From swerve by

Camille Martin

one creaturely sees cold
metaphors peril ... obscure lights
on cones & rods jimmy perspective

drawled walk
in admixtures of domains
the halfway mark

edging toward one
holding still in the depths
slaking transparency
to borrow one's words

*

in the best of circumstances
fast words loom in chiseled patience
while memory shuffles continuously

along a more modern song,
consciousness an utter mess.
the whole sonnet might be the doorbell

& breezy margins more like a language.
as memory softens, the possibility of messages
waxes.  it is a matter of degree
until it becomes in one's mind a matter of kind.

*

if the past is redundant.  rifts beyond what you have left.  partially rusty
pulley eases attempts at silence.  dangled commencement.  "the truth of"
accurately domiciled in the form of climate.  of days

happening obliquely.  periodically dawn's causal irrigations ring in the exit,
a tangent maze with blinkering layers and ordinary thoughts of delicate angles.
a plan limitation to speak of one whole without answering.  the light cold of

conjunction unfurls material to degreeness.  phantom boundaries
confound the reaches of.  whether blinding hover remembers no time.
the breadth of a single trove.  trembling mimicry of earlier
transcriptions.  distant shocks amplified into copious fates.

*

truth is good & hungry
conceiving afresh as dawn musters
backstream terminus

an unfamiliar hand
banking on solutions
in dumb space, mooring

paradox, surfacing lines of divide,
surrounded by wavelets sucking

air
in dives & sways

*

man with crutch

duped by drapes
given up to apostrophe
beatitudes limited

standardize losses
between vocalizations
repeat various grounds

to hide the remnants of a crash
a homonym of a sincere portrait lit by one
possible lantern in provisional increments
seen by gusts of splayed gaze

Three poems by

Andy Young

 

For the Fissure

 

for the gilded leaf
for metallic threads of loss tugging

through the unwritten nothing.

For the twist of copper

like a thin rain of flame,

for shift of the lit first sun of June.

For the blaze in the breath

and the pulse in green through ground.

For plum plumping on the vine,

for seed as it splits open to become --

for the splitting open, the splitting open

the spilling out. For patina

of dream left on vision, for light

through the red of shut lids.

For plume and pluck

and the feathered down

spiral of our lives,

for fault and crevice, for rift and glide

for eruption and protrusion,

for rise for fire, for the edges of things

and for living on them.

 

 

The Sizzling Stares of Sicilian Men

 

Lips hips to nipples then back up again

searing the flesh like a fresh lava flow:

the sizzling stares of Sicilian men.

 

They lick you with thistles and fill you with sin

silently strip off each stitch of your clothes,

lips hips to nipples then back up again.

 

In an instant they know who you are, where you’ve been,

the particular pink of your singular rose --

the sizzling stares of Sicilian men.

 

Pressed into place like a pinned specimen,

while they study each freckle, each dimple, each toe,

lips hips to nipples then back up again.

 

No way to ignore them, you can only pretend

to not notice the heat-creeping hunger of those

sizzling stares of Sicilian men.

 

Like forces of nature, it’s hard to defend

when the hiss of their eyes starts scorching - Oh!

lips hips to nipples and back up again,

the sizzling stares of Sicilian men.

 

 

To Want the Whole Thing

 

This is not what I want to talk about.

I want to ask about the grey hue

longing must take in evening,

about the way you balance

hope and acceptance like teacups

on thin white saucers.

I have so many questions.

But my mind, you know

can't fling across the huge sheet of it,

so I stop at a moment:

 

An hour before my birthday

we decide to eat the pie

just the two of us, blueberry and peach,

your friend had made it from scratch.

Criss-crossed crust across the top

is a perfect latticework.

We gather plates and clear red cups.

Then below the cellophane

you spot them: blots of fur

between the dough,

swimming thick on the berry part.

 

We should have known not to leave it out,

even with the air conditioning.

L.A.’s so hot, and who knows anyway

what clouds the air. The morning sky

an eerie grey, sunsets that last hours.

Each night you marvel

at the gorgeous, unnatural purples.

We stand face to face

on the linoleum you scrubbed

on hand and knee before my visit,

your eyes shut now, forearms

tense beneath the pie plate.

