Corporeal Manifestation

2 | C o r p o r e a l M a n i f e s t a t i o n s


Corporeal Manifestations

Differentia Press

Santa Maria, CA


Corporeal Manifestations

Anthology of Experimental Artistry

Copyright © Differentia Press and Respective Artists 2010

All Rights Reserved.

Published by Differentia Press

Book Design by Felino A. Soriano

Cover Art, courtesy of Duane Locke

Except for the sole purpose for use in reviews, no portion of this book may be reproduced in any

form, without the written permission from the publisher.

Differentia Press

Santa Maria, CA 93458

[email protected]

Differentia Press Poetic Collections of the │Experimental Spectrum│

differentiapress.com

mailto:[email protected]



Table of Contents

Duane Locke….12

John Swain….15

Constance Stadler….19

William Crawford….20

Melissa Dulaney….27

Caleb Puckett….28

Howie Good….29

Kevin Reid….30

Travis Macdonald….31

Lisa Cole….37

Samuel Hiram Duarte….39

Philip Byron Oakes….40

Luke Johnson….43

Russell Jaffe…..46

Francis Raven….53

Irene Koronas….59

Serena Tome|Michael Mc Aloran….63

Serena Tome….65

Serena Tome|PJ Bach….67

Serena Tome|Ser2….69

Biography Notes….75




For all that supplied gifts of artistic endeavors, thank you.


―An artist is a dreamer consenting to dream of the actual

world.‖

George Santayana



Duane Locke

IN A TINY TOWN

ON OUTSKIRTS IN VIENNA

My eyes were turned

Toward the dark lifelessness behind stars.

She, the indecipherable,

Breathed on the eider down.

I listen for what cannot be heard,

The words spoken by the thin cover

Outlining her shape on the bed.

Will I hear what was never said.

Will I believe words I did not hear.

She had painted her eyelids azure.


IN THE BOBOLI GARDENS

BY A VENUS WHOSE BROKEN OFF ARM

HAD RETURNED PATCHED BY ASPHALT

The girls, their nude backs glowed,

Glowed with a luminous silver

Like the scales of a night-leaping fish,

The girls, their nude backs glowed,

The girls, who had turned their backs.

Silver light with a soprano voice has uttered

A farewell, the backs disappeared into black.

A tiny white curly hair dog pulled

By a leash barked, and his leash‘s barks

Put permanently in front of me a see-through

Curtain to separate my desires from life.


IN GERMANY’S BLACK FOREST

I found myself in the light

Of the oscillating light

And darkness where the German winds

Part the leaves on top of trees

To let light in where

There was darkness from trunk shadows.

So being close to temporary light,

I reached to put my arms

Around this light, but

Before my arms had touched the light,

The light was gone.


John Swain

Dawn

Dawn of oranges,

sun upon sun,

my Jesus.

My body,

my wine

kept in silver ships floating

down a river of waterfalls

into crypt.

Born unknown,

born unfolding into sky

into earth.

Relieve me weeping.

Your embrace liberates

as my spent arms

turn in upon themselves.


Sycamores

Past the trodden fields

sycamores choir to light

around the deer disappearing,

our circle emanates like fire.

Reborn remade in flesh today,

but owing you fortunes

like the ghost of a bird.

I am always afraid

and I hated

the blanket nailed red and heavy

over the windows,

one day I went outside.

I remember we slipped

on a raft of peeled bark

white as the sky

as your lily fingers trail water.


Cairn

Shadows of crows stain the ground

where the mirage of water summons us

like a broken promise.

You lay your hidden face on the cairn,

you cover my burnt face with your hair,

I lie tired lit as skies always waking,

the crows call thrice for the sleeper.

On the hill cedars hold the rising sun

undressed in red like your sorceress,

winds bellow like our breath over shells.

The lake falls gold like ash cathedrals,

we take our new faces in its aching

as your cupped hands become a prism.

Circles of stone convulse like flowers.

Pyramid

A calmer tomorrow

I hope.

Glass on the floor

wine on the ceiling

I woke upside down

in the rain sideways.

Thank you ghost,

thank you my wife

for prayer and shelter.

We are pyramid.


Blackbirds

Blackbird mask

my little girl,

your wings hurt

my teeth tear.

Stitches close

where we drink

where we wash

in red wine

like iodine.

Burnt I am yours

full as solitude

consumed.


Constance Stadler

Eurydice

My life was over.

Aristaeus, my murderer,

Was outflanked

By serpent piquancy.

Your song, my husband

A lamentation, a threnody

Breaching earth

And fire

To the depths of Hades

And weeping Persephone.

So against the Gods

You took my hand

And we rose above

Eternal pyres.

But, sweet, we are

Such mortal coil

In human frailty

You looked at me

Before the threshold‘s crest.

My life was over, Orpheus.

Grieve not, my Love

At Destiny‘s

Behest.


William Crawford

Minor Keys and Places

I.

daguerreotypes on the inside of a purple eyelid

hanging heavy – cockeyed

unattended tenement shade

(they call them efficiencies these days)

there‘s just enough space

a tiny seam

a little light

you can see limpid green

remember the irreversible sadness of that eye

you could bugger a fat unabridged dictionary

for the better part of a lonely night

beneath Waits‘ grapefruit moon and solitary star

and never find the right word

for that sadness, that eye,

a word that would preserve, rather than disfigure,

the moment and its rich discovery.

