prince: When I say, I see…I mean to say I see stars. When I say I see anything I mean to say I see….stars.

sarah jackson

36

chris shipman

But again, what a funny phrase?

What a strange saying?

What a weird way of coming back to where we started.

Rabbit: A person’s destiny, fortune, temperament, etc., regarded as influenced and determined by the stars.

Ballerinas: (in unison) Where are we? What are we looking at?

Rabbit: A conventionalized figure usually having five or six points radiating from or disposed about a center, or this figure used as an ornament, award, badge, mark of excellence, etc.: as in, The movie was awarded three stars. Or, as in jewelry, a gem having the star cut, or the asterism in a crystal or a gemstone— as in a star sapphire, or a crystal or a gemstone having such asterism, or as in printing, an asterisk.

Or here…on the ground…looking up…at nothing.

Prince: No! We are…here…peering over the side of a boat! At a constellated crab eating a dictionary!

Rabbit: Strange…because maybe you are, and maybe you aren’t, looking at anything.

Time, you know. Tricky.

Prince: But I can pay tribute.

Rabbit: A person who is celebrated or distinguished in some art, profession, or other field. Or a prominent actor, singer, or the like, esp. one who plays the leading role in a performance. sarah jackson

37

chris shipman

Prince: If you please!

Rabbit: Well, get on with it!

Prince: My eyes are the two last pennies on earth! Saved for seeing…stars!

I paid the universe for the ticket to the carnival on an island of light.

My eyes are time machines. No! The little eager pupils of time travelers held up inside my head, living off my thoughts on love.

So, it’s up to me! It’s up to the stars.

(Prince raises arms in air, which shines brighter.)

And I, through the wonderful novelty of light, stalk on, stalk on!

This matter of light…is a matter of light…for light soars through your semblance of memory of what the womb was a theater for— Stars!

You see babies are born into this…especially baby ballerinas!

(Prince addresses Ballerinas, stomps on stage; Ballerinas wobble, slow their dance.)

You see…stardust courses through your blood.

And in that first dark room you’re born into light is assembled by the sounds of arms. sarah jackson

38

chris shipman

Arms grasping at the dark wrapped round your fragile frames.

Arms lost in a hallelujah dance.

Arms wishing only to hold you.

Arms stretched to the sky to offer you back to the stars.

(Prince seems struck by a distant memory) One time, when my mother said I love you, I leapt from the beach into the sun.

When I fell I floated further down Coney Island than winter could lay white across her face.

Rabbit: …Dutch for rabbit.

Prince: (stops just before speaking) …What?

Rabbit: …Dutch.

Prince: Dutch, what? What Dutch?

Rabbit: Coney…Dutch… for… rabbit.

Prince looks at him in silence for a beat then repeats what he said previously.

sarah jackson

39

chris shipman

Prince: When I fell I floated further down Coney Island than winter could lay white across her face.

I memorized her name in ten different centuries.

But I couldn’t speak for all the stars in my mouth.

So, I spoke a language I do not speak.

I see a constellated past in what’s seen presently.

Bird: He speaks a language he doesn’t speak.

He sees what’s constellated in the past he sees presently.

Rabbit: No. The past is falling on you like snow. and snow must be made of bones— each flake dust, someone’s once more denied attempt to soar off this world. (to Ballerina)Where do you wish to fly? To what star?

I ask you because you have gone.

I ask you because you have fallen more times than he has stood (points to Prince). sarah jackson

40

chris shipman

All is a misunderstood prayer.

If there’s a point, a meeting between you and the dark, it’s joined only as his palm collecting snow.

You are the sashay of jukebox songs while he sleeps the black boring night through, his dreams of you still as locked rooms inside his head.

Prince: No! The night is alive in the streets.

And the dancing! So much magic!

I stood with my sleeveless arms raised to the stars, and shivered for the distance between us and them.

You disappeared to appear here.

Ballerinas: But the boardwalk is constellated yellow with chalk outlines of our former selves’ shadows.

Prince: Every star adds light to the sky’s black absence.

And I am anchored to a fleet of icy ships, searching only for you through the broken blackbird of night.

sarah jackson

41

chris shipman

And you are always on a nearby beach dancing silent as the Atlantic of stars that carrousel above Coney Island.

What say you to a dance in my imagination? (to Ballerina) Ballerina: But where are the baby ballerinas? Where did they go?

Rabbit: Playing in a yard of broken bottles.

Ballerina: With the far away stars in their eyes?

Prince: (stops Ballerina) No, no, no! Not broken. Not bottles.

Not far away. Right where you stand! (Ballerina dances away from Prince) Building a bridge of wishes with eye lashes and Christmas lights when night falls on its head.

Bird: stars said hope for stars said pray to said resurrection! said o please!

Rabbit: (to audience) Stuffed above a trashcan’s muddy rim white plastic bags dance like ghosts of murdered ballerinas desperate to scar the night for having so many twinkling toes.

Ballerinas: (pirouette in unison, stop on frozen, then begin dancing again) Have we grown so old? So cold? Is it so? Our toes so frozen‌ to the night? sarah jackson

42

chris shipman

Prince: Oh no! No, no, no! It’s not just so! Not as you see it!

Rabbit: (angrily) Stars the ugly gold of old broke-down cars.

