3:AM Magazine » Poetry

Four Poems

darrananderson — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:44:13 +0000

By Ford Dagenham.

A Little Bit of Delirium

Johnny! Twanging Beeping Johnny
where you bin, Johnny?
you bin in the breath before we die?
the breath when death announces its grey intentions?
and takes you into the hall,
you bin where all the dogs say Cock, Johnny?
and all you say is Boo?
you want to say God, Johnny?
like we used to
and its rare as meat outside, Johnny,
livid and smelling
an ECG sunset of mad painters red,
and the TV is on twice, Johnny
while I milk my epic crawl
across the endless enormous rug,
where you bin, Johnny?
when I was left to sleep on the kerbstone
a hero without missiles or headphones?
and Johnny, you found my sick on your Volvo roof
and in your Spanish guitar,
where you bin, Johnny?
you bin far?

Photograph of a Girl

found an old photograph.
it was ALIVE in my hands
and
I
could
not
look
at
it.

found it in the shoe box
where I had hidden it
alot
of
years
ago.

was from the White Noise
I had been deep inside.
it was from the
Wild
Disfunctional
Innoncence.

a fake innoncence, Youth,
the First Nightmare.

will be a Lizard harsh autumn.
I will burn like the trees and leaves.
she is Woman now,
with Children, Moisteuriser
and Routine.
I’ve a Bottle, an Atomiser,
and only Dreams.

I’ve memories I cant touch!
all locked away,
I’m turning them into Diamonds.

outside this photograph
(that SCREAMS in my hands)
I am shouting at the Sea.
I am running into the road.
I am Laughing.
always Laughing
or doing some other Cheap High.

this PHOTO
this NOW
is Alien but Home.
is like France I saw as a child.

(I try to face up to it
without license or beer
but I could only look at it
when SHE was looking at it
and I was drinking)

Onwee Jr. nineteen seventy biscuit

‘Nothing is interesting. Nothing.’
Charles Bukowski

outside the last semi
in a dead end road of Fords,
a boy is ALONE
out on the front lawn.

the august sun shines on him,
conifer surround him
in his last days on Earth,
the last days of the school holiday.

a bee is terrifying over the lavender.
he has toys out there,
blonde hair.
he has a secret tree to hide inside.

he is too young
for the ennui
he wears
like a baby blue T.

sunday afternoon, saturday afternoon,
the sunshine; KILLERS all…
lethal as a wet Wednesday
11am.

Biofuels

lot of talk
of them Biofuels
these days

I thought they meant DRINK

thats why it made sense
they could save the world

but apparently
them Biofuels
will
DECIMATE
the
Southern Hemisphere

in an effort to benefit the Northern one

just like the Gone Empire
with its gin
and
white pianos

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ford Dagenham lives alone just one mile from where he was born in the house his grandfather died in. He works as an underdog in the hospital up the hill he can see from his kitchen rife with mice. He was educated during the 80s teachers strikes in a school that burned down. He cannot drive.

The Fair Cop

darrananderson — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 11:18:54 +0000

By Tom Leonard.

a cop came to see me
but I didn’t know he was a cop
I’m so trusting!!
and I said sit down and have a cup of tea
and he sat down and had a cup of tea

and he was a young man
a nice looking young man
he reminded me of my son
the taller of my sons
very discreet
a good listener

and I said would you like a banana?
I eat bananas like a gorilla
but the cop didn’t want a banana
he asked me if it was all right to use a dictaphone
and I said of course though I don’t really like dictaphones

and he was interested in all my life
and he wanted to get a few things straight
it would help him with his work
and I’m getting old
there’s bits of me beginning to pack up and go
and I like helping the young
it is one of the pleasures of old age
what else is there for the old to do?

so I told him all I could
and I was very free and honest
I like being free and honest
I like those days when it all comes together
and you know your own story
and you know your own place in the world
and what you have done and why

and he didn’t say very much
come to think of it he didn’t say very much at all
but he had a nice smile
and he seemed a good listener
so I talked and I talked instructing the young on my path through life

and only once did his expression change somehow
only once did his eyes sort of flicker
and that was when I was talking about terrorism
and how they all use the word terror now instead
and I told him I noticed when the change first took place

I said I remember it being Ariel Sharon
how he kept saying terror terror terror terror
fighting terror war on terror fighting terror war on terror
all instead of terrorism

and now the word’s over here

and how this reminded me of the way words would change during the seventies
how news bulletins would change a word even in one day reporting Ireland
how the words on something would evolve to a kind of more acceptable slant

and I told him how I used to rant on then
I laughed how I used to rant on then in the seventies and eighties
all this stuff about changing the laws for the Irish situation
how they would bring the diplock courts over here when they felt they could
how they would find another emergency over here when it suited them

I was really relaxed talking to the young man I know the story of this place
I grew up in it I have eyes and ears
I try to find out different views
it’s part of being free and honest that’s what I was so keen to tell him
it’s not part of being a member of anything it’s just part of being alive

but there was something about that mention of terror
something about the way he reacted to me talking about it
looking back it was almost as if he was suddenly on the job
and his face changed just that wee bit, his eyes caught mine just for a second

though it was only a couple of days later
when I was up for the toilet in the middle of the night
I was up for my usual four o’clock pee
and I’d decided to have a cup of tea and a banana
when it suddenly dawned on me
just out the blue

jesus christ that cunt was a cop!
that wasn’t a nice young man looking for the wisdom of the old
that cunt was a cop!
it’s the War on Terror! he was part of the war on terror!
and that’s why his eyes changed when I spoke about that

of course you can never really be sure of these things
you can’t really tell there’s no way of knowing
who can you trust? can you trust anyone ever?

there seems to be so much being spent on this war on terror
so much about how we need to have more secret police
how much we need more phonetapping
all the news about threats to the fabric of our society
how the whole world is being taken over

it makes me wonder just because I keep questioning it
I can’t help it it’s just the way I am
I like to be free and honest
I hate language that isn’t free and honest

that’s just the truth of it
I can’t put it any other way

and I keep opening my mouth and saying it
what else is there to do when you’re growing old?
you can’t go to your grave without having said what you think

I suppose they just have to keep files on people like me
if I was one of them, I imagine I would

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tom Leonard has been an intregal part of the Scottish writing renaissance for over forty years. Published in 1969, his Glasgow Poems were the catalyst to a literary counterculture, inspiring the likes of Irvine Welsh, Laura Hird, Arab Strap, Kevin Williamson and Rebel Inc. With his compatriots Alasdair Gray and James Kelman, he has been appointed Professor of Creative Writing at Glasgow University. His works include the central poetry collections Intimate Voices (1965-1984) and Access to the Silence (1984-2004), Reports From The Present (in George Orwell’s words “making political writing into an art”), the CD recording nora’s place and other poems, the Radical Renfrew anthology, highlighting unjustly overlooked seams of Scottish verse, and the only 20th century biography of visionary writer James Thomson entitled Places of the Mind.

Aesthetics: For Robert Long

Susan Tomaselli — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 21:46:35 +0000

The lines of order
in your mind
were not confined to finity:
the sorting of resources.

The arts you set upon
with subtle passions
flow from abstract mappings
where intellect bisects the senses.

You watched between the pauses
of De Kooning’s brush strokes
as he turned to chat
granting access to the moment.

That was your aesthetic
the skill of weighing
gems by candle light
as we watched outside the window.

There is adherence to place
catching Pollock when the rose
exploded in his face.
Purveyor of gracious artifacts.

The beauty of comprehension.
Now you leave us with
all the abstract
nouns as they come down
to hold your hands.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ben Pleasants is a writer and the author of Visceral Bukowski: Inside the Sniper Landscape of L.A. Writers. You can find more of his work here.

Two Poems

darrananderson — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 11:44:03 +0000

By Anthony Hitchin.

Stars or Planes

She smiles at me. TV drones. We drink a coffee.
She smiles at me. I turn my head a little and she catches my eye and again she smiles at me.
‘What’s so fucking funny?’ ‘Nothing’, she says, ‘Can’t I smile at my husband now, then?’ She brings me a triple gin. I look down as she passes it because I know she is smiling again. There is a documentary on TV about the daily life of an ‘ordinary’ family; they are recorded by cameras in every room of their home. Right now, they are dancing self-consciously in the lounge. Dead centre to camera … . I sigh. ‘What now?’ she says. ‘Well, it’s hardly fucking natural is it? They’re obviously conscious of the cameras. The whole fucking concept is flawed.’ I down the gin burning my throat. My head fuzzes semi-pleasantly. My jaw grows numb and I stop grinding my teeth. She changes channel and I am looking at blurry CCTV images of a crime in progress; a man is wielding an incredibly long, curved knife. Almost a sword. The assailant’s figure draws reaper like shadows on the street while a terrified adolescent runs just feet ahead. She looks at me and this time she isn’t smiling: ‘See?’ she says ‘See?’ ‘See what?’ I say. ‘What happens when you get involved’ she says. I need a cigarette so I walk onto the balcony. Lighting up I inhale deeply and try to look up at the stars.

