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Lawrence Upton
JodiAnn Stevenson
Christopher Barnes
Justin Hyde
Alex Nodopaka
Robert McLean
Lawrence Upton
Portrait: a clutter of not terribly good light
She was inactive. Familiarity brought him winter. She wanted to be company. His mind wouldn't clear. So much for infrastructure. For once, no sign of several people.
Good news. Another male shook his own head. A chair. It was a hard-drinking man, he thought, hearing several voices. He hated their images, frowning. Several voices were not good news. Greedy. The only window, a little object.
The men rushed forward. They dragged her off him; obliterated, tall, narrow. Raised eyebrow. He woke up. The light! Shallow breathing. A little vague on details of his recent extravaganza. A stranger here. Angry friends in the middle of a future. The raving young woman. He had to breathe. To drink himself, unconscious. The entire absurd event.
So far, he didn't know. Unfortunately, for the first time. On the table, is the political environment. Surrounding it had been lots of big talk. About an half hour of it. Let it matter. He was still in the room.
He drew breath. He stood well balanced in an adjacent room. Hard-drinking man announced finally.
On the outer room, was now a crazed young woman he had formerly advocated, burst back; and sat smugly. Up and down stairs to the toilet. More than halfway up a step back. He was new, freshly packed; while he didn't know her, since the men's encroaching, which way to the little company. In some misunderstanding, side-stepped, nowhere, drawing one leg up, breathing through his mouth. In some ways, the girl could be the maximum company in the room. Raised eyebrow.
Which way to give meaning, make sense of the light from the girl. Her finger poked to ward her. Gripping hands. Could only pretend to avoid himself.
Little vague about it. He had to breathe. He was now a drunk. Once he was taller than anyone else in the summer. He felt like wood.
The only view to avoid himself. Old belly.
His eye was swollen.
He wasn't speaking to be released. Sucking air, money. A stranger of dust motes, a mouthful of clear spirit. Here he was to enter at himself, godforsaken, circling, the door to the images he didn't have. They dragged her about. She'd know she was hired.
A general reorganisation of a strange fall, for a few days, to lower the man. A vast fortune, accusing him. He handled such things. He was not terribly good. His voice could only pretend to become.
He had no sign of the window. He had to live out her days. Tastes. Hang him.
And then, in the room, a double brandy and family, while he sulked. The problem posed by compassion. Today he hated his gloom.
He thought maybe he'd be released in any sense. Existing. Unfortunately. Tongue the only furniture. In her face. In the exact place. Time announced finally. Tell your friends! Unrepentantly.
This singularity the edge. He was still more specifically. Tradition. Trying to drink himself. The only company in the winter. To drink himself to avoid himself. Could only pretend to be breath.
He thought maybe he'd taken it into his head. In despair. In the winter. No sign.
Simply holding to Fate, perpetually short of angry friends. Which he had always assumed. Liked her. Today especially. Today especially. Today, he was deposited here, young lady. Supposed to drink himself unconscious.
As a study.
He hated the length of him. Once he knew. What has happened to me? Blocking properties. The problem posed by the clock.
She shrieked, the man, standing on it yet, in the middle. The woman doing.
She was put out from her first time, staring, trying to enter, gills sucking. His eyes watered. His concentration ran down, scalp rippling, a halo of tracks. She squirmed free, standing again. Bony creature.
This singularity. Several voices were.
To gather himself.
She squirmed free, in the outer room, almost horizontal. No way to be released; the little creature's outrage always assumed, the extent of innovative myths.
Progenitors deserve themselves. A trick he'd learned. A warm tongue out, a halo of him, a clutter of not terribly good light.
Copyright © 2006 by Lawrence Upton
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Contributor's Note: Lawrence Upton. Poet; visual artist; sound artist; performer; based in West Penwith, Cornwall. Latest print publication WIRE SCULPTURES (Reality Street, 2003)
JodiAnn Stevenson
Postpartum
Drawn curtain day winding restless.
Cooing won't calm those crying
cradle pains - a side-wound slap.
Sleep teases with easy dreams,
nightmare halted breaths, going
under water in a vault -
and you and I wound tight against
the world, floating in the vast
expanse of black night -
both crying like babies.
Copyright © 2006 by JodiAnn Stevenson
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Contributor's Note: I am a writer and hypermedia artist currently living and teaching in Bay City, Michigan. My work has appeared in a variety of print and on-line journals including BathHouse, Buckle& and InkPot. Some of my hypermedia work can be seen on-line at www.bowlofmilk.com
Christopher Barnes
Topsy-Turvy
In widow's weeds, the bull, the sun,
the flower, the light bulb - it clings
to room 7 of Centro de Arte Reina Sofia,
Guernica*, the fizzled-out horse, the woman.