II.

if you could salvage a well-tuned,

wild blue piano from these beautiful ruins

then play it with your mongoloid fingers

fingers that can‘t seem to do anything right but write

you can paint a scene

not in black and white

rather a dull human gray

see her shitfaced on human kindness

with all the sudden sweetness

and subtle burn of good blended whiskey

she‘s drinking brandy at the bright end of the bar

the same eye, this time without bruise, just like the other

soft and wide open, sailing –


at mach speed towards the unforgiving rocks

eyes of a siren that couldn‘t stop singing

her salty shattered dog tongue, fit to be tied –

and that inevitable crash

it always makes such a beautiful sound.

III.

the same wind that once cried wolf, cried Mary,

now screams her name

this wind once pushed by her dream

her dance, her body –

like frayed white heat,

a trap in the mirage

now it‘s just a pale surrender flag

torn and pathetically flapping

the stupid sound of one hand clapping

soon to be muted and consumed

conquered by this

the sky‘s incestuous gut

howls at the sun for it

the wind can‘t cry anymore

still it remembers her name

but her face cannot be placed

that tiny purple eyelid

all the distended dreams beneath it

like birds trapped indoors

flying into closed windows

(they know no window)

this sensation of glass shattering in chest

some things are better left unsaid

try to forget.

try to forget.


In the Shadow of Arrows

the birds are quick to follow you

crestfallen and songless

for they know how it feels to swallow stone

and this promise is too easily broken

a salt-wound sky

a savage omen

this must end with ignominy

the word sorry –

the sound it makes on a tangled tongue

well, isn‘t it really just

a single hand clapping?

an implacable brat

that spits upwards at the sun

that hisses at snakes

already snapping in the fire

-silence-

and when you finally meet your own eye

take time to survey the hollowed out galaxy

once mistaken for a lost city of gold

fasten your restraints

for this collision of vision and void

mirror martyrs barter breath for paper gods

-numb surprise-

pity poor Aguirre

his beautiful delusions

his spurious map of El Dorado

his tiny raft overrun with barking monkeys


set to sink

anchored to a dream

that rushes into blind depths

deaf to the tragic music

the operatic chorus of goodbyes

brave, sad Aguirre

the blue flame which once danced

quickly fading in his eyes

the hopeless weight of his heart

which continued to beat

all bloody and tribal

a mad, simple rhythm of survival

even in the shadow of arrows

poison dipped and dead aimed.


Sciamachy and Shell Roars

I.

imagining monastic defeat

what it takes to break this hermetic seal

sick of sciamachy

these thalidomide shadows that crutch waltz

on the ceilings fault line

around still bouquets of rust flowers

in and out of cobwebbed corners

malformed and malnourished

like those deep set wolf spider eyes

staring back from fuliginous mirrors

they charm the skin off of a diamondback

then flash fang its exposed throat

II.

you know

it‘s ok

to long for a stained glass worthy scene

a left handed portrait

that wobbles in its frame

that can‘t be explained

in pained, relative terms

or


a woman that blooms and bubble snaps

inside the heat mirage

her foil wings half unfolded

her star and barbed wire

five and dime diadem

could be a luminous nimbus

or a less elusive lucid dream

at first sight

III.

she offers a song

she hustled from a busker

a free avalanche ride

a predicate challenge to the night

with its peanut gallery of howler monkeys

and other shifty penumbral beings

if you wanted

a campfire cricket choir

you came to the wrong venue

this motley audience

eager to turn

eager to boo

eager to bruise

this reticent ingénue

a pregnant pause

a new magnetic ribbon on the trunk of an old cause

then she opens up her sparrow throat

unfurls her feathery tongue

and the voice comes soft,

susurrant,

it disarms

threatens to retard

after just a few silver-white notes

but it‘s just a stage trick


and you bit

the crescendo comes

a clean tsunami crash

turns all bones to glass

shatters all the shallow seals and brittle symbols

you once held sacred

IV.

the hermit shell

was always yours to disown

was always more of a house

than a home

for you

it‘s useless now

but even at this new distance

if you listen close

if you relinquish fealty to the familiar

and fear of the unknown

you can still hear the ocean‘s waves

beating like your own heart

on your ear drum

that roar inside the shell

was always just an echo of your own.


Melissa Dulaney

Faberge Egg

Fragile miniature piece of art

Outside taking years perfecting the tiniest facet

layers cut into sharp relief.

Inside the barrenness,

this shell has been hulled out.

Science demands that reason prevail

yet miracles, gods, mysteries

run rampant through time and space

to rule your heart

Tiny marvel that's slightly cracked.

It is a wonder, is it not?

This Faberge egg I am covered in.


