All rights to the works included in this magazine remain with their respective authors. All rights to this issue’s cover art (“At the Bowery Hotel,” 2010) remain with the artist Rin Johnson. Zoomoozophone Review is an online literary magazine dedicated to publishing contemporary poetry. It is edited by Matt Margo. http://issuu.com/zoomoozophone_review http://facebook.com/zoomoozophonereview zoomoozophone@gmail.com
Our eleventh issue is dedicated to the memory of Suzanne Pearman, whose spirit persists in the cloudgate.
John M. Bennett eaeasy
7
Ojo Taiye #when you don’t return phone calls #untitled
8 9
Darren C. Demaree blue and blue and blue #5 blue and blue and blue #6
10 11
Thomas Fucaloro List of possible tattoos / that are metaphors / for past/passed / lovers
12
Jeff Bagato Ampersand Abracadabra A Nickel in the Sun
13 16
Ace Boggess It Came from Outer Space The Man from Planet X
18 19
Nathan Stapleton didnt really get into star trek when i was younger facebook rebranding/young man/birthday wishlist/video game shirt deconstructed dream poem
20 21 22
Texas Fontanella and Jim Leftwich Untitled Collaboration
23
Texas Fontanella Untitled Erasure Sequence Dear Ronald Reagan
24 44
Hugh Tribbey NADINE HE SCRATCHES ROOSTING IO #17 PHL
45 46 47
billy bob beamer POME fragm / epres si a rt / tau dp4 / for matt margo POMEupfr.pocketsleep POMEdifeinea
48 49 50
Daniel Y. Harris and Irene Koronas Excerpt from Exergue IX (Lines 44-57)
51
Jeff Harrison The Bishop
52
John Pursch Panda Outhouse Tourniquet Ballgame Blink Blue Clue Concavity
53 54 55
Sanjeev Sethi Death of a Friend Offbeat
56 57
Shane Allison Great Events of the Year Personalities and Favorites Fireworks
58 59 60
Mark Young glancings
61
Sean Burn (anne) carson (jenny) holzer linder
62 63 64
Sergio A. Ortiz Wind Son
65
Volodymyr Bilyk Untitled
66
Joseph Randolph Two Excerpts from SUM
68
Orion Centauri Night Terrors: Parts I, II, & III Hobbies are for the Living
70 71
Katie Hitt anchor problems pompano dreams
72 73
Rin Johnson TO O RE: YOUR LETTER It must have been Sara who saved the kittens.
74 75
Clara B. Jones The only Spanish word she knew was buenas When should I tell my doctor about the pain?
76 77
Kristina England Walking through Rain Fog at Lake Quannapowitt
78
Contributors
79
easy to say your laundered name when you forget it easy to cross the street when the sky empties its eyes easy to climb the steps when the car’s on fire easy to fire the gun when the lake rises to your face easy to comb your arm when the window breaks easy to break a leg when lunch walks in your mouth easy to dry a log in the attic covered with ants easy to tear your shirt when the trees are boiled for soup easy to paint a photo and bury the mirrored frame easy to drip and cough when the shadow returns easy to grind the faucet when the fridge lights up like a torch easy to blow your nose and number the rings you’ve lost easy to think the mattress where your dream forgets its socks easy to count the sky where the aspirin sleeps easy to take it easy when the phone stops ringing in the room next door
bathtub mush with suds of tawdry sex burnt stubs incessant coughs and tears adjacent creased bed spreads a pig snorting a body arches pelting waters ritual soaps puffs from rusty pipes strangles the images of a father who went out of town not before ploughing leaving a damage goods in a sea walking on piers of fire each sunrise until a pit of pots swallow the last flicker of you
wreaths to a yawning soil weave a new song for a dying corn beneath gaudy dreams: dressed sores malignant growth on memory’s skin rasped veined flowers voyage to the moon there is a chattel where water flows in broken tongues where toads growl elegy of a sinuous night on the hill of a woman sing a moonless clan would survive the sun caterwaul a drench wind would survive the scourge
how terrible that you never allow the wind to touch your cemetery; what accident do you fear?
i was born far enough away that i believed you had control of your tongue; how ugly it slaps against & over the tide while i attempt to dream of holding anything at all
1. A tornado, a hillside, the sun, paused. 2. Pictures of body parts. 3. Lots of ghosts. Ghosts and... 4. ...other poets’ words. 5. Math equations that make no sense. 6. Blades. Eyelashes. The color blue. 7. A planet shaped like a fist. 8. Birthdates 9. of children 10. we will never have. 11. Dolphins. 12. An ocean, a moon, a gentle sway.
blah blah blah yadda de nada blah blah If you must follow procedure when you leap off the building onto 20th Street, fly the bird at the IMF on the way down They never look out their windows, at Ecuador defaulting & refusing to pay, & Bolivia’s citizens reclaiming their water rights from the great fathers of blah blah; plus those pirates round the Horn now grabbing spoils like gold bubble gum machines & party balloons & the applause of millions, yo ho; like Blackbeard reincarnated with dreadlocks & red soccer shorts to stand in a rough hewn fishing skiff commanding a swarm of rubber dinghies to attack in the people’s name
for voting rights & fishing rights & public airwaves rights & the right to the market free & clear of the debtor’s noose Now along those airwaves & across that water & looming over the market, a voice of reason speaks slow from ship’s radio the terms of surrender, buzzing like horseflies on a dish of corn syrup:
blah
blah, blah blah blah blah—
No sir, says pirate king, black as the night, red as the night, white as the night, golden as the moon, bright bright as the sun & a big dipper full of stars— thanks anyway, but keep your encyclopedia, your diploma, your stripes & your bars; we undo your deeds; we unwrite your writing; we illogic your logos; your briefs & treaties we translate thus: blah blah yo ho ho
But keep ‘em coming as we need more wipe for the crapper, more kindling for the fires It’s a cruel world for the white paper elite right, right right now, holding the blah blah body bag & looking so shovel ready in the bright frijole dawn
In the back of an Escalade a nickel lies baking in the sun; carpet smell exhausting into air, making it like— Gosh, I’ve got a tiger in my tank The engine repeats a quick sound: tick tick tick and click— boom— be bop be bop be bop The sweet music of cash register devouring my credit card as sharp teeth fang down to emboss double holes like that bad Dracula jonesing for a plastic fix— Now buzzing hard, he flaps huge leather wing’d cape, prancing toes pointed out & hovering just above the linoleum, just above wine-blushed synthetic fleece exhausting its own gas vapors into midnite wild air
The tiger too dancing a butterfly path around the count, around the night, around the nickel, hot & so worthless useless seen through safety glass & the burned air of a plastic sun
Universal International Pictures, 1953 we can’t make them out blurry specters through a window of smoked glass they resemble broccoli inside a gelatin cube somehow this frightens more its aptitude in uncertainty of the closed casket or what’s behind beige furry curtains encircling a sick room what dread minds create to make a morbid wax museum fun whereas an empty home sings shivers when the power dims at 2 a.m.
