now Luria

now Luria Dickson
and the women were saying
a sing-along folk event

and the late Rick Griffin
his parents were Communists
they ran into his son, who’d grown his hair
and joined the merriment
who died of a drug overdose in 1970
they divorced in 1993

now Siena Riffia
always naked under her mink coat
fighting the fucking revolution
died of a suspected overdose on a New York subway in 1978

There was so much dope rising in the air
you can’t build a social movement
on love and liberation

we’re making goddamn dinner again

Source text: www.vanityfair.com/culture/2012/07/lsd-drugs-summer-of-love-sixties

both of them

both of them
not just poetry

the latter seems to me to have been just as full
and, for the record, entirely “experimental”
as it currently exists

for better or for worse
those committed
and inadequate
attended
a small epiphany

I don’t mean all
thankfully not all
thankfully not always

I don’t recall the former, of course
only this one matches
this is a point I will come back to later.

Source text: joyouscrybaby.com/2012/05/22/marjorie-perloff-and-the-failure-of-success/

it’s right around the corner

it’s right around the corner, in eight days
so please don’t think I am
not necessarily a happier person right now,
but a person who takes less things for granted

he was 24
I miss hearing his name very much
even when in a crowd

having no children of my own
and being estranged from my father
I very much agree.
like your son
who adored him

Source text: therumpus.net/2011/07/dear-sugar-the-rumpus-advice-column-78-the-obliterated-place/

Stephen S. Power is a Pushcart-nominated poet who has published work most recently in “Clarion,” “Innisfree Poetry Journal,” “Iron Horse Literary Review,” “The MacGuffin” and “Measure.” His first novel, “The Dragon Round” will be published by Simon451 in July 2016, and his stories have appeared at “AE” and “Daily Science Fiction.” He tweets at @stephenspower, and his website is stephenspower.com

For example, talk publicly about sex—
Which is exceptionally colorful and voluble.
Butch-femme escapades,
That would be
Together and ready

In her relationship with
This morning, playing the part of a recalcitrant
Teen-ager.

She watched her own loud
Façade under construction,
Said, “I’m sorry, I worked really hard on this.”
Frustrated, she rubbed her forehead. “This is worse than
Waiting

For the details
Of a prior conviction.
There was no mention of
Not religious, but quality of
Longevity. Indeed,
She was a widow, the greatest liability
To a challenge:
And it was possible to present
A political organizer—as a non-
Threatening old lady.
“Women are better than men,”
Two women doing whatever lesbians do.
To embrace the universal desire for
Romantic love and intimacy
Gay and straight people treat their relationships
Equally,
Sexuality provided Americans
Carnality.

“The minute I heard the story and saw how beautiful she
Was: it couldn’t have been better
“Nobody knows I’m a lesbian,”
Her pink lipstick and pearls would make it easier.

Source text: “The Perfect Wife,” an article about Edith Windsor published in The New Yorker in September 2013: www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/09/30/the-perfect-wife

Caseyrenée Lopez is a queer writer living with her queer family in the Deep South, USA. She is a poet, editor, and student who loves cookies, coffee, & Promised Land chocolate milk. She is also the founding/managing editor of Crab Fat Literary Magazine and the publisher for Damaged Goods Press. Her recent work has appeared in The Fem, Fuck Fiction, The Outrider Review, Visceral Uterus, Crack the Spine,and Foliate Oak. She is working on her Master’s degree and has hopes for a Ph.D. in Queer Studies in the near future.

Let Me Pamper You Lovingly

I am still serious
when necessary
with my great sense of humor
fun educated and cute
a retired Chippendale dancer
who demands respect for his mind.

You may delay but time will not
there are long walks waiting for us at the beach
a glass of wine to drink before the fire
and horses to curry
before we cuddle away the day.

Is there anybody out there
brutally honest
tall, dark, and handsome
looking for her better half
glass half full
couch empty
heart overflowing?

Fun and fit guy looking for same
Pisces girl wanted,
a real lady who cleans up well,
goes from jeans to stilettos in sixty seconds
no more lackluster girls please;
let’s blow up the night.

Looking for a foodie with benefits
medical, dental, conjugal
no plus size gals
let’s try this out
I want to start a family
If you’re gutsy and you know you’re sexy
this is me—a natural hairy woman
what about you?
forty-six reasons why I’m giving up on Craigslist.

Source text: A compilation of excerpts from Craigslist personal ads.

Rainy Day Luncheonette

Gyoza counter seat, alone, sashimi plate.
Rain stripes the window.
My rocking heart runs out of light.
From now on, the atmosphere is likely to be unstable
no sound, the opposite would be inorganic.
Silence again, just for my father.

Light and sound
in the park hope was left until the last moment.
The green umbrella billows down the street
under its own steam. Which way?
The wind binds my ankles
has its way with me.
I don’t know that it’s a slipknot.
There’s a saying, “no ginger;”
give up the possibilities.
A chance miracle worker
is given equally to everyone.

