JUNE 5, ATLANTA CITY COUNCIL VOTE ON COP CITY MONEY Over a thousand people showed up for the final vote on Cop City. Not everyone could enter city hall, so hundreds stayed outside on the sidewalk chanting Stop Cop City. Almost 400 people signed up to speak. This was three times larger than the May 15 ACC meeting, the largest in history. Only a month later, that record was broken. Citizens spoke against Cop City for 15 hours. One Black man said, "I cannot believe I am standing here, pleading with you not to spend the tax dollars of a Black city, to tear down a forest in a Black neighborhood, to increase the policing and caging of more Black people. All this in a city with Black leadership. It breaks my heart.” After 15 hours of heart-wrenching, passionate, inspiring, and powerful testimony, the heartless city council voted 11 to 4 to approve $67 million for Cop City. It now should be evident to everyone that ACC does not represent the people but the corporate-funded Atlanta Police Foundation. Witnesses said some city council members said they wanted to vote no but were afraid of the mayor, who is scared of unelected David Wilkenson, CEO of the Atlanta Police Foundation (AFP). Activists claim APF will rent Cop City to police officers in other states and countries and use the money to donate to politicians who will be yes men and women for APF. The alliance of corporations, politicians, and police begins a fascist police state. This is not democracy. This is not even about public safety. It is about the control and domination of populations, repression of social justice movements, and the criminalization of protest. It is about giving wealthy corporations and individuals all the power to use that power and money to their advantage. The ordinance stated the public would pay $30 million, and the Atlanta Police Foundation would pay $60 million to build Cop City. Before the first brick is laid, it has already changed to taxpayers will pay $67 million. Who knows how high this will go? That money would be better spent on community needs like affordable housing, healthcare, education, childcare, mental health programs, addiction clinics, job programs, raising teachers, and nurses' salaries. June 7 Stop Cop City filed for a citywide referendum vote on Cop City. There is still hope if the citizens of Atlanta vote NO on giving their tax dollars to Cop City.
MUZAK MEDITATIONS: PROTOMARTYR SHOWCASE A SUBTLE EXPANSION OF THEIR SHADOWY SOUND By Alison Ross Editor’s note: This review first appeared in PopMatters, an online magazine. The music of Detroit-based Protomartyr has always felt dense and dark to me, so it's highly interesting that the band has recorded their latest album, Formal Growth in the Desert, literally in the desert. A place called Sonic Ranch in Tornillo, Texas, to be exact, where there are sun-baked Sonoran rock formations. The band that fellow-Michigander and punk pioneer Iggy Pop called "The best band we’ve got in America right now," decamped from moody Motor City to sandy West Texas, even if temporarily. One would think, then, that an album informed by and formed in the Western desert might have a "sunnier" sound (whatever that means), or maybe even some desolate expanses in the tunes. But solar-infused sonics aren't quite there, though you can certainly hear nuanced intonations of levity. However, it's true that the music is less impenetrable than previous efforts. There is more room for the instruments to breathe, and a true sense of space, at times invoking a feeling of being surrounded by sky as you contemplate the stars. There are some western touches, too, in the music; after all, guitarist and co-producer Greg Ahee had been listening to Spaghetti Western soundtracks during the recording process. Standout song "Let's Tip the Creator" indeed features Ennio Morricone-like textures and reverb to great effect. The music, in short, seems tighter, more accessible. And while it's always been difficult for me to discern the actual Motown influence with Protomartyr (maybe I was always misguided in attempting to discern it?), in songs like "Elimination Dances," you can hear a rhythmic buoyancy. Protomartyr even moves toward lush territory and shoegaze subtexts in “We Know the Rats." And yet those cowboy guitar hooks show up again, evoking the swirling dust and sneering gunslingers of southwestern wastelands.