Stars faded as cardboard stars on old movie sets.

Stars that constellate the dark smell of used tires, grease, tools: the trunked memory of a life lived past abandon— all prying open in the damp basement of his brain.

Prince: No! Rabbit: Stars that scare off cats.

Stars that clap dead hands.

Stars that bust pumpkins stars never cared to carve.

Prince: No! Stars that build us a home.

Stars that disappear inside our bones when we’re born.

Rabbit: Leaving nights blacker!

Prince: But light is always flying back there!

A Ballerina falls to the floor.

See! (to audience) All look upon the Sleeping Ballerina. sarah jackson

43

chris shipman

The other Ballerinas repeat the following lines in the ear of the sleeping Ballerina: We are a boy’s desire to be nothing more than a prince.

We are the story stars tell to bed the sun.

We are angels pretending to be a flock of birds.

We are the house you grew up in.

We are strolling for treasure on Coney Island.

We are your dreams dwelling like white mice in the attic.

We are lights with no trains attached.

We are the house fires you set in our heads.

We are unborn.

We are the wild hairs on your soul.

We are the only ghost you want to haunt you.

We are the anniversary of lovers lost on an island.

We are the time machine they build to go home.

We are upside down stranded on a star.

We are nothing if not what you are.

Rabbit: (to audience) Even the stars, dark longer than we can see the light, come back to life to sing sad songs.

Prince and Ballerinas rise and stand in a single file line on the stage.

Rabbit: Stars‌like theaters on fire.

When ballerinas run for their lives he crowns them all by turning their skin transparent, tucks them in twilight.

It is like a child pushing a toy truck down the crowded streets of his memory.

But a toy Ballerina follows all the way, whispering, sarah jackson

44

chris shipman

Rabbit whispers to all Ballerinas until they all escape back into their boxes. he never wanted me. he never wanted me. he never wanted me. he never wanted me. he never wanted me.

Bird: Upside-down stranded on a star We are nothing if not what you are Upside-down stranded on a star We are nothing if not what you are Upside-down stranded on a star We are nothing if not what you are Prince and Rabbit are left alone on stage.

Rabbit: But before sleep, the purple shadow of a prince prances across clouds of your bruised prayers.

He makes night wrinkle your face; puts a cloudy wind in your breath to sail the ships where he stowed memory, then expects you to see through dirt; become a gathering of ghosts, ruin light.

He’ll light his dreams of you by a cheap lamp.

This friend of mine (pointing to Prince behind him) has been looking into the light for a long time.

sarah jackson

45

chris shipman

Bird: How long is the light?

Rabbit: I ask him.

He answers by looking as long as light will let him be.

Bird: It’s there.

Rabbit: He says, then stares directly at its dull bulb as if that faint hue has everything to do with a mother’s darkness, or the blame of his, or that it bears the names of both.

Prince: (lethargic) Stare at it as long as you can Rabbit: He whispers lightly and looks away.

The stage goes dark as images flicker. The lights slowly rise to light the Prince, alone, center stage.

sarah jackson

46

chris shipman

the act of duplicating is irrelevant

15 april 2011 / 4 may 2011 // may 2 2011

lately i teach landings

& in between them

all this

stupid coffee

sarah cook

47

j. jean teed

numbers feel

instances of rain

someone’s ability

to

more like let go of their

palms

supposedly

deserving

higher platforms

waving is much more pleasing

than this

or

straight

sarah cook

in corresponding face / pictures

48

j. jean teed

first the woman

trying to resist soft things lets her feet catch the ground

(how they pile up)

tends to

what exists respond to themselves

(older animals)

actually folding up ends

obsessed with

when we pick her up

(only the beating)

sarah cook

49

j. jean teed

she tells me

typeface

sarah cook

is

getting smaller / farther

50

j. jean teed

the subject

she says has landed in crisis

away from morning naps

wooden floors this threat

of habit

& etc.

is true

colors that match

my sense of smell

maybe

the language begins with

bees that spend weeks

but always ends up

preparing for

loose skin

sarah cook

51

j. jean teed

maybe showing up is how we own

difficulties like

or even

the sound each one resists

we swallow it

in

days of the week

to

order make

the weather

or maybe

sarah cook

52

j. jean teed

i just fucked up all the energy

to resemble

going & not going & where toward

lines coming out of our hair

but i will attempt to say to you

things getting longer

or

less like

balls of

floorboard

leaning carefully from my apartment

sarah cook

53

j. jean teed

our pockets

as though thinking ahead or

maybe feeling

useful / loving

about to be displaced & also while i

am thinking this i am feeling

something other than

of greater

step children

twirling

something pressing at my

back

maybe

sarah cook

54

j. jean teed

appointments lately

are like

i am a scene

sitting down to hold each other

& you are my

schedule

as we multiply

breathing through limbs the woman

like water

by the parts she

that just sit

is missing

sarah cook

55

j. jean teed

all we can think to explain is nobody

is just a slow pure form

no one has instinct

legs

kicking)

to trade to ignore

when

can’t feel

(no point in

your body the liquid shapes

of our own bones & muscles beginning to shuffle

meanwhile the woman still hasn’t responded

to those things

we change to nighttime

we make her cast off the drafts of her

mumbling beneath you

sarah cook

56

j. jean teed

from My Father is Li Gang Authors’ Note:

