July 2013 | back-issues, poetry
For my nephew, Absalom H., Jr.
1
First, I find, learn the effing clinical skill of saying no—
to others, to yourself; this is also the skill of self-editing,
which is nothing more than observing boundaries, or not.
Case Study #17:
Listen, Kingpin—I had a story accepted for publication in
an on-line “lit mag”; there, I encountered for the first time
the capriciousness of MFAs, as they vetted my story twice,
then, in galley proofs, questioned my “tense structure”
and asked me to insert a character—out of whole cloth—at the very last minute.
I said if their “concerns” constituted a deal-breaker
they could kiss my damn ass and give my story back.
Not a deal-breaker, they said.
However, for the stalwart, rejections will be ongoing,
so avoid hearing no unnecessarily. Por ejemplo, Junior,
don’t make the novice mistake of sending a story too soon
after first acceptance—it’s greedy, and you will be told no.
2
What they told you about the three-part cover letter—
– hook
– body of work
– personal bio—
that was a lie propagated by business professors
who still think the split infinitive is a cardinal sin,
but typographical stunts are, passively, allowed.
3
Of course, don’t be anyone’s martyr—your own or theirs.
Love isn’t a march to victory, so I’ve heard poets grouch,
and I want to believe them, although I’m ruined for religion.
Case Study #26:
At a party for writers, I meet this woman who’s recently
graduated with, yes, an MFA degree, and by way of introduction
she recites the names of all the hotshots she’s studied with at college.
Like I give a composting crap, I want to say,
but I don’t want to be rude, so I reply in kind
by naming the various people I’ve worked with
on construction sites, in warehouses, and in offices.
The woman nods her head knowingly, as if the names
mean something to her, when, clearly, they couldn’t
mean a flying shit whatsoever. Then I say to her,
“Do you ever cry during the act of composition? I do.”
She is smarter than I: so she backs off to mingle elsewhere.
I enjoy lime-infused guacamole and blue organic corn chips
as I watch her exchange important names around the room.
4
“Avoid adjectives of scale,” counsels the poet, et al,
handbook advice with which even the MBAs concur,
but try convincing them the concept of enjambment
might comport with profit—you’ll get nowhere quick.
Writers, though, must be contrary, swiping Rorschach-like across the grain;
therefore, I say that writing in perfect anonymity is a great vantage
best given up for any number of worthy, if not excellent, alternatives.
5
NEVER—as in Joan-Crawford-no-more-wire-hangers-
kind-of-NEVER—listen to the maudlin Gymnopédies
of Erik Satie as background music while you write.
6
For writers, and only writers, going insane for the right
reason is preferable to remaining normal for the wrong
reason. Shake and stir until you achieve insouciance.
But even if you do go crazy, please don’t use phrases like
fictive universe or argot of the academy; for these vocal tics
there’s no medication or therapy, only regret delayed by ten years.
Case Study #50
Take note—merit trumps talent, unless you’re Melville,
and if you are Melville incarnate, then you will certainly
go unrecognized, work as a mindless clerk, and die
discounting eternity, just before some hack academic,
citing merit, makes tenure re-discovering your work.
7
Selah, wrote the psalmist eighty times, rounding up,
and three millennia hence, even the Elect will grant,
the cockeyed theologians can’t translate the word.
by Martin Barkley
Martin Barkley lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife, and works as an independent writer and editor. Recently, his fiction has appeared in The Threepenny Review. Martin also has stories available on-line for open viewing at ChamberFour, The Texas Observer, and the Good Men Project.
April 2013 | back-issues, poetry
We Are Burgeoning Like We Always Thought We Would For Our Individual Selves Seeking Truth As We Know It To Be, Surveying The Course We Surmise Each Should Go
Come here!
I’m not going over there!
Beneath The Dust And On The Shelves In A Warehouse In Wayne County Sits The Bitter Humiliation, Disconsolation, Nightmare and Violation of Thousands of Daughters; Dumped In Forgotten Boxes; Some Exposed To The Elements Of The Building
Folks were killed
while those men
ran free.
The Ritual Of Breakfast Steers Me To Coffee, Mostly For The Effect Of A Chemical; But Also To The Hunt Of A Singularly Wrapped And Seldom Stocked Chocolate Chip Cookie Held Together With Calories And Potato Starch
Why aren’t I
buying by the case?
by Kobina Wright
Kobina has written for publications such as LACMA Magazine, The Daily Titan, and CYH Magazine. In 2004 she wrote her third volume of poetry titled, “Say It! Say Gen-o-cide!!” − dedicated to the Rwandan Genocide of 1994. In 2009 she co-authored a volume of nuler poetry titled “A Crime And A Simplification Of Something Sublime.” In 2010 she wrote a volume of nuler poetry titled, “50.”
April 2013 | back-issues, poetry
Hazel colored Kolmården,
a marble cutter,
showed me one morning.
That’s what her eyes,
looked like against nightfall,
when she begged.
“Save me,” she whispered,
as feathers formed,
and drifted in the same breath.
I exhaled smoke,
And watched,
galaxies vanish between our lips.
What about my concrete,
and harbored self,
led her to ask?
