Poem by Keith Nunes

THE FLOURISH AND THE FALL

Lying down to
Take it front-on
Look-see
What the hell is
Coming this way,
Catch a sharded reflection
In the corner of an eye,
Bending with the soundwaves,
Staccato rap all the way
To the found and forgiven,
Acted dumb so long
It won’t go away!

After the flourish, the fall,
Darkness sweeping over everything,
Spreads like dense smoke, someone is
Pulling a blanket over me,
Over my head,
Am I safe or
Am I suffocating?

Poems by Jeffrey Side

WE ARE TETHERED

Now location dissolves.
No nadir exists for these,
my kin, birthed from my essence.

We carve beds within charnel houses,
upon coffins draped in
snow.

Crowns of barbarity
adorn their heads—a gaudy
display that masks the
unease.

The reward, though scanty,
holds a slight appeal, yet the path
remains covered in mist.

We are tethered to a zone,
restless and forever
on the precipice of the uncharted.


TIME OF WHISPERS

Between echoes of forgotten
laughter and unseen spaces,
I feel the ticking seconds,
where memories linger
in the quiet places.

In an old photograph,
blurred by touch,
your essence remains,
as a trace of existence,
fading into the known.

Unspoken conversations
of suspended words,
silent in the air like mist,
taste of what could have been,
now the fabric has gone.


LYNN’S BIRTHDAY

I was a kingfisher in your hand.
I was a man who licked the land.

The switch is off but the light is on.
Sometime in the future you'll be gone.

No more men will struggle in the sea.
I’ll refuse the fish that are brought to me.

The keeper of the snakes has you hidden.
Like a man on probation your'e forbidden.

Eldred walks the fields when the day is done.
He reads too much of Blake and Tennyson.

Simple measures, simple pleasures
You don’t have to count other people’s treasures.

I touched the ruler with the jagged edge.
I have not found the golden hedge.

Niobe weeps upon the floor.
She cannot find what she is looking for.

Through our many endeavours we learn what is right.
From the days of our worship to the curse of the night.


I'M NOT DISAPPOINTED

I'm not disappointed.
I came here on my own.
I can't even imagine
the way it might have been.
I'm waiting here for something,
afraid in case it shows.
I'm not disappointed,
but nobody knows.

I'm not disappointed.
I've had love and I've had care.
It was a long time in coming
as far as I am aware.
I had everything I wanted,
more than I could see.
I'm not disappointed,
what use would it be.

I'm not disappointed.
I continued to climb.
I knew at the start
it was a waste of time.
I couldn't even tell you
where it is now.
I'm not disappointed,
though I don't know how.

I'm not disappointed
now that I'm back.
When goodness came to me,
I still felt some lack.
There are much better places,
I have to assume.
I'm not disappointed
I can't find the room.

I'm not disappointed
she drew back from me.
It should have been expected,
but I couldn't see.
When I leave tomorrow
there will be no regret.
I'm not disappointed
that I lost the bet.

Poems by Mark Young

A LINE FROM PETE TOWNSEND

We invented all the complexity
ourselves. We probably have
trust issues. Remove the obser-
ver. Can we not make them

randomly float forty yards into
the air? Migrants do not flee
persecution just because we get
around. The dance heads in a

different direction. The music has
changed. It is a song everybody
recognizes. We all sing along.
It is a very pleasant adjustment.


SHE / CAMPAIGNS AS / A HORTATORY POPULIST

Equality isn’t what it used to be; even
though nothing still equals nothing
&, according to Parmenides, nothing
comes from nothing. Which probably
means that any equality there is to be
found will turn out to be worth no-
thing & not worth noting. Neverthe-
less, she will undoubtedly still be ex-
horting us to practise equality when
it really should be equity she espouses.

Poems by Les Wicks

AVAST

Their barque was launched in a swamp
with fiddlers & wine in real bottles.

Potted politicians & public barflies paraded
down that street leading to the bones of a jetty.

The crew was long dead, bled into
the scrimshaw of atrocity but still...

They tried for pirate
ended up minor demons.

Could only set sail when the winds kicked up
their minds literally blown, out to the coast.

Every captain should have their lover
to share each other’s holes, buried treasure

was always about flesh.


STILL, LIFE

Floods
random
or not.
Then a ruthless dry
with its banjo & scythe.