Source text: These words are from Japanese Facebook posts, translated via Bing.

Sandra Anfang is a poet, teacher, and visual artist. Her poems have appeared in Poetalk, San Francisco Peace and Hope, West Trestle Review, Tower Journal, Clementine, Corvus, Unbroken, Silver Birch Press, and many others. She is a California Poet/Teacher in the Schools and hosts a monthly poetry series in Petaluma, CA.

Sovereign Clarity for Imaginary Visitors

A bird calls me
A bear who eats with a silver spoon
A few couples walk off into the dark
A child crying in the night

A large stock of past lives
All they could do is act innocent;
And how are the rats doing in the maze?
At least one crucified at every corner

Evenings of sovereign clarity,
Extraordinary efforts are made;
For imaginary visitors, I had a chair;
Everything you didn’t understand

For those troubled in mind,
Give me a long dark night and no sleep;
If you don’t see the six-legged dog,
Go inside a stone

Heavy mirror carried
Here’s a woman’s black glove
Hanging by a thread
I believe in the soul; so far

It looks so dark, the end of the world may be near
It’s just a boarded-up shack with a steeple;
It seemed the kind of life we wanted
Lover of endless disappointments

Millions of empty rooms with TV sets turned on
My shadow and your shadow on the wall
Night is coming
My guardian angel is afraid

On a gray evening
Old men have bad dreams;
Once I knew, then I forgot
One night as I was dropping off to sleep

Source Text: Source Text: This poem is a collage of first lines from Charles Simic, New and Selected Poems: 1962-2012 (2013)

The Painted Horse of Appearances

Seems like a long time,
That awful deceit of appearances;
Taken as a whole, it’s a mystery
The brightly painted horse

Time’s hurrying me, putting me to the test
To grieve, always to suffer;
To find a bit of thread,
Watch it spin like a wheel

The time of the year for the mystics
At least one crucified at every corner;
You give the appearance of listening
There may be words left

Yellow feathers—
They were pale like stones on the meadow;
With the wind gusting so wildly,
You must come to them sideways

You were shaped to a fine point
You were always more real to me than God
Because I’m nothing you can name
I had a small, non-speaking part

Source Text: This poem is also a collage of first lines from Charles Simic, New and Selected Poems: 1962-2012 (2013)

Christina Murphy’s poems appear in a wide range of journals and anthologies, including, PANK, Dali’s Lovechild, Hermeneutic Chaos Literary Journal, and The Great Gatsby Anthology. Her work has been nominated multiples times for the Pushcart Prize and for the Best of the Net anthology.

Edges, making a life
with knives. Each night,

the white rooms enclose spirits.
Curtains nod at shadows.

Wet midnight in those houses.
Upwind, the moon signal,

slip pity. Hear climbing
premonitions like burning teeth.

Edge magnetism attracting a violet.
Driven like axes, felled sound.

 

Source Text: Don Domanski. “The Rouged Houses.” All Our Wonders Unavenged. Second printing. London, ON: Brick Books, 2007.

Jessica Van de Kemp (BA, B.Ed, MA) is a 2014 Best of the Net nominee. Her poetry chapbook, Spirit Light, is the second release in a new series from The Steel Chisel. Her poetry appears most recently in: The Wayfarer, Hermeneutic Chaos Literary Journal, Naugatuck River Review, Written River, Vallum, Hello Horror, Unbroken Journal, Halcyon Magazine, and the Switch (the Difference) Anthology from Kind of a Hurricane Press. The recipient of a BlackBerry Scholarship in English Language and Literature and the winner of a TA Award for Excellence in Teaching, Jessica is currently pursuing a PhD in Rhetoric at the University of Waterloo. Website: jessvdk.wordpress.com & Twitter: @jess_vdk

I.

The needle of a shattering word:
Hawthorns, used to castigate under the name of
Our minds as though they too were events,
External factors, a new and terrible meaning.

Cuckolded husbands, without being ideographic,
Needed simply to be read backwards;
To such beings, such fugitive beings,
The continuous weft of habit could not be sure.

Empfindung and Empfindelei bifurcate as they grow.
Reciprocal torture, nothing reprehensible.
Mirror of perfection – reformed thief, a subject
Of that love, untruthfully maligned, complying.

There is a zen koan; “this book
of love poems says nothing.”

After his girlfriend left
Noah Cicero had a tragic flaw:

Noah Cicero’s life.

This isn’t an argument.

According to people, this planet has a lot of people;
I have been watching Noah Cicero’s life.

According to people I don’t know, at times I am sorry.

She started texting while Noah Cicero was meditating.

Noah Cicero sent:
I WAS IN OREGON,
IN THE GRAND CANYON, STANDING
ON FOSTER ROAD
IN SOUTHEAST PORTLAND.

Noah Cicero sent:
SOMETIMES I LIE DOWN; HOW DID THE MOON?

