T V
H E
E G
L I T E R A R Y M A G A Z I N E
T V
H E
E G
L I T E R A R Y M A G A Z I N E
fall 2017
vol. 14 no. 1
The Veg Literary Magazine is funded by the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) of McGill University. The content of this publication does not necessarily represent the views of the AUS or McGill University. veg.magazine@gmail.com facebook.com/thevegmagazine twitter.com/veg_mag printing by
contents
Dear Fall Reader, All morning the same thing. The same old memory from yesterday bleeds in. Today’s cloudy start is wetted, soaks through. The poems in the old purple book are old, old, old, old. Read them. A new yellow leaf from this tree here has just fallen onto a head or a chunk of broken cement. It is waiting to be pressed. A summer passed and how far have we walked? Who did we photograph on the street? How loud and distinct those big summer raindrops are, even in the shower. Even now. The brown of the room we’ll peel into to share something is certain. Less so, the long glance between its doors. November a spy, less deliberate than the November picture makes it seem. This edition of our magazine offers a taste of dexterity— so unlike the messy Tuesdays we must plough through. We editors found something magnetic, stuck it on another magnet, stuck it on another magnet, brought it to the printer, and here we are, learning about layers. The Veg is lucky to receive and to pass things on. The Veg ladder is the one that leads to the cool part of the roof. Where the tiles lay flat and grainy. Where hands can grab on and move and see the new view.
emily hoppe
cover
gossamery in water
emily hoppe
inside cover
lulu lebowitz
5
mw jaeggle
6
the clinic
lulu lebowitz
7
adriatic
will crosson
8
a.s. krause
9
danijela stojkovic
10
la guajira mimicry
under the mile end underpass figrose
Take this rung then that one, Emily M + The Veg
nesselwang
Editors: Adam Eldred Jason Gales Emily Hoppe Sam Kessler Maia Klee Lulu Lebowitz Emily Mernin Joe Mulholland Zoe Shaw Sean Sokolov
roberto palma, the sensational love-poet
louis sanger
11
tourists taking a break...
nina chabel
14
i climbed on a rooftop...
nina chabel
15
lulu lebowitz
16
san cristobal
claire avisar
17
mw jaeggle
18
emily hoppe
19
evan j
20
claire avisar
21
louise hill
22
lulu lebowitz
24
danijela stojkovic
25
blue sky
a.s. krause
26
untitled (modern22)
ruby thelot
27
molly pepper steemson
28
home from the barber stool: t.s. eliot’s lost telegram fßssen a poem for the bagel-master happy hour i live in a church motorcycle wax-bloom
start driving forward
la guajira
lulu lebowitz
5
mimicry Today, walking down Acadie saw falcon lodge beak into poor starling, tear the song-tired tendons. Turned to companion’s face: no expression lodged, though semblance to scene striking.
the clinic
lulu lebowitz
mw jaeggle 6
7
adriatic When the basement flooded we lamented as the water rose to our ankles but at least we could dip our feet and pretend we were at the beach. We found ourselves wading by June while we waited for the power to come back, reading books on amphibians as our joints found relief in buoyancy. Our faces grew red and our necks long from the constant stretch for air. Salt filled pores makes for crystal skin, callus kin, and a slipping sense of wear. You couldn’t swim and so I said, let me sink and be your rock, reunited with the wet my body could breathe and finally I realized this was always meant to happen. Determination brought us to land and determination sent us back to be swallowed by the sea.
under the mile end underpass
will crosson 8
9
a.s. krause
figrose
roberto palma, the sensational love-poet
pressed and liquified, petals unfreeze in the shower. the fifth of may, twenty-seventeen, is dissolvable only by sugary musk, it seems an old friend gifted me the fig soap. the rose oil was a treat from a roadtrip with my mother. i am the mist and the scent is the body swaying in the steam, materializing. tonight i imagine my skin between your teeth could yield some sweet mythology some casual gnosticism
1.
nice. but the figrose and me, just steeping, is nicer.