The infection of morning
as professionals drive in
to read strangers’ minds. Counselling.

Tim reckons let’s be real
feelings are weeds
most are judiciously plucked or wither
before their bitter fruits can ripen.

We collectively have many
reasons to be cheerful.          But.
So. We made this world in our image,
shepherds of discord.

The time of our lives
the tire of our lives —
my garden is so cluttered with dieback
it mistakes this for purpose.

Poem by Adam Fieled

THE STUDIO

The vista which then opened was one I never
could’ve anticipated in the Nineties—the PAFA
campus was set as a series of jeweled buildings
smack in the center of Center City Philadelphia,
a few blocks from City Hall. Mary was then still
in enough good standing to maintain her own
studio on campus. I had to sign in as a guest on
the ground floor every time I visited. The room
was a large rectangle, & the elongated back wall
was one big window, looking out on the western
progression of Cherry Street, towards Broad. Until
Mary & Abby, I had no fixed notions of painting;
now, I dived in with the frisson of one let loose in
a wonderland. Everything about Mary was magical

to me, & the canvases arrayed around the studio,
largely male nudes, recumbent or not, plugged into
Mary’s fascination with classical mythology, & made
a case for Mary as a Don Juana, a seducer of men.
Heady stuff, & often Mary’s tales were about men
who had posed for her. Vertiginous, but I was on
the verge, nonetheless, of a full-on love affair, maybe
marriage, to a women powerful enough to be called
a Creatrix, a female goddess in the world, & I knew
it. Sleeping with Mary meant something it never could
with others; rather than a mere palliative, if you could
get her to put out in the studio, you were plugging into
a mythological web, glistening & intricate, stitching
yourself, possibly, into history, & the come was in color—

Poems by Jeffrey Side

LYNN’S BIRTHDAY

I was a kingfisher in your hand.
I was a man who licked the land.

The switch is off but the light is on.
Sometime in the future you'll be gone.

No more men will struggle in the sea.
I’ll refuse the fish that are brought to me.

The keeper of the snakes has you hidden.
Like a man on probation you're forbidden.

Eldred walks the fields when the day is done.
He reads too much of Blake and Tennyson.

Simple measures, simple pleasures
You don’t have to count other people’s treasures.

I touched the ruler with the jagged edge.
I have not found the golden hedge.

Niobe weeps upon the floor.
She cannot find what she is looking for.

Through our many endeavours we learn what is right.
From the days of our worship to the curse of the night.


IN THE POOL OF ABUNDANCE THERE IS DROUGHT

Dreams can come true
if you know the things to do.
The only thing that’s stopping you
is that you're tied up too.

I've got someone to comfort me.
I’ve got someone to care.
I’ve got someone who has the key,
and she’s around somewhere.

I’m dreaming of the portrait
you never gave to me.
I’m dreaming of me and you
standing by the sea.

I could never be the master.
I could never be the son.
I could never be the finger
that pressed the wrong button.


TIME OF WHISPERS

Between echoes of forgotten
laughter and unseen spaces,
I feel the ticking seconds,
where memories linger
in the quiet places.

In an old photograph,
blurred by touch,
your essence remains,
as a trace of existence,
fading into the known.

Unspoken conversations
of suspended words,
silent in the air like mist,
taste of what could have been,
now the fabric has gone.


SAY NO TO TOMORROW

Sands of reminiscent footprints on
traversed paths, gather together moments
stitched in nostalgia, while reality converges
with transient tapestry recollections of creating.

Hands of experience and shadows, cast
changes, chances, choices and ghosts
of imprints, painted with days bygone
on the flattered murals.

Covert prisms reverberating with aspirations,
serenade birds with accordion melodies,
while their metallic spines juggle
star formations as the dusk captivates.

Melancholic larvae know more about this than
anyone, and have mentioned it many
times, as Medusa swirls around them as if
spatial dimensions were not the only problem.

Say no to tomorrow, until the the past is once again.

SELL YOUR TERRITORIES

Silent chamber
echoes can
be heard
when introspection
glides through
secret corridors
of whispers.

You stand
on your
untrodden territories
facing the
map of
existence uncharted
from a
compass point.

Sell your
territories to
those yearning
for cryptic
melodies of
depths and
let them
sing the
lullabies of
vagabond echoes.