 

Years ago we would have scraped

the top layer and eaten the rest.

But without an immune system

one spoiled bite could kill you.

The things you have to think of!

You ask me please to just

dispose of it, stomp from the room.

With a spoon's urging at the edge

it comes out almost whole,

then falls face down in the trash,

its pale bottom shell collapsing.

 

Like I said I'd like to know things:

things that cloud your brain

at night like thick dumb fish.

The icy feeling freezing

when you suddenly remember.

And what about this love I have

which seems to solve nothing?

The echo a voice makes

in your head after its gone?

But this sounds a lot like philosophy,

and I hate philosophy at times like these.

Ten poems by

Emma Lew

The Tale of Dark Louise

 

Must there always be some stray, hungry suitor?

I strive and I struggle, I can't keep the wolf.

On the day foretold by the travelling scholar,

I take my hank of flax and ride out.

The herring in the sea fall into a trance.

I put on the dress that brought me this shame.

Fire is never out of my chamber,

and the convent's interdiction falls between.

I'm not beautiful, but my eyes are drunk with music.

I will write whatever I want on your soul.

The vine is heavy again with the sweetest grapes,

and the ale flows, and the cellar drowns.

Fast

 

She believed every dumb line she ever had to say.

She swanned in voluminous crinoline,

her marred eyes seeming to wish more to veil.

Perhaps the darker tresses were a cry to the world,

but there was a larceny in her too,

a jittery jumping-off and onto.

Some part of her would always be twitching,

and she'd break up long words

because she liked the air moving.

There are women who breathe only in the lair of spies.

Savageness moulds their laughter.

Svelte in the weeds behind the porch,

she slayed her men with a husky voice,

and the swirling leaves casually brushed her body.

Storm

 

What a wild heretical light

when day bursts its filmy skin,

and pain's already in the wind,

and the sun sees itself

shattered into air,

and thunder

shivers down,

so frail now

in the lost roar of rain,

and clouds stay close

but with a hunger,

and the birds are still,

and their stillness

hurts more than their song.

Red

Find some truly hard people - Lenin

 

Leagues apart, and in what latitudes together;

in the most forlorn regions of the oceanic city,

and here moving softly through the listening crowd,

we came and we came, and we left our machines

at night, and everywhere hidden wires had only

to be touched. Class hatred had then just dawned.

Cables of denial sped. I remember how the tolling

of a bell would flood, the insurrection surely

cutting my face. Some high official was thrown

into the river, and this became the meshing

of the wheels, and when lightning struck that part

of the old palace, all the theatres were deceived,

or deceived themselves. We were the hired

and the depraved, thin and dark and unjust,

prepared to burst in that ray of light when it came,

hearing nothing and scribbling until the stupid lamp

began to smoke. Everyday we had to thieve

and dive and take the lifted hand of destiny

for a dream. The mud seemed a merciful provision,

the village did its best to teach us fear. Or was it

the darkness of expectation and secret emissaries

who had come the same way? We were shadowy

in our own eyes as well, denouncing only

when silence failed. Depots, arsenals – we could

dare those raids with new extremes of shivering

force, and death was just a tremor far down,

the master who lies in the heart of the serf.

What we were whispering became the clamour,

so the cargo of the ship was unseen and not

thought of, and we had been carrying

impeccable papers, fine ardour among us

on our straight path. My wound sparkles

at these memories: how victory was so often

a collapse, how the pines ran past our sledges

like soldiers, and the wind was always pressing

on the earth. The very themes were existence

and did not dissolve, for the true mind does not

need a body for its life, like the bombs, which

we knew must come, spoiling the small pleasures

they dispensed.

Theory of the Leash

 

There’s a beautiful law about truancy,

making the place breathe easier.

The edgy young whose dealing is to lash,

the veneer of someone who’s meant

to believe – it’s all part of the way

dying is taught now, meeting

on the road somewhere, holding hands

and getting scared.

 

Here lie your dreams in a grid:

the good times, the money, all the money

you’ll make. It’s sort of a code,

it’s a clue about something,

but mostly a strong, grim presence

following a trail. Even in prison

you get some dark magic, you take

all that bliss and you batten it down,

crossing the line into serious narcissism,

on Saturday night, when everyone’s

related to everyone else.