Of course, Joe Casey's stony vocals always severely contrast anything that approaches upbeat, so there is that to contend with, too. Protomartyr music is challenging in the most rewarding way; shadows ever loom over the turmoil churning within Protomartyr's signature sound. That deadpan vocal delivery is showcased most dynamically on riff-heavy songs like "3800 Tigers" and "Graft vs. Host," where Casey's voice can slink from a stoic whisper to an understated croon ("Graft vs. Host"), or even lurch toward a gritty bellow ("3800 Tigers"). Another shouty song, "Fun in Hi Skool," starts with a twitchy, almost danceable sensibility, but unfolds toward controlled chaos, reminding us of Protomartyr's decidedly raggedy origins. The single and singular, "Polacrilex Kid," on the other hand, sees Casey flattening out that shout and giving his best anti-rap, as guitars fiercely shimmer in the background and his voice pounds out syllables in a defiantly non-rhythmic way. The Lynchian touches in the video add absurdist heft to an already surrealistic song ostensibly about aging: Lyrically, the other songs find Casey, often obliquely, grappling with parental death, the dystopian aspects of technology and capitalism, being a crime victim - and yet through it all, there is hope: "Can you hate yourself/ And still deserve love?" he asks in "Polacrilex Kid," and in response, he croons, "I am deserving of love," in "Rain Garden." The album, in fact, closes with the droning, softly cascading "Rain Garden." Given that the desert is, by definition, often void of rain, it seems fitting that the band would circle back toward something less arid; the song is drenched in eerie melody. On Formal Growth in the Desert, Protomartyr has ever-so-subtly evolved its sound into something not quite mellow, and not quite as expansive as its titular reference - and yet also not as claustrophobically volatile as previous efforts. It's something gloriously in between.
ZEN-SURREALIST POESIE Part II
TWO POEMS By Caroline Reddy We’ve Brought Apocalypse Through the Walls Boxed in a cubicle I paced our dissent— as the streets of London, Tehran and New York cracked the boys choir— in that crevice your absence waxed and the moon claimed my damnation. In our momentary lapse you’re pulled away from the coast. I slipped into minds of prisoners felt jolts —
—and threw my balm against the barricade. The piano’s silhouette hides the barrier— spilling Tori’s keys, Laura’s lyrics and Azam’s voice —dissolving empty pillowcases and soiled sheets. I release our cord erase wedding bells –and cleanse this space from our insanity. Sorry that My Earthquake was so Profound I wait for your clutter to fade away so I can dispose delusions and find the center of gravity. The wilted flowers welcome me into their folds when mud became thick. Our devotion is thinning but we can pretend it's honey among the broken combs. When my mouth was shut with staples they begin to feed my ears with the idea of dirty diapers.
They wanted my calling to be a silent housewife and forget about my revolution. I made bird feeders and waited amidst ruins to feel the stillness— all those nights tinkering with words, I cleared and unclogged my throat. Author bio: Caroline Reddy’s work has appeared in Active Muse, Calliope, Clinch, Grey Sparrow, Starline, and Tupelo Quarterly Review among others. In the fall of 2021, her poem “A Sacred Dance'' was nominated for the Best of The Net prize by Active Muse. A native of Shiraz, Iran, Caroline’s work has also appeared in the anthology Iranian Women Speak (International Human Rights Arts Festival.) Her first manuscript Shake the Atmosphere to Reclaim an Empty Moment is forthcoming with Pierian Springs Press. Her website is: https://www.carolinereddy.com/
TWO POEMS By Jon Wesick DeWitt Henry’s Chair There’s a castle in Transylvania with a plumbing problem. A land surveyor asks directions at the local pub. After tales of pipes clogged with clotted blood, he decides, that like Dewitt Henry, he’s in the wrong story. The land surveyor takes a horse-drawn carriage to the Kmart to shop in the office supply department. It’s all bidets and baguettes there and he can’t find a Henry Miller chair that speaks a language other than French. Anais Nin has a new brand of printer paper with little birds watermarked on each page. Beating tiny wings for all they’re worth, these creatures haul the heavy twelve-ream cartons off pallets and into the loading bay. After a hard day’s work, they stop for cocktails aboard the Graf Zeppelin. Intent on their cigars and dart game, they miss the foghorn announcing the airship’s departure. Hilarity ensues until somewhere over the North Atlantic, they hitch a ride to the Gateway Arch aboard the Spirit of St. Louis. DeWitt Henry has never been to the Gateway Arch nor has he ridden in a zeppelin. The risks of vampires in bib overalls and hydrogen explosions are just too great. He rarely leaves the donjon of his Cape Cod home in Somerville, Massachusetts except for rare trips to Staples when printer paper is on sale for twenty dollars a carton.