Poem by Alan Catlin

GUARDIAN ANGEL

His guardian angel must
have been packing some
serious heat, must have had
a small arsenal and enough
ammo to take out a small
army secured beneath her
flowing black robes.
She used a flaming sword
instead of head lamps to show
the way on dark, moonless nights
patrolling the deserts of his
life, a life that was soon-to-be
a ravaged wasteland
of stripped malls, gutted wild
animals hunted for their tusks,
their fur, then discarded and
left to rot beside lost pitted
highways that lead South
into the unknown.

Poems by Keith Nunes

ON THE EDGE

Standing on the precipice
With his back to the cliff
Eyes closed he feels the
Invitation of emptiness,
It’s a gentle, cordial invite,
A vague promise carried on the breeze
Curling around him, a promise that
If he lets himself fall he will
Experience a sensation of heavenly nothingness,
An immersive peacefulness entwined with
Intense excitement,

There’s a light-touch-hand on his chest
Pressing him backwards, then
It’s as though the hand is around his heart
Holding it so he doesn’t have to hold it himself,
He’s weightless, a spirit-form desiring to remove itself
From this redundant body rooted to this tortured earth,
An unfamiliar serenity pours over him like a watery shroud,

He’s tilting, marginally, forward and back,
A slight nudge either way and
A decision is made,
He wants the decision to be unwitting, made by itself for itself
Without conscious thought or effort,
Let it happen,
                        Happen!


IN ASKING FOR SILENCE

Vertical finger at the lips suggesting silence,
Demanding silence?
Is the gesture implicitly forceful, or is there room for playfulness?
Do you choose to ignore the gesture, or
See it as conspiratorial, inclusive?

Are you today the type to be annoyed with a command?
Are you today the type to be humoured by a suggestion?

Does the gender of the person influence your reaction?
What if the fingernail of the finger is chewed down, or if it’s nicely manicured?
If there’s an accompanying shoosh, does that affect the response?

Do you mirror the gesture to show support?
Do you waft a hand across your face dismissing the command?

Do you pantomime tip-toe movements as if displaying your quietness?
Do you exaggerate bullish movements to ridicule and rebel?

Do you sit gingerly, pick up a book?
Do you jump up and down and shout Nirvana lyrics?

Is this a serious moment,
                                          Or is it silly?

Poems by Joseph Cooper

OFF THE PIANO ONTO THE ETHER

Dear Radioland, hello. It’s 5:45 a.m. I squat here
watching the whole thing from the position
of watching television. Pitying the morning light,
the ringing of the telephone, the blowing of the wind,
the infant screaming in its crib renouncing all limits
of a musical coda. It’s anyone’s story as beautiful and
inscrutable as a young person from Mars in love
with memorable endings. Werewolves seeking exotic
friendships. I want to go home and immediately
become a message in a bottle. Anything to not be
omitted. Meditating on the cold holes in my socks.
I am molten, stupid, dangerous driving out of the city,
past farms, river and fields, just waiting to be heard.
I don’t need to know every moment you consider leaving.


TEATIME ON THE SHOWBOAT
                for Andrew K. Peterson

Tap damp cigarette along the tub edge
like someone in a terribly sophisticated play
proclaims, “I don’t need a piano to sing!”
My soul is a small boat lost at sea, a crude
radio going full-blast all day drumming
its energy medicine as I grow old by the great
whale of the piano’s immortal solo. The sinking
oar of a colossal adagio an inch or so above
the waterline adorned by a suppressed heaven
of kisses. The marvelous starlet’s beautiful despair
setting axiomatic waves over this absolutely ceaseless
saga. I can hardly see what good it would do
to cry out darling, darling, to cry for the sorcery
of the open sea, the stoic Romeo of the shark.

Poems by Mark Young

SEA, ME, & LIBERACE

A school of Patagonian toothfish
have given me a candelabra
for my saint’s name day. I’ve
placed it on the grand piano,
next to the porcelain vase that
a pod of dolphins gave me
some months back, & in front
of a piece of rutilated schist,
not a gift but a found object,
not from the sea but from where
the sea used to be, millenia ago.


100 TITLES FROM TOM BECKETT: #12

How Will We Assemble One Another?

