ISSUE 46: THEFUK ICE EDITION DEDICATED TO RENEE NICOLE GOOD, ALEX PRETTI AND ALL VICTIMS OF ICE THUGGERY
EDITOR’S SCRATCHING POSTSince its inception in 2007, Clockwise Cat has been vociferously antityranny. We are ANTIFA, if you will (even if you won't). And for quite a while during our tenure, among our poetry and art we have also featured radical rants - towering tirades and searing satire full of bile against those who would circumscribe our freedoms. We recently phased out those rants, re-directing our waning energies on prose poesie and more Dada-inspired verse (hence our extended title Clockwise Cat: The Dada Verse). The Cat has always been surrealist in slant, of course, and Dada and Surrealism historically have served as vivaciously vicious vehicles to vent against barbarian behavior, whether implicitly or otherwise. ANYWAY: Lately, the US has taken a decidedly authoritarian turn. (Granted, the US government has ALWAYS been fascistic to a degree - crack open a damn history book if you look askance at that sentence.). This dismaying transmogrification from quasi-Democracy to full-on fascism is being live streamed before us, like we are all Alex DeLarge, forced to watch these horrors with pried-open eyes. Just call us Clockwork Orange Cat. ANYWAY 2: The point is, we are living in unbelievably bleak times, likely to get far murkier before the proverbial light at the tunnel’s terminus can even be glimpsed. But we can band fiercely together through community and art, banishing the oppressive darkness as much as possible with our words, our visuals, our love. Helping to banish that brutal benightedness in Issue 46 are stanzas by Sheila Murphy, Tonia Kalouria, Patricia Carragon, Joan McNerney, among others; visual art by Shirley Smothers, Bill Wolak, Nelly Sanchez and more; and prose poesie by John Olson, Steve Carll, Heller Levinson, Karen Neuberg, Bob Heman, Catfish McDaris, J.S. Watts, Alexis Rhone Fancher, and many others! Our Featured Femme is the very clever collage poet J.I. Kleinberg!So we welcome you, Katz and Katzettes, to Clockwise Cat: The Dada Verse Issue 46 - The FUK ICE Edition!
TABLE OF MALCONTENTS SURREALIST STANZAS: PAGE ?VISUAL ART: PAGE ?FEATURED FEMME: PAGE?PROSE POESIE: PAGE? CLOCKWISE CAT: ANTI-TYRANNY, ANTI-PAGE NUMBER. FUK PAGE NUMBERS AND FUK ICE!!!
SURREALIST STANZASSURREALIST STANZASSURREALIST STANZAS
EVOLUTION BY JOHN RAFFETTO When did petroglyphs become algorithms?Another evolution of language from huntersto modern gatherers.The propagation memory of tribal ghosts.Petroglyphs on the subway wallsalgorithms for melting ice caps.Who deciphers the hieroglyphics of ancient souls who knew timeyet eventually misplaced it.Petroglyphs are meaningless to riders whoonly know their stops on trainsleave and returnin a snarl of rank shadowsquick and easy.A healing waits in the shadows for another sign.AUTHOR BIO: Some of John Raffetto’s poetry has been published in magazines such as Gloom Cupboard, Wilderness House, BlazeVox, Literary Orphans, Arial Chart, Olentangy Review & Exact Change. He was nominated for Pushcart Prize, and his book Human Botany was released in 2020. John holds degrees from the University of Illinois and Northeastern Illinois University. He has worked as a horticulturalist and landscape designer for many years at the Chicago Park District, a rich environment for drawing inspiration for poems concerning nature, people and the city. He is formerly an adjunct professor, and is lifelong resident of Chicago.
MAZEBY NORBERT KOVACSShe wandered, doubting light, then earth.AUTHOR BIO: Norbert Kovacs lives and writes in Hartford, Connecticut. He has published micropoetry in Edge of Humanity Magazine. His website is: http://www.norbertkovacs.net.
