Image (Copyright © 2009 Tiffani Hollis)
Michael Wilson
Barry Seiler
Chrissa Sandlin
Mary Ocher
G David Schwartz
Jesse S Hanson
Adejoh Momoh
Keith Nunes
Christopher Barnes
Tiffani Hollis
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Issue 29
Image (Copyright © 2009 Tiffani Hollis)
Michael Wilson
Barry Seiler
Chrissa Sandlin
Mary Ocher
G David Schwartz
Jesse S Hanson
Adejoh Momoh
Keith Nunes
Christopher Barnes
Tiffani Hollis
Michael Wilson
The ECT Poem
Ward Round Monday 10.30am a ladder to somewhere else drawn on my arm
the days give each thought a bitter aftertaste
the terrible spun gold has finally been bled from my veins
as you were my boy
but the darkness always looks stranger with a keener sight
surrounded by gluey eyes that try and scratch any meaning from words and words written
over and over on the same scrap of paper til the ink sweats from the page
the doctor looks up from behind a shuffle of notes
"well we can't get there from here but I guess its time to see what we can call upon"
Something pushes my head into a nod and he tells me the treatment will begin very soon
Once he'd recovered his sense and the shape of his tongue
Tim tells us all a ghost story,
how if you change your thinking,
if you try and get off the Guerney,
they strap you don so they can safely feed icy water into your veins
to freeze the life inside you.
He tells me what the letters mean
"You were tricked my friend but don't worry,
it's just like sleeping except you wake so much more tired"
The days stalk the walls like shadows
My time is spent in circles,
orbitting the thought,
on an ever shortening leash.
I spend the night time sweating out my dreams,
and the daylight hours shitting out my fears
Until he tells me its time to go
Hold you head, you're the lucky one
On the guerney the ceiling glides over my eyes
The nurse looks down, distance and affection etch a sketched on his expression
Ward, corridor, lift, corridor, prep room
They inject the coldness into my hand,
and I count back through every mistake I've ever made
They drop the curtains so I never get to see the metal hands that pushed sparks into my mind
And I come back in the middle of his sentence, the world in front of me the size of a postage stamp
He plonks breakfast on the table for me
As my mind struggles into the clothing of thought
"Come on" he says, back to the halfway house,
"Only four more treatments to go"
"Every time I see you, you seem more alive"
Become familiar words from visitors carrying goodwill in brightly coloured bundles
Conversations are no longer conducted through cotton mouth sentences
That muffled everything down to a murmur
They told me at the last ward round I'd get out of intensive care soon
My progress the marvel of a Monday morning
A life to come as full as full as a harvest moon,
and eyes that have seen the things we hide from ourselves only to know the reason why
Shocked back into life, and slotted back into the world
Complete
Lot 48
Just now I saw a woman’s back as she fed an empty Shredded Wheat packet
Into a red post box on Oxford Road
Near the Lidl and the Superdrug
In a bulged carrier bag strapped to her wrist
Were egg cartons and such like
Her clothes didn’t look strange but her hair gave away her age
I didn’t stop to watch
But instead fell into an empty pub
To write these words, which seems so much worse
Asked the barman to carry the tea to my table
Cause even after all these years my hands still shake
I wondered about her serenity
Maybe between the knotted ends of furious thoughts
But there was something in her calm determination
That said to me that for her, for one moment at least, all was well in the world
But less so the 2nd, 3rd, 4th deposit she made
I even thought she might be a vandal
About to throw in a lighted match
But there’s enough tinder in there already
I wondered about the clichéd reasons
TV presenter voices, radios clicked off and eyes of strangers, got angry with myself
Then thought of the cliché that these things are usually true
I had wondered for a fleeting shameful thought
About taking her hand and leading her to the bright lights and green metal chairs of the nearby A+E
As stupid an idea as those who kneel beery breathed by the homeless in the cold and give them a list of things to save themselves
I’d probably just distress her, a simple mantra to repeat until such dumb heroic thoughts faded away
And soon the mundane thoughts of how to fill an evening begin to play out instead
So soon it’ll bleed white from memory
Until I see another member of her not so exclusive club
And there she’ll be, a figure to cut out and keep