So who decides which one goes first
when neither is whole enough to make
decisions? & when that resolved, how
then to proceed given the inherent
difficulties once the manual is dis-
played. The instructions are in a foreign
language which will present a serious
challenge since there are no visuals to
assist; & from the positioning of the
few recognizable words the steps seem
to be neither sensible nor sequential. As ex-
ample: foot & mouth follow one another.
Does that mean that foot & mouth disease
will be part of the finished product? Or is
it an invitation to clumsiness, as in every-
time the mouth is opened, a foot will be
placed in it? Nor is there any obvious
provision for either left-or right-handed-
ness. Small things, perhaps, but they seem
what is focused on, & attributes that should
be important are left to chance. Example:
gender decided not by intent bur rather by
what bits & pieces are left over at the end.

Poems by Jeffrey Side

IN JACQUELINE'S ARMS

In Jacqueline's gaze a truth resides.
Within her soul I find my silence.
Throughout life’s whirlpool our love remains true.
In her smile I find my embrace.

The years have passed but memories recall
the moments we shared in our concealed retreat.

In silent nights I recall her voice.
in Jacqueline's arms I find my sleep.

CYCLING

Cycling with you in summer 1989,
I am riding close behind you,
with the breeze in your hair,
and I can smell your scent
as we ride downhill towards the river,
with the sun in front of us, forming
a halo around your body and making
you almost a silhouette.

In your summer shorts and shirt,
that is tied in a knot above your navel,
your beauty enlivens my spirit, and
my soul yearns for your love.

You are the queen of my heart,
and the mistress of my soul—
an angel of delight sent from heaven
to show me how to love.


OUT IN THE WORLD

No one sees the darkest hiss of rain
or the authority of selfish tears
in the rattle of liquid night
like timber packets

Alone hot struggles of kitchen fire
that is her trade
driving her rampart
a woman unconsciously witnessed
with auburn hair low from time’s complexion
that nobody watched

The boatman passes like a gust
absently he comes scratching
cursing all the time
always afraid
strolling to him feels like plunging

Mud errands high hair unmoving
flat time downriver from uninterrupted
books I came not to take employment
for the room had not changed

Able herself supported
she walked with undercut pride
or perhaps with something better

Admit the truth
open the window
goodbye to houses and hello to farms
this is the way things are
out in the world


I SUPPOSE WE’LL WORK SOMETHING OUT

Nature charms you
outside the temple were things
will be understood though wrongly directed.

Unhappy idealists discover
doubts about principles or
otherwise confuse themselves.

Mansions bare the parched streets
where visitors gather by
statues with ironclad
stepping stone traps.

Accented people in the thin city
with frustrated friends
find destiny tumbles
in terror.

Deep in love like resentment
dragons and hyperbolic death
women remark that
men go out
on winter mornings habitually
balanced yet visible
in the way of the spent
room.

Gathering like the rest of society’s
house bought off with chairs
and wine congratulations
and with barbaric modesty
cultivated in vapours
my teachers come to me.


GOING HOME

“Looking in the mirror—

mirror

mirror

mirror

Tomorrow—bright light.

I will see God tonight.”

Thanks for running after that bus for me, Dad.

Poems by Jeffrey Side

WHERE YOUR LOVE BELONGED

I’m sitting here thinking
of a time I could have been
love-friend to her
about life

Pretty girl facing me
from the corner of a room
forward stretching over it
my bridges burnt

She said never leave me
as if I ever could
that was just something
in her mind

There were good days
and there were bad days
but the sun shone brightly
and the sky was blue


PRECIOUS REQUESTS

It was a Sunday morning.
And all the bells were ringing.
I work my fingers to the bone for you.

I want to buy you something new.
You can’t have that many things,
even if I say so myself.

There’s plenty of time, and there’s work to do.
What you hear in the dark,
always repeat in the light.

There’s no gold or silver for your belt anymore.

I shall never forget these things.
Your mother knew about them.
Let your light shine on these special gifts here.

Don’t keep your treasures all that near.
You can’t take them with you too.
Your father knows you need them all.

Is there someone asleep in the doorway?
My legs won’t keep me up:
not in the house we stand in.

Your precious requests have not gone unnoticed.


THE CROSSING OF THE BRIDGE

Dimness is here
followed by regiments
recoiling from containment
armour in Europe
remembering fire-eaters
absorbing what was put down
with great trouble along the bridge
while the rain saturates everything
the enslaved more furiously
throughout fictions and incredulity.