THREE POEMS BY SHEILA MURPHY 1959Frank O’Hara rarely staying put reportspiecemeal material to breathe inand wafer through before coming on tothe next episode, only to discovermultiple more episodes in keeping withsoutherly winds maybe about to wind downto full-frontal loneliness or loveliness,what do I know? I’m only eight and tendto make decisions despite my sentenceto childhood, deferring to irrationaladult decisions forecasting humdrumoptical delusions. Meanwhile butterfliesare wet with the result of procreation.Welcome to just one color in keeping withstandard operating procedures,the triangular yield sign of the partialcross to bear in mind, the slow poke grislyand the lumbering black bear, hungryfor something in the wide-open tentas tentative as this urban openand-shut case of solipsistic burgeoninglack of inclusion minus consequence.Welcome to my WesternWelcome to my western habitat, mouth of the river parched as shownin the photograph of lariat, a snapsoliloquy. The birds ritually lovethe rain, the topic of talk by Midwesternexports strolling the cement of the tepidwest, dry as a pitch pipe, disobedientto reputedly wild wilderness, half invisible if haptic on skin of
the gamelan, posing in the museumfor the faint of heartstrings pressuring the heartto occlude infernal entryway tothis proxy planetary freshman-hood.Cease and DesistDon’t knight me. My shoulder’s allergicto your stubbled sword. Try to ward offyour need to needle those you see aslow-hanging fruit at risk of spoilingaccording to your viewfinder pocked withlust for oomph you sorely lack, haphazardhazardous waste at the core of yourprojected ruthless version of boldnessself-stored in your rotten center moreabhorred than mighty in any way.I am not one of you and your gaggleof fearful fear-mongering mongrelsrife with hate and baiting those you thinkripe for the imaginary taking.AUTHOR BIO: Sheila Murphy’s most recent book just out from Lavender Ink is Escritoire. She lives in Phoenix.
BolañoBy Stephen BettRoberto Bolaño, The Savage Detectives (opening line; trans, Natasha Wimmer)I’ve [poet] been cordially invited to join the visceral realists… or viscerealists or even vicerealists, as they sometimes like to call themselves.Phoneme & Morphine side effects —visceral realists / viscerealists / vicerealistsIt’s a short gamut from the visceral gut punchof Allende’s CIA truckers… to Vice Realty Group (Vegas)motto, Live With Passion — yah, bet the house on it( “Opens tomorrow 9 a.m.” )Owner op’d by einer kleiner neo-whatever’s newer / newestw/ a dodgy name like something out of
the Nixon White House(Fun Fact: one of his heirs… was a third stooge?)And in the middle, just anothercereal poetry scam ** Owner-operator, Derek Moellinger—Ancestry.ca: “In 1940, Clerk and Stenographer were the top reported jobs for men and woman in the USA named Moellinger. 100% of Moellinger men worked as a Clerk and 100% of Moellinger women worked as a Stenographer”; hence, one of those men (Moe) might have become a “third stooge,” no? (à la Haldeman & Ehrlichman)AUTHOR BIO: Stephen Bett is a widely and internationally published Canadian poet with 26 books in print (from BlazeVOX, Chax, Spuyten Duyvil, & others). His personal papers are archived in the “Contemporary Literature Collection” at Simon Fraser University. His website is StephenBett.com
Love with a Mouthful of MiceBy Isaac Offski Bottled, veins puréed,target the heart, saltedsweet with western scamcuz that’s how we haiku.It felt like a gold grillesunk in my neck.Whoever invented land mines mustabeen one cheap bastardit only tookOppenheimer a secto sum up; A-bombsuseful for people, dogs & cats too.But she had to remindme, cuz it wasn't thefirst timeI forgot my banana ice vapeat Dante’s.AUTHOR BIO: Isaac Offski started out as a vocalist in a punk rock band. After Isaac broke his clavicle diving off a stage, Isaac's cousin Ivan, alleged \"man of letters\", told Isaac it might be in his best interests to just stick to poetry. Ivan also informed Isaac that Isaac had it much easier, submitting poetry on the internet, than Ivan did back in the day when stamps cost a fortune and it took 6 months for any response to arrive via post. Isaac told his cousin Ivan to chill out, dawg, go back to your zen retreat, it's not my fault you fell down the mountain chasing rabbits. Isaac Offski lives in Los Angeles and works as a line cook in a restaurant.