Woke-Washing (Created with the assistance of the La Salle University Dada Poem Generator) Woke heteronormative pronoun intersectionality slut cultural cancel nonbinary racism body consent people race punching microaggression critical marginalization theory cis white representation neurodivergent identify masculinity appropriation differently bias greenwash trigger social gender queerbaiting violence abled preferred Latinx space image spectrum antiracism objectification rape shaming mansplain identity gendered toxic womxn structural fragility white culture inclusive pansexual body diversity gender who down positive menstruate ableist allyship pronouns shaming justice transphobic oppression privilege gun fat implicit systemic feminism safe equity warning Author bio: Jon Wesick is a regional editor of the San Diego Poetry Annual. He’s published hundreds of poems and stories in journals such as the Atlanta Review, Berkeley Fiction Review, Clockwise Cat, New Verse News, Paterson Literary Review, Pearl, Pirene’s Fountain, Slipstream, Space and Time, and Tales of the Talisman. His most recent books are The Shaman in the Library and The Prague Deception. http://jonwesick.com
TWO POEMS BY JOHN OLSON Author bio: John Olson is the author of numerous books of poetry and prose poetry, including Echo Regime, Free Stream Velocity, Backscatter: New and Selected Poems, Larynx Galaxy, Dada Budapest, and Weave of the Dream King. He was the recipient of the The Stranger’s 2004 Literature Genius Award, and in 2012 was one of eight finalists for the Washington State Arts Innovator Award. He has also published four novels, including Souls of Wind (shortlisted for The Believer Book Award, 2008), The Nothing That Is, The Seeing Machine, In Advance of the Broken Justy, and Mingled Yarn, an autofiction. You Know There’s Something, a recently completed novel, is forthcoming from Grand Iota press in England. Nostalgia Nostalgia is a seductive force in old age, exponentiated by YouTube. It’s a lot like alcohol: first the buzz, then the hangover. The past leads, inevitably, to remorse and regret. Memories aren’t glittery palaces of lost enchantments. They’re more like dead things in jars of formaldehyde. But that’s not really true either. Some of them continue to play out like mini-dramas. Like the smell of patchouli and that afternoon in Dover, England we were almost arrested for carrying hashish. But there was no hashish. It was the spilled patchouli in my ex-wife’s purse. Or the time on the front porch of a duplex in Seattle when I checked to make sure the door to my apartment was closed all the way and a female cop saw me and drove into the parking lot and demanded to see my driver’s license which I showed her but I hadn’t changed the address yet I’d just moved in so she assumed I had broken into the apartment and was about to arrest me
when the woman next door came out & identified me. The past is arresting. I don’t recommend the future either, since it's 90 seconds to midnight on the doomsday clock. Hence, I seek refuge in the past, and a train ride to Minot, North Dakota in 1968, to visit grandparents, followed by a bus ride, and a police interrogation, interrupting my reading of A Throw of the Dice Will Never Abolish Chance. A walk on the prairie with a transistor radio, among the cows, who ignored me. Ruminant heads turned when Born To Be Wild came on. It was the only song that aroused their interest. Lobster Wallow Arkansas Howdy folks. I’m in Lobster Wallow Arkansas. The west is a mass of flannel. The east is a herd of mobile homes. I’m in the raw whisper bed. I’ve got a rugged core of gymnastic meringue. And a French name for a carpenter. But I’m not a carpenter. I’m Karen Carpenter. I build houses of music. With a pair of drumsticks. And I’m here to sing to you a lovely ballad of heartache and allterrain truck tires. Foliage holds the night. It’s the Hour of the Hat. I could use some sauerkraut bee musk. Can anyone spare a little cocoa? A little salt for chaos? If I win at bingo tonight I’ll throw you some coffee. I