I remember my friends on dry roads
and wagons coated in perfume
memories on the ferryboat
love that is the distance
and the eternal clock
democracy and earthquakes
and women for all the troubadours
shuddering hearts and brains
that heat this world
and rulers furnished by other arts
when I was alone in Charleston.

Poems by Joshua Martin

HOOKED BOWL IS A BROTH

built to add an anger
index witch seesaw
squinted shoulder hex
back off STD offered
highs & lows & toes &
why Wake the Silence
dusted Nose Red Noise
previous makes a Yak
Attack field Boy Pointed
bottom Grim Bonkers Set
strayed interior thigh blade
Typified warbly grovel bacon
Back is cyst & ossification
ganging quack shrinkage
smell that Covers Silicon
& greens the cob Spoke


SAND STORM HOLLOW WHIP

Lost tattoo toothpick realm
Seldom scar glorified nail
Once bitten Thrice high
gig a bit thought market
under valuable stapler haven
heaven Near a Bucket
spine lustful tingle
Ring that singularity
truck preventing twit
witticism provision laugh
a NightMare spare tire
mire wire sire liar
sun stroke strobe rope
neo logistician gulp


MARCH MARCH STARK

Wed said redesign
necessitating slab poison
Air Raided Invader
tank grass grin
an owl noticed sparks
giver Of The Shiver
asked a Fan to Split
clock Repacking Shellfish
wish as ish ish ish
amuck cluck buck
a tooth a Trench a Vlad
disappear Dear speak spot

Poems by Keith Nunes

HOSTILE TAKEOVER

We installed a firewall,
Splashed the walls with fire retardant,
Plumbed in a fire hydrant in the bathroom,
Cut back lurking vegetation for a fire break,
Fired our double agent at the embassy,
All to prevent the rumoured
Hostile takeover being prepared by
HostileTakeover.com
Taken over minutes before
The Liquidation, and
Fire Sale.


OUT OF TIME IN THE TIME ZONES 

We sat around the crystal ball,
Gulping Spumante from crystal glasses,
It became clear to the 3 of us,
Crystal clear, that our
Fortune-telling was a sham,
Lady Gotitoverus was
Naked for a reason.

>>

Now that I’ve come to the realisation,
To the understanding that
Everything about the human condition is ridiculous,
I find myself immobilised.

>>

Toppled and
Erected and
Toppled again,
The ruins
Bleed a
Little of
Themselves
Onto themselves.

>>

Under rearranged skies,
At an unconvincing juncture,
I went to sleep a dog,
Woke up a cat.

>>

The buses I travel in
Have a window solely
For me to look out,
Nobody is ever
On the buses with me,
The only people
I see while on buses
Are footpath people,
Traversing.

>>

On the overbridge
The waiting had
Begun and ended in a single arc of the sun,
Heel down hard in the walk back thru
The underpass,
Wind tunnelling
I lean against it,
Over a cliff
Waiting to fall,
Goading myself to fall.

>>

Out I look from the window
To the world where everywhere
There are experiments underway,
An entirely experimental world
Where nobody sits comfortably,
Nothing escapes analysis, and
The gathering promise of overhaul is
Actually a threat.

>>

If only I was handed the Hindsight File a little sooner in the day.


YOU AND ME AND ME AND YOU

I carried offerings
You would take up
On arrival,
I was back and gone again,
I mentioned not
Being ABLE
Not being
WILLING to
Sit in a room with Me,
I put Me on my back and
Carted humped-back for 10 years,
Smoky compartments, desert grit,
Sudden drops in altitude,
Women who mistook
Me for You,
You for Me,
Back by plane,
On foot,
Here I am, and
Me?
Never fucking left.