TWO POEMS BY PATRICIA CARRAGON Wake up Alone(inspired by Amy Winehouse)Life wasn’t Dick and Jane.Their parents weren’t hers—their smiles as ungenuine as Aspartame.Being solo wasn’t her intention—the girl’s parents, unconsciously, trained her to walk corridors alone,dodge the bullies, wear second-rate protection at school.She did learn to read, but not to think.Programmed from TV and books,she wished upon a fake star,ate shoved up pipedreamsfrom Disney, not Grimm.When life threw rotten tomatoes,no fairy godmother came to her defense.It took years for her to develop—she learned to keep busy,forget those scars behind her name,and her fate of waking up alone.History and religion were subjective—too many lies, coverups, omissions, and interpretations—her place of business was no different,and relationships, just as tainted.
She pulled off the sheets—his scent lingered like his lies,his loss of interest,his quick departure.No detergent could erase his deceit—she placed the sheets in a bag,brought it downstairs to be trashed. She kept busy and remade her bed—moonlight bathed her room,her eyes created tiny puddles on Egyptian cotton sheets.Another lesson learned, another scar added to her name. She retired for the night—her fist hit the pillowbefore feathers flewfor her satisfaction.SuicideShe took her own lifebecause she had no value.Her mother would criticize her for bad grades and sloppy penmanship, even for not liking dolls and dresses.Her father needed extra comfort and told her to keep it quiet . . . or else.Her hair, body, and clothes became a schoolyard joke,and the teacher hid behind blinders and earplugs.Her college degree—an expensive paper paid by a bank loan—a high price for not fitting in with company culture—she never did get that promotion.
Her date slipped something into her drink—she woke up in an alley withclothes ripped, her vagina bleeding—the blame would be hers, not his.Her first miscarriage led to another and another, or did the rumors of infertility make her feel less than a woman?Her husband grew tired of her, divorced her, took the boys and house as well—the job market, more dismal after staying home to raise the kids.Her cancer ate her breasts and uterus—still hungry, it spread to her intestines.Her attempts to rebuild her life backfired, even her talents went astray—her only accomplishment was poverty.Her face, invisible since puberty, became her road map to nowhere,and love couldn’t find her, or did it forget her name?Her golden years, a list of losses to outnumber her age, but not the pills she had to take.The list could go on—the reason was hers, not ours. Her silent screams were real, and we never paid attention, because suicide is a dirty word in an even dirtier world.Who are we to judge and toss the first stone, when she is now free and no longer in pain.AUTHOR BIO: Patricia Carragon is author of Angel Fire (Alien Buddha Press), Meowku (Poets Wear Prada), The Cupcake Chronicles (Poets Wear Prada), and Innocence (Finishing Line Press). They are all available on Amazon.com. She is also curator/editor-in-chief of Brownstone Poets, Brooklyn, NY.
The Fox Carver By Frederick Pollack I had expressly said I wanted to speakwith someone from the future, but found myselfin the late Neolithic, agricultureand class just starting,in a place that would be called Göbekli Tepe.Here, now, its grey hillswere lush; in the distance women gatheredfruit; men looking pleased with themselveskilled deer. The earliest known templemade sense, its great slabs whole,grass underfoot, not rubble. And the manignoring me as he carvedwith stone and flint the striking, stylizedfox looked the part:in furs and hairy. I praisedhis work, expecting him to haveno sense of action distinct from ritual,self as opposed to custom,or art. But he surprised me, grinning:“This fox, the hedgehog, the aurochs, the sunrepresent psychophysical states we haveno words for, any more than you do.Psychological depth is terrifyingto sense, detachment and perspectiverepel one. It’s easier to regardthese things as gods; they will be easier still
someday to consolidate.”I stared and thought a long time;then, rather scared, said, “You’re not really –this isn’t reallyTurkey eleven thousand years ago.It’s an illusion, and you’re from the futureas I originally asked. But you don’t offerthe hope I hoped for. You’ve come, in fact,to disabuse me of it.” “That’s right,” he said,losing hair and muscle; adopting, like the background,a sort of corporate pastiness, rotat the edges. “Your time insertedthe Lie more deeply into mental fleshthan before; now I can’t talk without one.Knowing it was you I had to meetI asked AI to research youand find a setting and personathat fit. But I neither think aboutnor care what we’re implicitly discussing,nor talk this way …My god is one you already knew;he had gold hairand set me free in ways you cannot grasp.”AUTHOR BIO: Frederick Pollack is author of two book-length narrative poems, THE ADVENTURE and HAPPINESS (Story Line Press; the former reissued 2022 by Red Hen Press), and four collections: A POVERTY OF WORDS (Prolific Press, 2015), LANDSCAPE WITH MUTANT (Smokestack Books, UK, 2018), THE BEAUTIFUL LOSSES (Better Than Starbucks Books, 2023), and THE LIBERATOR (Survision Books, Ireland, 2024). Many other poems are in print and online journals. His website is: www.frederickpollack.com.