hear a peach. It sounds like the wet juicy rapture of eating. I’ve just decided. I’m remaining sage. You can tell me in the morning how hard I crashed when the metaphors broke and heaven came tumbling down like a cool wind in my hair. Life is funny in Lobster Wallow Arkansas. One night it’s fried chicken in sawmill gravy and the next it’s buttermilk anklets & amphetamine fondue. Me, I’ve got a cocoa pod to build and a book to forge. Thorny tears of poetry trickle down my cheeks. On Wednesdays I ignite myself with a salsa sandwich and knit a chimera with thaumaturgic thumbs and a set of darning needles
blessed by Pope Saint Hilarius. Come Friday the orchards are a faith, an enduring jubilee of cherries and pears. Flames slide through the silhouettes of evensong. The colors on the periphery are a cheerful green. Sunshine is a liquid drama. At least it is in Arkansas on a Saturday afternoon. We get together and wax all the mahogany desks in town. I can manage a cabinet swell. All I need is a gentle push. A radical sidewalk sugars the mind. But my legs are pillows and my arms belie the purpose of chamomile, which is to marry a goose. Everything was planned, including the rice and methane, but the swamp got up and walked away, taking its apparitions with it. And this is life. Life in Lobster Wallow Arkansas. Many years ago I visited San Francisco. I welcomed writing right away. My tongue became a logorrheic log bright with the flames of speech. My fingers were nimble and my weight was archaic. I asked myself questions that had never occurred to me before, such as why isn’t Medicare truly Medicare & is gravel the gravy of gravity? I elected my stomach almanac of the year. I remedied a maneuver in my language by drawing on a gothic sediment of tracheal drapery. I immersed myself in socks. I did a handstand on a pile of push-ups. I learned how to develop glue and stuck myself to a tiptoe. When I returned to Lobster Wallow I wasn’t the same. I anointed myself the King of Roquefort and rented an office in a nearby cave. I felt a profession rise within me and scratched the stiches on my face trying to figure out who I was. How does one discover one’s destiny? Open a bait shop on Shady Lake, Arkansas & cultivate worms. The queen backed away when I showed her my pants. This was my dragon pants experience. It happens every year in Lobster Wallow. The fragrance of brittlebrush signals the liberation of moss. Moss is amazing. But you don’t need me to tell you that. Moss can speak for itself. This rampant little bryophyte is eloquent with pious humidity. It shows up in the craziest of
places greening over the drab gray concrete of the modern world and bonding with it like bone. I was arranging my moss exhibit in the garage when the Queen of Ample Avenue showed up and demanded her lawn mower back. I don’t have your lawnmower I told her. But I do have my dragon pants. When the queen retreated in silent awe I felt triumphant. I did not expect laughter. These are custom-tailored pants imported from the Black Forest of Germany and are 100% moss. So is my shirt. My shoes. My mustache and beard. Would you care for some tarpaulin sauce? It cures any malady. Except complacency. The Alligator King was combing his radiation when I entered the foundry. Nothing is obscure in the foundry. Not even the thoughts swirling in your head in the late afternoon after a couple of beers. But don’t. Don’t bring beer to a foundry. You might end up as a manhole cover. At the end of the day we all become rags and tremble when someone’s mouth opens and thunders with elephants. And this is what we do in Lobster Wallow. Map our mutations and belch our approval. I get all vertebral on Friday and let my beans jump into the mist. I go hunting for lightning honey in the hives of the holy and hear a song of frost in the ruby plumbing of my last pair of shoes. They were handcrafted coffee hurricane hide with Rumanian storm welts, Gothic silver eyelets, the lightness of a butterfly and the durability of a Latin alphabet hardened to make a sole.