But they are dimmed by a haze of amber neon and I can’t tell if the pin-pricks of light are stars or planes.

Morning-After Drive to Work

She shakes coke onto my blackberry.

I think about the time I was offered coke at college and replied that I wasn’t thirsty. When a taxi-driver asked if I liked ‘bud’ and I thought he meant Budweiser.

Balancing the blackberry carefully on her knee, she forages in her handbag and pulls out a babies rattle. Taking the edge she manoeuvres the coke in a line. I open the window and light a cigarette. Smoke curls out into London traffic. Teasing wisps of fringe, she coats her lips with gloss and wipes her nose. I spot a light sprinkle on her trousers. ‘Shit’ she says rubbing feverishly. The door opens fluttering embers. Head held high, she strides confidently clutching her security card … .

I spend the rest of the journey staring at the rattle left on the seat. It is red and blue with smiley faces.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Anthony Hitchin is a poetry and prose writer and Guild of Outsider Writers‘ Feature Poet. He has been published /will be published in Zygote in my Coffee, Underground Voices, Decomp, Serious Ink Press (spoken-word CD), Fissure, Geeek, The Gut and many others.

Spiv Driver

Andrew Stevens — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 12:00:11 +0000

By Travis Jeppesen and Matthew Wascovich.

JAILS, LAKES

macho jails and the bored lakes
put forth to the extent
that others listen,
a small entry
as the learned insult themselves

prague coughs a nail
see it there as male
this deceptive punt,
you are drugged
a bus full of cripples

the cutters grind their wrists,
ill as the serviced,
stream the metropark stone
the one that skips a creek
a severance of comment

oh, miserable nature
oh, the discontented

***

MUTE IS NOT ENOUGH

there is strength
in giving up
as much as the pose,
you, the important hits,
a mugger but nothing stolen

mute is not enough
for dumbshit,
so ride solo
you do not talk anymore,
can’t get close to anything

and ahead,
it’s opposite gender
thou chest holder
psycho fucker,
good morning sociopath

when you revert to infancy,
while our situations
wish obedience
this will not be a swap,
we will not trade nor screw

***

SPATIAL TELEPHONES

how much longer
should she spend?
i’m on a deck
a hand, a pussy for you

i’ve got no anger for us,
it’s a shower, a rainfall,
shower without storm
the corner, the fighters

the authorities are drinking
without their leash
pretty guardian
is cutting my mind
compact space makes nervous

no more shadows
no more shadows
this show for you
move for me

i can’t look at a face,
my fist is rubbing teeth
infinite mannerisms,
we buy our backstabs

***

TAKE A WORLD

nobody wants this:
to be what they don’t
my reflection is not there,
people watch but cannot see
she said that she knows

knows how you two are,
an eclipse is lurid and vested,
fear is not conscience
take this world
and hide from it

for hands hurt hit,
both ways
my picture on your mantle,
it’s a drawing of you
with men of ridiculous lineage

the voices don’t match number
as i called you unworthy,
you didn’t believe them
an apartment with gold stars,
dreadful, take a world

***

SHIVERS

after me to false men
shivers, their intent
shivers, devoid of declaration
mirror for the fuckface,
spin power:
could we, learn?

shivers, their intent
cocky, throws a dart
his elite sheets, write it
space, found the founder
low fright
i hate the ground,
frighteningly,
she will create!

her bars for trio
intent, their intentions

we didn’t have to
end it this way

(Wascovich)

FOR JAN JAKUB KOTÍK: IN MEMORIAM

On the coldest night of the year. A siren swirls, the darkness blanches it all out. You become aware of a sudden shift in circumstances – someone you once knew is no longer. The formality is driven to make your eyes cave into stones. And there I sit in my black suit and watch another body dreaming, counting each exhalation, wondering what the total sum will tell me. It is not hard to find oneself in total discomfort on an emotional level. I only wish there was something higher than all this looking forward as I look back. The speakers blast out a warning – you were always tapped into the raw transmission, the circuitry threatening to shred us. We smoked dope at the Cannibal Corpse concert, nodded at the stage and said this is the real art. The ashes are circumstances that defy our genial loathing. If only a sheep really led to sleep, we’d have something to work on – something real to defy. There are lands he wouldn’t go to, places made of plastic with syrup for oceans. I hate those places. What I’m talking about is a genuine shelter called home. That was the last place I saw you – a sunny day in autumn, rays bouncing off the Vltava. We were so eager to speak, from one side of town to another, I nearly forgot to step off, while you continued on to Anděl. There was no death in your face then. The way the tram goes down that hill, past the government. Here, a million stories get told each day. I could barely serve as a container for myself in those years, and yet I caught you rising. Days, I fear, when it was cold enough to snow. The monitors blasted forth the willful supplication of the powers you had long run away from. Sometimes thought can be imagined. Sometimes those imaginings can be transformed into structures. Sometimes structures come in and interfere with our lives. And sometimes those structures rest dormant inside us, just waiting to erupt.

* 22.10.1972 – 13.12.2007

(Jeppesen)

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Travis Jeppesen was born in 1979 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. After studying literature and philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York, Jeppesen left the United States for Europe, where he has resided since 2001. He is the author of two novels, Victims (Akashic Books, 2003) and Wolf at the Door (Twisted Spoon Press, 2007) and a collection of poetry, Poems I Wrote While Watching TV (BLATT Books, 2006). He has written about contemporary art and culture for a number of publications, including 3:AM Magazine, The Prague Pill, New York Press, Umelec, ZOO, Pavement Magazine, Bookforum, The Stranger, and Provokator, and will be published in the forthcoming anthology The Offbeat Generation. Jeppesen currently divides his time between Berlin and Prague, where he edits the literary journal BLATT.

Matthew Wascovich’s poetry, essays, and interviews have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. His most recent books are We Will Know, Gypsy (2008) and Devoid of Declaration (2007), from Hab Discontent Books. Since 1995, he has published more than 70 volumes of poetry via his imprint, Slow Toe Publication & Record Institute. In 2002, he became a senior editor at Paris-based 3:AM Magazine. In 2004, he started Flat Bike poetry journal, which recently marked its eleventh issue. Matthew’s band, Scarcity of Tanks, has toured extensively throughout the United States, while recording for Total Life Society Records (U.S.A.), Textile Records (France), Ecstatic Yod Records (U.S.A), and Phase! Records (Greece).

Three Poems

darrananderson — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 21:38:20 +0000

By Alan Jude Moore.

Steppe

I left her waiting in international radio waves.
A voice drifting between Western Siberia and Peking.
Minus nine but spring will come;
you will ditch your great coat and famous automatic
for music and dip a toe in the water again.
Someone’s secret code has been broken on the wall
between the mountains and the palace.
Tiny taps of a finger shocked into motion
like the hooves of horses tracking back along the steppe.
I left the compound radiator sleeping
and dragged through shadows of birds and dogs.
Above the wind the incomprehensible speech of satellites.
It is no-one’s fault if we do not make our way home.
The mountain goats and bears leave footprints on Ararat
and disappear; the sailors climb over oceans
revamped by electricity.

Karl Marx

Karl Marx was right:
the world is full of networks and history
moves forward like death.

Anything like religion will do
as the opium of the people.
Accountants and corporate presidents administer the stuff
like priests in the administration of souls.

But they leave the boys and girls to their own devices.
The TV sighs like a sacred cow,

the automatic doors don’t let you out
and the elevator hangs between the moon and Las Vegas.

The man at the back of the room
in the desirable suit,
says his network falls apart almost every week.
Almost every week he starts back into it again.

Beside Caravaggio’s “The Taking of Christ”

The woman leaning on a doorway, descending into art herself.
Slight veils suspended between them.
Pinned to the stars as if waiting for something
like the leaves changing in October, then to reveal
her world to His; the end of summer broken on the rooftops
and the sky a burning city.

Leaning on a doorway, bending towards the eyes
of her picture Christ. Both of them captured by unnatural light.
Her longing for a devastated saviour,
suspended on the wall,

hanging
forever
between us.

Dublin, 6th June 2007

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alan Jude Moore was born in Dublin. His poetry has been widely published in Europe and America and his fiction has been twice short-listed for the Hennessy Literary Award for New Irish Writing. His work has been translated into Italian and Russian. Two collections of poetry, Black State Cars (2004) and Lost Republics (2008), are published by Salmon Poetry.

Three Poems

darrananderson — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 23:30:44 +0000

By Kevin Higgins.