One Poem by Tonia KalouriaGreat-Grandpa is still trying to decideif it’s worse to “Buy a Pig in a Poke,”or: to “Look a Gift Horse in the mouth”?AUTHOR BIO: Ms. Kalouria is a retired Spanish teacher. Her poems appear at littleoldladycomedy.com, poetsforscience.org, and Literary Veganism, among others. Her anthologies include: A Glass of Wine With Edgar, Evermore, Quoth the Raven, Yonkers, Classical Poets Society, VX, Love, V4, Thriving, Poems From the Lockdown, Purr & Yowl, Nothing Ever Happens in Fox Hollow, and Cosy Romance.
Occupant 3D by Joan McNerneyHer days marched in placedays like tin soldiers each onepushing the next aside.Hurry, hurry before it is too late…inside a gaping hole to be filled.More and more of the surfaceof this life was covered by dust.The hallway gave off a musty odor.Night after night, lights burned.Busted dreams heaped in boxes.Black marks covered floors.Less and less energy to clean up.Her body betrayed her, both herbones, her breath betrayed.One edge of the room spoke to the other.The fan purred all summer,basement furnace heaved all winter.This incessant sigh gathering dust.AUTHOR BIO: Joan McNerney’s poetry is published worldwide in over forty countries in numerous literary magazines. Four Best of the Net nominations have been awarded to her. Her books The Muse in Miniature,Love Poems for Michael I & II, At Work and Light & Shadows are all available at amazon.com
One Poem by Joel Chace A sent niche -- she’s never figuredout from whom -- has appeared in nearly every corner of these rooms. Whenever she enters it, she switches on the dim lightbulb above her head -- the glow barely enough to make visible her slim, entwined fingers that, now, she moves, wriggles. They feel like little snakes. God makes the world make itself. So, she thinks of them as snakes; and as she gazes at them, they elongate, detach, crawl out of that shelter. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Then, this thought -- I’ve fingers once more; and she does. Again, entwinement, wriggling, detachment, freedom. There seems nothing
wrong with this. In fact, those serpents are creatures of striped, diamonded beauty that slither off, becoming letters. Ukh. Mwefoh. Ribbingia. Jukh. The work of art which I do not make, none other will ever make. AUTHOR BIO: Joel Chace has published work in print and electronic magazines such as Lana Turner, Survision, Eratio, Otoliths, Word For/Word, Golden Handcuffs Review, New American Writing, and The Brooklyn Rail. Underrated Provinces is recently out from MadHat Books. Bone Chapel is coming out soon from Chax. For more than forty years, Chace was a working jazz pianist. He is an NEH Fellow.