TWO POEMS By Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal The Purpose of Sand What is the purpose of sand and mountains made up of dirt and rocks? Give me row after row of asphalt on flat land and a tree or two. Why walk upward? I cannot walk on sand for too long. The gods must have been crazy when they made sand. Trees were a good idea. Telephone poles are leafless trees. But I do not like them without bark. Does what I say make any sense at all? Colder than Shadows After Charles Baudelaire Goodbye sounds fall from my lips like a nail in a coffin at my own funeral. A slow descension, my heart leaves my
body without sound. I listen in silence. My frozen heart longs for the sun. Hate, anger, and fear fills in for its heartbeat. My time has come. I go into shock. Life is too brief and colder than shadows. Author bio: Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal writes out of Los Angeles County. His poetry, drawings, and photography have appeared in Black Petals, Borderline Journal, Clockwise Cat, Fevers of the Mind, and Medusa’s Kitchen. Make the Water Laugh is his latest poetry book, which was published by Rogue Wolf Press.
TWO POEMS BY HELLER LEVINSON Trouble Is crud coated gnash afflicted fusillade frenzy all aboard steamroll satanic shimmy praxis flummox fungi parade goo–wrapped gum-bubbled atrocity riddled bloat blob rash doom-driven panic blear this funk you can’t debunk drool gangrenous cumulative abort contort cut along the dotted line be besot cranky ill at sorts it takes all kinds days like this take 2 take 3 up for grabs aquamarine terracotta pit stop downfall home improvement leprous idle there must be some way outa here sidle slip slide hyper glide blitz blizzardblink tincture loss where’s the boss rat skunk skittle ladle cap a top throne a bone fancy yrself Night In Tunisia with no ride no cymbal splash no bass line no snare snap stropping barriers seas I scrape absentee absently absurd postures
jubilant teeth mongers rupture frost fire from furry things end of the line I refuse to give up I go lion I go broadcast go slipstream neon caboodle honky tonk go stratospheric bugaboo go shoo fly shoo go huckabuck wander amok over cracked asphalt glisten-glob clatter-rag telltale tag along tom-tom …………. go clop clop go giddy up go aubergine & Kansas spatula & ramrod rimshot & short shorts bridge & underbelly cowbell & whisk broom delicious & decadent . . . be misfit be dangdoodle be dollop & tangerine be gangsta & moon rag
sultry & skywhistle huckleberry & tumbleweed evidence & counter procedural . . . go acrobat go somersault & chicken wings hacky-sack & tumbleweed prudence & puerile go offshoot go nutmeg go toggle-joint go ramshackle crazy Author bio: Heller's most recent books are QUERY CABOODLE & SHIFT GRISTLE (Black Widow Press, 2023).
Cat By Martine Bellen The cat belongs to Me. The cat belongs To the house. The cat belongs to The other cat. The cat Belongs to itself. The cat Belongs to the forest. The Cat belongs to the bird and mouse. The cat belongs to the mountain lion. The cat belongs to no one. The cat Belongs to nothing. The cat belongs To everyone, everything. The cat has a name That I gave it. Everyone knows the cat’s name Is not its name. It is my name for the cat. Sometimes the cat refuses to acknowledge This name and sometimes the cat Plays along with the life I’ve created for the cat. Sometimes the cat pretends that it doesn’t live in a realm Different from the one that the cat and I Live in together. The cat has needs that must be met For the cat to live in my house, though most of the cat’s time Is spent elsewhere. I invite the cat to live with me So I can perceive some of the “elsewhere” In which the cat spends much cat time. The cat shares what I can’t see by maintaining An existence in my house and by responding to The name I gave the cat.
I know there will be a moment In the circuitry of space-time in which the cat will discard The name and forsake my house for good And will exit only in the fields I cannot see without the cat living in my house. On that day, I might say, “The cat has moved full time into the wild.” Or I might say, “Miau-miau has run away.” Editor’s note: “Cat” was previously published in WABAC Machine (Furniture Press Books, 2013). Author bio: Martine Bellen’s most recent poetry collection is An Anatomy of Curiosity (MadHat Press, 2023). She is the author of nine other books, including Tales of Murasaki and Other Poems, which won the National Poetry Series. Her poem “A Deafening Prayer,” from An Anatomy of Curiosity, is forthcoming in Best American Poetry, 2023. Her website is www.martinebellen.com.