In 2010, Li Qiming, son of the deputy director of Baoding’s public security bureau, Li Gang, drove over two students at Heibei University while dropping off his girlfriend at her dorm. One student died, the other suffered from a fractured leg. When detained, Qiming reportedly told the arresting officers “Sue me if you dare, my father is Li Gang!” Shortly thereafter, the phrase “Li Gang is my father” began to represent a sense of entitlement and privilege; concepts that both reflect the underlying value of the self possessing a greater value than the other. By writing poems individually, then writing into each other’s work back and forth (again and again), the end product reveals our shared obsessions. However, the voice of these poems and the associative leaps that connect one idea to the next are separate from that of Matthew or myself. Although the backstory of Li Qiming and Li Gang might add to these poems, the real focus here is more universal: these poems are about responsibility. Whether for our own actions or for the creation of something separate from us, these poems emphasize the space that divides our actions from their outcomes.

matthew conley

57

jamison crabtree

Deliver Us Not Into Evil (Matthew) Flay the good from the skeleton and feed it to the turtles; flip them on their backs and they’ll stay for years.

I want you to want me like that. Lash the skeleton together; shove the skull into the jellyfish and tell me it’s dancing.

Better, tell me it’s us. Your hair tentacular. The body sinks, the mouth shuts; the body rises, the jaw drops. The travelled routes welting up. Your presence is sharp like that. No, this is not evil, it is worse—even looking startles. Not looking too.

If we knew how to be good, we would still not be good.

If we knew how to be good, we would still not be good.

Nettle-bonneted, the skeleton drifting towards you in the dark; it glows with thought. This is not evil. This is not you.

Here, Shiva appears with joybuzzers in every one of her hands.

The agency of jellyfish: begging come close, closer, be closed.

matthew conley

58

jamison crabtree

Lead Us Not Into Temptation (Luke)

Dear chum: you may ask why. Yes, You should; but o no nono nonono I mustn’t not no answer—Us not, o sentimental gangster— for, with tapping fingers, you recall the urnot. When I say tyrannosaurus rex, little fiend, don’t think tyrannosaurus sex. You must not-- (tiny arms trying to remove a tie) must not at all.

What would be best, in this instance, requires an odeum and good light-- a reenactment of the polite fight, a civil war, as performed by cats in gray and dogs in blue. There should be a man with a pistol. Think of peccaries, the mug shots of celebrities, the abbreviated plot of north by northwest (a man mans). Don’t you see the man with the gun standing behind me? The inevitable devastation that first tailed the yes. . . and spat the dinosaurs to oil. Take.

You father,

L— G—

matthew conley

59

jamison crabtree

My Father (Thy Will) Li Gang sparks speech far too southerning; sleeps in the salt mines and whispers to the moon through the shaft. With its gigantic ears, the moon listens. I will be the moon, Gang. Gang, not so gung-ho, could be loved. So, less a flickering than a shimmer: the red-mouthed beasts with moth breasts, beating at the bright, snicker. Light floods old Fords, decimal points, the countless fields of irrational numbers. Waterloo too— if it meant the meat slipt off the moon; he might put on the rags and dance. He would be better; would be the swollen river. Swell. He will be. Pal, this is not for unreal: that which is not true does not heal. Also, that which is true does not heal. Li Gang fires a .22 into the stars and invents the stars; cooks starlight on oleander, pokeweed, odollam fire. Gang has been eight years old for the past three decades. Next year is coming slow; if I didn’t tell you anything, I lied. The river is my father. The river is coming for you.

matthew conley

60

jamison crabtree

Our Father With a pistol in mind, ammo in hand, we drank bullets until the until never arrived. Dawn never cracked or broke, it splintered. A plurality of raptor calls and the screams of insects. What are you doing. We are loading our guns, in case of a duel or in case we want to shoot them at things or in case we want to hide the slugs somewhere where they may not be remembered. After we emptied the whiskey, we emptied the plum wine. After: pristine bottles of beer and then dented cans of the same, mouthwash, trough water, the gasoline from out of the belly of the rust-pocked truck. The cows refused to return home while we chased bullets with air. If we wanted to stop, we couldn’t.

They sent letters from abroad, speaking of Paris and snails and turtle dumplings and the unending lists of slaughter. We didn’t want to stop.

matthew conley

61

jamison crabtree

Couvade A love note written on the outside of a rolling paper with flowers to follow.

A love note chiseled into marble, marking an occasion.

A love note tattooed so low on your back, you’ll never be able to read it.

A love note spraypainted in tiny letters for miles throughout the mission district.

A love note crayon-plummed like “There is only one location of the heart, and it is somewhere near the heart.”

A love note, rusting next to rain-dinged glass that reads “I am an out-of-place abomination.”

A love note he-manic that smells like legs right-out-of-the-b-o-x.

A love note with Ms. Pac-man chomping at the chains of Jacob Marley.

A love note that redirects the automatic watering system back from away from next to the spot from near my heart.

A love note that rides the bounce pass with its hat in the area, hollering American’t and crying into the hoop.

A love note thrown to the back of the throat and never seen again.

A love note written in lick-a-stick dust next to the body with a bag around its head.

A love note mustachioed with questions.