Poem by Jimmy Crouse

INDIRECT SOURCE OF EMBITTERMENT

The with of are by to and from
On is than an as at a in
In a at as an than is on
From and to by are of with the

The with of are by to and from
The with of are by to and from
On is than an as at a in
In a at as an than is on

From and to by are of with the
The with of are by to and from
The with of are by to and from
On is than an as at a in

In a at as an than is on
From and to by are of with the
The with of are by to and from
The with of are by to and from

Poems by Neil Fulwood

MICRO-PUB, KELSO

Man walks in, leans on the bar.
Flat cap, olive jacket, shapeless trousers
boot-tucked - the tick-box cliché
of the half-arsed farmer fallen on
hardscrabble times. Asks of the barmaid

“Is Jim in? I’ve got a chicken
if he wants it.” Jim’s out; the fate
of the chicken shades into mystery.
A pint later, halfway down Memory Lane,
he’s slinging drinks in the trademark

Seventies rock ‘n’ roll joint that made
the fortune he squandered. Sounding
off to anyone who’ll listen, voice
like wet gravel turned by a shovel,
he remembers that Robert Whatshisname

not Palmer, the one who did Stairway
to Heaven - he used to come in, order
a beer, proffer a fifty pound note
dead sure it’d be waved away, his drinks
on the house. Emptied the till, our man

recalls, counting out a rock star’s change.
And that’s the length and breadth of it,
his once dined-out-on anecdote,
his claim to a cocked snook at fame.
The song remains the same, the audience

glazing to indifference down the years.


RED DIESEL

Lumbers out from concealed entrance
absorbing horn blast, flashed lights
and window-flung wanker sign
with a minor deity’s casual indifference.

Drags shit-spattered aluminium trailer
behind it, combined wheelbase
closing in on the road-hogging length
of some C&W-ready American rig

not that its ten forward gears push it
anywhere near a Mack or Kenworth’s BHP.
No blue collar balladeer would verse-chorus
its field-to-farm B-road odyssey

in steel guitar cadences, no filmmaker
frame it against sunset or storm.
It treats movement as a shrug, tyres
the size of an outhouse kicking up dirt.

The word juggernaut does not apply.

Poems by Martin Stannard

TO ALL APPEARANCES 

As per Janie’s suggestion
I’m changing my appearance
So as not to be recognised
At the border when we cross
From whatever this is to
Whatever that might be. I’m
A brunette and I don’t know
Why we are going although
I know we have to. Most of
The time it’s guesswork.
I’ve not eaten for days
In an effort to lower my
Cholesterol levels. The world
Is a little shaky. If I lay on
The grass and stare at the sky
Pretty soon the sky begins to
Slip away. I maybe ought
To drink more. Then maybe
I would start to see things
Differently. I’ve not always
Liked my hair. Soon we
Will be leaving and I will
Be forced to stop writing
Perhaps for ever. There may
Not be paper or pens where
We are going wherever that
Turns out to be. Happiness
Is only possible if there is
Stationery. Stationery and
A lack of movement suits me
Absolutely fine. I’m a blonde
Rapidly becoming silvery.


PINK 

1.

I was wearing the frivolous handcuffs
But The King called and told me to take them
Off. It was after a concert: we had been ordered
To celebrate The Gods but had long known
Not to expect too much. Having spent the best
Part of the day in bed soothing a variety of
Frustrations it’s time to get up and at ‘em.
But only if you feel like it, which I don’t.

2.

The years are starting to weigh
Heavily upon the old men of the town
Who have taken to laying on their
Backs near the swings in the park in
The hope of seeing girl secrets.
When it rains—as is its wont—
They don’t mind because they don’t notice.

3.

I took off the handcuffs (pink
Don’t suit me) and swapped them
For a special kind of twine
Guaranteed not to break
Until the cows return from their travels.
We have been alone for a long time now
And grown used to not expecting too much.

4.

The day I received your letter—the letter
You sent from the island of make-believe
Where worship of the Sun and Moon
Coexists with worship of supreme wealth
Alongside cold-hearted callousness—
Was the day of The Games and I had a lot on
My mind. I had mislaid an attractive girlfriend
And needed some toys to throw out of the playpen.

Poems by G. E. Schwartz

WILL WE REMEMBER A WORLD INSIDE

… All outside of flesh is only our ambience to consciousness,
mere flotsam and jetsam in the river of space/time:
here a father, there a lover, here a stranger, there a friend
as the river of extent/of continuity, of eddies and cataracts
from its Big Bang beginning to its Apocalyptic end,
mountains, continents, oceans, and stars all in collision,
omitting, temporarily abiding together then gliding away
into disorder and dissolution for nothing, nothing will stay.
We are lights to ourselves alone, watts in our own dark,
and we guide ourselves deathward, our thoughts photons
shot light our understanding of every lepton and quark
accompanying us on our pour along in currents of chaos,
this light the magic of imagination, the fire of dreams,
our sentience itself an unquenchable metaphysical spark.