danijela stojkovic 10
Roberto Palma, known for his lyrical odes, thought Buenos Aires was painfully dull. Fifteen years ago, he had composed several wildly successful poems dedicated to “that eternal and shining monument that we call home, the holy city of good air.” But those poems were far behind him, and, he told himself, Buenos Aires was just like a woman- one who could hold his attention no longer than she could resist him. These women, Palma claimed, he loved: fully, completely and eternally. Their features he captured effortlessly, swimming through their embraces and reaching out to grasp their essence. He like to tell his fellow poets that he survived on bottled essence. As Roberto Palma made love, he composed his poems. He admired the women’s faces- the way their lips curled beneath his, the stray hairs that fell across their eyes, and sometimes (if he was lucky) the freckles that spread across their cheeks, falling off their noses. When he was finished making love, Roberto would mutter an excuse as he tied his belt, and go home to write his poem. He never saw his lovers more than once, but most of their poems became local sensations. 2. Valentina Suarez’s distinguishing feature was her wrists. The delicate, effortless way her arm flowed into her elegant hands reminded Roberto Palma of a small stream, passing through a surprisingly deep part of a canyon. The water would rest for a minute, move slightly slower, as if catching its breath after a difficult route through stones and twigs and whatever else was in streams. That’s where her poem will start, Roberto thought as he kissed her hand, in a country stream catching its breath. Roberto and Valentina had met that evening at a reading. Roberto had been asked to perform three of his old poems- those he had dedicated to Buenos Aires. As he read, he scanned the audience. His eyes rested on Valentina and he decided that he 11
must talk to her as soon as he was finished his reading. He approached her, they spoke briefly at the party, but Valentina was as aware as Roberto of the inevitable outcome of their conversation. They both found themselves in Valentina’s apartment only fifty minutes after Roberto had finished his reading. Roberto was kissing her entire body, silently examining the curves and edges, the spots and the tiny hairs, hardly visible, that covered her entire body. In his head, he was composing a poem. Lines appeared, morphed, grew, shrunk, and rearranged themselves within a strict metre that he had imposed on his writing since he was eighteen. 3. The sex that Valentina and Roberto had did not last long. Roberto was back at home with an hour to spare before his usual bed-time. On the walk home, he continued his composition. He had something special this time, he thought. Valentina had been unlike any girl he had slept with before. Her body was beautiful, yes, but there was something else too. Roberto knew her poem would be a success. When he got home, he sat down at his old wooden desk and lit a cigarette. His desk was covered in layers upon layers of papers, some with poems, others with drawings. He began to write down what he had composed. The canyon there is deep, the stream slows down / it looks around and breaths; the dusty air / has cleared. Palma read over what he had written. For him, this was always the most difficult point: turning his metaphors back to his lovers. He wasn’t satisfied with what he had written. He scratched out a few words and replaced them. He read it aloud this time, hoping his voice (as it usually did) would lend the poem an air of legitimacy. The poem was good, no doubt. Perhaps even one of his best. The lines Palma had written flowed beautifully from one to the next. He had skillfully manipulated the language to incorporate the most beautiful words he knew. This was Roberto Palma’s great gift to poetry. Over his career, he had exploited at least a thousand adjectives and given them new roles and habitats in the female body. Reading his poem, Palma knew he’d have to rewrite it. As good as it was, it wasn’t about Valentina. 12
4. Before he fell asleep at his desk, cigarette still burning in his ashtray, Roberto Palma had written nine drafts of Valentina’s poem. They lay scattered around the room. Some of them good, some of them great, they would go on to become his most well-known works. Palma had despaired at reading all of them. He was unable to capture Valentina; her essence was not apparent to him. Roberto awoke with the same sense of despair. He picked up each of his nine drafts and read through them once more. They disgusted him. He had taken Valentina and perverted her. The women he described in those poems were beautiful apparitions, but not Valentina. He collected the poems in an old folder and put them on his desk. Lighting a cigarette, he stepped outside. He walked from one end of Buenos Aires to the other. On his way, as usual, he was stopped by several admirers. Every one of them praised his poetry, and his particular ability to capture the essence of love through the exploitation of language. A great despair filled Roberto as he returned home. He could smell the nine rotten drafts that he had left on his desk. 5. Once home, Roberto Palma had taken his best pen and written, in large flowery letters on the folder that held his nine drafts: “here is the rough work, and in the bedroom is the final copy.” In his bedroom, the police found the famous poet lying in a pool of dark red blood, a clean hole from his mouth to the crown of his head, and his father’s old revolver in his hand. Rough Work, originally published as evidence in the investigation, became a national bestseller within the month. Fans from around Argentina would later begin reciting those nine poems over his gravestone in La Recoleta Cemetery, Buenos Aires. The epitaph read “Roberto Palma, the sensational love-poet. 1964-2003.”