A love note that doesn’t state anything like “Are people from Louisiana Louisianians, or Lous?”

A love note that’s exactly 140 characters.

A love note hidden in the moo goo gai pan pan.

A love note for culpability, shame, the adoration of beasts and their beautiful weddings.

A love note belted out the rhomboid side of a beaten oboe.

A love note on the left side of the billboard, hidden under or under the detournement.

A love, not in bootprints through dirty snow or a saltlick left out through the monsoon of eighthundred-and-seventy-seven love notes too many.

In letters home, I remind my father that he is my father.

matthew conley

62

jamison crabtree

An Experiment from &c&c&c&c&c&c&c&c&c

Alice sat quietly filling space.

zoe addison

63

cynthia spencer

zoe addison

64

cynthia spencer

zoe addison

65

cynthia spencer

zoe addison

66

cynthia spencer

zoe addison

67

cynthia spencer

She sat motionless in the glass where nobody could see her, the want passing through.

If she did not think, not even move her little finger or an eyelash, or an eyeball or a nail, or a little toe or hair on her head by the wind, or a twitchy intestine, or anything at all, really, she might feel better.

zoe addison

68

cynthia spencer

Perhaps this knowledge did not perform as she had planned.

zoe addison

69

cynthia spencer

The Local Insomniac’s Tower of Guesses, or: Constant Responses For Salem, Amen.

For Salem, Amen. My heart recompensed for the flames that devoured the body, and then, the pain that arises, the blood compromises, the sound of a scream that a whisper surprises.

Organ-ises seeing miser weeping Pfizer penders in early morning benders of whatever tropics can substance you through. Could be life but entirely new. Could see the bones sticking from your chest.

Could take the first hit and leave the rest. Upset and undressed or unfresh and yawning, hold it against me, smolder, and let’s see, stayed up to see what the sun would do and then it

dawned on me.

Beaching at six, sunrise cocktail illegally in public loading space fire lane, no fires for fifteen years, sixteen years ago such goul lumpy gourd squash bashed for creepers crepes and and for the romantically upset. up and upset. And un for the unfortunate local insomniacs (in great apology): zzZZz z cartoon memories hung on rusty hinges, silly brashness crudeness and overtness. like clung and thrown confetti, swept up and thrown into a trashbin before coffee; hurray! hurray hurray! the excitement is over folks! the glutton has shared! as if to suggest otherwise so concerned by his obvious lightheart and jolly and its aura of arbitrary and false though presumed heathenry, so totally worn, so totalsili, and so why not try again later :))))))) :) ?

Fell asleep like I’d been drinking. Is a smile the same when it constitutes a “truth?”

I am thinkin’ ‘bout the mountains north, I am longing for the deserts south, I am practicing abstaining even when I’ve got a dry mouth. And I hope to up my hardiness, go without water for more than a few minutes, or run through the night with no shoes on, close my eyes and dive deep into any lake that comes up on my right, stretching out like the moon-line over the water, I peeked through my eyelids and saw out much farther; a silver line flanked by seemingly endless

black, and the surface looked just like a skunks back.

So you can’t see this? If not why am I asking? I’ll say it anyway,

(will you feel a buzz at least?) I’ve lost four phones to the wide jaws of the porcelain beast.

(Loyalty to my phone ebbs and flows). The nude luddite filled his fists with electronics and

dipped his arms into the sea-foam.

cat ries

70

noah witt

The sea-foam responded flaccid and told the naked luddite that he ought to take his concerns to a foam who isn’t so tired. I can see it if I hold it awkwardly at a light source and squint while praying to Satan about it. Everything else seems to work. This is my first wound by the thrown, but your veteran status eases me so much. Though indeed since otherwise wait because bashful but ever standing low-point excite. Tether standalone please? Knowing timed rotating hymen meow through between mattress unabridged version. Vietnam ever once soot gothic veracity polite playful longer than a pigeon.

ILLUMINATE ME! Lamplight to my text screen. Keep the bag always for to double steep my tea. Sunscreen smells like peonies, a thunder storm so pleases me, take my hand baby lets see how deep the darkness goes. The void is calling all to soft, like watching cops with the sound off.

I’m shorter in my stocking socks with blood as red as rose. Going soft when you say please, when bashful cheeks flush to pink and light up bright against a surface smooth as creamer moon.

June faded into blooms, your perfume haunted me long after I saw the swaying of heaven’s gates opening toward me. But I gather the daisies in pop their heads off like a love-look from a greasy stain waiting at a truck stop.

Something then in the narthex bothers me, sitting in the back babies screaming trees wandering uprooted completely bipedal, multi armed with budlings which the babies use to teethe something more, could it, comma, let’s see: the altar sheds clothes on Monday after mass when the heathens gather to hands for a dance the trees rooted back as to keep religion alive for the maybe false hope of one sad prophetic guise. Sullenly unsatisfied mystic bunnies hop and fuck and look at the regular bunnies and each and all bunny look at the rabbits and nobody can find a hare because the word has dropped off, like such other community-bothered nocturnal predators and more innocent others and the innocent predator of the night and day depending on what pans out, depending on balls and heartbeating nipple which by god we hope you don’t see and frosted fingers like Tibet, so still thinking but frozen but I think sooner or never speech covered in Halloween ghost sheets might or might not or just maybe we’ll find it floating in a muddled whiskey drink.