TWO POEMS BY VINCENT CELLUCCI spit valve clouds the brass of mirth extends past the woodwinds oboes of melancholy assumes its the other tragedy than the one we garnish before us established by surprise sneeze in the reeds regrets rehearsed a burst of the worst universe finale like dud fireworks the program of supreme pulse the empty intestine roast a grand piss your pants the unhand chance smacks your forehead with your ass curious as a python on catnip sucking down a kitty in the everglades predators emit the crudest call of all from our left ventricle met timid romance in the right chamber crossed legs before crosshairs the separation of salt from seawater the separation of my soul from me a november to always grieve forever why is it always disbelief that succeeds in spirit mourner emeritus
e pluribus racists and chauvinists suck on our stars strip for our stripes alerts we set beside our bedside tablets streaming may your rule be rubble on my 37th year and yet another day around the sun gas grenades and rubber bullets win yet another day riots and racism protests burn in the divided states furnace after yet another series of executions by the police men and women caught red-handed for being black in the streets or in their homes fast asleep my country is suffering a pandemic, a recession and is so divided it can’t even take a breath of the least-polluted skies it’s tasted since before the industrial revolution back home between protests my friends board up windows ready the generators as yet another hurricane looms on louisiana so far away I reach further within nowhere near comprehending america’s sick in the head as the old folks used to say some now probably repeat as if simple bigotry could save them from a plague sickened by their lack of surplus without identifying the correct culprits like welfare money is better off buried even after civil rights and the hippies the powers at be managed to slip us america’s true favorite drug: ignorance hey greatest generation or everyone wearing bloody caps the black bodies that made it great the first time can take no more abuse
it’s not a threat to you to eliminate the centuries-standing death threat on blacks sheathe your assault rifle and park the tanks we’re just trying not to get here yet again yet another birthday sentiment when we usually make a wish or two for the impossible bargain days a mad dash backwards from the grave the earliest hide and seek we never win but blue on black death daily... and although I’m not out in the streets dodging police to make a statement of solidarity I violently punch keys that know no answers the letters are my only black neighbors they are the only way I can join the drumline for justice determined forms that build the page black and permanent as the night and the fears we steady there are infinite Editor’s note: “on my 37th year and yet another day around the sun” was previously published in getting away with everything (Unlikely Books, 2021). Author bio: Vincent A. Cellucci edited Fuck Poems an exceptional anthology (Lavender Ink, 2012). He also has three collaborative titles, including a ship on the line (Unlikely Books, 2014), which was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award; and the recently released getting away with everything (Unlikely Books, 2021). Vincent performed Diamonds in Dystopia, an interactive poetry web app at SXSW in 2017, and the poem was anthologized in Best American Experimental Writing 2018. He works at the TU Delft Library.
Fucked Up By Catfish McDaris Fucked if you’re hot, fucked if you’re cold Fucked if you’re poor, or own a ton of gold Fucked if you’re skinny, or real fucking fat Fucked if you’re pissing and get bit by a rat Fucked if you love, fucked if you hate Fucked if you’re hungry, fucked if you just ate Fucked if you’re a stinking drunk craving wine Fucked if you’re sober as fuck walking the line Fucked if you make windshield wipers Fucked if you’re a baby with shitty diapers Fucked if you’re taking. or leaving a shit Fucked when the bong comes and you take a big hit Fucked when you suck a glass dick full of crack Fucked when your mama lays on her back Fucked when the coppers slap you in a cage Fucked when your life book is missing a page Fucked when you die and only the worms cry. Author bio: Catfish McDaris won the Thelonius Monk Award in 2015. He’s been active in the small press world for 30 years. He’s recently been translated into Spanish, Italian, French, Polish, Swedish, Arabic, Bengali, Mandarin, Yoruba, Tagalog, and Esperanto. Catfish McDaris’ most infamous chapbook is Prying with Jack Micheline and Charles Bukowski. He’s from Albuquerque and Milwaukee.