Mid Century Film Productions, 1951 has a face like brittle cheese pitted in places soft in the center behind his faux-glass helmet where the gases flow there’s always fog on the Scottish moor in movies a clichÊ like how all starlets stun makes for the perfect place to probe by a scouting party of one dime-store monster with sad eyes a friend to those that draw their angles right this was years before E.T. when no mere lumpeyed outer-spaceman ever brought with him anything but hurt
Though I have tried switching it off, on and around, my viagra advertisement still isn’t working class. I’ve attended the 12 direct action meetings suggested by the autocomplete function, but without the capital punishment my football club insists on, the publishing house I set fire on will continue to market it’s crashing and burning as a publicity stunt. So, for each child in your household appliance, extract the influence of Picasso and Brecht. You should end with roughly seventeen examples. Now if you’ll just send them to Locked Bag 1235, North Melbourne VIC 3051, we’ll get thrown away immediately. To avoid this, acknowledge Stalin works in mysterious ways to save money: make money. Now accept my friend request is not available in this context. Who keeps saying that Mr. Glasses over there cannot be trusted, — I saw him do it again! And so again we switched it off, on and around, but nothing happened again. “Is it going to be okay to get the money?” “Yeah, but we’ll need a nice showdown on how —“ to adjust the public record, right-click here. Now, wasn’t that easy? Oops! Time to doctor your weapons and give us twenty bucks. Here, take this card. You’ll need it to meat me outside the voice-to-text generator, where we’ll fight them for Beyonce’s shingled ladies, a few dollars more, and land on the beach for a pint together after. Then we’ll cut that scene, filter it through the lens provided by my neoliberal arts degree, pepper-spray it with deregulation, 1984 and the spirit of Hegel before finally chucking it into the Blender animation Andy Warhol’s state commissioned. It should come out clean as an epistle. As for the buzz cola, well, we’re currently out of stock market crises. How about an extra large smoothie, on da haus?
No, he escapes soy noodles, Topical numbness delights luddites, Sin palaces sin palaces. He scratches only one sin, Plums in colliding pajamas; Eel phones notice helium tornados. Nadine names a Bosco sin; Tragic demi-photoshops, Silence lost liberated sin. Jammin’ sins lechers consume. Monsters notice stars. Gaunt cons unite Visible coma in muddled algae. Quiet mothers salivate tunes, Emit nabob remorse. Red mango jelly Quite scorches my simmering tubers. Comment on the strange focus. Enjoy the escalating habitat. Submit, ye banjos, submit. Cold linguini a study in flatulence.
Pomade Less zinc: prehensile mud 9 limes e-beets nail wave/edge Oh, me again Votes tee Hi tomato Forest bull So Emit lotto sierra ride /soak in cream and eggs 2 baloo tans Abdula On whale llatáşťe sauce Eyed sundial
phl egm hum succu mb p lug du mb am ber ape rtu res pep pep r od de ad hed onic
ahep oit oy sesiilit wrete torld sof ban mid aejo ne ean tis tact ysef bhe efet oa fe sug etin wret
up
POME fr.
pocketsleep
…t?, d duswort sham
Pood aga dget sand
la
P p ns in “/:”[hear
dustwarwat er stun nedum p sters
T saorndy rive
ntpunt
m
dy” ud
d reapru riv er stu}”’{_pid9pis sinonlegsigntheBott()()’[;le
:}{ b link
POMEdifeinea omilcate. liobrigim. conifse.fere tha- n. thin- s. ku. stu ufy. pre.rati nodae. admist. re. impe flug arterial. boat. cose. tee. Milc. nirf fe
nks. ruc. stry. pre.ob
thi at fi
e
ia
de. am
n odst. re. eflugial.mi
gra inso f san d,’,’,’…..,’,’…..,’,’…..,’,’… tru m pe tdou bleD [[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
coa t . goese. te. Milc. nirf fe thi at fi de. a m
nk s. ruc. s try . pre. ob e i a
n od st. re . e flug ial.mi
,',' ,'',' , ',' , ' ,' ,',',' ' '[,'|| gasof
/\}/\. s an d
rain
_+_
Espied scammed and unlabeled. Bags of cartridges. Wisp-pricked fedoras. Could all this posthumanism be a missive to alternate ways of composing poetry? Mock cuspid? Quips are gassy laughbags. We blot shrick the theory of dialogism and heteroglossia. For all that incongruous rifted us, we conjured the damn larded obesity of failure. These daily acknowledgements of what is owed the dead is damn noire, damn unpraised in our hands. Our fellow symposiasts have no license to denounce Underscotch Zorg’s iconic, singed redemption. Measure the uplift later. L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E conjured the cynics and nihilists. They dead now. They be general temper, a caustic equity of past latency and impotence eyeshotted slap to a shrine. Underscotch Zorg is the birth of the postcanon, the new stacking fingers over the bland cottage industry of dick-knitted poesis. Wave adieu to neo-confessionalism, to neo-realism, to neo-familiarism and uncreative writing. So what’s faith if not raw endurance? Unrevisit the eyebulge, awed in contraband worship.