Let’s dance you and I, take me out. My last partner drowned me in the dust of god’s footpowder.

Lotus shaped and rainbow snakin’, shake me baby like the lord crushes me (nothing feels better than an ego stroke followed by an ego choke.) stomped me flat and so I sink or hover like a winged thing and everything with wings is restless every moth I’ve seen is drunk (you mistake this outpost for the moon) and I forgot to say the thought I thunk. so is it the head that tries to suffer? is it your heart that hards my cock. hardon fire, heart on fire, a tall drink of water who’s glass perspires. and to be a leaf and love to fall, to peek some briefs in the bathroom stall, to feel the wind between my legs, on my back, in the grass, and wet as a pond. cat ries

71

noah witt

But lovely seeks as shallots stew straining liquid real life cartoon. My refrigerator sounds like a talkative spaceshift; speaking seaking nautilitic distorted sonar when I’m ripped, and so I’d love to sit quiet in the kitchen with your company to think what little things there are within the little dimensions below us; what songs do they sing and what word(s) do they use for ‘lung’ or ‘cringe’, what the fuck too tittle high strung, though tittle is my nonsense comic relief like lol. jk.

Into the kitchen sitting on the floor wine glass two times makes the cloudiest rhymes and I hope to see narnia past my fridge door, elves in the cupboards and faun hooves at my feet, this will never end cos I want more, yet my head feels so heavy on the soft of my bed for hours we

learn how a…

Au revior …whisper explores, like water on hot rocks or a stove top to a black pot your fire turns my water steamy kettles mouth starts a’screaming. and my cold bones need heating, so I do implore.

Dreams of doing hat-tricks on an attic mattress, gosh its fantastic to float like a spore.

[Please]

Continue

Please?

At the sign of politeness my heart feels the lightest like soft silly smiles sugar dappled and wild, wine cups I mentioned, but no booze did my tongue sink, but its far more poetic

to express a thought through a drink.

Lioness demoness priestess foggy mind sinking now gents and such in black caps and pink knickers washing their hairs and speaking their tongues winking and thinking of complicated things that are exciting, overriding, fingernail biting. God can see you too. Surely she sees me. I’m no good at hiding.

Fire and water I sang, like flame in the rain, star elemental science like dying star silence. and so what I mean, let me tell you something, your hooved archer done shot me (fire) and my

stinger subsided (water).

Exciting exciting indeed. God feels me//A wrought thinking wrinkled thought between clean sheets. Sweeeeet dreams.

Like star brings anise. And yeh I haz sum vurdkur and cheap brandy and pbr. cat ries noah witt 72

And dos for the local unfortunate “insomniacs” (in petrified tired, a soft animal sound): I’m still up and I want more sleep so what am I doing: outside the cloudy dawn thunderstorm groans for something different, for the people who recognize its uncanny impression of an hour ago in paris, and for those considering its weight. Lifted fuck. some shivering colloidal water dust specks up my nose and in my throat, don’t mind the blatantly appropriate or grammar, or whatever, through whatever, or friends through the devious first few feet of a very deep and fast river. Shown to light strick kit and cat heavy barbell get off my back the ugh and shifting flung far and the umbrella’d man with his lady in black… car. Wonder why I’ve gone to such extremes flinging my shit in gurgling out wondering why I think the neighborhood isn’t good enough without shit all over the place, but I walked inside pensive before they turned looks to anything more, thinking about how much aris is outside of what kind of rain qualifies any kind of international consideration and which sow took the blue ribbon this year at state fair and how many points did the DOW fluctuate yesterday and what about what goes on in our heads? late thoughts of nostalgic paris for misused reasoning, for cryptic runarounds, for a hand in hand-job jog through the drizzle which is still cold until you warm up or can sink into someone else. and from this to there is really just hmmm fuck I don’t think it is still (could be)… there. but hopes may too carry something themselves, my ceiling will leak on my head in ten minutes, such syndrome to break.

cat ries

73

noah witt

SET CHEESE

baron, jim leftwich

74

john m. bennett

Not This Mirror corn loot fires re volving the ,same prop erty combs the nose loss )algo por la dist ancia( wires afoot the stream pervasive “error” on camera radiation in the suit flowers ,bricks tur n the pages O yr pro noun sails yr itty shine’s concussion shroud !dan cer windup ,dothrough ,bog tour aspirin ,inscrut mir rored in your violation vou chers )“manglement dans les dit ches”( smaller dirt )))jumps into the pot((( ...background, smoking..