TWO POEMS BY HEATH BROUGHER Transcending Buddha Sometimes you’re lucky enough to turn into a hammer— and if you find such fortuitousness you might unlock the ability to become not only the blunted head of the hammer but the opposite end—the much more severe end— the vicious end—the end that can really do some fuckin damage. lurk across gloam (Hinge Ether) in the pith of pathos a glow slowly let go shaded by parasol unflowing light not ungoing awayward fractals borrow lusters of lack loose bulbs blinking drinking blank aftermaths at Midnight O’Clock a saplessness illume the crack of dawn gone visibly tattered I assume— unless noon festooned itself in gloom
last sparks spume perfume eyes till vespertime withers whispers into pitchy hues huge and w/ moon brandish micro pixels strewn among the b(l)acklash of night will suffer a similar plight Afterward O’Clock brings forth a massive miracle of bright to peel off the lightless sight by enlivening revivening the vision spark up in circadian situation planetary rotation = rejustification moving in through until a lightfulness renews supplying skies with visionary hues and elseworlds that apply to the eye Author bio: Heath Brougher is the editor-in-chief of Concrete Mist Press as well as poetry editor for Into the Void Magazine. He received Taj Mahal Review’s 2018 Poet of the Year Award, and is a multiple Pushcart/Best of the Net Nominee. He has published eleven books of poetry and philosophy. After spending the past five years editing the work of others, he is trying to get back into the creative driver’s seat for a bit.
Empty Protest Tanked Full by Vernon Frazer when a global beatnik plurality layered riffs in a crossfire daze mantra gullies witness marginal jest aching pandemics courage pirates kick the watchdogs past their plosive traction coursing the forgotten lamplight each bankrupt vignette slimming flapper celebration that actuaries find lurid projected where a wet carillon welled the blasters wildly from the garlic plane
* a flagpole compatriot prefigures firebrick graffiti eaten from a wavering ladle an olfactory aperture bigot deletes a pelted quota relay offensive to the embittered bathroom storm before wiser ambivalence diluted the sizzle of brain moisturizer shattering clusters lobed clockwise to a band of raiders then sloughing off their glare babbles Author bio: Vernon Frazer’s latest book is Memo from Alamut.
Of America’s Dreams By Devin Gmyrek The connective tissue of colloquial America begins with a sigh and ends, predictably, with a scythe. To think one could hang one’s life on a thumbtack seems strange, yet singularities abound, bound by the same laws that irk everyone, inescapable definition, the sun’s ceaseless tightrope transgressions, the infallible transience of unanimous laughter. See my insides rise and speak to me like a tiny pocket of felonious air rising from a deep, growing well. It’s not so much the mouth’s a mockery of mirrors past, loitering no place like a mirage, but the fact that after so many miles and so much sand its motor hasn’t turned to ash. A landscape abandoned, we call for a sign and the stars fall out. If only their white noise would go away, seek another somnolence to prolong, the rhythm of buzz-saws and ribbons might free us of impossible gospel. Then we could break apart, reassemble without directions—a thought lost matchbox from a memorable hotel room. Author bio: Devin Gmyrek received an MFA degree in Creative Writing from Saint Mary’s College of California. After graduate school, he lived for a year in Uruguay, where he translated poetry from Spanish to English and penned a novel. He has taught at various secondary schools, and he now lives in Maine.
Specchio By Salvatore Difalco Look at reflective path marked light till reversed steps boost regression. Call progress evil flat or give fat praise to babble they mock amongst themselves—shame for I demonstrate scorn openly that’s hated by my own hands. I’ve already sued Freedom want it savaged the light we’ve risen, little light grows good as truth. Displeased, turn back lights illuminated flight call pursues a hum state well above stars. Author bio: Salvatore Difalco is a Sicilian Canadian poet and satirist living in Toronto, Canada.