Furiously plotting to know what you’re talking about, I went to see the Bishop with a fistful of cloth. The villagers had all returned to their homes. If you’re all right, I am what they say I am. If not, their poems become mud and rain and tearing wind. Watch these gauges and let me know if anything goes wrong, OK? That guy must be one of the translators. Individuals married and had children at random. Their poems are as mud and rain and tearing wind. I’m trying to see what is happening with the roiling mass of bodies. Watch these gauges and let me know if anything goes wrong, OK? Someone from the Academy must have recognized me despite my disguise. Something haunts her figure from the bones outward. If you’re all right, I am what they say I am. Individuals married and had children of a random. I’m trying to see what’s happening with the roiling mass of bodies. The villagers had every one returned to their homes. If not, their poems would have become mud and rain and tearing wind. OK, watch these gauges and let me know if anything goes wrong. Something haunts her figure from the bones outward. The grease had seeped into the paper, staining it a dark brown. Furiously plotting to know what you’re talking about, I went to see the Bishop with a fistful of cloth.
Aspiring to asperity, prosperity, bourbon buboes, and Teutonic fungoes, parasitic symptomatic orangutans feed tunneling muon fish to atonal alimony pavement in leveled floral tantrum. A glossy pull toy chuckles elegiac alimentary aliquots of Algonquin elephantiasis at easily straightened page buoys, stuttering stultifyingly stupendous perpendicular ballpark bureaucrats into powerful fallacies of stewed cork checker chainsaw Friendship Sevens, sated by crazy skaters on tan icicles built for detuned ears of cowlicks, cowlings, cowed interlopers, Interpol coffers, finicky coroners, foxhole skill implorers, and regal itch informers. Personal prenuptial predation predates preternaturally prepositional prep school priests, plunking chunky flunkies with inner city cutout dollhouse dimples. Scouring the bloke to sprinkle ewers of ham hocks, schooled schlongings spring for seltzer suppuration, pestered ague anxiety, shafted putty surcease, biochemical chimeras of melted mental loadstones, birthright binomials, pied planar lacquer, dreamy sanitized launcher lists of coded encephalic christening mice, and tornadic arias in baryonic brute betrothal to avuncular mojo textual bison fiction fathers. Now the periodic punks in activated twilight keys come closer to crumby croquet and clumped toupee, chronic Rolaids in dusty Rolex overcoat liner sailing hallway arears. A wrongly allayed aluminum elementary pool hall croupier’s craven crozier causes bifurcated timeline tramps to stiffen into tipsy turnkey stopgap curves of lewd loquacious slack-chawed misanthropy, dripping Philly attic telephonic embryo in yo-yo paw-paw entropic fruit cheroot for snooty booty wired and haughty spotted sneeze of clotted cheesecloth caramel. Unfazed, celery celerity sells celibate celebrities to shaven seizure symphonies for seemingly shapely chaperone champagne. Chomping paddlewheel bloat, yellowed yearlings yammer wildly within weirdly willful wickered wardrooms, thickly thumbed thunderheads, and thorium-1000, purged by villainous vibraphone flinchers. Inspections accept antiseptic pepsin, Terran ale, quarter-miler quicksand quota quips, quotidian quagmires, quarried kiwis, koalas kicking keggers clear across alluvial fan belts, timing gears shattered in the Near Eastern winds, reddening disguises of femmes emblazoning skewered sighs with saddled memes, sired seas, plovered peas, lilacs lacking slaked production jowls, fowl presumption vows, toweling off in fury’s muffed immunity, fumbled consanguinity, fond caress of calm cameo camel in amply careworn suitcase, escalator overload, fully athletic primrose thump of perspicacity, plump leeward Spandex, panda outhouse tourniquet.
One momentous intestinal wallop casts the wholesome into tinder exhalation, falsified teeth inching up a metal doorway to drawbridge infestation of whereabouts imperturbably bubbled from broadsword basement chews to baseline ground crews grousing to inanity of forest eyewash to simulacra in crumbling tenements of Sloth She’s Cargo Ferris wheel conundrums to flying Graylien elves of surreptitious yesteryear in pestilential downpour of ichthyologists on hamster hammock hambone pickup dump truck serenade to wizened old ladled soupy-haired lullaby victims. Crawdad hands leech chlorinated bulbous whim-retardant stupas clean of Stuka frost invasion swingset Cheerio cookie falls from flagrantly fragrant jumbo irony walkers in fully fledgling coalition lesions of uppity Nerd Americon suture-fisted ink-con artist shovel sop sold ‘round the clickety-clackety orange of penultimate pen pal penury, perjury in debutante derision demitasse, derriere devotion demolition bite brigades, brigand of brigadier to bombardier barrage buffoons barfing bituminous bellicose Beluga barrio burrito beef on sumptuously plated beerhall breasts beyond bifurcating but bombastically branded wise guys on mortal escapee firehose hostility’s hospitable hopscotch hump from L’Hospital’s Gruel to geodesic theorems about two-faced furious sides of blurry arching bandy-sledded but laconically leggy privation eyeball steeples, covering hovercraft in channeled numerology of capricious angelic Italicized streptococcal bootstrap slot-car loadie stupor gape. Ranting people demonize maniacally monocled theocratic bouncing ballast pompadours of house-spoken gum dementia coverall repellant pediatricians, pasting patricians past placid curiosities of curio or cameo or camel-haired proportionality in gravy scepter peccadillo entryshovel pecker methodology of wooden shovels, frozen bowl cut camera ram catharsis, supine memory in faintly dotted seeing pie chart follicle expanse, erosive cop-tent tic parade, sequential creed of leering quarterly recumbent vial, deflated DNA refusal motion quotient ova lotion piebald capture notational unguent, infuriatingly extended airline fester purgatory flavor agency to detestation slobber armpit adjudication. The Sabbath-quenching inch lathers into surjective mothball covet switch guffaw of paused relapse, quizzical stone breath plunging through harrowed depth of pizza brickyard bluster season ballgame blink.