VISUAL ART VISUAL ARTVISUAL ARTVISUAL ARTVISUAL ARTVISUAL ARTVISUAL ARTVISUAL ART
VISUALPOETRY BY VINCENT SANTINOARTIST STATEMENT: ‘Haha 29' is a visual poetry piece from my book Abstract Deficiency Swims Phonetically. It's a selfpublished homage to this fractured existence. The book. The poem is what it is.ARTIST BIO: Vincent Santino Smarra wishes he didn't have to explain who he was, but has bad luck with lamps. No genies, just light for his pen and paper. Still, he does his best, publishing books, stories, and poetry across the Internet and in whatever magazines will have him. More of his writing is at VincentSantino.Com
TWO DRAWINGS BY DONALD PATTENARTIST BIO: Donald Patten is an artist and cartoonist from Belfast, Maine. He creates oil paintings, illustrations, ceramics and graphic novels. His art has been exhibited in galleries throughout Maine. To view his online portfolio, visit @donald.patten on Instagram.ARTIST STATEMENT: I have created a series of drawings that represent my experiences in modern COVID life by drawing inspiration from past masterpieces that depict the embodied experience of trauma.
KITTY KNOWS THE TIME WATERCOLOR BY SHIRLEY SMOTHERS ARTIST BIO: Shirley Smothers is an amateur Artist, Writer and Poet. She mostly writes short stories. Some of her short stories can be viewed at [email protected]. Last year she self-published her second book. This can be found at [email protected]. She was chosen as Artist of the Month, June 2025, Glomag Submissions, Facebook.
TWO ART PIECES BYALAINA HAMMONDARTIST BIO: Alaina Hammond is a poet, playwright, fiction writer, and visual artist. Her poems, plays, short stories, nonfiction, paintings, drawings and photographs have been published both online and in print. Her novelette Jillian, Formerly Known as Frog Girl was published by Bottlecap Press. Three of her flash fiction stories have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, all in2025. Find her as @alainaheidelberger on Instagram.
QUEEN KITTY COLLAGE BY TREVOR CUNNINGHAMARTIST BIO: Trevor writes: “I'm mostly a poet, but I like to paint and draw as well. I find collage combines all of these creative energies together! I'm currently polishing a collection of poetry in the avantgardish vein, supported by a Toronto Arts Council Grant”
TWO VISUAL ARTWORKS BY BILL WOLAKVanquished by the Moonlight's Bewildering LipstickTHE PANIC OF SILKARTIST BIO: Bill Wolak has just published his eighteenth book of poetry entitled All the Wind’s Unfinished Kisses with Ekstasis Editions. His collages and photographs have appeared as cover art for such magazines as Phoebe, The Passionfruit Review, Inside Voice, and Barfly Poetry Magazine.
Le Trouble des hérosCOLLAGE BY NELLY SANCHEZ
La Fragilité des victoires ARTIST BIO: Nelly Sanchez has been a visual collagist for fifteen years.She plays with the associations of ideas, symbols and colors dictated by a playful, playful unconscious. Her collages are regularly exhibited in France, Europe and Egypt, and appear in various French and English-language magazines.
FEATURED FEMME: J.I. KLEINBERG
ARTIST BIO AND STATEMENTBIO: J.I. (Judy) Kleinberg has lived in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Berkeley, Seattle, Santa Fe, Bellingham, and is on Instagram @jikleinberg. Along the way, she has been an artist, marketing executive, freelance copy writer, scuba instructor, poetry blogger, disaster responder, and a few other things. Her poetry (including more than 900 of her visual poems) has been published in print and online journals and anthologies worldwide and featured in art exhibits in Asheville (NC), and in Seattle, La Conner, and Bellingham (WA). Her chapbooks The Word for Standing Alone in a Field (Bottlecap Press), How to pronounce the wind (Paper View Books), and Desire’s Authority(Ravenna Triple Series No. 23) were published in 2023; a full-length volume, She needs the river (Poem Atlas), was published in 2024; Sleeping Lessons (Milk & Cake Press) was published in 2025.STATEMENT: Through my childhood, student years, business career, and years as a fiber artist, I have always made collage and I have always written. About fifteen years ago, looking for magazine images for collage, I happened to notice places where words stacked up on the page to create new, unintended meaning. I loved that accidental found syntax and started collecting these little fragments of text, tearing them from the page to reveal the paper’s tiny fibers along the torn edges. The lines would drift around on my work table for a while until I noticed that two or three or four of them seemed to talk with one another. This kept happening and is still happening, more than 2900 poems later. The words of each torn fragment are exactly as found. They are not altered or pieced together, though I do sometimes delete punctuation. Read each torn text fragment as you would a line of poetry. It may help to say it aloud, slowly at first, and again once you’ve found the rhythm.