Time Gentlemen, Please

Again your head full of novels
you’ll definitely get down on paper
one of these days. And Prague? Budapest?
Hemingway or Che? The same old questions
(only a little bit less) night after night
for years. Until all that remains
are a few old acquaintances
over hot whiskeys whispering:
“Not quite here, yet not quite there.
His life just a fence he got piles sitting on”:
as through the mild October streets
your hearse makes haste.

Manifesto

I won’t settle for
better.

I want a President
who’ll give us wars
I can be against; live
for the beauty of bombed Afghan
wedding parties justifying
everything I think.

The international banking system
now a pair of old boots
with the soles worn away;
you will listen
when I tell you:
everything is not for sale.
Even if you paid me, I’d go
nowhere.

Even My Dreams Are Mediocre

Perfection is an evening of setting off smoke alarms,
love, going upstairs to smear each other
in cat-food and curry.
“Change your life”: Rilke tells me;
incapable of this, I put on
a new pair of socks instead. My face
the poster for a failed revolution.
We end up being ruled by overly reasonable
Swedes who give me a start
your own funeral parlour grant.
One by one, the whole neighbourhood go off
in my award-winning plywood coffins.
“At last”, Mother whispers, “You’re
someone”, as I nail her into her box.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kevin Higgins was born in London in 1967 but grew up in Galway City where he still lives. With his wife Susan Millar DuMars, he co-organises the Over The Edge literary events in Galway. Kevin’s first collection of poems The Boy With No Face was published by Salmon in February 2005 and was short-listed for the 2006 Strong Award for Best First Collection by an Irish Poet. His second collection, Time Gentlemen, Please was published in March 2008 by Salmon. One of the poems from Time Gentlemen, Please, ‘My Militant Tendency’, was highly commended by the judges of this year’s Forward Poetry Prize and features in the Forward Book of Poetry 2009. A new poem of his, ‘Ourselves Again’, has been selected for inclusion in Best of Irish Poetry 2009 (Southword). His work is discussed in poet-critic Justin Quinn’s Cambridge Introduction to Modern Irish Poetry (Cambridge University Press, 2008).

Two Poems

darrananderson — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 18:47:10 +0000

By Margarita Shalina.

10 hours away

O you who are too good
you are too good
the little year
the throw away year

The pale bird passes as snow over north
when it grows quiet it will all become a payne’s grey shadow
we shall take note of the sounds of winter
we shall all have minds of winter
we shall take into consideration the oyster shell ground
the various scars of snow across our fuselage

We who are unremarkable salute you
as we go drowning
we who offer mauve shades of late
snow cone stained watercolor snow
the marks of man and dog
late afternoon late
bleeds into the face of
our mutual moon

The cycle leads the werewolf
creature morning came with menstrual blood
and lucid dreams of fields
we have no togetherness
in this airplane
I sleep in an empty row in February
I who am unremarkable
salute our pilot, our empty cabin and
the Orthodox girl who is really Natasha Rostova two rows ahead of me
as she breathlessly and theatrically exhales:
let’s not speak of it
let’s not…
            father is coming and if he sees,
            he’ll take them all for himself
            shhhhhhhhh…

Remember and not, I see you
I see you and not
I’m not being honest,
I fear to be honest
as I count years in the color of my hair

Why did you live in your head for so long
a sanguine whisper
dedicated as
a profane drawing
a pornographic dirge
blush your clavicle into the light
where your skin takes an article
a glass jar moth of anxiety and longing
mad then still

This is an old love poem
I wrote it and rewrote it many years ago

First Class
(Wroclaw to Krakow)

There are burned out buildings that
litter the regions like
little gray land marker scars
our train pushes through
tracks that stop abruptly
leading to no where
I come from a beautiful city
I go to a beautiful city
as birch trees make white
stakes and nameless yellow flowers
carpet fields. I fear fields
as we gain speed, the common
rhythm of tracks makes
rail music, the window is
thrown wide open, stray
bugs fly in or are swept in
by momentum, mad and
frightened, out of the forest
into the sun light to bash
their bodies against the walls
of our compartment this is no longer
Eastern Europe, this is now
Central Europe let us purge the ourselves of
the Slavic so as to join a
greater union. I look out
into the green and imagine bodies
buried in the forest
their nationality having rotted away.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Margarita Shalina was born in Leningrad and raised on New York’s Lower East Side. Her poetry has appeared in Poems for the Retired Nihilist V. 2 (Fortune Teller Press, UK, 2007), EvergreenReview.com, New York Nights, and as a broadside for Poetry Motel. She has written essays for ZEEK Magazine and Three Percent, the website that accompanies Open Letter Press. She was a contributing translator to Contemporary Russian Poetry (Dalkey Archive Press, 2007) and is the Independent Press Buyer for St. Marks Bookshop. She lives in New York. Her favorite color is mauve.

Cowboy

darrananderson — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 14:18:41 +0000

By David E. Oprava.

Gorgeous full-tank-at-a-hundred-bucks feel
sends me high with help from the fumes,
sky looking down at the ascending mood,
me in a basket with a lifetime in tow
coming higher until the rest area sign
pulls us over for a ponder and wander
through the dog walking lanes
exclaiming that the race wasn’t about race,
it was about change,
explaining to the cleaning man
in the bathrooms that I hadn’t clogged the toilet,
I just needed a drink from the tap,

morning mist from the
road hanging, bored, waiting for
the first crash to come

not potable, he says, now he tells me,
feeling queasy, might have been the enchiladas
eaten at the burger van
on cloud sixty-nine, mile high, bad idea
to mix altitude with beer
and find the morning after fear
of regurgitated thoughts in the motel sink,
the stink of old ideas gone off,

two heads bob to rock,
icebergs lost in the desert
fighting the suns rays

back on the road,
jettisoned by common sense
and off-roading well into the new millennium,
this is it, here, now, all that counts,
she says with sunglasses masking spinning steel rims,
she spies the man next to her in the flying car and wonders,
who the hell is that?
Fat, sizzling in the fryer of the diner,
leatherette philosophers with jet-black handlebar moustaches
on their motorbikes parked in a line
that don’t belabour the notion
of wrong or right, flee or fight,
another riot in the cities last night,
took a thousand men to subdue a hungry mother
and her two kids,

cop sunglasses sit
on the counter, empty seat
and pie crumbs he forgot

it was the west that won,
the rest are just people scurrying around
under the light bulb filament sun,
one hundred four degrees in the shade
almost boiling the lemonade of the kid
who ran in to tell his mom
the libertines had come to town,
only it’s me and the missus driving down route three

road kill splatters the
tarmac canvas, Jackson P.
was here, gone today

into the horizon which ends,
we hope, with a slip-slidey dip in the sea,
at least that’s where it used to be,
says the man on the horse,
looking perplexed,
an anachronism wearing chaps,
Marlboro smoke flows from his nose,
he clasps my shoulder and says,
son, the west ain’t never done,
it just goes, and goes, and goes,
but even I can see the sky
is draining into the sea,
clouds drowning and lighting
littering the reefs, custodians
not sweeping them away
for fear of electrocution,
they don’t get paid enough for that,
insurance won’t cover the risk as the sea
fills up with heavenly detritus.

dolphins on strike,
protesting their turn in the
next evolution leap

She suggests we drive into the mouth
of a whale heading south,
so I count out change from the ashtray,
just enough to get a one way trip
on a clapped-out humpback heading to sea,
covered in barnacles and rust,
needing an overhaul, but the Japanese
owners don’t have the liquidity,

hear the dead sea song,
requiem sung by the drunk
crew of Nautilus

cheap seats somewhere behind the lungs,
rising bellows next to the old lady
who has taken out her teeth,
flashing gums and smiles,
offering sweets to the other submariners
who’ve left for the on-board bar,
squid juice and tonic with a dash of bitters,
discussing politics, debt, the cost of babysitters,
I turn over, trying to get comfortable
whilst sleeping sitting up,
she says, sorry, my fault, maybe should
have splurged on a cup of chowder for the trip,
don’t worry, I smile, in a while
we have to rest a bit for the journey ahead,

ribs like palm fronds arc
towards the midday sun,
guarding tender souls within

but instead,
jump ship for an albatross who
was an anarchist, flew for himself,
didn’t have a boss, was a freelance
aerial photographer doing a piece on
the human beast as seen from above,
look like fat, fleshy blobs, he said
with a mouth full of chewing tobacco
and a grin that was gripping, the way
we hung to his legs, he almost left us
for dead on Krakatoa, but came back,
he needed the company,
we got off at the next stop anyway.

so loud heard from one
thousand miles away, a baby
sleeps through, unbothered

Don’t like economic boom so skipped Asia
whilst looking for a phone box
to call my mom, tell her to send clean socks
and not forget to feed the cat,
vote democrat, and pay for the cataract surgery,
she reminds me, mom’s dead,
you just left a message for the tranny
who moved into her flat, but kept
the same number in case Avon
came calling, he likes cosmetics
and banal chatter, not a bad guy really,
he might send socks, weirder things
have happened recently.