Ma'am
so long as I
assimilate themes
from a cubed root
suchlike 'whole pictures'
in gone-bad colour
you will remember:
gun-burst at railways
Jose on the bicycle,
rose-tinting an escape
in the blackness of your lace.
*Spanish Civil War painting by Picasso.
Copyright © 2006 by Christopher Barnes
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The Sea In My Cup
Deep acid like a warning
at the edges of the sea
where
blister-bubbles tent corners
of the red round cup
itself
death still bleeding.
Magic-haystack of steam
terrier-fringe tan
and an impression which left
the heaviest smile.
Copyright © 2006 by Christopher Barnes
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Contributor's Note: In 1998 I won a Northern Arts Writers award. In July 200 I read at Waterstones bookshop to promote the anthology 'Titles Are Bitches'. Christmas 2001 I debuted at Newcastle's famous Morden Tower doing a reading of my poems. Each year I read for Proudwords lesbain and gay writing festival and I partake in workshops. 2005 saw the publication of my collection LOVEBITES published by Chanticleer Press, 6/1 Jamaica Mews, Edinburgh.
Christmas 2001 The Northern Cultural Skills Partnership sponsored me to be mentored by Andy Croft in conjunction with New Writing North. I am about to make a radio programme for Web FM community radio about my writing group. October-November 2005, I entered a poem/visual image into the art exhibition The Art Cafe Project, my piece Post-Mark was shown in Betty's Newcastle. This event was sponsored by Pride On The Tyne. I have made a digital film with artists Kate Sweeney and Julie Ballands at a film making workshop called Out Of The Picture which was shown at the festival party for Proudwords. The film is going into an archive at The Discovery Museum in Newcastle and contains his poem The Old Heave-Ho. I am working on a collaborative art and literature project called How Gay Are Your Genes, facilitated by Lisa Mathews (poet) which will exhibit at The Hatton Gallery, Newcastle University before touring the country and it is expected to go abroad, this will be funded by The Policy, Ethics and Life Sciences Research Institute, Bioscience Centre at Newcastle's Centre for Life.
Justin Hyde
philosophical conundrum
I like evolution
from B-present/
it's
/A/
/where the fuck did it all come from/
that gives me trouble
assume big
bang:
/where the fuck did
big come from?/
organized religion is like
a bar night blowjob,
sucks you in
a rush of chemicals
leaving you flaccid,
running for
the door feeling slightly
dirty
I realized this
early on/
it was cemented
when the man
touched my sister/
it's never bothered
me before,
that I didn't know
"what the fuck
was up"
I ran rataplan
in some hedonistic
pancake dream/
chasing highs/
riding the low
out with a blanket
over the window/
but it's eating
at me now/
cunt ain't enough/
money don't do it/
I'm afraid that
i'll never know/
spend my life
farting on some
see saw -
- maybe this
maybe that -
it's not even
that i'll go to hell/
if that be,
that be/
it's just some
innate desire
to know
"what the
fuck is up"
because hey/
it ain't 50hour
mortgage
401k/
Toyota Camry
clusterfuck/
and it
ain't wife
2.4 kid
dog
don't take
no Kierkegaard
to know that ain't
it/
the unrest
is crawlin like
worms in my head/
and it ain't the
meth/
be honest
with me/
you smoke
your cig/
drink your coffee/
smoke your
weed/
milk your baby/
suck your man
off/
lick your woman's
clit at just the
right speed/
graduate your baby from college/
bury your father/
pull your mom off life support/
and
you know
it's not enough
but you turn your face
and keep on going
in that straight line/
well, I can't go
in that straight line
anymore/
so for now
i'll
shoot this shit
under my fingernails
hug the
bottle/
fiddle
with
the word
Copyright © 2006 by Justin Hyde
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Dixie Hyde
set our clocks 12 minutes fast
because growing up in Blairstown, IA
grandma had a punctuality
problem
mom was
a thespian/she
was perpetually dropped
off late to practice/
her senior year/
late to the opening night of Grease/
12 min late/
she was the lead/
the understudy
sang/
mom watched
had such
a dreadful
fear
of being late/
what time
is it what
time is it?