The words that I find and the poems they make seem to reflect what’s on my mind, whether that’s the abyssmal state of the world, or the wonders of nature, or the quirky and absurd. A poem rarely happens all at once. I collect the lines, spread them on the table, then store them by subject (see photo), pulling them out as needed to build new poems. When I’ve assembled a poem, the pieces are glued down and the finished piece is scanned at very high resolution. While the originals are approx. 4.25” x 5.5” / 11 x 14cm, the image holds up at poster, or even banner, size. You can see a lot more on Instagram @jikleinberg and at chocolate is a verb - https://chocolateisaverb.wordpress.com. I also produce a near-daily blog on poetry in Cascadia, The Poetry Department - https://thepoetrydepartment.wordpress.com/.
PROSE POESIE PROSE POESIE PROSE POESIEPROSE POESIE PROSE POESIE PROSE POESIEPROSE POESIE PROSE POESIE PROSE POESIEPROSE POESIE PROSE POESIE PROSE POESIEPROSE POESIE PROSE POESIE PROSE POESIE
THREE POEMS BY Michelle Matthees
AUTHOR BIO: Michelle Matthees has published two books of poetry, \"Complicated Warding,\" about institutionalization circa 1900, and \"Flucht\" (New Rivers Press), about Eastern Europe and adoption. When not writing poems, she works as a Mental Health Practitioner at a middle school. More information about her work can be found at www.michellematthees.com.
TWO POEMS BY JOHN OLSONHOLY SHITThe sky just crashed to the ground. Democracy has been gutted. The government has been eviscerated. We feel precarious as southern yellow pine in a Mississippi sawmill. If there was ever a time to write poetry, it would be now. It’s amazing what you can write in such circumstances. A bildungsroman. A doctrinal juggernaut. Entire panoramas. Wings with the patterns of devotion. Tambourines. Icebergs. Alluring (and unalluring) smells. The smell of birth. The smell of death. The smell of grace. The smell of a candle that’s just been snuffed. The smells of the Mosquito Coast. The smells of the Ivory Coast. The smell of laundry the smell of certainty the smell of tornados. The smell of an old woman’s bathroom. The smell of lavender in a kitchen cupboard. The smell of Daphne during a walk in early spring. The smell of negative ions in the air before the wall of a storm crashes the ground with lightning. The percussion at the heart of the underworld is a throat of powder. It smells like cobalt. I dissolve all the hooks I burn against time. All the lures. All the false premises. All the illusions. All the entanglements. All the false idols. All the salvos. All the salves. I open a high yield bank account. Light a match. Set the world on fire. What better stimulates poetry, opium or pain? I believe it’s an individual decision. Brian Eno musing on a piano. Beethoven staring at the pattern on a carpet. Build a cloud out loud. That’s what I say. Build a cloud out loud.
Build something intimidating. Build something freakish and Victorian. Something wet and wiggly. Something dry and abstract. Repair the world with a recital. Humor the world with a glaze. Refine the wide-eyed with discord. Thunder your rage at a Walmart. Using architectural engines, combine some clay with some taillights to create something clairvoyant. Something traveling down the highway at 70 mph. I have a shipment of quatrains I want to get to Chicago. I need time, I need cadence, I need Bolivian silver.Let your eyes become their own images. The way thought becomes conversation.I will be sure to include 70 miles or so of iron rails. Testimony flickers if it’s culminated with cloth. Use metaphysical scissors. Let's wrap our actions in words. We are faucets of one another. First, I dive, then explode from perception. I’m wild in my biology and flutter away like a rumor. INTERESTING TIMESI saw a video the other day, on YouTube. Dawn from En Vogue has been living in her car. I found that rather shocking. These are strange times. Strange doings. Evil going on wrong. I know it’s time to take action, but what? I’ve tried nihilism. I’ve tried pessimism and cynicism and wearing argyle socks and a tam-o’-shanter. I stopped at growing a mustache. I did that once, in my youth. I ended up fighting duels and exploring contingencies in case I’m ever kidnapped by nuns. I turned to the oak for wisdom, and heard a deep, penetrating groan recommend silk underwear. Do any of these words look familiar? A little algorithm brought me your sweater.This is a really fast sentence. You might not even see it. I’m in a rush to write a hit song.