- Augen Konne

jim leftwich

75

john m. bennett

Mirror of Chicken Symmetry xent the spelling bonnet neglect the convosolution bunny ruins like beakons wind and insects ,frog shatter ,wages ,dice ,three eels in the molecular mask your ,skin ,burning ,elephant ,br eath loaf theater ,“im possible” advertising )foaming cook light( )the divine oatve( hacademia prolifio ,the new cat-hinge grease .poetic ,shovel the seas ,saus age-hat ,civilizatix )comm its gasoline( ruptured type writer alone at facts ,the piano ,remainders ,further investment ,iqgobqa ,not bus vac ,expla toothpick sees ,socia bes digres s ,choice bomb ,the char ts concura sud project ,deatb abors naih fight .engines .ressimultar cho eye abababan “the wire” oppos it sent “through” a )loudness( inscillato )dogs( PERFONES THE LOOBPS )garage dr ones( )their spel their ling their .............................. batch acceleration )fos sil sectors ,Compost Pat terns ,vertical hums the ,fire design

jim leftwich

arm 76

john m. bennett

Nor Fat Glue Yo sot hat shore’s ticky in the fog’s stult sloped pin detectant blender “blacker glans )shot ham sleeping in the ogoractic suit” )money dust asks mooniturian crust’s fake spin antipodes )yogurt(( belted flies ,spit the legs ,krilled dentist ripped the pelf o pus hand feral! ,user mud neighbor’s pee cock airy rage’s coffed :cripes!( blood aerial sty flowers ,assiduous pies o meatdock pants ,hum the glue ,beg the clapper’s hair gel ,sorta mute refused ,filed the dink thing’s ichthyous furnace stuffed with glass and corn ,densly born in musty slime

jim leftwich

77

john m. bennett

from Strokes of the Big Clock * Sky was made. Or, a particular sky they made. They mapped and clouded the sky, which darkened too quiet to walk through. They noised it with lights. It felt like falling and they flew to embrace it.

It, sky, flew too. They are all flying. A buffer covenant read: arch, look, and space will fill between. They took that this particular sky is all sky. And away it went with its weeping.

Particulates gathered in a smoke halo over their heads and they said: rings. They said: unfinished.

They thought: what’s this beginning. Again.

tony mancus

78

michael rerick

* The dormant birds were confused and had to be spoken to sternly. A patch of blue meant terrycloth morning, the kind man and woman stretched into remembering. Interpreted as inability to buttress their clocking of wing-beats, to saddle the not yet existence of airships, because air had yet to be, yet its serum was.

tony mancus

79

michael rerick

* For cooking they spoke the fire verb: oxygen. Inadvertently air was made and they breathed in, breathed out, breathed to each other. They called this cooking. They enflamed and their spittle sputtered into food. Sometimes this was thought.

They thought the great future cities into cooked. Dark sky parts lit and bird colors exploded into feathers falling. Sometimes this was worship. Sometimes this was lazing. There and out was thumbed but easily forgotten. Sometimes there were horsepits and circles full of oxygen.

When a wheel was struck between the chords of woman’s laughing, which could come from the fire verb, it became a commotion of skylike intensity. Though what this meant came closer to clouds. Man would stand and his head, always his reluctant head first entered into the space above them.

tony mancus

80

michael rerick

* Woman’s laughter at unfeeling, the littlest birds too close into the hearth, trained. Their hearts were skipped at architecture. Like rock, architecture trained their hearts. They built space for birds to buzz over inside the city. They asked “what if the villain grows like a stalk?” They say “the intimate parts of the hero and villain close in a pan of morning.”

That morning they remember all along a plan for remembering. This is the villain, this is the hero stuck out cold on the street: cook me a meal to remember, as it was on television, as it was on television as we remember it and the hero leaves the villain alone. This was the beginning of victory, a sour day victory.

tony mancus

81

michael rerick

* Crouching in the weeds they found amaranth, rocket, and shepherd’s purse for iron they formed into cooking. He said salt and she said pepper and dipped from the oil pool. He said supports and she said roof and they planted themselves by the roadside with bags from hot days in the Kitchen era. They say sale together, but business says no.

They whittle baskets content to carry a few mouthfuls of weeds. The stations of the yard loosen them and inside they lift a little from themselves, though not too far from each other. Our skulls, they say, are above us.

tony mancus

82

michael rerick

Tooth Grin from Stareways

click for audio

edwin r. perry

83

chelsea tadeyeske

A Single Human from Stareways

click for audio edwin r. perry

84

chelsea tadeyeske

b i o s Cisewski-Klassnik was born on a Megabus and spent its youth admiring Wisconsin columns and narwhal statues. one afternoon it read to itself in an empty bookstore. bifurcated, it is the author of Upon Arrival, Holy Land, Ghost Fargo, and The Moon’s Jaw.......................Christine McNair’s work has appeared in cv2, Prairie Fire, ditchpoetry.com, Arc, the Bywords Quarterly Journal, Descant, and assorted other places. Her first collection of poems Conflict, appeared with BookThug in spring 2012. She works as a book doctor in Ottawa, is one of the hosts of CKCU Lit Landscapes, and blogs at cartywheel.wordpress.com. Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, Rob Mclennan currently lives in Ottawa. The author of more than twenty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, he won the John Newlove Poetry Award in 2011, and his most recent titles are the poetry collections Songs for little sleep, (Obvious Epiphanies, 2012), grief notes: (BlazeVOX [books], 2012), A (short) history of l. (BuschekBooks, 2011), Glengarry (Talonbooks, 2011) and kate street (Moira, 2011), and a second novel, missing persons (2009). An editor and publisher, he runs above/ground press, Chaudiere Books (with Jennifer Mulligan), The Garneau Review (ottawater. com/garneaureview), seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics (ottawater.com/seventeenseconds) and the Ottawa poetry pdf annual ottawater (ottawater.com) He spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta, and regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices at robmclennan.blogspot.com........................Leslie Seldin lives in NYC; Deborah Schwartz lives in Boston. We began creating work together after befriending each other at the Juniper Summer Writing Institute at Umass Amherst. mostly interested in the ways we could play off each other’s language and form choices, a kind of word game of “catch,” we would go back and forth via email using a series of constraints, never looking back. The submission call to gritty silk created the impetus for us to review a few of our favorite poems and think about how to revise and rework the spontaneous gestures that we created over a year of working together without losing their playfulness. We hope they’re fresh!..........................Joe Milazzo is the author of The Terraces (Das Arquibancadas) (Little Red Leaves Textile Series, 2012). His writings have appeared most recently in (or at) Vinyl Poetry, Word Riot, The Bakery, Ghost Proposal, and SpringGun Press. Along with Janice Lee and Eric Lindley, he edits the online interdisciplinary arts journal [out of nothing] (http://www.outofnothing.org). Joe lives and works in Dallas, TX, and his virtual location is http://www.slowstudies.net/jmilazzo. Cody Ross Rex is a very good poet, novelist, and musician who has recently uprooted from Dallas all the way to Brooklyn.