oasis springs up
and sinks again, hide and seek
in mirage clothing

Desert sandstorm brought the post
wrapped in brown paper, heavy weight,
he said, sorry I’m late, got caught
up in a bar fight in Mogadishu,
drunks with Kalashnikovs, damn near
blew me in two, wouldn’t have made it to you
with this package from some guy named Fred,
hey, I said, the tranny sent the socks,
they were clean with a note that read,
enjoy the tube socks, again, sorry your mom
is dead, thanks for letting me keep her clothes,
ah, she says, those, yes, he’s most welcome to those.

floral print drapes hang
above the sofa draped in folks
mourning tuna snack bites

Bedouin hookers light up the night
with fluorescent rave sticks whilst
blasting psychedelic caterwauling camel
songs that remind me of New York in ‘83,
remember, I said, the parties, the clubs, the blow,
she says no, you were only ten,
living on a sheep farm only just
discovering beating your meat as you dreamt
of redheads bent over your lap,
you woke up with creamy sheets.
You’re right, I yell, yes, it must have
been a movie I’d seen with hookers
and camels and clubs and lights and
death of disco, pre-AIDS sex, people
still listened to T-Rex, bang a gong,
get it on, and the camels just grunt
as the hookers shunt us out of the way
to make room for more passing trade.

shoes full of sand,
worn thin from walking, like eyes
after fitful dreams

Not another ocean, she says, dead
tired, had to walk two thousand miles
without any preparation H,
piles of black market bones marked
the way to the beach, lets just float
and see if we reach the other side, ok?
We do and six years later wash up in New Jersey,
lets get a beer I suggest, drinking in a no name
bar with a kid strangling a guitar in the corner,
the next local rock star, Springsteen, Bon Jovi,
hey, what’s your name, kid, I say,
Mr. Claude Debussy he replies,
what’s yours, he wants to know,
I haven’t thought about it in so long
It takes me a while and another three of his songs
Before I get the words to come out right,
Cowboy, I say, on a steel horse I ride,
He snickers, man, your too old and not bold
Enough, he scoffs, just go somewhere else,
Like Florida, sleep off the rest of your life,
Take your wrinkled, sunburnt wife,
The world’s moved on, get your ragged shoes
and go, just go.
So, we do.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David E. Oprava writes, because he has to. He is terrified of what will happen otherwise. It makes him prolific. He has been in over thirty journals online and in print and his first full-length book of poems, VS., is due to be released in mid-October by Erbacce Press. When he isn’t writing he is battling against his raging sobriety and trying to live up to the high moral expectations of husbandhood, fatherhood, and humanhood. Not necessarily in that order and not necessarily succeeding.

Three Poems

Andrew Gallix — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 14:34:03 +0000

By Donari Braxton.

Reel Change

A lot of things in view right now
are no longer there. Fuck all, we
say, we’ve got to be;
we too’ve got to stutter
the angle!

But where do we start:
The trick, well,
suggests a hologram but
isn’t; a shield self-projecting chinks
in the armor of a natural moving-picture
show isn’t, is it?

Growth fits, Choggys
told me, a lousy nativity—Wise-
guys from Newark told him so.
What I remember,
of two shadows
of the trunk,
a pipedream and the drinking years
dribbling on two or three countable fingers,
the would-be dark of a tree branch already
invisible behind its heavier body
was very sad to see.

So the blind spot with bullet holes
was behind the things in bloom,
I asked Choggys West? Though even when
I’ll look right at them he’s weeping
words of his passing, piss scents, chip shades under a fog-
light in motion. “What’s the matta you gotta monkey-
see-monkey-do?” He’d say, though with skin
painted again by the daylight already,
he reassures me by repeating “nothing
you haven’t already seen.”

Untitled 2007 No.2

In the dead of night I wake up sometimes
to a right thumb who’s watching its sisters;
they’re trumpeting an invisible four-keyed brass horn and
pinkying the pitches

sleepwalkers can’t hear.
Piano fingers
winkling a ballet of synchronized swimmers
making tiny waves in the lightless water—nothing feels
like bedrooms whose blinds hate their own impairment.
Envy what’s tone-deaf, and where the shutters are scales of an alligator’s back, constant breathing makes pockets of constant hyaline,
rucking the world into a bubble snow-globe,
nothing ever bothering
to know its place.

Untitled 2007 No.8

The very gist of nothing
is slightly creeping up my spine,
buttering the bone
curves till they’re eel-like, a salutation: Can you
backstroke so far?
It waits until I can in order
with the point of its skink tongue to
lick off the butter.

(A list of the following: Needs,
only the dried-out Kalashnikov,
a heartsick cancer,
the malaprop shoreline
of some typified Martian beach; To-do’s,
learn swimming).

You and I, we were at that point;
cocooned peoples,
the skin was
a flytrap of lintball walls and everything it touched
like beaver’s wood under the flow of water rushing to waste it away into the future,
so it’s not too often survived.

Nothing was kind of hinting at it.
An absence of suggestion pointing: Right
under your nose, don’t move a finger!

But the thing
about evolution,

you are never where and you are
never where
the one who could possibly tell you—
still waiting on the three of us now,
silently, tirelessly—where

in one, final breath.

These three poems are from the forthcoming (III, Or) The World is Seldom Thing. Author pic by Andrew Ellis.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Donari Braxton is the author of numerous works of fiction, poetry, theatre, and cross-genre works; his second poetry collection titled, (III, Or) The world is Seldom Thing, will be released in 2009, and dates and figures on the release of his second collection of short stories are forthcoming. Presently he is finishing a novel and continues to contribute to various art, fashion and design publications based in L.A. and in New York City, where he currently lives.

Two Poems

darrananderson — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 12:35:29 +0000

By Paul Kavanagh.

Camera

I saw a Mexican kid shot thru the head
on Amsterdam.
I never saw the collapse for the taxicab that had
dropped me off got in the way.
Moments before the taxidriver had offered me
his wife & daughters. He said that I could do anything
I wanted with them so long as he could use his new
digital camera.
It was an ephemeral moment, timeless
the sound of the gun echoing thru streets
of New York City & the city swallowed the
bang. Sirens, screams, I did not want to return to
my hotel room. What a show New York puts
on for its tourists & free as well. I bathed in
the electric flashing lights & drowned in the
policemen’s orders. In a huge black bag they
scooped the trash up like I do at home. In the
morning I went to where the Mexican boy was
shot & there was a blemish upon the road.
But there was no white lines depicting a murdered
Mexican kid like you see in the movies.
I was disappointed for I had bought a cheap
disposable camera.

Elysium

conquistadors we were off seeking conkers
Those jewels
Snottynose toerags
Over hills
Pass trees
Never yawed
Trespassers, chomping on forbidden apples,
Imbibing milk from bottles, pilfering washinglines,
Plucking flowers, micturating into fish ponds,
An inquisition of stray cats and feral dogs,
Smeared excreta upon the priest’s doorknobs,
Rang bells and legged it, deflated wheels, blew farts,
Smashed a window, lit newspapers, kicked over gnomes
We chased witches, ghosts, the phantasmagoria,
Hitchhiking, piggybacks, wheelbarrows,
Fought legions of demons,
Overcame pusillanimity,
Annihilated magicians, she devils, Beelzebub,
The lord of the flies, Moloch
Entered the agora of vampires!
With hogweed obliterated a myriad!
Came upon them
Horny couple in parked car
Tupping they were in the backseat,
Like copulating dogs, he was stuck out of her arse,
Transversed her clammy body did his clammy pokers,
Grimace upon grimace she piled upon her countenance,
Bulging with conkers the gage d’amour was no more
But no thoughts of love when war was on the horizon
For a glorious arsenal possessed
And I bapitized the biggest
William the bastard!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Paul Kavanagh lives in Charlotte. His novel, everybody is interested in pigeons, will be published by 40FT Books.

Three Poems

Andrew Stevens — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 13:55:50 +0000

By Charles Thomson.

ENDLESS CITY

Endless city
full of shops,
it all goes on,
it never stops,
endless cars,
endless street,
endless bodies,
endless feet,
and the great wheel
turning, turning,
souls on fire,
spirits burning,
Walter Raleigh,
William Blake.
Matthew Arnold
eating cake,
ghosts of peasants,
spirals, rings,
priests and rabbis,
ducks and kings,
hackney drivers,
prostitutes,
leather jackets,
jeans, suits,
and the river
rolling on,
what is there
and what has gone,
what will not
and what will be,
and what does it
all mean to me,
and why do blue lights
flash all night,
what is wrong,
what is right,
bearded beggar
with a sign,
tree of life,
earth, divine,
back at home
in a heap,
close my eyes,
go to sleep.

