The nest that beats amid the ribs
holds a blue egg about to crack;
when poetry will be born out of it,
I’ll put a leash around its polished
beak and let its claws inscribe my heart.
– Alessandra Bava, from Issue 3
The nest that beats amid the ribs
holds a blue egg about to crack;
when poetry will be born out of it,
I’ll put a leash around its polished
beak and let its claws inscribe my heart.
– Alessandra Bava, from Issue 3
Root words
line the caveat.
A hearing
claws the surface,
pores over future
obvious reclassified
conveyor belt elan,
until the snow drops gather,
one cell turned
into a whole
collective sunlit
craft, precursing
foreloft, whose criteria seep
through music
dispatching hinges,
one upon the next.
Sheila Murphy, From Issue 3
We tried to protect the growing grain
by killing off the sparrow, once,
in a landscape swarming with men and boys
all running, shooting, shouting, beating
the air with fists. So hard a chase and the birds
so tired they fell in scores from emptying skies
while locusts, free of claws and beaks, hovered
above the succulent crops then plummeted
down, more after more, like a biblical plague
foretelling death, like a blinding, shocking rain.
Mandy Pannett, from Issue 3
Room I
There are abstract objects hanging from the
ceiling. Visitors are encouraged to try and
create a meaning for the objects. To give an
example, one idea might be: ‘This strange
collection may represent unimaginable and
unforeseen incidents hovering in wait.’
Room II
A recorded voice tells visitors that there
are untold tales in the textures of a painting
displayed. The voice says: ‘The secret stories
can be excavated and exposed if the layers
are removed.’ It then adds: ‘But, as there is often
great beauty in ambiguity, it is fine if visitors
would prefer to opt out of this activity.’
Room III
There is a large screen, on to which a film montage
of people’s childhoods is projected. If visitors
wish, they can get in touch before they visit, so that
footage of their own childhood can be integrated into
the film to enhance their own personal experience.
Some visitors may not find this a particularly pleasant
prospect though, so please note that it is only optional.
Room IV
There is a wall, which hundreds of butterflies have been
stuck to and varnished over. There is a designated area
where visitors can catch their own butterfly with a net.
Inside this large, glass container, classical music is
played. Many visitors enjoy this activity and can be seen
wreathed in smiles, giggling rapturously, whilst running
around with the net. However, some consider this to be
unbearably cruel and are not quite as enthusiastic.
Room V
In central position is a circular tower that, in its vast
circumference, dominates the room. As the tower reaches
right up to the ceiling, visitors are encouraged to use the
ladders provided. Attached to the tower are thousands of
paper scraps bearing words, phrases, proverbs and quotes.
Some are French, like Jean Anouilh’s ‘Rien n’est vrai que
ce qu’on ne dit.’ (It means ‘Nothing is true except what isn’t
said.’) This is often visitors’ favourite part of the installation
and they are known, on occasion, to spend hours here, their
eyes like prison search lights scouring the tower up and down
for more quotes they can relate to in some way – quotes they
will enjoy, quotes that will make them feel happy.
-Vik Shirley, from Issue #3
The first sentence reminds me of bicycling behind her. I’m beside a new one. Alarms go off in unison like it’s the fourth. One cat is as soft as I come. It’s the month after we repeat why silence happens. I answer myself not spilling. The fridge is full of people up for hours that can’t make up hours.
Parker Tettleton, from Issue 2
approaching the Cinderella-stage
the boundaries between
the flush of carmine, of blue, or of scarlet
means a door altogether above the Abyss
She bears the lotus, spiral lines, fleurs-de-lys, and fishes
perching upon the sparrow and the dove
curved interwoven threads, She is fitted to represent
roots in the earth, petals to the sun
their tendency is to awaken
yet the truth is that the temptation,
an inheritance of blood, iridescent light,
this beauty becomes
a body composed of innumerable
arms and torso, the nub of this
green seems a distant child
keep it clear and precise
the imperial crown and vestments
a throne whose uprights suggest blue
the dismal tincture of selfishness or fear
this man coveted place or power
for this very reason She continually recurs
to work backward, the arch or the door
our ravished eyes entirely incomprehensible except
one who studies, raying outwards
Venus, the only one, binds all forms of nature
impulse impressed upon it together
She can be raised to her throne.
Carol Shillibeer, Issue 2
How could those
Who had red doors
And had white roofs
That from a distance looked like large wings be so wrong,
Or so right.
The firefly torch lit the fallen webbed brown leaves fallen on
Hated schoolyards.
My teachers like snakes had shed their skins, their human skins.
I thought the leaf that looked as if squeezed by the moon
Had an other side. The other side
Had touched earth, and a speck had become the earth.
Duane Locke, From Issue 2
But who has looked behind the circle and its children of the moon.
Is better to have a hand full of sand than a hand
Plucking a sky harp that has no strings. You think,
Then don’t think, then sing sand.
How can you say to those who race in marathons I don’ t hear
Your footsteps.
I have never lived your lives,
And you have never lived my life.
The wolf on cement floor of zoo, the shadows of bars
Crossing the blond hair in bushy tail, ages as Europe ages unseen.
So close, too close in the distances we keep
to truly know our own hidden truths
lost in the absences of and within us
as we hide from each other these secrets
that only strangers seem to know
whispering in the shadows,
stalking like scavengers
feeding on scraps, dining on the hunger we leave
at a full table
and it’s true someone should have left long ago
still we stay,
no longer for the children who have
left us alone in this empty nest of silence
to ponder the “why” when all we can think of is leaving
and maybe it is only for appearance sake now
though we know somewhere in our denial
the reality of our transparency
or perhaps it is the fear
that we’re just too damn old to start over,
that maybe no one
really wants these two old crows
wrinkled beyond the wear of their worth
spent on a happiness that in a lifetime,
could never be bought,
borrowed, stolen or found in the all the wrong places
we kept looking
until it was too late
to see…
Debbie Berk, From Issue 1
The night the lights went out
I was stranded at my parents’,
a pimply teen, a few months shy
of a license, but even if I could drive
I would still have been snow-bound.
I cursed the countryside, my parents’ decision
to yank me from Weston Field neighborhood friends
and move me to Mountain View,
where my new friends were separated
by 30 minute car rides.
The night the lights went out
I read by candlelight until my vision blurred,
and then drifted downstairs to play Monopoly.
Father peeled open Oreos and asked about school,
while mother doled out paper bills as banker.
Sitting around the table with them,
while flashlights shined on plastic hotels and metal pieces,
I disarmed and quit cursing the house they built
and frequent storms that slicked up roads, knocked out power.
Sitting around the table with them, I laughed long past midnight,
until my brother arrived to gas up the generator
and I went to bed, certain I’d wake to the comfortable glow
of electronics, the rumble of plows clearing roads. Next day,
a friend picked me up, and like a stranger, I passed my parents
at breakfast, said little more than hello before I left.
Brian Fanelli, From Issue 2
We will remain ambivalent
about animals and animal
control.
We will shield our eyes.
We will choose between secret and sacred
passwords.
We will fondle the dirt
in the garden,
wash our hands and pile salami
onto a slice of bread.
We will listen as the Violent Femmes
scream for their runaway
train to let them off.
We must figure out how to ask.
Something that fast.
And then it hits the wall.
We are listening.
We have been listening all along
to their harried song,
their hair-brained scheme
to escape from it.
We don’t want to live this way.
We will straighten up and fly
right
into the wild blue.
Glen Armstrong, From Issue 1