Caleb Puckett

Cradle

The moon pitches low, pushing a final, vital wave across the fuzzy geometry of your shared

blanket. The land accepts the wave running over and then through you before it shudders with

strange hoofbeats. Now you must prepare for a season of difficult retreats and an even more

difficult treaty, guarding the minutes to fashion a cover for a helpless hunter who has been exiled

before enjoying his birthright. You must begin by brain-tanning the elk skin and shaping it into a

sturdy cradle. Next, you must embellish the cradle with the finest ribbons, mirrors and beads as

you have been taught by your knowing sisters since memory first breathed substance into

tradition. Finally, you must collect the hunter‘s navel cord, fashion it into a lizard and drape it on

his cradle for good fortune. Once the cradle is occupied, you come to recognize that the elk

might die in its prime so that the lizard might live forever so that the hunter might survive his

first winter so that he might grow to make sense of humankind‘s desire for baubles, be they

ribbons, mirrors, beads, or bullets. As you head towards a ridge thinking of certain spirits, the

hunter faces backwards thinking only of vague sustenance. Thus, together you negotiate the

difficult lines between the actual and the emblematic while the plains grow thin and the sky

becomes heavy with the smoke of gunfire. In due time, you will be wrapped in a fetal position

within the shattered space of an ancient land bridge on a sliver of tundra well north of your fertile

expanse. The hunter will become a warrior then and there, crying for a land he cannot clearly

remember. A soldier with a red beard will silence him and take his cradle to a frontier town to

trade for liquor. Once the cradle returns on a jet airplane from a goodwill exhibition in Russia,

historians, anthropologists and geneticists might marvel at the justice of an existence come full

circle. The earth will of course recognize their error and carve another yet another notch into the

fossil-bearing strata you now inhabit.


Howie Good

FAMOUS LONG AGO

Habitués of the walk-in clinic!

Aficionados of the cockpit voice recorder!

Nothingness isn‘t something

you sleep off in a doorway.

The buildings

are full of forgotten vaudevillians

and signs that say EXIT,

and every dog demonstrates

the doubtful efficacy of begging.

Out where horse thieves leaned

over the necks of stolen horses,

the sun has gone behind a cloud.

Light slows to a trickle.

It can turn you gray.


Kevin Reid

Black Mirror

I, oval, convex,

curious pierced obsidian,

of sorts hand and carved,

am a watchful void

of vistas sublime,

an intimate screen

of the seen and unseen.

I, a fashioned glass,

a smooth slab,

that seizes artists, with unspeakable

images on my magic surface,

am an Aztec artefact,

a semantic slate,

where spirals swirl mysticism

through an arcane portal,

I, a scrying witch,

with black seductions,

venerated gloom, and

demons in my depths

am the pristine protagonist

with perfect mirrored infinity

who will swallow reflections

of those who dare to face me.


Travis Macdonald

from 3

1415926535

In

view generally entertained by

you

who read this book made

the earth [was] without form, and void, and darkness.

In order

to prevent the confusion of all

the magnificent structure on the

[upon the] face

which you were chased about.


8979323846

Same country could hardly have kept distinct had

they been capable of crossing freely. The importance of

good: and God divided the light from

the most out-of-the-way proposition of this,

the darkness he

called night.

Perhaps this feeling

of proud certainty would leave you immediately if

sterility of hybrids could

not possibly be of any advantage.


06286208998628034825

To have descended from common parents,

the relation

of the ideas involved in it to objects

is, on my theory, of equal

the stars…

Of these ideas among themselves; it is not

of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

feel constrained to call the propositions of geometry ―true,‖

and of their hybrid offspring it is impossible.

Objects in nature, and these last

works of

[and] the evening and the morning were the

ideas. Geometry ought

God said, Let the

waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature, that

high generality

and fowl that may fly.


64462294895493038196442881097566593344612847564823

The sixth day: thus the heavens

on the other hand,

mark off the distance

(S) time after time until we,

by various

circumstances that

his work (which he had made; and he rested

say, where perfect fertility)

is the basis of all measurement of length,

every description of the scene of an event or

two most experienced observers who

had rested from all

his work, which God created and made. These are

the generations of—

of reference with

which that event or object coincides. This applies

compare

only to scientific description…but also to everyday life

if I analyse the place specification:

the field before it

was in the earth.

Forms should

be ranked as species or varieties, with the

specification of place refers; ―Trafalgar Square, London‖ is:

rain.

By the same author, from experiments made during different

years, it can thus be shown that

in space, this primitive method

of place specification deals only with

varieties; but that the evidence from

bodies, and is dependent on

dust of the ground (and breathed into his nostrils)

evidence derived from

other. But we

became a living soul.

both of these limitations


planted a garden eastward in Eden

and

enabled to

rear some hybrids, carefully guarding them from a

―Trafalgar Square.‖ Then we

can determine its position relative to the

tree that is pleasant to

the sight, and good for food;

square, so that it

reaches the cloud. The length of the pole,

the tree,

the standard measuring—


4564586692

We make use of

parent-species, or other allied

toward the east of Assyria and

garden the visits of

designated points of reference, (C). We speak of

season: hence hybrids will generally

garden [of] Eden to dress it

their own individual pollen; and I

by means of optical observations of the cloud from

different positions.

Author‘s Note:

π (pi or 3.141593) is a transcendental number, which suggests, among other things, that no finite

sequence of algebraic operations on integers (powers, roots, sums, etc.) can be equal to its value.