THE LADIES WHO DANCE ON RECORD PLAYERS WHILE THE TURNTABLE REVOLVES AT 78

The ladies who dance on record players while the turntable revolves at 78
faint.

RAMSGATE IN THE RAIN*

We saved our Persil coupons
and from Maidstone caught a train
to spend the day beside the sea
at Ramsgate, in the rain.

We took our lunch in a café
and we took up smoking again
and we took a stroll for souvenirs
from Ramsgate, in the rain.

We went into the amusement arcade
where the videos addle the brain,
and we looked at the little harbour
of Ramsgate, in the rain.

It was really rather romantic,
though the sky was a great grey stain,
to spend last Sunday with you
in Ramsgate, in the rain.

(* included in Poems of the Decade: An Anthology of the Forward Books of Poetry 1992-2001.)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Charles Thomson was the only person in 10 years to fail the painting degree at Maidstone College of Art. In 1979, he was a founder member of The Medway Poets, and then a full-time poet for 13 years, with work in over 100 anthologies. In 1999 he named, co-founded and has since been the driving force of the Stuckism movement, which now numbers more than 150 groups in 38 countries. He has demonstrated for 7 years outside the Turner Prize, and in 2005 applied under the Freedom of Information Act for Tate trustee minutes about the gallery’s purchase of its trustee Chris Ofili’s work. This led in 2006 to the Charity Commission’s ruling that the Tate had been acting illegally for the last 50 years. His painting satirising Sir Nicholas Serota, whose face peers over a large pair of (Tracey Emin’s) red knickers, is a well-known image. He was briefly married to artist Stella Vine in 2001.

Three Poems

Andrew Stevens — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 10:43:57 +0000

By Wolf Howard.

so here we are
seven o’clock in the morning
sitting in a van being driven to a factory
eight of us all signed up for agency work
there’s four of us to a bench and we’re facing each other so close that I can feel the bloke opposites breath on my face
no one talks
and one by one our names are called out as we stop at various factories
soon it’s just me left
just me and the driver
and the thought of my destination makes me hope to god that this journey goes on forever
and actually it nearly does for he seems to have forgotten me
I cough and he looks round and does a double take
“what the hell are you still doing here? why haven’t you gotten out?”
“why you haven’t told me to!” I say
“oh christ! well there’s a factory just over there
you won’t be on their list but I’m sure
they’ll have some work for you”
“oh good” I say
and he doesn’t care whether I’m being sarcastic or not
he just pulls the van over
I step out and look at the big grey factory
then turn and watch the van grow smaller and smaller in the distance
I take a deep breath and go in
‘luckily’ there is a job for me
a woman hands me an apron and says
“your job is to stand at this conveyor belt
and when these frozen shepherds pies come down
you must hand them to him”
I look opposite me and there on the other side of the belt
is a man who looks both young and extremely thick
he flashes me a dumb smile
“do you think you’ll be able to manage?” asks the woman
“I’ll do my best” I say
she presses a button and leaves us to it
I prepare myself
maybe they come really fast or something
I look up the conveyor belt and see the first one
trundling along like some frozen pastry tortoise
I look to my work mate opposite
he is still grinning only now he is shifting from foot to foot and rubbing his hands together in anticipation
the pie’s getting closer
closer
closer
it’s here!
I pick it up and hand it to him
he happily takes it spins on his heels and stuffs it into the box behind him
we both look back up the belt
him licking his lips
about twelve feet away another pie is making its way towards us
I start to ponder my situation
this is ridiculous
he is just as close to the fucking pies as I am!
he could just as easily pick them up himself!
what the hell is happening to me?
I am in a factory in the middle of god knows where
picking up frozen shepherds pies and passing them all of three
inches to someone who can best be described as the village
idiot
I feel sure I was born to do better things than this!
I could at least be the one who puts them in the box!
then my work colleague talks to me
“what’s your name?”
“oh, er…Simon” I say
“I got a bwover (brother) called Simon!” he says
“well it’s a small world!” I say
and with that I take off my apron
drop it to the floor
walk out of the factory
and get the bus home

without collecting my pay

another dole scam

Maureen, the dole officer, has once again forced me to lie and cheat.
This time, to be able to remain on the dole, I have to pretend to be in part-time work as a personal assistant to my friend - although the dole don’t know he’s my friend - who is a writer and runs a small book company from his house.
Here’s how it works – the dole pay my friend fifty pounds a week to take me on as an employee and he, in return, pays me a wage. We have agreed that he is to pay me fifty pounds a week for fourteen hours work. Of course, in reality, he just gives the fifty pounds the dole are paying him to me and I do absolutely nothing in return. So, basically, he loses nothing and I get exactly the same money I was receiving when signing on.
This is called New Deal.
The only problem is that, three months into the scheme, Maureen, in the mistaken belief that I am one of the few success stories she has had since it began, is coming round to check up on me.

On the day of her visit me, my friend and his wife sit in their house nervously awaiting Maureen’s arrival.
Now, to make things run smoothly, I have set up a spell-check on the computer to enable me to pretend that I am working on my friend’s brand new novel, which is part of my job description. In reality I have not looked at my friend’s novel at all, but Maureen is not to know that, and should be suitably impressed.

At one o’clock the doorbell rings and in she comes.
We lead her to the kitchen where the first slip up occurs
when my friend’s wife offers me a cup of tea and refers to me as Wolf, which is not my signing on name.
Maureen makes the first of many notes in her little book.
I try to ignore this. Perhaps she won’t type my name into her computer later and find out all about my life away from the dole, the playing drums all round the world in rock and roll bands, the painting and pinhole exhibitions and the published poetry books containing many poems about my life on the dole and sometimes, quite specifically, Maureen herself. Poems that do not show her in a good light either.
I usher her into the living room-stroke-office.
“Right, let’s see what you would do during a normal day,” she says.
“O.K., Maureen” I say, my confidence returning, “please, sit yourself down.”
I pull up a seat next to her.
I have set up two things in preparation for today; one is the afore mentioned spell-check and the other is for a friend to ring at half past one to put in a false order for some books - for which I have worked out the correct calculations for retail discount and vat. This will undoubtedly make me appear professional in Maureen’s eyes.

“Today, Maureen, I am spell-checking my friend’s…um…boss’s novel, it is a lengthy process that will take the rest of the week.
Maureen leans forward, her head about one foot from the screen, I hit the spell-check button and up comes the word “CUNT”, right in her face.
I hear myself do a strange laugh and press it again.
This time it says “SPUNKING”.
Maureen sits silent, like an angry aunt who could cut me
out of her will at any moment.
I hit the button again and again.
“SHIT…”
“WANKING…”
“ARSEHOLE…”
“TITS…”
“PISSING…”
“FUCKING…”
The computer recognises none of these words and so repeatedly singles them out.
Maureen is speechless.
The phone rings, I snatch it up, begrudgingly leaving the word “CUNT LIPS” highlighted on the screen.
Thank God, it is my friend.
“Hello, I’d like to place an order for two boxes of books, please.”
He sounds very professional, which is good because Maureen is close enough to hear every word.
“Certainly sir”, I say, “what is your address?”
I write it down.
“And what is yours?” he says, “so I can send the cheque.”
He has started over-acting.
“Erm, it’s seven or eight Chatham Road,” I say, hearing Maureen scribble in her book.
“And the postcode?” he asks happily.
“LISTEN! I say, fighting to stay calm, “…I’ll… er… give you the details later”.
“OK”, he says, “thank you very much.”
Then his voice changes and he is no longer business-like.
“How’s it going?” he says, “is the old bag still there?”
I slam the phone down.
Maureen and I sit in silence. After a moment or two I press the spell-check button and “CUNT LIPS” is
replaced by “BOLLOCKS”.
She writes more notes.
I turn to her.
“Well, that’s pretty much what I get up to. Would you like another cup of tea before you go?”
She declines, saying that she really must get back as she has a report to fill out.
I show her to the door. On the way out she pauses in the hallway to look at a picture hung on the wall. It is of me, my friend and his wife, posing with our instruments for a band photograph. I place my hand between her shoulders and gently push her out of the door. “Thank you so much for coming, Maureen. Have a safe trip back to the office.” I say.
I watch as she disappears down the road, occasionally stopping to look back in my direction. Each time I wave to her and she slowly waves back, scratching her head.