Acrobatic watch hands suture offhand paradox to imminent axiomatic clouds of dusky thighs, pinochle headwater gristle, bituminous antlers, and sworn cacophonous epigrams. Silhouetted turrets peel defiled uranium, revealing torn-blouse cigarettes, statuesque machine bottoms, crushed anterior insects, propeller vowel substantiation, coupled studio acidity, well-sprung seasonal barricades of nonchalant candy crumpled into warped torpedoes. Potatoes listen in on sieved droppings from guttural cross-cultured cuts of sawtooth editorials on adipose stash in situational utterance, glossy pari-mutuel rodeo tryst in holding pumpernickel. Disembodied eyes emerge effortless from wading training statue of subterranean slubbed silk night routine, kiting swollen stairwell into halfway hosiery, soused on sliding hypnagogia, pseudorandom philatelic ice truncheon, ipso maniacal frost replay down spurned turnstile to remoulade of towed sore pita harbinger gazette insertion funk, effulgent plastic escapade interring coffee clamor clapboard cupcake corridor down corrugated corduroy umbrella. Lung thyme snowy seascape nearly spouts a whale a while an interminably half-slung slow-scat scudding chatterbox chutney whirlwind of solipsistic silence. The numb deplaned deplumed depilatory deprecation, delving downy debutante derrieres to delectable dithering done duly dirty on doolies, drawstrings, hamstrung hamsters, bubonic hambones, dowdy hogs, crowned cod, honeyed bogs, sluiced and juicy fluted flagellation fog, flicking wildly across a crusty globule, our staunchly scuppered but sanguine imp repines in sipped but statutory insipidity befitting a pokey spokesperson or an hoary millstone’s nape of naked necklace or fleshy freckled frustum fling or plunging neckline boil of bollocks barracks blunted plunger parasitic lead in buried plea bargain baseboard minty breast to plated spice rack confidante. Overlooked by charismatic caryatids, swan clear cut comradery in commodious comedienne collusion kilt, wan climber booty shore, truly abhorred, arboreal swell be blond the musty mask of mixed mutts, mirage balloon lifting lowly lupine luminaries like lost unlikely bikers, pikers, plucked pellucid goose amity, grown quail beyond blue clue concavity, gravel in craven but savagely adverbial depravity, songstress steam in seams of seedily pusillanimous pluperfect shin guards, kneeling pulpit protectors, merchant owl fuel effigy, jumped to counter girl in Glockenspiel twilight, rapt from sterling vermilion kimono clog to drainpipe dowager defalcation freckle-noose carrion scow.
Fall of day you secure flight to the empyrean a capsule of my childhood erases. Pliancy of switch makes me inquire: should I be mournful or mollified? Some echoes never emerge, they clog us with queries. On upbeat days cheer you generate morphs my grim hours, generosity with which you share remains link to grammar of existence. Amphibolies permeate your passage as you turn motif urging us in our prouder moments to be happy for our happiness.
Gordito but not good-for nothing. I understand oil and its overtures. Sugar, its code to corrupt bodies. If you think I am this one or that, all that goes on with certain names, it is at your peril. Trappings of title broadcast bulletins we’ve consumed cohering this quirk to that name. In this isochronal circuit the unusual doesn’t suffer. That is special.
Biggest National News Events: When Rodney King’s police accusers were found not guilty. Can you believe it? Biggest Local News Events: Don’t Know________________________________________________ Best Movie of the Year: Silence of the Lambs______________________________________________ Best TV Show of the Year: In Living Color________________________________________________ Best Actor/Actress: Jody Foster________________________________________________ Best Album of the Year: Paula Abdul, Spellbound_____________________________________________ Best Recording Group: Boys II Men________________________________________________ Current Fads: Don’t Know________________________________________________ Style of Dress: jean shorts and jean shirts________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ Popular Sayings: Shame!, Why you trippin?________________________________________________ Biggest Sport Event: Homecoming game of 91-92_________________________________________ Miscellaneous: _________________________________________________________________
Male
Female
Most Popular: Shawn Gregg Carrie Yingling________________________ Best Looking: Shawn O’ Shields & April_______________________________ Friendliest: Don’t Know Don’t Know___________________________ Best Dressed: Shane (Flavor of the Month) Allison Don’t Know___________________________ Class Clown: Robert Norman Don’t Know___________________________ Most Likely To Succeed: Shawn Gregg, Shane, Carrie Yingling_________________________ Top Honor Student: Shawn Gregg, Carrie Yingling_________________________ Most Athletic: Don’t Know Don’t Know___________________________ Best Dancer: John Bryant Trikenya Ali & me_______________________ Most Outgoing: Shane (in your face) Allison Don’t Know___________________________ Best Couple: Shawn O’ Shield’s & April_______________________________ Best Personality: Shane Do! Don’t Know__________________________ Most Intelligent: U Know! Don’t Know__________________________
Live Free or Die, Crack the Sky!, Crown Brocade, Pyro Pulverizer, Golden Pyro Fusion, Flying Aerial Circus Repeater, Phandemonium, Bada Bing! Bada Boom!, Komodo 3000, Rocket Pearl, Twitter Glitter, Toot ‘N Twirl, Yellow Jacket, Jumping Jacks, Silver Salute Blue Stars, Hissing Cobra, Cuckoo Fountain, Violets and Crimson, Peacock Mountain, Tiger Fur, Ground Bloom, Chinese New Year, Lady Liberty, Electric Eel, Sea Sparrow Missiles, Whistle Whirl, Silver Crackling Palm, Brew Ha Ha, Meteor Cocktail, Phantom Fiesta, Painted Galaxy, Triton’s Tempest, Rain Fire, Emerald City, Colortopia Midnight Monsoon, Red, White and Bloom, Battle of the Coral Sea, Silver Sonic Warhead, Blue Ringed Willows, Arctic Blast, Garden in Spring, Volcanic Vortex, Glittering Gems
1. nobody is anywhere turning great stands of, even of plantation, trees into novels that you can’t put down or poems that reach inside & squeeze yr entrails until yr ears weep antacid 2. Is slight, is almost not there. Then contradiction. The portable air-compressor expands the fragments. A suddenly articulated street parade of pneumatic elephants. 3. Sometimes he wrote; & sometimes he just took out-of-focus photographs of what he was reading.