To speak of in pubs and living rooms
When relevance comes along
So her fate it seems in all is whether we believe in good strong voiced endings
Or long tattered beginnings
The only real connection here isn’t with me and her
Not right now anyway
But whether any or even every other person that’s seen her before
Leaves the road and follows the same dead end path as mine
Digging Tunnels
City life shadows choice with compromise
but these actions on a slippery January night
are so far gone that they come back around again
to make total sense, not only to me,
but all the odd numbered traffic light eyes that watch hidden
and the flick of the timed and secret glances from inside the shine of moving cars
So here I am. My mind in clattering conversation with itself
pulling my coat over my head in the middle of a city road,
to leave it there to show I’m ready
to gain the world in a single night
the winter’s chill a distant sensation
and in nothing but the space and the solitude of a busy city street
And now I feel nothing but regret for every minute my life has counted until this place
and now I feel nothing but the inner glow of knowing
and now I feel nothing from the cars that pass my knuckled sides
and now I feel nothing from my silenced thoughts and seconds that drop like revelations
and now I feel nothing for anyone but me
and now I feel nothing
Because if time is two sided, it gives with the first and steals with the last
if standing on a height fills your eyes with the sky and not the thought of the fall
if you can kill the kid inside you, then it rises again in the morning
if you can walk into the newly franked world with a naked mind
then nothing wrong exists cause you haven’t brought it there yourself
then this will all be alright
So I stumble to the far kerb, tired and beat and bright eyed
and a voice from a sudden person calls out
“You’ve missed a bit” pointing back at the slumped coat where I’d left it to die
reminding me of my Dad’s response to my first shave, and I realise they know
but when I look back, it’s turned into something else, something wrong
and the entire street falls to silence, and the space opens up again,
This time all the shop fronts close in on themselves
and the coldness I barely noticed comes rushing in to wrap itself around my skin
and that soft revelation dims and returns in a harsh edged terrible light
and the space between me and the way back is as far as the one from me to you
when you can never really understand the white grip of loss
from something that your conscripting mind convinced you was there
And time calls out it’s horrible scream and you can’t bend back your mind to where it was
and no one here can help, cause they’re like you, they’re lost but they’re also angry
so you take your battered mind home, but the cuts won’t close
so you take your battered mind home, but the cuts won’t close
and all the street signs seem to read backwards, and you know from this moment onwards
This is who you are
Lucia Joyce (daughter of James Joyce)
Introduction, Lucia Joyce was schizophrenic and was seen by many as her father's muse
the slumped book between the bed and the wall
between the bed and the wall the slumped book
it's cover shape it's dense material
typset it's cover shape
it's dense material typeset
is the focus of a sourceless mind when the mirror only bites
when the mirror only bites is the focus of a sourceless mind
my cottonmouth sentences
spoken in sleep
have a way of stumbling into this world
he carries his original sin
the way this land
was held in the silvery palm of the English
and the lamp light shine doesn't know
many of his words are
half closed doors
strange hand me downs
the thoughts that run from this room to his
but never return
and this night book
fallen between the bed and the wall
was a meandering risk he made
greater than my mind could ever close itself around
somewhere lost among these words
was a chance, fading yellowing and browned
any time it was shown the brightening daylight
to be something other than his fearsome muse
more than a broken lover for his grovelling soft headed subjects
but the real words
are the ones I don't know how to form
never mind let go
to spin strange patterns
across this arcing room
so soon I'll sleep for him
I'll dream for him
to wake with fistfuls of things for him
to fool them again into believing the trick of the strangeness of his lucidity
and the reason of our insanity
is the slumped space between me and him
instead of the shared resting place
of the tender footprints of our most beautiful boundless self
How it all began