Consequently, its decimal representation never ends or repeats. It divides in endless variation.

The preceding text is composed solely of language borrowed directly and in strict numerical

sequence from The Book of Genesis, The Origin of Species (Chapter 8 - Hybridism) and

Einstein‘s Special Theory of Relativity. Each selection is comprised of individual lines whose

word count corresponds directly with a relative decimal point of pi to its first thousand places.

The line count of each selection (including stanza breaks or 0‘s) is always divisible by ten. When

drawing from each individual source, the author has taken great care to preserve the original

language while never exceeding 3 consecutive lines from any given text and, even then, only in

cases where the process of natural selection demands. Each passage has been subsequently re-

punctuated to facilitate readability.


Lisa Cole

Ferris Wheel

Wheel in stomach// clear metal turning turning turning turning// a windmill// The armadillo has

a mind of its own. // Foot soldiers, the bloody boots// an imprint of a hand, no feet.//Holding the

gospel of John//Goliath is chain smoking//running out into traffic, arms flailing. He needs a

companion//television does nothing for him, not books// not museums.// Dashed off. //He has

only the ravens, words, the wind, hums.

Letters

that you didn‘t love me //knocked flat//love greater than fear//no walls//tear down and conquer.

Do it do it do it//Not enough love//Thinking //Quell love//quell it quell it quell it//drawing the

eye//clover eyes pig eyes, frog eyes zombie eyes//Brick house dreams//digging with a short-

handed hoe//remember when we talked of wedding dresses and white cake? //my mother

cradling my face//Don‘t quit soldier//Don‘t quit don‘t quit don‘t quit.//biding time//driving

driving driving. And she is a white zombie//no voice box//no chords//ships need anchors//

Part III in a Series of Losses

Love the fallow// Love the weeds// the under-roots.//She‘s done the math// One thousand two

hundred and twenty days// in this splintered box// eighty four bare//Listening to translucent skies

and celestial psalms.// Death is not a death is not a death. Slivers of--


What I Carry

I am telling the truth:

I have crossed him out and

I have walked on the Rubicon.

I have sympathy for Medusa:

I too loved Poseidon, but

only for his mastery of water.

After everything, I still

remember the weighted nights,

the shape of his hand.

Fade to Black

It is easier when he is dead.

White like a lemon cake and cream;

dry like the sidewalk in summer.

But instead, I have been dreaming,

mostly momentary scenes, a movie

on grainy film. I‘m putting out fires

with bottles of milk. Then a snake

writhes out of the ashes, hissing.

Then, some phrase like "La Mort" or "Requiem"

appears on the screen and then everything fades to black.

My dreams have an art house edge, I know,

but that‘s what happens when your heart is a rusted fence.


Samuel Hiram Duarte

Lamentations

her graceful

conceptions

coalesced

into fabled

esoteric light

across a magnificent

imaginative sea

magnified through

diminutive dews

she continued

ricocheting fabled embraces

faltered through

advancements

unknown

reconstructing pretenses

run amok

through countless wars

deemed righteous

over our fellow men

Some prefer her that way -

Some prefer those bewilderments

she bestows

over placid expectations

of how things ought to,

but will never be


Philip Byron Oakes

Left of Euclid

The presumed symmetry of alibis in the confessional,

wearing a hunchback to analysis by experts in the

poppy field. A preclusive geometry of prosthetic

angels. Contradictory synonyms smudging the

lipstick of contrarians in full agreement, as to the

disconnect being the binding element of the

communicable by innuendo, in the hysteria the fall of

paradise engenders. The gaping holes in the

ostensibly continuous, from which the world‘s great

flanking manuevers are launched in a fanfare of guilt,

and a rigid etiquette of compliance to the physics of

confetti in falling helplessly under the spell.

Guardian Angels

The fruit flavored puritans of bleak street taming a timid glimmer in the

graying iris of a boldly old man, paraphrasing epiphanies with oohs and

aahs. The other stuff, without which the great majority live in unconceded

acquiescence, to the bluing of the moon over the recalcitrance of others, to

account for where the principles of snow go for the summer. How the

thoroughly illuminated has darkened with the age of the lawnchair pilots,

stymying those impulses to run like a gazelle at the smell of cat fur, across

polite lines drawn auditioning for a reason to be. A demon. A squirrel in

the family tree, barking like a dog that knows its alphabet but little else.

The brooms brandished as scepters in the autumnal confusion of ever

tightening circles, anchored to favorite fears precluding any campfires

melting the thickness of the night away.


The Buzz

The gurgling of gadflies in the ointment translating

the algebra of arrogance for the meek. The

artificial life support given the contiguity of twins,

staring into identical crystal balls, opening

floodgates once sealed by lips blowing carmine

kisses to the crowd. The continental shelf life

declaring the hordes alive and well. The giraffes up

to their old tree trimming tricks and the donkeys

content to make asses of themselves before the

high court of public opinion, dragging the

likeminded to the middle ground of aging in the

womb of reason from premises tested by gales on

the burly North Sea, sudsing the already

immaculate to the razor‘s edge of night.

Ex Officio

Their long distance apology, for what they said to your shitty little god.