carbon arson cartoon coarsens crash my favourite work ov hers: autobiography ov red (vintage, 1998)
hazer hollers hold holsters howler my favourite work ov hers: truisms (1982/3)
tinker cinder mind linger lieder my favourite work ov hers: pretty girl, no. 1 (baltic, gateshead, 2007)
They arrived, invaded blood smelling like wet feathers. You feed them fear and loneliness as if they were two small animals lost in the desert. They’re here to burn The Age of Sleep. Your life is a constant goodbye. You hold on like a snake that’s only itself when there’s nobody looking. You cry, open the jewelry box of your desires and you’re richer than night, but there’s so much isolation that your words commit suicide.
kbaa pa ohmm oh m oh ohm ohmm oh ohmmmmmmm pa kbaaaa pa ohm oh kba pa ohm oh kbaa kba oh ohm pa pa kbaa ohm paa oh ohmm pa kba ohm ohmm ohmm oh oh ohm pa ohm ohm paaa oh ohm ohmmmmmm ohmmmmmmm ohmm ohmmm ohmmmm pa ohm pa kba pa ohm paaa kbaaa ohm ohmmmmm ohm pa kba ohmm pa paa pa pa kbaa kba ohm ohm pa pa oh kbaa pa oh ohmmm paa oh kba oh kba oh ohmmm ohmm pa kba kbaaa ohmmmmmmm paaaa kbaa oh ohmm paa ohm ohmmm ohm ohm oh
kba ohm pa oh oh kba kbaa oh kba ohmm oh oh
i. i awoke with a start sleep drunk and frightened defenseless in the dusk of my room ; i had dreamt for some time about getting up ; my eyes felt like the exhausted cinders of a bonfire ; they saw the wrist only the heavily veined back the pallid and mountainous rows of knuckles ; i gripped the skin girdling each one with my teeth and gnawed on them until they flushed with blood ; i groped for my phone ; 1:23pm ; i began to shift my languorous body ; let us call it a room : i was there and i arose with almost a feeling of penitence ; i flung my sweatpants at the ground ; i stood in my underwear rubbing the back of my neck ; i tried to move deliberately ; i stumbled back into bed ; a congealed stream of emotions passed ; i felt dismally neutral ; i vacillated for a long time ; the white blotch of the curtained window loomed before my eyes ; the room filled with decisive and clear cut activities ; i got up and went to the dresser and slid my hand along it ; it would be my mother’s birthday soon ; i looked out the open window ; rising from out of a close mass of trees, i could see one chimney and one gable of the house ; the clouds hung low and dark, bulging outward like great anemic bellies ; i got closer ; the buildings disemboweled ; the street crowded with bodies ; they went came competed diverged crowded busily like ants and perhaps even exchanged places ; i noticed two ladies with walking sticks ; i noticed a man dressed in black advancing toward the square with timid steps ; he vanished through the doors of a little restaurant ; i was at once seized by a desire to follow him ; there appeared two great dogs ; i left the window ; i washed my hands and head with water from a plastic bottle nearby ; the water was cold ; the flesh beneath my hair felt like peat moss ; i prepared myself like a bridegroom in front of the door mirror ; i went over to the desk and opened the drawer ; i retrieved a blister pack of etiozolam and swallowed four 1mg tablets ; the room was faintly dank ; i slipped into my navy bridge coat and put the blister pack in my pocket ; i paused in the middle of the room ; i listened to the reverberations of activity down below in the street ; i listened to the guttural trill of the automobiles ; from the slutch emerged distinct sounds ; a melody of sorts arranged itself ; i heard a gnat’s thin whirr ; the melody retreated back into the street’s babble ; i thought something indefinite about sound ; i turned on the silver-washed radiator and stood by it ; the radiator looked melancholy and bored ; i left the side of the radiator and went out into the corridor ; there was no one ; i went along ; from a room at the end of the corridor i thought i heard stifled groans ; i went downstairs ; i tarried in the lobby for some time ; i felt that i must do something ; it would be february tomorrow
ii. the common area smelled of winter ; i stared at the clock mounted above the doors leading outside ; it was almost two ; i watched the second hand rotate for some time ; i thought of all the clocks back home ; a dead end street ; a house stuffed full of wheels clicking away all at different hours my father sitting on the couch shirtless occasionally offering dull acknowledgments of his own mortality ; i thought: leave it alone you are sad enough already without him ; i let my gaze linger on the clock and ran my thumb over the blister pack of etizolam in my pocket ; i retrieved the pack and placed another milligram tablet beneath my tongue; i shifted my gaze to the door ; i considered the wood ; an image of my body formed in my mind ; a ridiculous looking hollow mass a living skeleton ; i considered returning to my room ; i could already feel the negligent sense i had of myself begin to drown in the eyes of everyone i would walk by ; i felt having a body to be unreasonably distressing ; i sighed ; i turned around ; i considered whether there would be any point in leaving ; i thought: there would be no point in doing anything if you didn’t have to ; i felt ashamed of myself in the tedious way a child does when they are told by their mother to stop watching television or playing video games and instead go outside ; i heard movement above me ; i felt i had no choice ; i reached for the doorhandle
i had a dream that my hair was falling out in larger clumps than usual fistfuls of follicles measuring the passage of time clogging the drain the weight of each memory is dense and suffocating i can’t read the clock but i can hear it whispering there is nothing left for you here but the possibility of everything --have you ever woken up from a dream in that dream you are surrounded by people you love then all the sudden you are back in your bed all alone and for some reason the sense of security you felt that assisted in lulling you to sleep is gone and that loneliness is stark it bites it leaves you hungry --my dreams keep me paranoid and listless widening the realm of possibilities if it can happen it would and it will and it has
Mortality means nothing to me anymore I have died at least a half a dozen times by now I am sorry I have been too busy picking what remains of my identity from the trash compactor to worry about the way your eyes glaze over when I talk about the people who aren’t afraid of me If I told you I collected my scabs in a scrapbook like trophies would you find it disturbing?