Behind her, in the distance, a large orange sun sinks majestically over Chatham bandstand, heading for the river. And little birds sit hidden in nearby trees, singing their hearts out with not a care in the world.

the diabetic

It is a shock to be told that you are diabetic.
‘But don’t worry!’ say the leaflets, ‘you can still eat all the things you used to! If you want a biscuit then have it, just make sure it’s one of those plain, tasteless ones and that you only have about one a week. Or try two teaspoons of muesli instead!’
“The bad news is that you have to eat all the things you don’t like”, I told my friends “but the good news is you’re not allowed much of it.”
Then you ask the doctor if you can still drink and smoke, even though the leaflets say no. Then you get a second opinion. Then you go on the internet and keep looking until you find the one person who says it’s fine. “If you want to go out drinking then just don’t eat meat that week and it all balances out,” he says, “the only thing you really have to do if you’re diabetic is cut out boiled sweets.” This differs from what the doctors say, but it seems to make sense.
Next, you tell yourself that it could be worse, and that works for about an hour.
Finally, you agree to go on a government-funded lecture to hear all about diabetes and have the chance to meet other people that suffer from this new “epidemic”.
So, a month after discovering my disease, I go to a three-hour meeting at the Medway hospital.

The first depressing thing upon arrival is discovering that I am one of the youngest people at the talk. And the second is that we are all fat bastards.
I should clarify here that this is upsetting because I have been trying to pretend that getting diabetes is not my fault and has only occurred because my father had it. However, everywhere I look in this room points to the fact that it stems from nothing but my having been overweight and unhealthy for many years.
I take a seat at the back. There are about twenty other people in this room. I hate the sight of them and have no pity for them whatsoever.
In comes our teacher or whatever she is.
“Hello everyone, I’m Tina and I’m here to give you lots of information on diabetes,” she smiles.
Tina has come straight from Butlins.
“You have all got diabetes, haven’t you?” she asks cheerily.
“Yes!” everyone happily shouts back, as though we’re at some sort of NHS Punch and Judy show.
I look around me. Despite the happy outburst, you can tell these people come from the Medway Towns, thanks to their general downtrodden and depressed demeanours. Every one of them looks like they are ill – diabetes aside – and they all have greasy hair. Maybe it’s due to inbreeding, or the amount of alcohol consumed by their pregnant mothers. Perhaps it’s not their fault at all and these towns were built on some ancient site of violence and carnage, later cursed by a witch or the devil himself. Or could it be nothing more than the high levels of pollution to be found in the Medway air?
I look to my left. A few yards away are the two fattest people in the room. In truth, I look like a picture of health compared to a lot of the people here, but these two women really take the biscuit. The biggest one has large, pink, blotchy legs that look like massive slabs of corned beef stuffed into a pair of tiny doll’s shoes - the flesh at the bottom flapping over the side of each shoe and leaving no visible sign of ankles. And her friend’s breathing, even from three yards away, resembles that of some great, rutting rhinoceros on heat. They are in deep conversation about the price of doughnuts.
To my right is a man in his early fifties, dressed in a donkey jacket, jeans and large work boots with greased back hair and a roll-up tucked behind his ear. I notice a tattoo of Elvis on the back of his neck and presume him to be an old rocker. He seems every bit as pissed off to be here as I am and constantly checks his watch, moving around uncomfortably in his plastic chair. It is refreshing to see that I am not alone in my suffering.
Actually, I would like to once again clarify a point or two here. For one, I do think it’s a good idea to give people information about their illness (but three hours seems a trifle excessive, and anyway, isn’t that what doctors are for?) And secondly, I am not always this angry and discourteous towards my fellow suffering human beings, but you see, my defences have kicked in and it may be that I am mentally trying to distance myself from them and my new-found affliction.
The good thing though, is that the bloke next to me has become my ally in over-loud sighs and bored looks skywards, which is important to me.
I study the rest of the room. Five rows away, at the front, sit a man and a woman, maybe a married couple, or possibly brother and sister (or both) grinning constantly and wearing matching woollen jumpers. They both have cups of tea, which the woman has poured from a blue, plastic flask, and are munching away on sandwiches, as if they’re at a fucking picnic or something. Out of the whole room, they look the most likely to cause some sort of trouble.

We hear Tina, the nurse, clear her throat and finally the talk starts in earnest.
“OK, today we’re going to learn about the complications to health that can occur as a result of having diabetes. First there is….”
I have to stop listening at this point for I cannot ignore the two fat women to my left who continue to talk to each other in a sort of fast, loud whisper, too quietly for the nurse to hear but, unfortunately, right in my lug-hole. It’s as if they think they’re at home watching the telly, blissfully unaware that the rest of us exist. I listen to see if their conversation is at all connected to what the nurse is telling us;

First fat woman - “…mind you, Doris ‘ad ‘er family dinner at the Manor Farm, well, she thought, it’s easy innit ?… cos of all the parking space … an’ she’d asked for some chocolates to be brought out at a special time… you know, just after the main course … so it’s special-like…an’ you know what ‘appened?…they brought ‘em out at the right time …just after the main course…but they brought ‘em out in a bucket!…a bleedin’ bucket!…it ruined ‘er night it did! …but she was more than happy with the parking!”
Second fat woman - “they do a lovely sponge at the Manor Farm!”
First fat woman – “They do do a lovely sponge at the Manor Farm …but it ain’t as nice as their fruit cake…”

And these women are relentless, not missing a beat, ruining my concentration to the extent that I cannot take in what the nurse is talking about - even if I’d wanted to. Obviously, they have not been out of their house or near other humans for some time. Also, the couple sitting near the front in their matching jumpers have, as predicted, started to become much more annoying. They have begun to put their hands up and ask inane questions at every available opportunity.

NURSE – “If you want to have jam on toast then have it! Just make sure it’s an incredibly small amount. Don’t have toast with your jam is what I always say!”
In her notes it must say “pause for a laugh” for she looks around the room, smiling, but all she sees is the jumper woman’s plump hand tear into the air.
NURSE – “Yes?”
JUMPER WOMAN - “We have jam but we usually only have like a teaspoon or so, don’t we Bernard?”
Bernard nods happily. “Yes, we just make sure we only have a little bit,” he says.
“Jesus Christ!” says the man next to me. I shake my head to show him I am on his side.
NURSE - “That’s very good. And if you have bread then make sure it’s wholemeal because…”
The woman raises her chubby trotter once again.
NURSE – “Yes?”
JUMPER WOMAN – “We have wholemeal Nimble. We never eat white, do we Bernard?”
BERNARD – “No, not unless they’ve run out of Nimble. But then we only have a little bit.”
“Bleedin’ tot me!” says the man next to me, looking once more to his watch.
“That’s fine,” says the nurse. “now, if you want a fizzy drink then opt for one that is sugar-free…”
The jumper woman’s hand flies to the air like she’s an overweight Hitler on speed.
“Yes?” says the nurse, her chirpiness slipping slightly.
“We have diet coke, don’t we Bernard?”
“Yes,” says Bernard, “or sometimes diet pepsi.”
“Bernard likes diet pepsi, but I prefer diet coke,” says the married woman, turning to grin at the rest of the class.
“Fuck me ragged!” says my neighbour and we both look to our watches.
NURSE (gritting her teeth) – “Well done. Now, if it’s Christmas or a birthday then you should treat yourself. There’s no point in denying yourselves all the pleasures of life! Remember, you may not be able to have a whole slice of cake, but you can at least have a really tiny taste of it!”
JUMPER WOMAN (not even bothering to put her hand in the air) – “This Christmas we’re going to have a tablespoon of Christmas pudding each and about a thimble full of custard aren’t we, Bernard?”
BERNARD – “Yes, as a little Christmas treat!”
And he turns to us and licks his lips, as if he’s already tasting it. I look away, overwhelmed with hatred.
This pair are as pleased as Punch to be diabetic. They are positively revelling in this illness, which it seems may have provided them a much-needed common interest in life and no doubt added a new dimension to their long, dwindling marriage of misery. In short, it is a hobby they can enjoy together and they are going to milk this session for all it’s worth, having the intensely upsetting affect of making us all have to stay longer in the process.
The man beside me has begun rocking in his chair. I am considering asking if I can go to the toilet, just to escape for five minutes.

It seems that - the same way it doesn’t take much for humans to revert back to their chimp-like behavioural patterns in certain violent situations - it does not take much for a bunch of adults to slip comfortably back into the roles they once filled as school children, when placed in a classroom environment.
And so the time crawls by, with all the constant interruptions and distractions making three hours seem like a whole day.
The only relief comes with a projector-thing giving us all a handy insight into some of the horrors that may await us in later life (blindness, amputations, kidney and liver failure, and so on) and we get to hear that it is possible for us to lead a perfectly normal life as long as we - a) cut out all of the things we like - b) exercise constantly and - c) leave our feet hanging over the edge when having a bath.

“So, that’s about it”, says the nurse, “we must stop there, we’ve run over time.”
“thank you, Jesus,” says my friend, his head in his hands, “thank you!”
“just remember”, she adds, “that diabetes is different for everyone. We had someone in the other day who, just by eating one tic tac, had his sugar level shoot through the roof, whereas some people can eat substantially more and it doesn’t affect them at all.”