Noah Cicero sent a pigeon running through NoahN Cicero;
sent this book of poems.

He told her as they walked away,
XXX XXXX XX.

Source Text: First lines from Noah Cicero’s Bipolar Cowboy (Portland: Lazy Fascist, 2015)

Jamison Crabtree is a Black Mountain Institute PhD fellow at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. His first book, Rel(AM)ent was awarded the Word Works’ Washington prize. Find it at www.spdbooks.org/Producte/9780915380923/relament.aspx

Architecture of the Hills

the architecture
of the
parliament of the
earth hills
change with
every move within
the atoms dance
my feet dance like
marine love
loved from
underneath
limbs of mystery and force
directed far below
oceans
sigh drifting with the hands
acidified
waves of clocks
of lost love
stars moons
draw compass marks
on the surfaces of
heaven and the mountains
groaning swell.
feet and the
seas are
not mine anyway.

Source Text: The Independent, 21st September 2014

Searching

Humanity is doomed
Humanity is a virus
Humanity is overrated
Humanity is our power
Humanity is good
Humanity is in decline
Humanity is an ocean
Humanity is a cancer
Humanity is not concerned with us
Humanity is a plague
Existence is not a predicate
Existence is resistance
Existence is futile
Existence is meaningless
Existence is pointless
Existence is pain
Existence is reasonable
Consciousness is defined in the text as
Consciousness is to unconsciousness as
Consciousness is defined as
Consciousness is rooted in the
Consciousness is defined in your text as
Consciousness is dependent upon stimulation of the
Consciousness is best defined as
Consciousness is an illusion

Source Text: Google autocomplete search

Owen Clayborn is a British-American writer of short and full-length fiction, as well as poetry. He currently lives on a rainy island in the North Atlantic.

The Satanic Satanist

people say
lovers in love
have

[the sun.
[the woods.
[the home.

((do you?))

if i work all day for guns and dogs, will i
let you down?

in the mornings,
everyone is golden,

if only from
the sun.

Source Text: created using song titles from Portugal. The Man’s album The Satanic Satanist

Cope

after
the Scripture
i cope
with the trees
and indentions
of every stone, every sentence.
i see it again:

the ocean
the mansion.

never
really been another
way out
of these rooms

Source Text: created using song titles from Manchester Orchestra’s album Cope

Bone Machine

the ocean doesn’t
want me,

it just wants
a little rain

because there was only
dirt in the ground

when the earth died
screaming

-such a scream-
all stripped down,

that feel of
Jesus gonna be here soon.

i don’t wanna grow
up in the Coliseum

where it’s alway
black wings

and murder
in the red barn

and asking myself
“who are you?”

Source Text: created using song titles from Tom Waits’ album Bone Machine

A Dead Man on my Back: Shine Honesty Revisited

well-behaved women
rarely make history.

i was
the emasculated man

and the city
that swallowed him

so gracefully was fashionable
…and you said it was pretty here

i kept getting asked
how many times do you want to be in love?

i told them love is a shotgun
so tie your monster down:

gun control
means using both hands

Source Text: created using titles from Quiet Company’s album A Dead Man on my Back: Shine Honesty Revisited

Michael Prihoda is a poet and artist living in the Midwest. He is founding editor of After the Pause and his work can be found in various journals in print and around the web. He loves llamas and the moments life makes him smile.

Of Absurdity

After asking
“Are you a lesbian?”
Mother shoots daugher

The inanity of humanity

Source text: New York Times review of “Iowa” 4/13/2015

The Universe Is Weeping

The universe is weeping

Screams of pain
Over chain-rattline loops
Inside a dark, cold, place
Alien and hostile

Its blackness reveals
Its many shades

Streams of loneliness
Flow into a new space:
One not empty but filled with itself
Possessing its own weight
Its own gravity
Its own presence

Words become vibrations

Let the vibrations go
Let them be free

Source text: Alan Cummings, “When the Music’s Over,” The Wire, June 2002

Christopher Iacono lives with his wife and son in Massachusetts. Beside writing fiction and poetry, he has written book reviews for Three Percent and the Neglected Books Page. When he is not writing, he copyedits and proofreads marketing materials.

Source Text: Rejection letter from a publisher.

Michaël Wertenberg is a French-American novelist, animal enthusiast and militant rationalist. He is a regular contributor to thefableonline.

April Wheeler I
Unable to see
the brains without
the virus
threatening everyone
but April Wheeler.
you are alone.

April Wheeler II
She was alone
removing her eyes
a curtain stretched tight
She didn’t want to be touched
she said
anything would have been better.

Source Text: Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road (New York: Vintage, 2008)

Azia DuPont currently resides in Northern Iowa. She founded the online small press, Dirty Chai, in 2012. Her writing has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Dead Flowers: A Rag, Bohemian Pupil Press, Queen Mobs Teahouse, Similar:Peaks, Calliope Magazine, among others. Find her on Twitter @aziadupont