What is as massive as an anchor? A 40 ounce feels pretty heavy in my hand. Sometimes when you say I’m pretty I can feel it hanging from my ankle. You can see me with my anchors. Hands with heavy metal inside. Itching and itching and itching. Despite my anchors my roots are fragile. I am suspended all of the time. I don’t laugh because it’s not funny. I don’t move forward because I feel safe here, anchored to emptiness.
(content warning: sexual assault) we are back in pompano again where my glasses get fogged up and all my clothes smell like sunscreen and we have sex on two twin beds pushed together. we stay in your parents house and i feel like i am on drugs. it is sunday morning and its time to go to church with your dad and stepmom. they sit quietly and listen to the sermon. my head is resting on your shoulder. people in the church are standing up, hands in the air. their eyes are closed and their mouths are gaping and i am reminded of how porn stars look when they are being fucked in the ass. you leave to go to the bathroom and i am frightened. a large sweaty man comes up behind me and pins me down. he rubs his sweaty naked body against me and no one cares. im crying out for you to come help me. your parents are focused on the preacher, unaware i am being assaulted. you come back and the man dissolves into the pews, into my subconsciousness. after church we walk up a steep hill and there are crackheads everywhere. we go into a bathroom littered with needles and i take the bleach out of my backpack. you help me distribute the chemical throughout my hair. my scalp burns and im aroused despite my grotesque surroundings. i look in the mirror and watch my hair fade to white.
You write me a letter telling me you always loved me and still do and will forever. The letter is good and I like it but I get distracted while reading it and I’ve realized I have no more room left in me for you. The truth is I have miscarried a great love for you and that means that it is buried in the ground now. I don’t think I’ll ever answer your letter and I will avoid you in person. I do not want to show you how full I have become without you - I have become very full.
Whose mother is still too thin to have had any kittens or to have fed any from her body. This is the same mother who is black and always wearing socks. Sometimes, I saw her in the courtyard with her kittens, carrying them from hole to hole. I go around and I ask everyone (casually) about the kittens: after weather updates and daily updates I ask: they were grey and barely there. Eventually Sara sends an email, a few lines: they are safe but not here. Next time I am going around I ask well what of the mother. Anne says their window faces the courtyard and at night they hear the saddest noises, deep I miss you noises, I will never see you again noises, loud echoing noises. I see the mother one night in the parking lot, she is ok: she appears to be alive.
She could lose fifty pounds But her fingers would still be short And her feet would still be flat. Corpulent grasshoppers fly But parasitic mammals prefer birds to bivalves If they are seasoned with harissa and thyme— Otherwise grilled grapes are served for dinner While Arenal erupts in Guanacaste East of Rio Corobici Near that Inga the monkey fell out of. After Cortes died Spain decreed The right of cattle to roam free On any patròn’s field at dawn or dusk Or after a meal of snake tacos And lime cream served with cerveza Since mycorrhizae are fungi related to liverworts Though she pasted lichens on her shoes Before she flew back to Cañas. Why did the campesinos refuse to work in wet season If their children were moving to the city When bullfighters were chased out of Liberia And gardia found contraband instead of wine In the confessional booth That she built with sore hands in a hangar at the airport Where forest was cut in the shape of tapir?
for Marshall C. Brown, Sr. My father is a sadist who sleeps with a Ken® doll he bought in Times Square from a negro vendor wearing cowboy boots and a pink Ralph Lauren® shirt. Research careers are not forgiving so Dad bought baboons from a science lab and photographed their scars for the blue leather scrapbook he keeps in his safe. On Wednesday after dinner Dad gave me a photo but I sold it to Jamal whose mom says welfare is a bank’s business when authentic Kongo textiles turn the romance of blackness into the medium of contemporary design. How many CPAs does she need to meet her fiscal obligations since public mistrust is a common side-effect of activism and stand-up comedy is about the vanishing Amazon? Star Trek® was important to Martin King so I’m having lunch with Jamal at Arby’s® but he doesn’t know good art from bad though his mom says diet and exercise may not be enough.