He was stood with them on another street corner
A little way back from the road
Where the tigers pass
On the pavement people come by
With trademark tinderbox eyes
He was settled into his own boredom
Lstening to Simon tell that same raggedy arsed tale
But with even more bits and bobs
Stuck loosely on
To make him sound more
Like a bright shiny metal nail
He wondered how Simon thought at night
Did he really see himself
In the words he said
He felt anger tighten in his throat
So he looked over at her
Until everything steadied itself
She was stood with them on another street corner
A little way back from the road
Where the tigers pass
On the pavement people come by
With trademark tinderbox eyes
In front of them all
She was watching him
When he wasn’t looking
Normally she wouldn’t be that bold
But there was sweetness in her belly
And soft light in her sight
The shallow cut on her skin
From the sharp words of her mother
Had already closed over
And there was this moment
When their eyes met
Somewhere in the middle of Simon’s words
And she awarded herself a simple smile
To be unlocked and find so much inside
*
Watching trails of sweet teethed smoke
As she lay on his stomach
Thin curtains closed to make
A type of feeling out of a bored afternoon
Talking loosely of the not so great adventures
Of such and such and so and so
Fuck, if they were here right now
They realise something about themselves
Wrapped up lightly in the other’s words
He plays with her hair
In a half awake way
She thinks, outside this room
Anything is better than all there is
Or words to those ends
What if there was something, he thinks
Other than the park, the street, the bright clutter corner shop
He releases this as a blast of smoke
Hears a third voice
Even though there’s no one else there
*
He was stood with them on another street corner
A little way back from the road
Where the tigers pass
On the pavement people come by
With trademark tinderbox eyes
Sick of the taste in his mouth
And their words in his ears
Why would he go back there?
For a pointless piece of paper
It was her delicious mouth
That had troubled his mind
It was her fault
For him turning himself into a stranger
But no matter what they said, he was never given to throw his fist
That’s why they never really trusted him
And every grazing insult
Only built the shore line of his thoughts further
*
Somewhere between the restless sedation of TV programmes
Walls so papery, when there’s the silence
You can hear next door’s set
Her mother unfurls a coil of words
He’s Barrett’s boy and you know what that means
She knows to keep the deep waters
Of her words as calm as she can
But her mother taps sharp point nails
On skin already raw
She’s already been getting ideas above her station
You’re too good for this house
She feels anger come
And can’t swallow hard or fast enough
So she leaves the argument with a slamming door
Instead of the usual soft slow click
His flat is only streets away
She texts ahead
And he tells her he’s waiting for her
And pretty soon this world will feel alright
Michael Wilson: My writing spins uncompromisingly through the themes of mental health, sex, drugs, and rock and dole. Finalist of Cheltenham UK All Stars Slam 2008, Winner of Bolton Slam 2009 , and upcoming semi finalist for the Radio 4 Slam this year.
Michael Wilson Barry Seiler Chrissa Sandlin Mary Ocher G David Schwartz Jesse S Hanson Adejoh Momoh Keith Nunes Christopher Barnes Tiffani Hollis
Ward Round Monday 10.30am a ladder to somewhere else drawn on my arm
the days give each thought a bitter aftertaste
the terrible spun gold has finally been bled from my veins
as you were my boy
but the darkness always looks stranger with a keener sight
surrounded by gluey eyes that try and scratch any meaning from words and words written
over and over on the same scrap of paper til the ink sweats from the page
the doctor looks up from behind a shuffle of notes
"well we can't get there from here but I guess its time to see what we can call upon"
Something pushes my head into a nod and he tells me the treatment will begin very soon
Once he'd recovered his sense and the shape of his tongue
Tim tells us all a ghost story,
how if you change your thinking,
if you try and get off the Guerney,
they strap you don so they can safely feed icy water into your veins
to freeze the life inside you.
He tells me what the letters mean
"You were tricked my friend but don't worry,
it's just like sleeping except you wake so much more tired"
The days stalk the walls like shadows
My time is spent in circles,
orbitting the thought,
on an ever shortening leash.