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issue one

b i o s Zack Pieper and Mike Hauser picked these poems out of a pile from roughly ‘05-’09. Longtime creative compadres, they hail from Milwaukee where they are really good at keeping it real.........................

Krystal Languell, Becca Klaver, Hanna Andrews, JT Tamayo, Lily Ladewig, Emily Skillings, Caolan Madden, and Marisa Crawford comprise the poetry gang GIRL: Girls In Real Life. They meet monthly in New York City..........................Robin Brox, Michael Sikkema and mIEKEL aND were discovered in the ruins of the may-apples and deer vertebrae. They independently and collectively edit, write, host, curate, hassle, and happen in a tight sigil pattern around and across the Great Lakes. They accept both cash and checks............................Crystal Hartman is a multi-media artist, a writer and a jeweler. Her work has been shown at locations such as The National Palace of Culture, Sofia Bulgaria and the Center for Contemporary Culture Barcelona Spain. She received her BFA for Printmaking from The University of Colorado at Boulder and studied Image in Enamel at Ox-Bow, School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Rachel Mindell is an MFA candidate in poetry at the University of Montana originally from Tucson, Arizona. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in interrupture, Horse Less Review, EOAGH and Barn Owl Review. Crystal and Rachel shared a tall, skinny apartment together circa 2008 in Durango, Colorado they called “The Birdhouse.” They have been collaborating since, both in person and via the web. While Crystal was painting Temptation and Desire with her left hand, Rachel was trying to control the contents of the birdfeeder over Crystal’s right shoulder. While Rachel was writing this poem in Missoula, Crystal was making jewelry in Colorado with her dog Lola Honeydew..........................

Samandra Eardly is the chimera of Amanda Earl and Sandra Ridley who worked together on a collaborative manuscript called Eve, A Mere Roar, which was shortlisted for the 2011 Robert Kroetsch Innovative Poetry Award.” Eardly lives in a highalow in Ottawa..........................Chuck Stebelton and Cathy Cunningham met at the former Rainbo roller rink in Chicago. CC works with food and flowers for a living. CS works at Woodland Pattern Book Center. These lines were exchanged in their Riverwest apartment..............................Sarah Jackson and Chris Shipman spend most of their time attributing voices to their pets. When they get some time off from this tough job, Chris teaches lit and creative writing to highschoolers, and writes poetry about murderers and super mario bros, while Sarah makes video art, teaches performance studies, and works on her dissertation at Louisiana State University. Cat Poems: 17 Wompus Tales and a Play of Despair is forthcoming on kattywompus press.

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86

issue one

b i o s J.Jean Teed and Sarah Cook are just people proving to themselves that things are real. Feel free to do the same, to find something incredible.Their contribution is part of a larger collaborative work of poetry and correspondence that has yet to take its full clarity of form. Poems from this project are published or forthcoming in Drupe Fruits, Horse Less Review, and West Wind Review..............................