Sky sputters mist, Japanesestyle lanterns a haze of memory, white for survivor, red supporter, the yellow of loss. A man proposed today, said he’d like to impregnate me. No bent knee. No romance in the autumn moon. My best friend holds a milky beacon to her chest, lymphoma siphoned from blood, her pooled eyes brightened by morning's continuous arrival. Turned suitor down best I could. Time is a silly thing to try and outpace by settling. That's why I chose to walk. Leave the marathons to people who need a set goal, a finely drawn line that says, “finish here.�
Contributors Ace Boggess is an ex-con, ex-husband, ex-reporter, and completely exhausted by all the things he isn’t anymore. He is author of two books of poetry: The Prisoners (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2014) and The Beautiful Girl Whose Wish Was Not Fulfilled (Highwire Press, 2003). Forthcoming are his novel, A Song without a Melody (Hyperborea Publishing), and a third poetry collection, Ultra-Deep Field (Brick Road). His writing has appeared in Harvard Review, MidAmerican Review, RATTLE, River Styx, North Dakota Quarterly, and many other journals. He lives in Charleston, West Virginia. billy bob beamer continues his experimental music, writing, small drawings, installations, and digital asemia/visual poetry. In summer 2015, he exhibited selected works at the Fine Arts Center for the New River Valley in Virginia. His current digital images can be seen in Jim Leftwich’s online collection at https://www.flickr.com/photos/textimagepoetry/collections (“pansemic playhouse 2014-3”). Recent graphite drawings can be viewed at The Nevica Project Gallery in Chicago (thenevicaproject.com). Clara B. Jones is a retired scientist, currently practicing poetry in Silver Spring, MD, USA. As a woman of color, she writes about the “performance” of identity, alienation, and power and conducts research on experimental poetry. Clara is author of two chapbooks, and her poems, reviews, essays, and interviews have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous venues. Daniel Y. Harris is the author of 11 collections of poetry and collaborative writing including The Rapture of Eddy Daemon (BlazeVOX, 2016), heshe egregore (with Irene Koronas, Éditions du Cygne, 2016), The Underworld of Lesser Degrees (NYQ Books, 2015), Esophagus Writ (with Rupert M. Loydell, The Knives Forks and Spoons Press, 2014), Hyperlinks of Anxiety (Červená Barva Press, 2013), and The New Arcana (with John Amen, NYQ Books, 2012). Some of his poetry, experimental writing, art, and essays have been published in BlazeVOX, The Café Irreal, Denver Quarterly, E·ratio, European Judaism, Exquisite Corpse, Kerem, The New York Quarterly, Notre Dame Review, In Posse Review, The Pedestal Magazine, Poetry Magazine, Poetry Salzburg Review, Stride, Ygdrasil, and Zeek. He is the Editor-in-Chief of X-Peri: http://xperi.blogspot.com. Darren C. Demaree’s poems have appeared or are scheduled to appear in numerous magazines/journals, including the South Dakota Review, Meridian, New Letters, Diagram, and the Colorado Review. He is the author of five poetry collections, most recently The Nineteen Steps between Us (After the Pause, 2016). He is the Managing Editor of the Best of the Net Anthology and Ovenbird Poetry. He is currently living and writing in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children. Hugh Tribbey’s experimental verse has most recently appeared or is forthcoming in Jazz Cigarette, Futures Trading, Malpais Review, experiential-experimental-literature, and Truck. He is the author of eight collections of poetry. His most recent is Wrinkle and Mechanism, published by white sky ebooks. Tribbey holds a Ph.D. in English from Oklahoma State University and teaches literature and creative writing at East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma.
Irene Koronas is the author of 8 collections of poetry and collaborative writing including Codify (forthcoming from The Knives Forks and Spoons Press, 2017), heshe egregore (with Daniel Y. Harris, Éditions du Cygne, 2016), Turtle Grass (Muddy River Books, 2014), Emily Dickinson (Propaganda Press, 2010), and Self Portrait Drawn from Many (Ibbetson Street Press, 2007). Some of her poetry, experimental writing, and visual arts have been published in Clarion, Counterexample Poetics, Divine Dirt, E·ratio, experiential-experimental-literature, Lynx, Lummox, Of\with, Pop Art, Right Hand Pointing, Presa, The Seventh Quarry Magazine, Spreadhead, Stride, and Unblog. She has exhibited her visual art at the Tokyo Art Museum Japan, the Henri IV Gallery, the Ponce Art Gallery, Gallery at Bentley College, and the M & M Gallery. She is the Managing Editor of X-Peri: http://x-peri.blogspot.com. Jeff Bagato is a writer, musician, and street artist living near Washington, DC. Some of his poetry has appeared in Otoliths, Zombie Logic Review, Full of Crow, Exquisite Corpse, Chiron Review, Shattered Wig Review, and Open 24 Hours. His most recent book of poetry, Savage Magic, came out this year. Other poetry books include And the Trillions, Spells of Coming Day, and Latest Headlines. He has also published several novels, including The Toothpick Fairy and Computing Angels. A blog about his writing and publishing efforts can be found at http://jeffbagato.wordpress.com. Jeff Harrison has publications from Writers Forum, MAG Press, Persistencia Press, white sky books, and Furniture Press. He has ebooks from BlazeVOX, xPress(ed), Argotist Ebooks, and chalk editions. His poetry has appeared in An Introduction to the Prose Poem (Firewheel Editions), The Hay(na)ku Anthology Vol. II (Meritage Press), The Chained Hay(na)ku Project (Meritage Press), Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics, Otoliths, Xerography, Moria, Calibanonline, Dusie, unarmed, Big Bridge, Sugar Mule, experientialexperimental-literature, and elsewhere. Jim Leftwich is a poet and networker who lives in Roanoke, VA. He is the author of Doubt, Spirit Writing, Death Text, and Six Months Aint No Sentence. Collaborative works include Sound Dirt with John M. Bennett, Book of Numbers with Márton Koppány, Acts with John Crouse, and deer rug with John M. Bennett and Jukka-Pekka Kervinen. Since 2010 he has been editor and publisher of the micro-micropress TLPress, specializing in tacky little pamphlets, broadsides, PDF ebooks, and related ephemera. John M. Bennett (b. 1942, Chicago) is an American experimental text, sound, and visual poet. As well as steadily producing and distributing his own work, Bennett, through “Luna Bisonte Prods,” a small press founded in 1974, has published thousands of limited edition items by writers who compose visual poetry, word art, and other experimental fiction/art/poetry. Bennett’s papers and published works, as well as the results of his own publishing activities (including 30 years of Lost & Found Times magazine), are collected in several major institutions, including Washington University in St. Louis, SUNY Buffalo, The Ohio State University, and The Museum of Modern Art. Bennett has won the attention of critic Richard Kostelanetz and other commentators on the avant-garde. Bennett himself is the curator of the “Avant Writing Collection,” “The William S. Burroughs Collection,” and “The Cervantes Collection” at the Ohio State University Libraries. More information about Bennett’s career, publishing activities, and artistic endeavors can be found at his website.