Obscure principles of audial acquiescence disarticulated in the static, as a

contingency of the mother fog. A paper aeroplane landing in your hair.

The bunions were gathering recruits in the cornfields of deaf ears turned to

gold. The sky no help at all and the red carpet doing all it can, to stay

grounded in what it came to celebrate. A slow greening in the way of elder

moments, saddled to escort the most disparate points of reference in

blending a virgin cocktail of tomorrows. A cellophane preamble to echo

chambers of commentary on how tall the grass has grown.


Zilch

Obliterative, with an escape clause, allowing only for life as we barely

knew it, in a bubble long ago blown from smithereens. A marginal starlet

flickering in the rectory. And then there‘s morning lying to the choir. An

inebriant in a raincoat getting a little sun from the store. The moon mooing

in a caption to the sky. A glow, hampering search efforts, in the fog it

takes to get home.


Luke Johnson

Third Eye

1.

Inside the eye of god,

monkeys rattle rusted bird cages,

women gird themselves in clip on night gowns,

shooting imbecile giants and motorized birds.

Pink zebra dance in straw colored too-too,

curtsying their way through sleep,

while pin-up girls burst through membrane walls,

spinning the landscapes of boyhood.

2.

Skeletons of twelve mighty men,

blubber through holy recitals;

daybreak of black ghost whistle,

epigrammatic spiritual muses.

Mad alarmist implore absolutes,

riddling through scriptural tides,

inside the eye of god,

a Lego world of psychogenic clouds.


Fragmented Skies

The storm splintered frameworks of trees,

cloaked in tangerine light –

glowed! glowed! glowed!

becoming live miraculous

prisms. Swallow coiled themselves

feverishly, their song becoming the melody

of moments,

passing through clouds;

the heart of earth turning to shadows

cloaked! cloaked! cloaked!

flower bulbs, rioting mice

the phallic balloons of naked ladies,

gossiping squirrel, squabbling bee, insidious crow.

Death--

the marching advance of lightening

Fra gments

the bruised skyline,

the family meal,

whispering spring winds becoming!

live violins, tambourine, cello, and drum

ming

beats! beats! beats!

hands pressing hard against glass.

children swimming in wonder,

awhile,

late evening, laughter inverted to whisper,

breath became the dance of anxious


souls,

bundled inside

a brick house.


Russell Jaffe

Jews in space

Afternoons on earth are cobbled together from thick spectacles

and dried crumbs and coconut shavings,

desks that smell like black squares on chess boards

and celebratory wine stains, its always after some epic event

These fortunate orbiters make up memory,

even the unnatural wormhole travelling skin of grandma‘s neck

and the humiliating names grandpa called my

drawings of aliens; that rabbi‘s

dark cloak, there‘s

no air there‘s

memory evaporating like white stars do

appear in my honey nut cheerios

and sink fast—let‘s build ourselves away from this I

look often to stars in lights during temple, I

confess both grandpa and the rabbi are dead

and don‘t ever stop I

say as a jewish boy now man to jewish men whose

flecked skin looked burning and whose

veins bulged blue pulsing nebulas

into this vacuous, oxygen-free memory

we can only speculate the distances of;

in dreams we chosen are

riding rockets of stolen artwork

Torah cabinets and tallis clothes


into the pastoral nethers to escape

our mortal troubles


The Blizzard

Celebrate this day with

wet clothes and

a different kind

of feet

that slide on school tiles

and catch the shine of fluorescent lights

the blizzard continues into it‘s third month and

no one dares stop it, they just try to work around it

and the termites are waiting for Spring

when we wish the blizzard would take them out;

Assign; do this that they say

and this condition will go away

nature comes back,

it often does…

The students asked me again about

poems I said

blah blah

blah the only

triplicate worth calling

and the process continues into

the harsh blizzard.

They invented the word harsh to describe pines whipping

and entire forests truncated in white swaths

When I don‘t care I worry

and the winter knows this

the landscape knows just when to buckle

and wood suddenly one day doesn‘t

fit in the door frame. Don‘t look back: termite eggs


but

often

I am given to this

and prone


Letter from the birthright trip I wouldn’t take

Years later I never go to temple. Years earlier, I remember fidgeting and looking out at dying

summer plants around the strange tans that rose from the ground to make the synagogue.

Grandma winks at me often. Jews wander, she always says, and I want to tell her to use those eye

drops because her dry eyes wink like sand.

Forty years in the desert, my grandma reminds me when I leave hunks of brisket meat on my

plate. Eyes are watching, wine mystically disappears. And this silverware is new. God is a

luxury—for me, the spelling. Permitted to pace out my sentences, I end up speaking to my

grandma after dinner in the off-beige living room. It‘s always hot as hell in there. This is where I

am going when I‘m alive.

Permitted to ask, this is what I ask you: Did you fault me for not taking my birthright trip? My

friends did and came back with hangovers, with storylines of nightclubs and clay walls, with

messages poked into cracks and tallits draped inches away from the ground—mustn‘t touch.

Also, bags of Israeli Bazooka Joe.