Matthew Conley and Jamison Crabtree were not Jamison Crabtree and Matthew Conley. Someone’s heart was in Tucson, someone’s body was in Las Vegas. There’s either a desert between those places or there’s a world between them; it’s dependent upon which way you go..........................“An Experiment” will be a part of &c&c&c&c&c&c&c&c&c, a forthcoming poetry hypertext collaboration between Cynthia Spencer and Zoe Addison, designed by Nevertext and to be published soon at (http:// etcetcetcetcetcetcetcetcetc.tumblr.com). Cats consider Cynthia Spencer and Zoe Addison excellent chairs........................Cat Ries and Noah Witt were once told by a fellow tripping on shrooms that their names sound like characters from a novel, but this could be said about anyone, really. Both in their early twenties, these friendlies live in Milwaukee and go to college (for literature&philosophy and film, respectively). They met through mutual friends at a tiki-bar, Noah sent the first text, Cat responded with a rhyming verse, and the two-way poetic highway hasn’t stopped since. Cat’s spirit guides consist of jaguar, owl, and swan. Noah’s spirit is an oak tree, his visions from ferns.........................Baron is a retired Art Educator. Currently a Visual Poet. Former Mail Artist (for 35 years.) Mail Art collections at Cleveland Public Library, Ohio and SUNY at Buffalo, NY. Work and collaborations also included in the Avant Writing Collection of the Libraries of Ohio State University, Library of theMuseum of Modern Art and The Japanese Museum of Contemporary Poetry. Jim Leftwich is a poet and mail artist who lives in Roanoke, Va. He is the author of Dirt, Doubt, Sample Example, The Textasifsuch, Death Text, Short Sorties, Shrimp Teeth, Trashpo, An Ecology, SO FOR BY, Lest Puke Due Machete of Art, and Six Months Aint No Sentence. Collaborative works include Sound Dirt, with John M. Bennett, Acts, with John Crouse, How To Dust A Bunny, with Jukka-Pekka Kervinen, iTopia, with Scott MacLeod, Fictions Deleted, with Steve Dalachinsky, Book of Numbers, with Marton Koppany, and THR3E, with Andrew Topel. He was the editor and publisher of the print magazines Juxta and Xtant from 1994 to 2005. since 2005 he has edited/compiled the blog zine, Textimagepoem, and the flicker collection, Textimagepoetry. Since 2008, he has been involved in organizing mail art, fluxus, sound poetry, visual poetry and noise events in Roanoke.

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b i o s John M. Bennett has published over 400 books and chapbooks of poetry and other materials. Among the most recent are rOlling COMBers (Potes & Poets Press), Mailer Leaves Ham (Pantograph Press), Loose Watch (Invisible Press), Chac Prostibulario (with Ivan Arguelles; Pavement Saw Press), Historietas Alfabeticas (Luna Bisonte Prods), Public Cube (Luna Bisonte Prods), The Peel (Anabasis Press), Glue (xPress(ed)), Lap Gun Cut (with F. A. Nettelbeck; Luna Bisonte Prods), Instruction Book (Luna Bisonte Prods), la M al (Blue Lion Books), Cantar Del Huff (Luna Bisonte Prods), Sound Dirt (with Jim Leftwich; Luna Bisonte Prods), Backwards (Blue Lion Books), Nos (Redfox Press), D Rain B loom (with Scott Helmes; xPress(ed)), Changdents (Offerta Speciale), L Entes (Blue Lion Books), NOS (Redfoxpress), SPITTING DDREAMS (Blue Lion Books), ONDA (with Tom Cassidy; Luna Bisonte Prods), 30 Dialogos Sonoros (with Martín Gubbins; Luna Bisonte Prods), Banging the Stone (with Jim Leftwich; Luna Bisonte Prods), Faster Nih (Luna Bisonte Prods); RREVES (Editions du Silence); Neolipic (Argotist); Las Cabezas Mayas/Maya Heads (Luna Bisonte Prods); Balam Malab (Logan Elm Press); La Vista Gancha (Luna Bisonte Prods); The Sock Sack/Unfinished Fictions/More Inserts (with Richard Kostelanetz; Luna Bisonte Prods); T ICK TICK TIC K (Chalked Editions and White Sky Books); Visual Poetry: El Humo Letrado: Poesía En Español (Chalk Editions; 2nd ed. White Sky Books); Zabod (Tonerworks); Textis Globbolalicus (3 vols.; mOnocle-Lash Anti-Press); Nitlatoa (Luna Bisonte Prods); Ohio Grimes And Misted Meanies (with Ben Bennett, Bob Marsh, Jack Wright; Edgetone Records); SUMO MI TOSIS (White Sky Books); Correspondence 1979-1983 (with Davi Det Hompson; Luna Bisonte Prods); The Gnat’s Window (Luna Bisonte Prods); Drilling For Suit Mystery (with Matthew T. Stolte; Luna Bisonte Prods); Object Objet (with Nicolas Carras; Luna Bisonte Prods); Caraarac & El Título Invisible (Luna Bisonte Prods); Liber X (Luna Bisonte Prods; Cuitlacochtli (Xexoxial Editions); and Block (Luna Bisonte Prods). He has published, exhibited and performed his word art worldwide in thousands of publications and venues. He was editor and publisher of Lost and Found Times (1975-2005), and is curator of the Avant Writing Collection at The Ohio State University Libraries. Richard Kostelanetz has called him “the seminal American poet of my generation”. His work, publications, and papers are collected in several major institutions, including Washington University (St. Louis), SUNY Buffalo, The Ohio State University, The Museum of Modern Art, and other major libraries. His PhD (UCLA 1970) is in Latin American Literature.....................tmr were borned on opposite shores in different months and years. tmr have published chapbooks (tm=3, mr=2) and one full length book of poetry (tm=0, mr=1). tmr met in poeming school and have held numerous occupations including but not limited to: maintenace, gas station attendant, forklift operator, school child, drink consumer, pizza flicker, ticket collector, painter, lifter of papers, saw tooth puncher. tmr lives in rosslyn virginia and tucson arizona..................Edwin R. Perry and Chelsea Tadeyeske are making this brief, so they can fit nicely at the very end of the page.

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images by chelsea tadeyeske .............................................. compiled and designed by chelsea tadeyeske and edwin r. perry between mke, wi and ox, oh ........................... summer 2013 ............... pitymilk press ...... pitymilkpress@gmail.com pitymilkpress.wordpress.com

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