John Pursch lives in Tucson, Arizona. Twice nominated for Best of the Net, his work has appeared in many literary journals. A collection of his poetry, Intunesia, is available in paperback at http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/whiteskybooks. His pi-related experimental lit-rap video is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l33aUs7obVc. He’s @johnpursch on Twitter and john.pursch on Facebook. Joseph Randolph lives, works, and writes in Buffalo, NY. You can find more material at https://thearchivesdepartment.bandcamp.com. Katie Hitt lives in Dallas, Texas. She is a media studies student at the University of Texas at Dallas. She finds inspiration from merlot and reality television. You can find her work on her Instagram account, @bathingbeauty94. Kristina England is a writer and photographer residing in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and photography have appeared in several magazines, including Apeiron Review, Five 2 One Magazine, Gargoyle, Silver Birch Press, and Zoomoozophone Review. She can be followed on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/kristinadengland. Mark Young’s most recent books are Mineral Terpsichore, from gradient books of Finland, and The Chorus of the Sphinxes, from Moria Books in Chicago. An ebook, The Holy Sonnets unDonne, came out earlier this year from The Red Ceilings Press; another, a few geographies, will be out later this year from One Sentence Poems; & another, For the Witches of Romania, is scheduled for publication by Beard of Bees. Nathan Stapleton (b. 1991, Dayton, Ohio) is an American visual poet and experimental filmmaker. He currently lives in Olympia, WA. For custom pieces, projects, collaboration, booking, or anything else, you may contact him at his website: http://stapletonnate91.wixsite.com/nathanstapleton. Ojo Taiye is a young Nigerian who uses poetry as a handy tool to hide his frustration with the society. Orion Centauri is a 24-year-old poet and self-described tender queer living in Dallas, TX. His work has been featured in various publications such as Voicemail Poems, Electric Cereal, and Anklebiters Magazine. His book I Don’t Have to Talk to Me was published by Be About It Press in 2014. His first curating effort Unsolicited Advice from Your Ex-Lover’s Ex-Lovers debuted at the Dallas Zine Party this summer.
Rin Johnson is a sculptor and poet. Johnson has a BFA in photography and urban planning from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Johnson is an MFA Candidate in Sculpture at Bard College’s Milton Avery Graduate School for the Arts. Johnson has exhibited widely in exhibitions and fairs in Europe and the United States. Johnson is the author of two chapbooks, Nobody Sleeps Better than White People from Inpatient Press and the forthcoming Meet in the Corner from Publishing House. Johnson lives in Brooklyn. Johnson writes for the Brooklyn Rail and teaches image literacy and photography at Bruce High Quality Foundation University (BHQFU). Johnson runs Imperial Matters with Sophia Le Fraga. Johnson’s website is http://rinjohnson.com. Sanjeev Sethi is the author of three well-received books of poetry. His most recent collection is This Summer and That Summer (Bloomsbury, 2015). His poems are in venues around the world: Off the Coast, Drunk Monkeys, Degenerate Literature, Haikuniverse, Linden Avenue Literary Journal, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Red Wolf Journal, Futures Trading, The Blue Mountain Review, The Penwood Review, Squawk Back, The Five-Two, W.I.S.H. Press, Easy Street, Novelmasters, Zarf Poetry, The Ofi Press Literary Magazine, Expound Magazine, Postcolonial Text, Bluepepper, Otoliths, and elsewhere. He lives in Mumbai, India. Free PDF ebooks of visual poetry http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/burn_sean.
from
Sean
Burn
can
be
found
at
Sergio A. Ortiz is the founding editor of Undertow Tanka Review. He is a two-time Pushcart nominee, a four-time Best of the Web nominee, and a 2016 Best of the Net nominee. His poems have been published in hundreds of journals and anthologies. He is currently working on his first full-length collection of poems, Elephant Graveyard. Shane Allison has had poems published in Zoomoozophone Review, West Wind Review, Puerto Del Sol, Fence, and others. His debut novel You’re the One I Want is out now from Strebor Books. He is working on a new poetry collection and novel. Texas Fontanella is a student at USYD. Their work has previously appeared or is forthcoming at Otoliths, Uut, The Helios Mss, experiential-experimental-literature, The New Post-Literate, InBetweenHangovers, Futures Trading, PoetryWTF, Beakful, Rasvada, H&, Moss Trill, Truck, Tip of the Knife, and Zoomoozophone Review. A pamphlet, 7, was released last year by Pete Spence’s Donnithorne St Press. Thomas Fucaloro is the author of two books of poetry published by Three Rooms Press, most recently It Starts from the Belly and Blooms, which received rave reviews. The winner of a performance grant from the Staten Island Council of the Arts and the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, he has been on three national slam teams. He holds an MFA in creative writing from the New School and is a cofounding editor of Great Weather for Media and NYSAI Press. He is a writing coordinator at the Harlem Children’s Zone and lives in Staten Island.
Volodymyr Bilyk is a writer and translator from Ukraine. His works include: visual poems in the series This is Visual Poetry (2013), CIMESA (2013), Casio’s Pay-Off Peyote (2013), SCOBES (2013), THINGS (2014), Laugh Poems (2014), Vispo Ay Ai Ay (2014), “To When Tea Ties Hence to Wank It Too” / “Eminent Means of Basil Dado Hem-Welt” in The Chapbook 5 (2015), Heartbeat, Footclick, Machine Gun Vocalizes (2016), and Understanding (of language) are not enough (2016). His works have been exhibited in the Bright Stupid Confetti Asemic Show, Yoko Ono Fan Club, Venti Leggeri in Bologna, The Spiral Asemic Show in Malta, EL MARTELL SENSE MESTRE in Barcelona, The Future is Here Again: VISUAL LANGUAGE in New York, 1st International Literary Fair of Mato Grosso (2015), World Association of Visual and Experimental Artists in Valjevo, and OVERCONSUMPTION in Ternopil.