Why didn‘t I go? I didn‘t want to die, simple as that. That‘s what you do, right? You die. You are

the mortar in the wall. You are sweating into white dress shirts and long black pants on a

summer that kills the most dogmatic plants. I‘ve seen movies about chunks of muscle in sand

and pools of blood on doors like Passover. I‘ve only actually seen wine. I was too young for

grandma to share the blood with me. Sorry.

I ask if the dash where the o had been is too long. On sweaty nights I oh lord our god played in

my belly button‘s contours. And did you mind when I felt uncomfortable watching holocaust

movies with my grandma? She looked so fogged out—do you know that the dashes between the

words I write are like those long Israeli stones my grandma says we must preserve. And I always

make fortuitous mistakes: I say O; Not oh, no not board, not wood, but the oldest stone you‘ve

got, O.

My god, my god gadzOOks (those are eyes) a bazooka shooting holy, holy and god? Also, do

you know what else I like?

That same weapon that blows people into thick red chunks is the same as my favorite gum.

Those fortuitous fears are ones my grandma can‘t imagine, and O for one more night my body is

safe. My sides, my long toes.


And when I read the comics in Israeli I always liked his friend who pulled his shirt over his

mouth and never said anything. In that there was no risk. In the halls of suburban temples I

learned to know this.


Today is the day everything speaks to me

Greenish blue ink flag tattoos and area rugs—

I‘m staying in again, please think of me as a prone hearth

grumble like grass in tin can rain.

I listen to the empty hum where walls collide in corners, silently and infinitely.

You don‘t have the courage to shut that damn thing off.

Between pauses the phone tells me

bring, bring, bring,

bring.

You don‘t have the courage to call yourself displaced.


Francis Raven

Machine 10


Machine 58


Machine 115


Machine 169


Machine 220


Machine 236


Irene Koronas

arrangement of atoms

my thighs so much larger than before. drawing lines through grecian figure on unglazed

porcelain the luster on broken surface dull like soil it has a salty taste a slippery feeling between

the legs a giant frog we bonk over the head cook over fire fizzy sparks the frog tastes good try

not to wet the wall there is no wall only mountain chalkboards blackboards and the weight of

thread

17

even in ancient tiny caves the unforgettable inscription far before any one returns with heaps of

theory heaps of pebbles heaps of messages on billboards television screens computer cliff notes

murmur measuring clicks without memories background brilliant red brilliant minds brake tree

branches an unnatural phenomena especially within circles modern civilization people decked

out wearing scanty white flames through thicket a small grove pine absorbs inside instead of

outside beams lean on rock wall up and down exercise always influences robed men sometimes

women creep out of one opening from the shrubbery boys approach the little foundry but what is

found when people outline hands on rock immovable running books show us hugging vision

perfectly but some budding archaeologist asleep in a cave harbors ancestors ascent from mother

(besides) the trail they wait for someone elses bones


20 (lines) + 10

lackey bluegills

daytime color

beach combs

buttered crabmeat

factious booklet

lightface access

anticipate lightface

aftermath lightface

collateral crag

airplane plasma

parthenon

cherokee coalition crew

brainstorm tourist

backhand calendar

wiggle edge

convulsive picasso

burley glare foil

poignant bilingual recipient

concession stand

comatose luminaries

anti-colony exultant

conduce circumvention

(cereal box expectation)

inclusive chrome

sardine negligees

casual kangaroo

coral bartender

secondhand tricks

nighttime middleman

spoon astonishments


one grain one breath

grain

rain

ran

gain

grin

in

air

an

na

ni

ng

nr

ra

grain rain cracks open air

his pectoral position

his grin topples

na ning narra

cereal box liberation

silo shelter

iiiissssaa gonna

tie up all those sacks

na ning narra


word for

love is work is

out

out

being out developed

this switch blade

itch witch

leaves off an s

wit sit it hit

surprising how often

mine eyes have seen electric water

swatches of pink alabaster

love so often switches

listing elbows

counting rice


Serena Tome (Poet)

Michael Mc Aloran (Painter)

Gun

Re:configured Imagination (for Richard)

A weed: choked out

r

o

u

b

l

e-


makers black male

Boom

gone to soon

all over the room

u

r

lives S H A T T E R

Buttons

Un-noticed necessities

s

t

r

i

n

g

instruments swaddle

wreathes: archetypical

e

x

p

r

e

s

sions of

decency



Physiognomy of la Rose

-for Pierre de Ronsard

the lady

leans into

him her breasts full moons

re

vo ing

lv

around his eyes

oh…

acoustic sounds

of the lark fore/play

steam fills her ear

Quand vous serez bien vielle…

Huh? Direz, chantant me vers,

En vous emervellant…

Hmm..

Her teeth

g r i p her

b

o

t

t

o

m

lip (count 4/4)

shh.. Ronsard me…

Standing. her eyes lids

clap as she

walks away

Note: Italic French quotes come directly from Ronsard‘s Sonnet for Helene.


Serena Tome (Poet)

PJ Bach (Painter)

The Color Red

The Color Red

Heat waves wrestle to get out of the way

as a Latin groove manifests with trembling

legs and hard stop turns,

as the people dance with their ancestors.

Sweat beads hydrate the antiquated floorboards

while Tequila flows like black gold over crystal rocks.

The lead singer strums his guitar passionately as if asking:


Quieréis bailar comigo.

