Sex on Fire Rearranged into a Literal Presentation By Ross McCleary

Issue 5

 

I’m on fire and
with your pale lips you’re talking of soft alley sex,
the rattle your knuckles make, of bones breaking.
You’re watching it transpire
but with all your talking
the sound is consumed like a fever.
What’s driving you tonight?
It’s not just kiddie play.
As the greatest people are,
I’m on fire.

You lay still, are open.
I could transpire
While you’re watching on.
Is dark fire what’s driving you?
To taste the fire is to taste
the commotion of your sex.
You transpire like sex, don’t you?

A day on they’re dying but
What’s forever to them?
We’re the ones sex has consumed.
I just know it feels the greatest.
Oh, your head: it’s on fire.

Laying where the greatest sex is,
we’re consumed, dying.
It is hot.

 

Source Text: Kings of Leon, “Sex on Fire”.

Ross McCleary is from Edinburgh. He was born 9 months after Jorge Luis Borges died. He has a novella being published in July through Maudlin House.

Shifting Sands By Matthew J. Lawler

Issue 5

Encounter of a cliff’s edge,
Losing the Sun to the evening sky,
Sinking into the sea stars,
My back against the wall
Worn like delicate wounds,
Eyes look toward heaven’s luminous moon.
The inner curtain torn,
Bodily glow discolored
Bubbling regret,
While tasting the bitter froth
That slept in winter’s jaw,
With worn feet I crept across
a vassal land of frost.
Handicapped by pointed fingers
Painting glimpses of an outer world
Stuck inside my inner world.

 

Source text: Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time (Vol. 1 Swann’s Way)

Matthew J. Lawler is a Chicago native raised on the City’s North Side(Irving Park neighborhood) He now resides in Skokie IL. His work is published in Visual Verse and forthcoming in the People’s Tribune and Caravel Literary Arts Journal. He has been writing poetry since his teenage years. His poetic themes are usually urban in nature and rich in narrative quality. Find him at facebook.com/matthewjlawlerpoet

A Writer’s Reference, Eighth Edition By Tara Roeder

Issue 5

What’s new in this edition?

What are the author’s credentials?  New content includes advice.  A step-by-step path.  Easy to spot cross-references.  Game-like online quizzing.

Glossary of usage

I will accept all the packages except that one.

Assess the writing situation

Why am I communicating?  Do you have length specifications?

Subject-verb agreement

You may encounter tricky situations.  (see the end of this chart.)  If you aren’t sure of the standard forms, Strip away.  Strip away.

The Comma

The comma was invented.  While we were eating a rattlesnake approached our campsite.  There is no danger of misreading.

Consider adding an occasional question

Even when she enters the hospital on the brink of death, the anorexic will refuse help from anyone.

Outline to identify main ideas

You may have to puzzle it out.  The raw coffee is surprisingly fruitlike and fresh.  Conclusion: Together farmers and consumers hold the future.

Think like a researcher

One student invented a calendar.  Revise your initial assumptions. Once you have an aerial view of the topic, do nutritional food labels inform consumers or confuse them?  What causes depression?

ESL Challenges

Appropriate.  Mixed constructions.   You may find this section helpful if you speak a language other than English.  Dreaming in Cuban.  The ambassador hired her for the European tour.  Gianna is not  a member of the club.  Inna should not have gone dancing last night.

Understand what plagiarism is

Failing to enclose borrowed language in quotation marks. Unacceptable borrowing.

 

Source Text: Diana Hacker and Nancy Sommers, A Writer’s Reference, Eighth Edition (Bedford St. Martin’s, 2013)

Tara Roeder‘s work has appeared or is forthcoming in about two dozen venues including The Bombay Gin, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, and E-Ratio.  Her chapbook, (all the things you’re not), is available from dancing girl press.  She received her Ph.D. from the CUNY Graduate Center, and is currently an Associate Professor of Writing Studies in New York City.

I Applaud Nakedness By Ella Weaver

Issue 5

 

Ella Weaver

 

Source text: Jeffery Harrison, The Shoulders of Women http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2014/11/21

Ella Ann Weaver is a queer non-binary femme living in the deep South. She is a Creative Writing major and the Non-Fiction editor for Crab Fat Magazine. She is also the proud parent to two fur-children. She is a recovering Christian and passionate about LGBTQ rights.