The married woman’s hand is in the air.
“Oh fuck mine!” says the bloke next to me.
“YES!?” says the nurse, angrily.
“When we eat mints we tend to only have one or two, don’t we Bernard?”
“Yes, although I prefer polos to tic tacs”, says Bernard with a smug grin, “sugar free, of course!”
“That’s it, I’m going!” says the man next to me and he leaps to his feet.
“Yes, yes, that’s the end!” says the nurse, “thank you all for coming, I’m sorry we’ve gone fifteen minutes over.” And she glances at our jumper-wearing friends.
We all leave.
On the way out I see the married couple accosting the nurse with more questions and I feel much pity for her.

Once in the hospital corridor my cynicism melts away and peaceful thoughts fill my mind. I pass the two overweight ladies and mentally wish them the best of luck for the future.
Now is the time to take a step back towards the life before I discovered public houses and pushed aside the innocence and energy of youth - to re-acquaint myself with the boy who played football all day and hated the smell of cigarette smoke.
I step outside the hospital and the air tastes fresher than it has in a long time.
And so another life begins.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Wolf Howard is an artist, pinhole photographer, poet, short story writer and musician, who has drummed in many bands, particularly with Billy Childish. He avoided going to art college, as the thought the effect would be deleterious for his creativity. He has experienced long term unemployment, and this emerges as subject matter in his work. He has an affection for “old” things, whether customs, boots, furniture or typewriters. He was a founder member of the Stuckist art group. He was born in Strood, and lives in Chatham, Kent.

A View From Santorini

Andrew Gallix — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 15:28:29 +0000

By Richard Cabut.

The moon moves fast in the sky
Away from the earth; this
Thought

As though it can hardly bear to observe the
Deterioration,
The wear and tear

And the world below? It has its own
Rules
Which clearly aren’t human

In the moonlight we read of the German artist
Plagiarist
Cheat who offers for success his stained teeth

Unlike him I have acrophobia,
I fear the fall, except in my
Dreams

On this volcanic island
They flow like lava;
Ne plus ultra

I hurl myself off 100 ft cliffs
To a place where it’s hard to tell good luck from
Bad

And where we don’t always recognise the
Doors
That close even as we miss those that open

Offering a chance to lose substance, to become
Transparent
To defy gravity

Where we can be
Present
But intangible

Talking about failure and hoping for
Something
Somewhere else

Where dreams are
Reflected
In the surface of the fast moving moon

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Richard Cabut has written for the BBC, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Big Issue and many other publications. He writes fiction, takes pictures and cycles around town. He used to play in the punk band Brigandage and publish the fanzine Kick.

two poems

3AM — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 23:24:59 +0000

By Jillian Clark.

this poem made my mom cry a little

wake up

lay in bed for awhile

get up

shower

drink coffee

eat waffles, a bagel, toast, or cereal

drink coffee

get dressed

make sure i have everything i need so i won’t look stupid

go outside

wait for the bus

think about something

think, “look at me, i’m waiting for the bus, i’m horrible”

maybe write something down

wave to neighbor

get on bus

sit down before i fall down

put knees on the back of the seat in front of me

stay like this

look out the window

look at everyone else and realize that they only look at each other inside of the bus

wonder why i look outside instead of at everyone else

decide that it just means i’m smarter than they are

get off of the bus

feel embarrassed

think, “look at me, i’m getting off of a school bus”

walk quickly to photography

sit outside of the room and read for twenty minutes or so

avoid conversation with everyone

smile a little

get to work

process negatives, print pictures, or get on photoshop

talk to a few people

cut pictures out of magazines and hot glue them to the wall

burn arm on hot glue gun

walk to biology

think about the pig dissection coming up

hope that my teacher remembers that i am refusing to dissect a fetal pig

she won’t remember

take a lot of notes

write some things down in my notebook about neurotransmitters

go to civics

try not to fall asleep

talk to thomas and sam

think about food

supreme court cases

think about food

marbury vs. madison

think about food

plessy and brown v. board

think about food

get ready to reach into lunch box

quickly grab a granola bar

put it on top of my desk

close text book

get up after the bell rings

eat granola bar

think about what other people are thinking when they see me eating a granola bar every day

walk to theatre

avoid conversation

study lines

read “spring awakening”

give people hugs

think about food

go to lunch

sit on the sunny bench

sit alone on the sunny bench for two weeks until people start to come over

talk to people sometimes

but mostly avoid conversation

talk to people about clay aiken

walk to spanish

quietly sit in the hallway so the french teacher doesn’t yell at me

laugh at people

that part of the day is boring

i am skipping some parts

go to math class

pay attention until about the last ten minutes of math class

draw a fish on my friend’s wrist

get x by itself

look at the clock

drop my pencil a few times

think about all of the times in life i will need math

english

read or something

ride the bus home

think, “look at me, i’m getting on the bus”

get off of the bus

eat food

talk to people

think about the day

think about what i would do if i could stay home

2. if i could stay home

sleep until whenever

wake up

sleep more

wake up

think, “i should get out of bed”

sleep more

wake up and think, “i want some tea because i can do whatever i want today, today is my day”

walk into the kitchen

maybe skip a little to the kitchen

open the cupboard

select a tea

get a mug

let the hot water run for a minute

think about actually boiling water

decide to just run the water until it’s really hot

put the water in the mug

put the teabag in the mug

put a saucer over the mug

wait a few minutes

take a spoon

put the teabag on the spoon

wrap the string around the spoon so that the tea has flavor to capacity

add sugar

sip tea

maybe eat some fruit or a bagel

watch sci-fi

watch roswell

stay home for a week and watch roswell

think about aliens

think about people with secrets

lay in bed

never get dresssed

take a shower in the evening

walk around the neighborhood

laugh at buses passing

they might think i’m a badass

go back to bed and watch roswell

get up too quickly and feel dizzy

get up slowly and feel dizzy

try to determine whether i am physically sick or if i have made myself sick

punch something

kick something

pet a cat

capture all of the cats and put them in one room

capture all of the dogs and put them in one room

write down observations

listen to devendra banhart

listen to neutral milk hotel

listen to belinda carlisle

but only because itunes is on shuffle

think about ebay

think about taking up a crack habit

think about writing something down

fetal pig worksheet

in biology i did not hold a fetal pig
or cut it open with a knife
instead i got a worksheet and said “okay”
i walked to the library
when someone is giving me constructive criticism
i try not to nod my head or say “yeah” too much
because this seems defensive
i googled fetal pig dissection
i looked at the pictures of the organs
they had numbers
i could not tell where the arrows were pointing
and this reminded me of my whole life

when people ask why i did not want to cut open the pig
and stare at its organs
i say “i have been a vegetarian for almost ten years”
or “i’m squeamish”
i say “it’s just a personal thing, just like how i don’t like eating eggs”
saying “it’s not political, it’s personal”
makes me a #1 vegetarian assface
a girl came over to me with her pig worksheet
she said “i’m a vegetarian from now on”
i said “yes”
i looked at pictures of the pig in the library
it was a little blue in the library

there were brick walls
and i wanted to talk to someone about abraham maslow
in a library people are calmer and generally nicer
like when ordering food at waffle house; it is somewhere
you have never been but have heard that it is both beautiful
and disgusting; that flies get into the waffle batter

because you sit right at the counter
and it is the type of restaurant where you can see
things happening; that once my mom cried
in a thai restaurant when she heard someone’s iphone
ring a duck noise; because she thought a duck was crying
in the kitchen

that in a forest in japan lots of people kill themselves
because they are depressed, abused, in debt, lonely, rich, or bored
that maybe some people do it just because other people have
that if everyone programmed their iphone to ring
a duck ringtone simultaneously
my mom would laugh in a thai restaurant

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
jillian clark is the author of ‘if i am in a room full of people, i am not having any fun.’ she likes horror movies and words that sound complete on their own. she rescues turtles when she sees them in the road. she lives in north carolina.

my personal ad from the stranger’s dating website is entirely unsuccessful

3AM — Thu, 29 May 2008 20:04:12 +0000

By Brandon Scott Gorrell.