Softly between breaths, subliminally, I respond: Por favor, tenéis compasión.

The music a consuming fireball,

whips me around the small space like the tongue

when pronouncing the word corazón.

I‘m blinded by the smoky atmosphere

where all I can see are red sequins sparkling

in circles, hypnotizing me to stay for one more set.


Serena Tome (Poet)

PJ Bach (Painter)

Flaming Sheets

Flaming Sheets (for Miles Davis)

1.

Charcoal feet press deep

into freshly plowed Southern

dirt in a patchwork field

prepared for the manifestations of funk

onyx hands tilt the golden trumpet North

towards the sun, flaming sheets

lick the ground as he bee bops across color lines

leaving footprints on Rock,

Heavy Metal,

Blues, and Rap

A generation

Stands behind him glaring through


a white mist

clothed in artistic candor, ready to

explore the variables of interpretation

of the groove movement

Selah—

2.

(the remix)

1-2-3-4

bubble

do do

be

boom boom boom BOOM

bubble be

do do dum dum be bop BOP

Wait a one minute. Let’s try this again.

1-2-3-4

diddly diddly diddly

diddly

diddly dum bops bop BOOM

boom boom boom BOOM

FREEZE

Frozen with their arms in the air,

the sign of surrender, music takes

on a distinct flavor, a conglomerate of tones

seasoned with geographic transmissions and

fueled by burning fire from the people who embody it.

Jazz is the international language

of revolution.

This is where you howl.


Serena Tome (Poet)

Ser2 (Painter)

777

-after wall graffiti located on Five Spot Restaurant (Atlanta, GA)

FEAR

Clothed in armored

Imagination rages

Circumcised heart

Sedates scorched

Memories

Stretch marks crawl

Across crescent womb

Waiting—

The color of Jazz


Display allegories,

Symbols prognostications

Revealing entry into

The genesis of

Serenity

Why do you fear illusions?




Biography Notes

Duane Locke, in this month of July 2010, is not certain of where he lives. He has been living in

rural Lakeland for three years by an osprey's nest on a cell phone tower, but the osprey has

moved. So Duane Locke has decided to move. At moment, he thinks he will move back to

Tampa, but where is now indeterminate. He is busily packing. He has had 6,580 poems

published. He is also a photographer of the Sacred, (dragonflies, spiders, sand hill cranes, etc)

and does Sur-Photos.

John Swain lives in Louisville, Kentucky. His work has appeared in Counterexample Poetics,

Rust and Moth, Calliope Nerve, Shoots and Vines, The Plebian Rag, and others.

Constance Stadler has published over 300 poems and three chapbooks in her ‗first

manifestation‘ as a poet twenty years ago, and has released two chaps Tinted Steam (Shadow

Archer Press) Sublunary Curse (Erbacce) and an eBook, Paper Cuts (Calliope Nerve). A new

book Responsorials (with Rich Follett) was released in fall 2009 (Neopoeisis Press).

William Crawford has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in poetry. His work has appeared in

several publications including, Sugar Mule, Counterexample Poetics, Calliope Nerve, Unlikely

2.0, Gloom Cupboard, decomP, Leaf Garden Press, Troubadour 21, Luciole Press, and Up the

Staircase. His first major collection of poetry, Fire in the Marrow, will be published by

Neopoiesis Press in the Summer of 2010. William lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and is an

animal rights activist.

Melissa Dulaney is a 34 year old, slightly eccentric young woman living in the Southwestern

Desert. By day she is a Corporate Marketeer and by night a mother, friend, and artist. She enjoys

spending time with her son and her two dogs. Her inspiration for writing poetry came from her

dearly loved, and deceased younger brother. He continues to be her silent muse.


Caleb Puckett lives in Kansas. He has pieces in Counterexample Poetics, Otoliths and

Wheelhouse. His prose collection, Tales from the Hinterland, is available from Otoliths and

Feral Press recently published two of his poems, "Runoff" and "Combatants", as illustrated

chapbooks.

Howie Good, a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, is the

author of 18 print and digital poetry chapbooks and the full-length collection of poetry, Lovesick

(2009). His second full-length collection, Heart With a Dirty Windshield, will be published by

BeWrite Books.

Kevin Reid lives and works as a librarian in Angus, Scotland. He has a first class MA Hons. in

English Literature. He has lived in a various polemic communities in the North East of Scotland.

He also lived naked in a tipi community in the Spanish mountains. When not buying or reading

books he writes, paints and enjoys the creative magnificence of digital technology. His work has

appeared in The Plebian Rag, Eviscerator Heaven, The Recusant, Eleutheria, Heavy Bear,

Carcinogenic Poetry, heroin love songs, and forthcoming at Calliope Nerve and Gutter

Eloquence. At present he is seeking to publish his first chapbook.

Travis Macdonald works in Advertising. In his spare time he co-edits a small independent

literary press. His poetry and prose has appeared in The American Drivel Review, Bombay Gin,

Columbia Poetry Review, ditch, House Press Source: Material, InStereo, Jacket,

Misunderstandings, Otoliths, Requited, Wheelhouse and elsewhere. A collection of experimental

translations is available online from E-ratio. His first full length book, The O Mission Repo is

available from Fact-Simile Editions.