I spend the night time sweating out my dreams,
and the daylight hours shitting out my fears
Until he tells me its time to go
Hold you head, you're the lucky one
On the guerney the ceiling glides over my eyes
The nurse looks down, distance and affection etch a sketched on his expression
Ward, corridor, lift, corridor, prep room
They inject the coldness into my hand,
and I count back through every mistake I've ever made
They drop the curtains so I never get to see the metal hands that pushed sparks into my mind
And I come back in the middle of his sentence, the world in front of me the size of a postage stamp
He plonks breakfast on the table for me
As my mind struggles into the clothing of thought
"Come on" he says, back to the halfway house,
"Only four more treatments to go"
"Every time I see you, you seem more alive"
Become familiar words from visitors carrying goodwill in brightly coloured bundles
Conversations are no longer conducted through cotton mouth sentences
That muffled everything down to a murmur
They told me at the last ward round I'd get out of intensive care soon
My progress the marvel of a Monday morning
A life to come as full as full as a harvest moon,
and eyes that have seen the things we hide from ourselves only to know the reason why
Shocked back into life, and slotted back into the world
Complete
Lot 48
Just now I saw a woman’s back as she fed an empty Shredded Wheat packet
Into a red post box on Oxford Road
Near the Lidl and the Superdrug
In a bulged carrier bag strapped to her wrist
Were egg cartons and such like
Her clothes didn’t look strange but her hair gave away her age
I didn’t stop to watch
But instead fell into an empty pub
To write these words, which seems so much worse
Asked the barman to carry the tea to my table
Cause even after all these years my hands still shake
I wondered about her serenity
Maybe between the knotted ends of furious thoughts
But there was something in her calm determination
That said to me that for her, for one moment at least, all was well in the world
But less so the 2nd, 3rd, 4th deposit she made
I even thought she might be a vandal
About to throw in a lighted match
But there’s enough tinder in there already
I wondered about the clichéd reasons
TV presenter voices, radios clicked off and eyes of strangers, got angry with myself
Then thought of the cliché that these things are usually true
I had wondered for a fleeting shameful thought
About taking her hand and leading her to the bright lights and green metal chairs of the nearby A+E
As stupid an idea as those who kneel beery breathed by the homeless in the cold and give them a list of things to save themselves
I’d probably just distress her, a simple mantra to repeat until such dumb heroic thoughts faded away
And soon the mundane thoughts of how to fill an evening begin to play out instead
So soon it’ll bleed white from memory
Until I see another member of her not so exclusive club
And there she’ll be, a figure to cut out and keep
To speak of in pubs and living rooms
When relevance comes along
So her fate it seems in all is whether we believe in good strong voiced endings
Or long tattered beginnings
The only real connection here isn’t with me and her
Not right now anyway
But whether any or even every other person that’s seen her before
Leaves the road and follows the same dead end path as mine
Digging Tunnels
City life shadows choice with compromise
but these actions on a slippery January night
are so far gone that they come back around again
to make total sense, not only to me,
but all the odd numbered traffic light eyes that watch hidden
and the flick of the timed and secret glances from inside the shine of moving cars
So here I am. My mind in clattering conversation with itself
pulling my coat over my head in the middle of a city road,
to leave it there to show I’m ready
to gain the world in a single night
the winter’s chill a distant sensation
and in nothing but the space and the solitude of a busy city street
And now I feel nothing but regret for every minute my life has counted until this place
and now I feel nothing but the inner glow of knowing
and now I feel nothing from the cars that pass my knuckled sides
and now I feel nothing from my silenced thoughts and seconds that drop like revelations
and now I feel nothing for anyone but me
and now I feel nothing
Because if time is two sided, it gives with the first and steals with the last
if standing on a height fills your eyes with the sky and not the thought of the fall
if you can kill the kid inside you, then it rises again in the morning
if you can walk into the newly franked world with a naked mind
then nothing wrong exists cause you haven’t brought it there yourself
then this will all be alright
So I stumble to the far kerb, tired and beat and bright eyed
and a voice from a sudden person calls out