 

So yeah you’ve got to make your own bed,

let mercy run the show while you rot

through school, apologise to the town

by selling drugs – sure, it involves

greed, but in a nice way.

Quite persuasive, at the cafeteria.

You’re gone before they unwrap

their mistake. You’re renting

real teenagers, moon’s stashed

in the toilet. You can never change

history, but it was just the same as this.

Light Tasks

 

I arrived in bits,

furious at Copenhagen.

The swans were stretching their necks and biting.

The donkeys stumbled badly on the descent.

 

How nice your compliments sounded –

it was as if the lights in the priory hall

had been turned on all at once.

The cabbage was marvellous.

Oh! If only I were dressed better!

 

You seemed a little wanton.

Thistledown, someone said.

And all were weeping, men with white beards.

The dog had perhaps been noble and faithful.

 

The weather was very mild and still,

as at the opera.

The policemen on the streets gave directions

in the most attentive fashion.

The church arches were splendid;

the pillars slender,

and when we were walking on the road

you wrote the word changelessness in the sand with your foot.

 

My mind was like an angel sinking.

Among the ruins of four walls you showed me the sea –

how it and the starry sky were constructed.

It was ebbtide. I undressed.

How many hearses in the coming year?

 

The children herding cows were so beautiful.

One questioned me about the darkness.

Ships with all their sails, I said.

All the melodies of pain at every shift,

and then the endless moon, growing and growing.

Fugue of the Deal

 

The account she gave of

herself will always be open

to question. Desires

 

don’t like the light; her lies

were her own to tell,

and everyone who knew him

 

knew that one of the great

events of his life had

occurred at the Place de

 

Pyramides, when, like clouds

worn down by a summer,

their paths crossed. Charm

 

went with a sympathy for

ruin, meaning a woman

who lisps slightly, gifts

 

snatched up, impulsively

taking the wheel of the car.

She was all she had to be

 

by being, and the voice

in which he called out to her

was her own, calling himself

 

back in the same frantic

phrases of estrangement,

the same tones of entrapment,

 

as smoke. But her voice

was the colour of day. She

said that truth excited her,

 

and she could come near,

presuming to shed light

where he asked for none,

 

and it was perhaps

predictable that he should

laugh in the first instant

 

of her absence. He had

seen the ocean as it was,

or something, at the very

 

least, like love, woven

one night in his drab room.

All similarity ends there.

Honour-Bound

 

Our peaches and apples had

just ascended and we were

on the very verge of whispering.

Consider what unfolded

to the slow march rhythms

in the rooms attractive with

country furniture, when we

thought we might run our hands

over the wainscoting, and

the lesson was interrupted

by rage and lust. How small

we became – unknowable,

as when the cats settled on us

to purr; whereas in truth

there was not a prayer

we would let slip, and nothing

in the world mattered

but porcelain bowls and

the priceless hair of those

unyielding, secretive girls.

We were alive, we devoured,

rehearsing melancholia

on the stairs, heads slightly

bent, as if from too much

reading, or ravaging, in all our

delicate footwear and

billowing sleeves. You were

lithe-limbed, you seemed

aware of the sunlight’s

fragility, the terror holding back

the curtains – as if the real

body lay there to be awakened,

at midnight, when we were

so defenceless.

The Rider

 

He woke and rose before any colour

And moved shadow to reassure himself.

This is a desert, no one can save it.

Can you walk noiselessly on the outer edge,

Shake fire from the rocky trails?

He turned and there were eyes in the sage

And juniper.

 

Without word or whip or spur.

To the westward the plateau.

Downwards to a dark stampede,

As the sun peeled from a cliff.

The wind thereafter hung at his heels,

While the mescal flowered and faded

And died, keeping its secret.

 

He had broken from the aspen:

He would have to go under stars,

Pull the coat up over him like sand,

Fling chance back where the graves blew bare.

Dream put water to his lips,

And then he seemed to rise in his saddle.