Lisa Cole is a graduate of the University of Arizona's Creative Writing MFA program. She has

previous publication in journals such as Nimble, Slow Trains, Persona, The Albion Review, and

has work forthcoming in Sawbuck.

Samuel Hiram Duarte was born in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico in 1974. Along with his parents

and brothers, he migrated to the United States in 1980, settling in California‘s rich agricultural

valley of San Joaquin and receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from Fresno State

University. His poetry has been featured in Flies, Cockroaches, and Poets, a yearly journal for

the arts, and has participated in various poetry-reading venues. His work includes a short story

compilation; The Spirit of El Chorumo, and a book of poetry; Seven Standard Roads. Currently,

http://www.eratiopostmodernpoetry.com/

http://www.fact-simile.com/


he is a Family Advocate in Guadalupe, CA and is working on his first novel; Ofelia and the

Journey of the Monarch Butterflies. He lives in Santa Maria California alongside his wife Jessica

and son, Kael.

Philip Byron Oakes is a poet living in Austin, Texas. His work has appeared in numerous

journals, including Otoliths, Switchback, Cricket Online Review, Sawbuck, Crossing Rivers Into

Twilight, E ratio, Moria and others. He is the author of Cactus Land (77 Rogue Letters), a

volume of poetry. Visit him HERE.

Luke Johnson is an American poet born in Cayucos, CA. He is a graduate from Cal-Poly with a

degree in African-American studies and is the author of ‗Tubas in the Belly of Our Souls,‘ his

first book of poetry which evokes delicate and urgent images of apocalyptic yet optimistic times,

where the mundane becomes the extraordinary, and our human experiences are magnified in

heartfelt bursts of revelation. Johnson is currently working on his second publication. He lives

with his wife, Ciara, and their lovely felines, Lily and Louie in Pismo Beach, California.

Russell Jaffe teaches English at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, IA and holds

an MFA in poetry from Columbia College in Chicago. His poems have appeared in Shampoo,

MiPOesias, The Portland Review, Spooky Boyfriend, Writer’s Bloc, and others. Additionally, he

writes a hot sauce review blog called Good Hurts.

Francis Raven is a graduate student in philosophy at Temple University. His books include

Provisions (Interbirth, 2009), 5-Haifun: Of Being Divisible (Blue Lion Books, 2008), Shifting the

Question More Complicated (Otoliths, 2007), Taste: Gastronomic Poems (Blazevox 2005) and

the novel, Inverted Curvatures (Spuyten Duyvil, 2005). Francis lives in Washington DC; you

can check out more of his work at his website.

Irene Koronas is the poetry editor for the Wilderness House Literary Review. She is the author

two full length poetry books, ―self portrait drawn from many,‖ Ibbestson Street Press, 2007, and

―Pentacomo Cyprus‖ Cervena Barva Press, 2009. Her chapbooks, ―Zero Boundaries‖ Cervena

Barva Press, ―flat house― Ordinary Press― and nine more chapbooks. Irene‘s work has been

widely published in numerous literary journals: Lummox, Free Verse, Posey, Arcanam Café,

Spearhead, Index poetry, Unblog, Haiku Hut, Lynx and Clarion 13. anthologies: Bagels with the

Bards 1 and 11, WHLReview Anthology, 2006-09. Articles written about Irene have appeared in

The Boston Globe, What’s Up With Your Words, Sedaca, The Alewife, Spare Change, The

Somerville News, and the Cambridge Chronicle.

http://philipbyronoakes.blogspot.com/

http://goodhurts.blogspot.com/

http://www.ravensaesthetica.com/

http://www.whlreview.com/


Serena Tome writes from the edge of Atlanta, GA. She is the poetry editor for Leaf Garden

Press. She has literary work published and/or forthcoming in, Ann Arbor Review, BlazeVox,

Word Riot, Calliope Nerve, Word for Word, Moon Milk Review, and many other publications.

You can find out more about Serena at The New Renaissance.

Michael Mc Aloran was Belfast born, (1976). His most recent poetic works have appeared/ are

forthcoming at Carcinogenic Poetry, Why Vandalism?, 1000th Monkey, Fashion For Collapse,

Danse Macabre, Fragile Arts Quarterly, Gloom Cupboard, and Pratishedhak, Graffiti

Kolkotta, (India). His art-work has appeared at Calliope Nerve, Bergamot, Fragile Arts

Quarterly, Arterialize, and has been used as book covers for several projects at Calliope Nerve

Media. He is the author of five short collections of poetry: 'In The Black Cadaver Light', (Poetry

Monthly Press), 'The Rapacious Night', (Calliope Nerve Media), 'The Gathered Bones', (Calliope

Nerve Media), 'The Redundant Pulse', (Back Pack Press), and 'The Death-Streaked Air',

(Virgogray Press-forthcoming)...Other pursuits include cigarettes and alcohol...

PJ Bach‘s website is www.pjsroom.com/

Ser2 is an artist creating in Atlanta, GA.

http://www.serenatome.blogspot.com/

http://www.pjsroom.com/



Documents

Corporeal Manifestation