Apples By Jack D. Harvey Apples. Bark apples, block apples, tea apples, cart apples, apples also apples: singing harp apples, Helen's apples, little green apples. Not apples: treacle guns, horses, pears, peas, cannibals. I'll trade my puppy for one good black pip. Redblueyellow apples in neon signs, dead black apples in the fire, apples big as lion hearts, bounding sounding blue apples, like bells in temples. Only apples have no keepsakes. The core is dour, sour. Editor’s note: “Apples” was previously published in Zombie Logic Review Author bio: Jack D. Harvey’s poetry has appeared in Scrivener, The Antioch Review, The Piedmont Poetry Journal and elsewhere. He has been a Pushcart nominee and divides his time between his home near Albany, New York and his plantation in South Carolina. He is retired from doing whatever he was doing before he retired. His book, Mark the Dwarf, is available on Kindle.
Dubbed Industrial Freight Drain By Joshua Martin Seeing all outside a space heater legacy lacking pioneering conduits or slides blunt instruments lend tariff houses to colonial fighter pilots. Drunken duck competitor sullied pound sterling into hinterland catalogue better skip a cart than overthrow a speakeasy. Reflections manifesting retribution dragged across desert showpieces well-established to the point of sickness all irrational! Author bio: Joshua Martin is a Philadelphia based writer and filmmaker, who currently works in a library. He is the author of the books automatic message (Free Lines Press), combustible panoramic twists (Trainwreck Press), Pointillistic Venetian Blinds (Alien Buddha Press) and Vagabond fragments of a hole (Schism Neuronics). He has had numerous pieces published in various journals including Otoliths, M58, The Sparrow’s Trombone, Coven, Scud, Ygdrasil, RASPUTIN, Ink Pantry, and Synchronized Chaos. You can find links to his published work at joshuamartinwriting.blogspot.com
TWO POEMS BY GIORGIA PAVLIDOU Author bio: Giorgia Pavlidou is a Greek-born American writer who has lived in India, the Benelux and California. Recent publications include "inside the black hornet’s mind tunnel” (Trainwreck Press, 2021) and "Haunted by the Living - Fed by the Dead,” (Anvil Tongue Books, 2022). Her book of hybrid writing, “Female Body Retold,” is forthcoming from Spuyten Duyvil Press. An unsarcastically smiling sky Time’s dissolving me in front of an unsarcastically smiling sky Hollow trees roll their eyes Missing cobblestones laugh at my future non-existence “It’s there where you’re headed,” a voice in my head whispers, “towards your absence.” “Come all, drink from the fountain of my non-being,”
the voice makes me say out loud. But none of the random passersby moves in my direction. Growing old in America as a woman First, I bicker with the stubborn hairs running up my female face. Luckily, my mustache, the cleverest of cognitive sheep dogs, herds them into two rectangular packs. Very geometric of him. Next, a demanding but unreasonably smiling mirror laughs loudly at my flocks of missing teeth. If I hadn’t earlier peeled the rare smile off my face, I wouldn’t be able to observe the grazing thoughts flocking to my rural grin. At times, two or three patriotic sheep get stuck in between my gorge-like wrinkles. One scruffy-looking goat, being as mulish as a thought-cowboy, hides behind two massive warts. There’s an unusually thick hair growing on top of the most mountainous mole of all. Its reflection smiles at me as well, unsarcastically of course. A masculinelooking banner seems attached to this hair. The flag flutters gayly. At last, I’m seeing a smile reappear on my barely female face, when the words, “growing old as a woman in America seems unreasonably exciting,” unexpectedly pop up in my head.
Artist Statement: Editor’s note: Giorgia was our previous Featured Femme, and in all of our excitement to showcase her art and words, we forgot to include her artist’s statement! Here, finally, she is allowed a platform to shimmer and shine! Please do also check out her work in Issue 41 of Clockwise Cat.
REST IN PROPHECY SINEAD