Which vials possessed her
to prophesize,
a messiah in me?
by Romila Barryman
April 2013 | back-issues, poetry
bummed a
cigarette from a man
with tattoos and Marlboros
he said I don’t need a quarter and I don’t smoke weed
and I felt ashamed
asked a lady at south
station for directions she thought
I was asking for change but sighed and said I’m looking for congress street too we walked together and she told me she ventured thirty miles into this
city on this sunny Friday afternoon
to do her taxes
and I wanted to hold my head under murky water until my ears rang with stillness
I felt so ashamed
saw a woman in the public
gardens knee-deep in slush running like mad throwing
peanuts, searching for a he or she or it or them named pinky
saw her succumb to the snow as she started to wail
and I felt
by Emily Woods
April 2013 | back-issues, poetry
The New Prayer
An American,
a woman dressed
for self expression,
rushes the line
and shouts
“Your holiness, your holiness,
I’ve made up a new prayer.”
Whether this is execrable
or this is good and important
depends entirely
on whether or not
the prayer works.
The Chicken-Egg Town Line
The downtown built on the railroad,
lies between the one built on the highway,
and the one on the river
The world was built upon a world
Indians atop dinosaurs atop boiling rock
atop the peripatetic habits of the excrement of a star
And I am one more thing the dirt has done,
among books and soda cans, squinting for a sliver of light
between the chicken and the egg
I try to tell the story
so that the beginning
is not obliterated by the middle
The Last Days of Comprehension
The custom of reality is too makeshift
to withstand very much, too entrenched to replace,
and too misbegotten to repair.
The sun is the color of the DON’T WALK sign.
The bridge loses its existence to its utility.
The sky is ultimately a metaphor.
Even the angels, especially the angels,
become obstacles.
This capital-letter Life
is like Chopin
played on a rape whistle.
And reality is like a line drawing of a man.
Remove one line, maybe two, and
there is no resemblance,
only a collection of scribbles.
by Colin Dodds
Colin Dodds grew up in Massachusetts and completed his education in New York City. He’s the author of several novels, including The Last Bad Job, which the late Norman Mailer touted as showing “something that very few writers have; a species of inner talent that owes very little to other people.” Dodds’ screenplay, Refreshment – A Tragedy, was named a semi-finalist in 2010 American Zoetrope Contest. His poems have appeared in dozens of publications, and have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife Samantha.
April 2013 | back-issues, poetry
5:07 pm at coconut joes bar
Perched on the stool with my feet
hooked into the rounded footstep
I
am
Preened
eyes scanning quest
who suddenly appear
and I lock onto them in the cool Revo
shade of the liquored watering hole
displaying bleached fangs
at striking distance as
skweeking noisy groups
of twos and fours engage
in skittish gossip
I am base and knuckled and
primal – no affectation of
enlightenment, evolution, religion
or Gloria Steinem
technology ancient in
gelled hunt of perfect
savagery with a
denim cloaked tool
seeking prey
before closing time.
After a confidential word with the concierge
As I step down from the chicken fluttered bus
I’m hit with a blast of popcorn bag heat
opened directly into my face and I glide through
the cheek and jowl streets with
tangled knots of aromas from street market stalls
I feel life flow back into me(!) as I
grow nearer and remove my aviatar shades
perching them on my head with my left hand while
my right hand confirms a lump of faded colonial pointed nose men
aiming towards the bar recommended by the fuzzy diced
1995 caprice classic taxi driver with a broken air conditioner and
I see fleshy tropical shirted gringos appearing uncommonly popular
at Las Diablo.
She holds eye contact for 5 glorious seconds
and slides through perfumed air towards me
and I rewind to a time of
cars and lakes and
cascading hair
and beery mirth and
soft touches and the freshly packaged
newness of youth that the counsel of
my years will not surrender
and I become intoxicated by the whole
damn thing and soon we are
stumbling into the sharp edge of the city
through dying light
past corrugated iron and angry graffiti.
We are sniped by well aimed stares of
lost possibilities from women whose
arms are thick from lifting children.
Their eyes have no flicker.
These things cause
our buzz to fade a little
and we become less tactile as
we reach a concrete squared house with a
sleepy hammock and mongrels and dusty children kicking a ball
and a grandmother slowly and silently lifts her face
towards my mumbled greeting
but her hands continue their soapy toil.
I find myself in a bare bulb room with a
picture of Jesus that I remember from childhood Catechism
on the wall and an old iron post bed with thin sheets and soon
I see this:
The symmetry of her face, close up, is melting.
Her lip curves slightly up on the left side as
does the right. Matching almond eyes
with a brow of gentle waves and laughter that
occasionally breaks into flashes of
sadness.
A child is conversing in the
next room in animated tones playing with
a (formerly) blonde one armed doll who is
competing with a tube tv
broadcasting a Brazilian soap opera.
A rooster crows, a reggaeton
car thumps by and the
street noises converge
into a disquieting hum.
We shift from grip to grip to grip as
a tired oscillating fan moves slowly
left and right and left, as if
in disapproval.
by Tony Walton
Tony Walton is from the Cayman Islands. He graduated from the University of New Orleans. His most recent writing has been featured in Whisperings Magazine (Mountain Tales Press). He currently lives in the Cayman Islands where he manages real estate, writes, and travels the Caribbean as an amateur photographer.