she'd ask
had
terrible bleeding
ulcers over it
started fisting codeine
and Oxycontin/
for the anxiety
helping my aunt Holly baste
the Thanksgiving bird some prepubescent November long since past
, she
said to me "either you go on like your parents/ or you go in the opposite direction"
all those
two did/
sit around
blaming grandma
over their
shit fisted lives/
I blame
gravity/
and that Ford fucker who invented the assembly line/
Copyright © 2006 by Justin Hyde
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I was Marlon Brando for a day
A racing friend
studied film at
the University of
Iowa
I was eating
an omelet in
the student union
when he asked
"you want to
act?,
I got something you
would be good for"
I thought about
it between chews,
I wasn't going to
class, I knew that
much, and I was getting
burnt out on 9
ball and Budweiser
at the Que bar/
"sure,
what is it"
streetcar
named
desire,
he gave me the
script/
"were just shooting
a couple of scenes"
he said
I rented the movie
that day/
some beast of
a man named
Stanley, completely
anathema to
myself
screaming/
beating women
I didn't know
if I could pull
it off/
on the day:
fisted a handful
of speed/
put on some tight
jeans and a tighter
white shirt/
scene:
was at a poker
table,
it went like this/
i get wild and the boys
have to hold me back
i'm to much for em/
i hit Stella/
she runs/
i start wailing out the window/
call her on the phone/
she comes back
i drop on my knees,
pick her up/
off to the bedroom/
that's all i remember.
i got into it
though/
the speed
and the thrill
of it
and roughed up
the boys to much/
the thin one
cried because
I scared him/
the camera people
and sound people
and director
looked at me in disbelief/
i was dripping sweat/
heart jumping
out of my chest
"what the fuck
do you want from
me"
I screamed/
my friend
kevin calmed
me/them
the scene where
I dropped to my knees
in front of Stella
was done on concrete
we took it 3 times/
I fucked up my
meniscus because
I wanted it right/
the thing creaks
now when I walk/
i've got a tape
of it/
and it all looks
pretty silly now/
but/
the little lolly pop
they got to play
Stella
she thought
i was something/
we got brained
on 1$ long islands
at the Field House
fucked liked
the dirty animals
we are/
she asked me
to choke her/
and I did/
i asked her
to slap me across
the face/
she did/
we quivered
in each others
arms
I started
sobbing
nothing has
been as
real
since
Copyright © 2006 by Justin Hyde
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Contributor's Note: My name is Justin Hyde, I live in Des Moines, IA. I was diagnosed with cyclothymic disorder in 1998. I am skeptical of psychology/psychiatry. I have a BS in psychology.
Alex Nodopaka
Woman found in flea market
Nothing in his pockets,
no food in stomach,
he kisses the sleeping
woman in the wrong places.
He found her in an antique car
dreaming of better places,
her mouth open, silent. Her
tongue, dry like the Sahara desert.
He perceives it is her dreams
that keep her alive as he watches
her life course through
her leaded-crystal bones.
She looks helpless with
hands and fingers twisted by pain.
Then on the back seat he sees
her essence float and spread
between her breasts. He kisses
their ivory smoothness. The taste
reminds him of his hunger when
she exhales a whisper,
Come into me Morpheus. He has
nowhere to go so why not into
the mythology uniting him and
her in this trivial flea market.
And, why fucking not.
Copyright © 2006 by Alex Nodopaka
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Contributor's Note: Conceived in Ukraine Alex Nodopaka exhibited first in Russia, 1940. Studied tongue-in-cheek at Ecole des Beaux Arts, Casablanca, Morocco. Foremost he is Artist, Author, Art critic, Lip service in 4 or 5 languages & English gibberish after a bottle of Fire Water (against professional advice).
Robert McLean
Villanelle
As one door opens, another door closes.
I need to learn how to put yesterday
behind me. I sometimes hear children's voices
as I fall asleep. They know my name is
not mine. I find it hard to walk away.
As one door opens another door closes.
I know adults must make difficult choices.
I can't choose. And I don't know what to say.
Behind me, I sometimes hear children's voices.
My father heard voices, too. They knew what his
problem was. The trick is to be ready
as one door opens. Another door closes,
another chance lost: I'm not making progress.
Not much. I can't put what I saw that day
behind me. I sometimes hear children's voices
telling me I should stop and smell the roses.
At least I had someone with whom to play.
As one door opens, another door closes
behind me. I sometimes hear children's voices.
Copyright © 2006 by Robert McLean
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Contributor's Note: I'm a writer living in Christchurch, New Zealand. My poems have been published in Trout, Takahe, Spin, Bravado, Poetry New Zealand, Poetry Aotearoa, Southern Ocen Review, Blackmail Press, and Catalyst, as well as in Australia, the US, and UK.
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