Two Girlarium sonnets:
Spirit Photography
after William H.Mumler
In this photo
Abraham Lincoln lies
in superposition
over Mary Todd’s veil and Continue reading “2 Poems by Jocelyn Deane”
No Longer Believe
What do I SE E? //
Why do I have V IS IO N /
if I no longer believe /
what my MI ND /
puts before me? // Continue reading “2 Poems by Phu-Linh Tran”
UNDO THEIR FLOW ON THIS
Become.
Many deals, the city and – you
and just years ago It’s through open not change, and deal with the Capitalism story
deeply and Basically, we and void, we’ve So much coiled code – redirect into motion
Support each other with insect calm. Continue reading “Undo Their Flow on This by Mat Blackwell”
Not the Waking World
so when we
sleep the adventure of what we can never recall / take slumber as an icon-download of gentleness / Continue reading “Not The Waking World by Mike Ferguson”
CONTENT WARNING: Poem explores the destruction of nature, homes, life and animals during the bushfire crisis in Australia, still currently happening.
Australia Burns
The day I was Ꙩ\born/Ꙩ a terrible →sadness← descended upon the ⃝\earth/⃝.
Their ⌂homes⌂ are now piles of dust, coughing smoke and ⸙\smoldering/⸙. I can hear the ●dead● mounds whimpering softly over the ⌐agony⌐ of their ₼scorched₼ memories.
Silicone and Ꝝ\metal/Ꝝ melt at my touch and ≈\water/≈, my enemy, is as ineffective as paracetamol is for cancer.
In other lives I was a ◊cleanser◊, cleaner, ჻\creator/჻. Now I am known as ●pain●.
Continue reading “Australia Burns by Tony Messenger & Kayla Milaudi”
blood-red nails tiny ferns or creek-side bloodletting
he swears rain is coming
and, oh yeah, she’s pregnant
and they name all their kids after each other
ink changing color, blend in
and their defense is to present me
as a wild woman in red on fast horses out of our time
but I know every minute of every week
toward the moor or the seashore.
You say I’m futuristic but I’m cloyingly nostalgic
well-read in the gothic abandoning
the conga line of bleached blondes to forcefeed the dying cat
Christmas crackers and charades
and wink if it’s a murder plaid pants and my father’s failed guillotine trick.
If you have time I’ll teach you stuffed with sweet pecans
otherwise you can look in the clear purse
with the blue gingham pocket for secrets
vampires haunting New England
and Vampira on late-nite TV.
I wear a wig like hers but I’m not starving you
in my smart suit in my flowered shell
and all the good noirs take place by the Hollywood Bowl
a minute per page in the trick house we hear them
except the one where the girl falls off the boat
in her stolen furs
and you gut a dog to switch on your sex drive
and I waterski to our eroding island
sex twice in the summer a middy dress play
fat caterwauls
so even when her coat’s shiny I won’t forget she’s dying.
I pray for an earlier night no matter what
I pray to come in the storm in a full-skirted green dress.
I’m saving it up for the riverbed chase scene
for the wasp-waisted Los Angeles rainbow
for the end is immortal/immoral
for the femme fatale exits unscathed.
Jessie Janeshek’s three full-length collections are MADCAP (Stalking Horse Press, 2019), The Shaky Phase (Stalking Horse Press, 2017) and Invisible Mink (Iris Press, 2010). Her chapbooks include Spanish Donkey/Pear of Anguish (Grey Book Press, 2016), Rah-Rah Nostalgia (dancing girl press, 2016), Supernoir (Grey Book Press, 2017), Auto-Harlow (Shirt Pocket Press, 2018), Hardscape (Reality Beach, forthcoming), and Channel U (Grey Book Press, forthcoming). Read more at jessiejaneshek.net.
after the FLUXUS Performance Workbook
1. All performers conduct a different hygiene routine: floss, clip toenails, wash hands, put on deodorant, shave, pluck eyebrows, etc. They may trade routines in a fugue-like pattern if they wish. Their tempo should correspond to the movements of a symphony.
Continue reading “Ten Simple Instructions for Complex Acts by William Cordeiro”
I Adonis Am
Glass Gladiaterroir
POSIlilliLiiiTT Axiomatic
Acoustic Axis Cis Turin Shrouding
The Dirt on Our Shoes
Peering down rabbit holes
is a sign of fever. Unable to move,
we haul logic in our wake—
the dirt on our shoes disappearing.
Unable to move, a sign of fever
the intensity of infinity—
we haul logic in our wake
where words put down roots.
Continue reading “Three Remixed Poems by Shloka Shankar”
where’s this splace
what’s where’s this place this space this place, you ask, having once lived in water, kicking & dreaming, then on one daybreak dropped from planet uterus, yes, the planet that you can never go back to. now all grown up, an uprooted plant from earth, acrophobic, you do not do the sulking & screaming anymore, but your cognitive dissonance is obvious from your frequent wtf is this & wtf is that. stranded in a rubber plantation one dusk you catch yourself speaking suddenly in fluent malayalam. where’s this place. lost in thar desert another noon you surprise yourself speaking in rajastani. Continue reading “Two Poems by Ahimaz Rajessh”
The transparent eyelids of Los Angeles. The whole show of human sense … celestial mechanics suddenly unemployed … language makers with superior intellect … everyday sexual occurrences inside the supermarket … secret visions stymied by the cerebral systems … an endless sky … dead arms flay about in a great storm … the feint flash of a sticky … heavy rain. My ghastly face … these hots days … these telegraph wires … this Continue reading “CERTAIN MOTELS / MOTEL SOFA by Shane Jesse Christmass”