Fine Weather of the Siege

 

The guards had fled, indicating

by their gestures that the silence

 

had not understood them. Here

and there a soldier hid behind

 

a horse’s corpse; and the orator,

a tall gaunt woman who carried

 

confusion in the folds of her robes,

cried, Justice is in blood! and

 

smeared the first half-dozen

stones of a barricade. They found

 

themselves masters of the citadel,

fed by grey dawn, their strong

 

hands blushing with exquisite

powers. Upturned muskets now

 

mingled with psalms amid

performances of the wildest

 

can-can, whereas the mansion

lost only its chairs to the flames

 

and the municipal butchers closed

for two hours. Petroleum became

 

the madness, advancing with its

banners never seen, the children

 

particularly remonstrating with

hunger, and words fell blindly

 

out of mouths onto bare earth.

The sun set like a guillotine,

 

bricking up the cellar windows,

and the moon grew grave,

 

artillery horses clattering up its

steep ascents. Rifle butts pressed

 

against shoulders, barrels

lowered – three hundred, four

 

hundred – as though the shadows

were a straggler making a

 

fraternal speech. What were they

to expect of those who would

 

defeat them? They shrugged their

shoulders in the ceaseless

 

cannonade. Someone wheeled

the astronomer’s telescope

 

into a safe place, and nothing,

nothing was above them.

Three Poems by

Prasenjit Maiti

Meenal

Why is it that you always close
your eyes while we are making love?
Why is it that we are always crossing
swords? Why is it that I cannot write
to you anymore? Why is it that you
always get ever so lost in my coffee
drizzles? Why is it that I grow cold
even while tending your young and
supple breasts?
Why is it that you always
walk away during the sandstorms,
just before the rains would wash
down our orgasm? Why is it that
you make me forget all those lines
I once tried to write about you?
Why is it that you are one of
my unkept words?

memento mori

sunflowers outside these years are
now dead and Neal Cassady tee-shirts
are quite brazen against the days
and the nights
the grass was blue and the sky was green
the flush cackles all the while
in all those washrooms all over the place
the wash colors wearing a smirk
and an infatuation dead
with kaleidoscope eyes
she is wet in her laughter
and dead like nobody's business
the day the music died
so bye-bye Miss American Pie
she was not really the sun
and nothing under the sun was
in a tune
the days and nights are making out
on the rocks across drizzles
and used rubber
her cheeks prized open
and her hands in prayer

Sacrament

You were running down the stairs
against a clamoring sky and
nearly the sunset was
so mindlessly red, dark and
clambering
I was going away to Sacramento
to keep a word, if that
really means a thing and
I spread my bleak, prairie
palm to receive the whiteness
of your blessings
our deaths and mindlessness
so there was nothing else to be,
to be conquests to be dreams,
and worlds of to be
dry stalk and debris sculpted
from our lovemaking
our once lovemaking and
a fire and not a bird of fire
to be again and seriously
chant Hari Om or even Maya!
we were talking but fairy tales

Four Poems from A Portfolio of Misery by
Tim Cloudsley

A Metaphysics Of Consciousness, Life, And Being

But the trouble is,
It did not happen like that.
Noone yet knows exactly how it did,
But it was much more, or much less, simple.
And that is the whole point.

Be Good!

They walk, with noses in the air,
Far above my world;
Like Gulliver, I must suffer my inferiority,
But pretend it is not real,
And that to transcend humiliation,
I must simply ignore it.
"Let us be bigger than such pettiness!
Let us allow that love is greater
Than silly squabbles permit!"
Oh ho, ho yes!  Ignore the pain,
When the crunching boot of an iron giant
Stamps upon you, bleeding your jugular,
Just think of higher things!

Anger

I`m going to sink back into my ancient radicalism:
I hate the System, to hell with politics;
Lying, deceiving bastards all.
To hell with all the bastard politicians
And the lousy media,
War mongers, liars, destoyers of faith,
Mangling the human race.
I`m going back to complete Opposition
To all their lies and filth,
Never again will I begin to trust
One vile word from their mouths.

Confession

Tormented by self-doubt,
I feel not sanctimonious,
Split between two beings;
One introspective, quiet, and shy,
The other extraverted, impulsive, provocative;
Life and thought are difficult.