louis sanger 13
tourists taking a break, sitting on a red velvet bench. i think they were in love. nina chabel
14
i climbed on a rooftop with a boy to try and fall in love. it did not work. nina chabel
15
home There will be a day when you will look at the moon and not wish that you were Neptune, her edges quietly subsumed into the squid ink sky. You will see the galaxy with dimensions (for its purples and its greys) and you will be able to separate the colour of his eyes from the drops on your thighs, from the blue of your skin. You will buy groceries, call your mom on the walk home. it will be a Tuesday.
san cristobal
lulu lebowitz
claire avisar 16
17
from the barber stool: t.s. eliot’s lost telegram I must concede greasepaint looks fitting above this adopted lip Really quite becoming on this old possum Well worth the itchy wait the hiding My god the Tramp was on to something
fĂźssen
emily hoppe
mw jaeggle 18
19
a poem for the bagel-master
happy hour
This was a poem for a bagel-master, a ring-tosser. These were silly lines about a breakfast baker,
Fried tofu, oh fried tofu, if you didn’t stick to my thighs like velcro weight, I’d eat you on the daily.
a man who kneads off remorse and a night’s rum. Now this is for a Gatineau girl who flirts with intros, a teen who starves to draw faces. Esquisser. This needs edits.
It must be pure irony that we were brought together tonight, for our love is most times lost on devotion to the green and the leafy.
It’s a French slur on the s that snags, blurs her age. Lips plastic rose, artificial sweeteners, a metaphor. The smells of booze and stale chesterfield. No emotions but sex. She tells him “in the morning, you have sandwich eyes.” He tells her “when I was born, giants walked the earth.” Bullshit small talk on life and clouds crackle to ash.
Fried tofu, oh fried tofu, it’s not you who would betray be? Crisp, weightless sides could not lie except upon the scale.
He admires lines and thighs. Myopic. Likely too young. She pencils faces under a dragon. Compunction. Coy word choices. But it ends. There’s a bus to catch and patrons. Commotions. A sketch to be made of the bagel-master, the Pilipino with Popeye forearms flicking two-by-fours like chopsticks in the kiln. —the second quote is from a poem by Carla Harryman
claire avisar
evan j 20
21
i live in a church
III.
some millionaire bought and sliced into sellable quarters. Now me and some citizens get to spend our bodies in it.
When I moved in there was a picket line. Some things are holy said the pamphlet in hand and crumpled and thrown in the closet.
Up in the gallery where the absent organ used to be I count my blessings. The poor guy above has to sleep pressed up against God.
I find it now and smooth it. It looks like what I’d look like inside-out.
Nothing happens. I wait for the walls to bleed. II. Last night I found a girl and led her by the wrist and to the ready but her naked back caught the stained-glass patterns lit up by the streetlights and moon so all I could do was lay my hands soft beneath those colours and make them ripple until she slid from under and padded out spiked heels in hand.
louise hill 22
23
wax-bloom the plum sits on the bedside table. it sits differently than it did on the car hood in that story this time it casts a plum shadow that drips down the corner just an inch above the floor. outside the open window there are footsteps made by a train. glassy against a half - plum horizon like envelope sealant waiting for a tongue the sounds are an open lament to all things russet and tender so a plum shadow cleaves through the corner with a quiet crackling nothing but the muffled pop of a skull inside a plum whose shadow is just a body without skin.
motorcycle
lulu lebowitz
danijela stojkovic 24
25
untitled (modern22) modern life ain’t no living it’s absurdities layered atop each other like a kafkian baklava paradoxes about water consumption condensation and displacement in the cities dreaming about downtown always thinking about dad
blue sky
a.s. krause
his robe mom’s actually taking out the trash on a september morning four large black bags heavy like baby bears in front of his house his property each year richer with its value increaing dad wants me to have a lawn i can mow and a house whose value increases but i couldn’t give a damn about grass
ruby thelot 26
27
start driving forward [for DJ Taylor]
Bright morning, a verge in Kensal green: we bask in the glow of your burning flesh. We are small, but like you, brilliant white grit poured in a little velvet bag. We pour into the car. Our driver’s stone face cracks; laughing at a button that makes a partition go down, and up, and down all laughing but you, little sack in the ground.
molly pepper steemson 28