i dont want someone that reads the new york times or any newspaper with interest even the stranger

sometimes the stranger can be okay but if you look forward to the stranger every week and tell me you read it every week then i will think negative things about you probably

if you are obsessed with politics i will have negative thoughts

i will have negative thoughts if you are the ceo of a major corporation

i will probably have negative thoughts if you ’slip in’ information that you think makes you appear more creative and artistic

im starting to sound bitter

dating is hard

i don’t care if you’re creative and artistic i just would like to meet someone i think is pretty and quiet and can deal with meaninglessness in a detached and secure way

my room is kind of dirty

if you own a car i am more likely to have negative thoughts about you but there are exceptions to this

if you can sit in a room with another person and read while the other person reads and the other person can forget that you are there and have extreme undetached interested in the book they are reading and this can happen for over two consecutive hours for an indefinite and possibly limitless number of nights or weekends then i will have positive thoughts about you

if your perception of me does not include a sarcasm about who you think i think i am, about what you think i think my persona means to you and other people, then i will have negative thoughts about you

if your perception of yourself does not include a detached sarcasm of yourself then i will have negative thoughts about you

if your perception of yourself is out of control and belligerent then i will have negative thoughts about you

if you like my hair i will have positive thoughts about you

if i like the way you dress i will have positive thoughts

if you ‘believe in’ marriage or even extended ‘utterly satisfying’ monogamous relationships i think i will have negative thoughts but i am not entirely sure

if you are okay with someone calling you for the main reason that they can think of nothing else to do then i will have positive thoughts

if you define yourself in your personal ad with a list of adjectives i think i will immediately have negative thoughts because i think these are all indications of an undetached belligerent perception of yourself which makes me feel bad

all this is partly to prove to you that i think i’m ‘different’ but i think all these statements are true and if the ‘rules’ are followed success is more likely

i can not imagine anyone replying to this personal ad

i am capable of laughing and smiling and doing all of the things i have listed that make me ‘have negative thoughts’

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
“i work at frontier cafe in downtown seattle (southwest corner of 3rd and cherry), come in and mention this blog and i will make you any espresso drink you want and give it to you for free, i’m serious, i am there every day, i have a moustache a little, you cannot miss me”

New Poems

Andrew Gallix — Tue, 13 May 2008 15:03:25 +0000

New Poems
By Jack Brewer, Thurston Moore, Matthew Wascovich.

A LASTING THOUGHT FOR A DYING CELL

I remember counting on you
to count on me
when I never did.
You live the earth like cows in pasture,
obey your hunger like dog to master.
Waiting and wondering
about an alternative
that never was.
Who needs a cause?
Live and live and die and learn.
But for what?
The past did clash but it’s no surprise-
nothing was sacred; all was compromise.
Looking for someone to understand you:
what a poor excuse to be renewed.
I remember looking for you.
I remember staring at times
when minds were kind
and flesh was blind
to symbolic hate
we’ve mistaken for faith
and taken to our graves
so neatly tucked away.
But that’s not how it died.
Waiting for you
to bring it flowers…
I remember counting on you.

- Jack Brewer

****

SEXUALIZATION

black winged maniac rang 4th floor buzzer
i spit blood whilst dark creams flood senses
memories of no one no thing no light
falcons, earthworms, sad tigers, wondering humans
all like blinking shadows of aether world
time is in the repetition of meditation
of investigations into intimate sorrow,
passion and grace

- Thurston Moore

****

TOTAL LIFE SOCIETY

the parameters of glacial
wonders teach us to defend
the timing that undermines
a weak channel

here and now, so fragile
alisma blew it,
the trees had strength
that strutted for sweethearts

a short partnership
hiss for homily
for the action to miss,
shaking profane sign types

the beggars replay
toward the direction
of the only direction -
prolonged hunger for days

hope and confidence,
safety!
total life society:
as it is, alright changer

- Matthew Wascovich

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Jack Brewer lives in Long Beach, California, U.S.A. and plays music in Saccharine Trust and the Jack Brewer Reunion Band.

Thurston Moore lives in Northampton, Massachusetts, U.S.A. and plays music with Sonic Youth. He edits Ecstatic Peace Poetry Journal.

Matthew Wascovich lives and dies in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A. and plays music with Thee Scarcity of Tanks. He edits Flat Bike poetry mag.

the world would be happier with me dead in it

3AM — Fri, 09 May 2008 21:36:57 +0000

By Victoria Trott.

i feel sad
i like comfort so much

i keep seeing myself talking to my dad
about like, jesus or something
or being uncomfortable of mr. sheikh
and acting all civilised
to avoid discomfort

i won’t ever be able to do anything or realize life is meaningless
i’ll just be a bullshit person
like everyone who made me in my family
i’m gonna be a bullshit person
an asshole

i do not want this to happen
i already am an assshit bullhole
fuck

i can’t even use concrete images

blue flower
dyed industrially

that was not connected to anything
it was an image
a cliche image
fuck
i’m a bullhole cliche
assshit

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
victoria trott would rather be a mouse than a person. she likes to read books and eat raw almond butter with grapes until her stomach feels swollen.

Joe Swanberg Hah

3AM — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 21:32:02 +0000

By Colin Bassett.

joe swanberg looked at a camera.

he said, ‘i don’t know if this is on.’

he said, ‘i don’t care.’

he made a movie called ‘hannah takes the stairs.’

he made a movie called ‘LOL.’

he made other movies.

everyone who watched the movies thought about other things.

they thought about going to sleep.

they thought about getting in an argument.

they didn’t know who they would get in an argument with.

they didn’t know very many people.

they thought you had to know someone pretty well to get in an argument.

when they thought about the phrase ‘getting in an argument’ they felt a little satisfied, in a part of their brain they never thought about.

they kept thinking ‘getting in an argument’ but it stopped working.

they were watching a movie.

they wanted joe swanberg to know they were watching the movie.

they didn’t want to be watching a movie.

joe swanberg looked at a camera and said ‘i am not making a movie. don’t watch this. it is not a movie. i don’t know.’

he thought that everyone probably thought he had friends and he asked his friends to be in movies.

he thought, ‘i just make a movie and then the people in the movie are my friends.’

he knew this wasn’t true.

he wanted to make a movie called ’swedish blueballs’ and have everyone take it seriously and think it was ‘artistic’ and ‘unsarcastic’ and…

he didn’t know what else.

he wanted to make a movie without anyone knowing he had made the movie and then listen to what everyone said about the movie.

he knew this might be extremely sad.

he felt prepared to be sad.

in his brain somewhere something knew a state of sadness would be healthy and fulfilling.

it would ‘make the work a little better.’

he would become capable of making a movie that captured everything about what was wrong with the relationships humans tried to have with each other.

he felt a great need to watch this movie.

it felt ‘beyond him’ to make it.

he wanted to sit in a chair.

sitting in a chair is easy and making a new movie about relationships was ‘more work’ than he ‘had in him.’

he thought about making three new movies.

he thought about the work that would take.

he thought about how he would probably live many years,

and that this meant he would probably live many days,

and that each day he would have to do things,

and that those things would be the things that he did every day,

and he didn’t know if thinking about this made him feel bad,

or if feeling bad made him think about this.

he sat on a bed in an apartment with a computer and watched movies he had made.

he turned a camera on and made a movie about everything that was happening.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
colin bassett has fiction in both the online and print versions of the mississippi review. he also has work at dicey brown, lamination colony, and no posit. he lives in missouri and once had an email conversation with kim chinquee.

my grandfather reads online literature to alleviate feelings of boredom, loneliness, detachment, and pointlessness

3AM — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 19:54:39 +0000

By Matthew Savoca.

my grandfather reads online literature with his gateway2000 and a dialup internet connection.

this is true.

sometimes i call him to say hi and the line is busy.

i leave a message and he calls me back sometime between thirty minutes and one hour later.

the last time this happened was yesterday.

when i answered the phone, he said, “i am depressed.”

i said, “what do you feel?”

he said, “i experience feelings of boredom, loneliness, detachment, and pointlessness on a regular basis.”

i said, “what do you feel right now?”

he said, “i feel bored, lonely, detached, and that life is pointless.”

he took all the sheets off of his living room furniture. he sighed into the phone.

he said the only thing that makes him feel better is eating mashed potatoes and reading online literature.

then he hung up.

i called boston market and ordered him a tub of mashed potatoes with extra gravy.

the girl asked me if i wanted regular mashed potatoes or sweet mashed potatoes.

i said, “both.”

she asked me if i wanted them in separate containers or mixed together.

i said, “hold on.”

i called my grandfather with my cell phone but the line was busy. i did not leave a message.

i got back on the phone with the boston market girl.

i said, “mix them together.”

then i told her where to deliver it and paid for it over the phone with my credit card.

i said, “don’t forget the extra mashed potato gravy.”

i hung up and called my grandfather back. the line was busy.

i left a message and hung up the phone.

my grandfather called me back an hour later.

i answered the phone. i said, “your phone was busy two times i called.”

he said, “i was online reading online literature.”

i asked him if he got the mashed potatoes.

he said, “i read online literature to alleviate feelings of boredom, loneliness, detachment, and pointlessness.”

i asked him if there was enough gravy.

he said yes.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
matthew savoca has been published recently in lamination colony, alice blue, and robot melon. he has stuff forthcoming in no posit and paperwall. his grandfather is eighty one years old.