FREEDOM

My room is decluttered, and I can advance
Freed from death, now twisting its slow course
In time. Talk to me before time grips us. Death
Will be long and no one will come to free us. So
Evade the years with seething. Drift into Spring,
Or stay as stones at the breach of the valley.

OUR NOVEMBER

What a roaring season! Best to stay low
Along the ground, dig in, pile heaviness
Between us and its swells on our rubbing
Bones, listening to each crest of sound,
That something running this show, through
Stubble-tortured fields cut by another season.
Hold tight in the house, its shaking wood,
Its steel aperture. Go to the kitchen where
Oven warmth will take you in even in this
Darkness to wrap about you, climb through
Time as the black clot of this season beats
At all it can beat at with all its heavy cries.

Poems by Mark Young

ENTERPRISING BARGAINS

Some invasive herb has been spread-

ing, engulfing both a cardboard 

cutout of Danny DeVito & a box 

full of Legend of the Bulldog Tees. 

Does all poultry have to be this 

sophisticated? It's an exaggerated 

reaction to numerous satirical re-

views; but, severely hampered by 

logistical problems, the subject is far 

more complex than some nuanced 

black tie dinner. Satire remains a 

powerful tool; but by turning side-

ways, the resident hippopotamus

has totally exposed its hidden

logic. That's not such a bad payoff.

THE SCARRED CONTINUUM

What is happening to real music?
Is said that many-particle excited
states are not always a cause for
concern; & this view is compatible
with the assumption that the peculiar

motion of ionized baryons is known
to introduce passing feelings of de-
personalization. Splicing genres can’t
always be fruitful: there is no magic
technique to render things otherwise;

the presence of an observer always
means our perturbation will never
be perfectly spherical. How might
the brain approximate this inference?
Think of the Earth, & breathe deeply.


FROM 100 TITLES FROM TOM BECKETT

#95: Tattoos Submit Behind Closed Doors
Highway 101 stretches out in front
of us. What is done is done behind
closed doors in a studio with no tat-
too sign out on the street. It’s hard
to beat a panther tattoo or one of a
lion with no blue in the muzzle. My
time is taken up with innumerable
actions & things, but just a small
number of symbols can describe
them all. I was out way too late last
night getting tattoos. Now I'm just
going to bleach my teeth, lay out on
the couch with my boys, & decide
whether or not to invest in this busi-
ness that gives people the option to
preserve their late loved one's tattoo
as a piece of artwork. If you want to
have my name tattooed on any part of
your body, then fill in the form below
& submit it. We can't wait to see you.


A LINE FROM PIERRE DE FERMAT

You're turning right onto a dual
carriageway when you're con-
fronted by a stone tablet which
dates to around 1800BC & is

sparsely accompanied by an en-
raptured voice. The lane you were
going to move into is now likely
to be too narrow to contain the

opacity controls that ride the sides
of the car just above the rocket
launchers which they control. So,
press the firing key. The immediate

problem solved as the tablet shatters.
But a secondary problem & solution
not noticed in the debris, a shard that
reads “a3 + b3 = c3. Workings follow.”

Poem by Jimmy Crouse

AN INTENSITY OF 1.4

The letters have been syllabically counted so that dictation is controlled at an intensity of 1.4.


We tried to handle these improvements ourselves. We believed
that they were our responsibility. We acknowledge the fact that
the expenditure was larger than we expected it would be.
It would be inconvenient if we had to demonstrate how the
assignments were made. Under the circumstances, the exchanges
should not be neglected. The investigation shows that some of
the expenditure was irregular but the administrators were not
irresponsible.

We acknowledge that we are doing this on behalf of our clients
and have no interest in the insurance company. Our investigation
shows that the first inspection was prejudicial to the interests of
our clients. We have no responsibility for the insurance company
and no jurisdiction over their investigations. However, our
clients have a substantial interest to protect and we must demon-
strate that there has been no negligence on our part.

The administrator is in need of additional information before
he can give you a certificate. Under the circumstances, you
should do all you can to establish identification. What you are
doing is not only peculiar; it is very irregular. Why not go over
everything with him now? I believe it would be advantageous to
you to do so, and the representative of the insurance company
cannot find it objectionable.