Things continued to tumble after my saga crashed. You should’ve heard it. It sounded like a janitor’s closet packed with mutinous phenomena. I don't care about life in the high-rises I care about life on the ground. Where I live.I bounce a nipple from room to room to make this quixotic. See me dribble your attention upside down. Even though it's silly to worry about the future, I worry about the future. I listen to the music of Earth on YouTube and several hours later drive the band home in my car. I started seeing hairs on my fingers. And I knew what it meant to be a frequency. I tried to be somebody I could admire but things went sideways and I ended up occupying an office near the stratosphere. A life without contradictions is the equivalent of pulverized chalk. Confusion is good for the soul. Beyond rationality, the mind flirts with insurrection. Revolution was the one Beatles song I found disappointing. You could tell these guys had become rich and comfortable. It sounded glib and sanctimonious. I imagine writing an essay on consciousness. A flock of flamingos take to the air.I stand amid parables in the adult movie section. I sometimes despair that connectivity is too great a strain. But here it appears worthy of a long discussion, and mementos of midnight lace. We learn to inventory our delicacies. Our peculiarities. Our triumphs and disappointments. Our trails & hawks. Our orchids & vines. And everything in Luxembourg, and everything in Chad. Each time I sit down to write I open a door to another wonderfully improbable realm. And fight back the sense of futility. Which is itself futile. Because you can’t stop a language with a decree. There’s nothing to stop. Thoughts aren’t subject to locks. The sweet story of our necessities percolates through our senses to give us theosophy. And we heave ourselves into heaven. AUTHOR BIO: John Olson is a poet and novelist who has lived for many years in Seattle, Washington. The poet Phillip Lamantia said that Olson was \"extraordinary...the greatest prose poetry [i've] ever read.”
Corn on the CurseBy Steve Carll (imaginary translation of an Italian translation of the beginning of the Declaration of Independence)Corn on the curse of its divine ointments, humans thus far necessary pour a poor disorder or else whiny politics that lie on legitimacy to an altar and proceed between the potencies of terror, the locked separate and equal key that lies dating the naturalist, and the naturalist dude who's done and dressed, just as respectable as a judge of the humane exit strategy, the key is to declare \"I\" less causal than the impulse to separate.AUTHOR BIO: Steve Carll lives in Arcata, California. His third fulllength poetry collection, Hypnopompic Diaries (Books One and Two) is available on Amazon from Alien Buddha Press. His work has recently appeared in Blackbox Manifold, #Ranger, and issue #44 of Clockwise Cat.He can be found reading his poems live at https://www.youtube.com/@stevecarll/videos.
Contra-Mundane Allocation By Heller Levinson turnstile lethargy razed roused radical gone benny droppin hard boppoppin flop flip hip jam joint slam bamboozle boing bluster bashrack misbe-haveerrancies jitter in the pickup slosh derange down with flags up withlingerie splay institutions institute jetés galliards do-si-doswildebeest willow lash underbrush overflow cripple creek rye rumrattle rush ramrod ruckusunfetter spigot splash goblet trawl gypsy jackin the flush of jamboreevoluptuosityAUTHOR BIO: Heller Levinson’s most recent books are QUERY CABOODLE,SHIFT GRISTLE (Black Widow Press, 2023), THE ABYSSAL RECITATIONS (Concrete Mist Press, 2024), VALVULAR ASH (BWP, 2024), QUERY CABOODLE 2 (Sulfur Editions, 2024), Crossfall chapbook (Sandy Press, 2024), CROSSFALL (BWP, 2025). His book, LURE (Black Widow Press, 2022),won the “2022 Big Other Poetry Book Award.”