“You’ve missed a bit” pointing back at the slumped coat where I’d left it to die
reminding me of my Dad’s response to my first shave, and I realise they know
but when I look back, it’s turned into something else, something wrong
and the entire street falls to silence, and the space opens up again,
This time all the shop fronts close in on themselves
and the coldness I barely noticed comes rushing in to wrap itself around my skin
and that soft revelation dims and returns in a harsh edged terrible light
and the space between me and the way back is as far as the one from me to you
when you can never really understand the white grip of loss
from something that your conscripting mind convinced you was there
And time calls out it’s horrible scream and you can’t bend back your mind to where it was
and no one here can help, cause they’re like you, they’re lost but they’re also angry
so you take your battered mind home, but the cuts won’t close
so you take your battered mind home, but the cuts won’t close
and all the street signs seem to read backwards, and you know from this moment onwards
This is who you are
Lucia Joyce (daughter of James Joyce)
Introduction, Lucia Joyce was schizophrenic and was seen by many as her father's muse
the slumped book between the bed and the wall
between the bed and the wall the slumped book
it's cover shape it's dense material
typset it's cover shape
it's dense material typeset
is the focus of a sourceless mind when the mirror only bites
when the mirror only bites is the focus of a sourceless mind
my cottonmouth sentences
spoken in sleep
have a way of stumbling into this world
he carries his original sin
the way this land
was held in the silvery palm of the English
and the lamp light shine doesn't know
many of his words are
half closed doors
strange hand me downs
the thoughts that run from this room to his
but never return
and this night book
fallen between the bed and the wall
was a meandering risk he made
greater than my mind could ever close itself around
somewhere lost among these words
was a chance, fading yellowing and browned
any time it was shown the brightening daylight
to be something other than his fearsome muse
more than a broken lover for his grovelling soft headed subjects
but the real words
are the ones I don't know how to form
never mind let go
to spin strange patterns
across this arcing room
so soon I'll sleep for him
I'll dream for him
to wake with fistfuls of things for him
to fool them again into believing the trick of the strangeness of his lucidity
and the reason of our insanity
is the slumped space between me and him
instead of the shared resting place
of the tender footprints of our most beautiful boundless self
How it all began
He was stood with them on another street corner
A little way back from the road
Where the tigers pass
On the pavement people come by
With trademark tinderbox eyes
He was settled into his own boredom
Lstening to Simon tell that same raggedy arsed tale
But with even more bits and bobs
Stuck loosely on
To make him sound more
Like a bright shiny metal nail
He wondered how Simon thought at night
Did he really see himself
In the words he said
He felt anger tighten in his throat
So he looked over at her
Until everything steadied itself
She was stood with them on another street corner
A little way back from the road
Where the tigers pass
On the pavement people come by
With trademark tinderbox eyes
In front of them all
She was watching him
When he wasn’t looking
Normally she wouldn’t be that bold
But there was sweetness in her belly
And soft light in her sight
The shallow cut on her skin
From the sharp words of her mother
Had already closed over
And there was this moment
When their eyes met
Somewhere in the middle of Simon’s words
And she awarded herself a simple smile
To be unlocked and find so much inside
*
Watching trails of sweet teethed smoke
As she lay on his stomach
Thin curtains closed to make
A type of feeling out of a bored afternoon
Talking loosely of the not so great adventures
Of such and such and so and so
Fuck, if they were here right now
They realise something about themselves
Wrapped up lightly in the other’s words
He plays with her hair
In a half awake way
She thinks, outside this room
Anything is better than all there is
Or words to those ends
What if there was something, he thinks
Other than the park, the street, the bright clutter corner shop
He releases this as a blast of smoke
Hears a third voice
Even though there’s no one else there
*
He was stood with them on another street corner
A little way back from the road
Where the tigers pass
On the pavement people come by
With trademark tinderbox eyes
Sick of the taste in his mouth
And their words in his ears
Why would he go back there?
For a pointless piece of paper
It was her delicious mouth
That had troubled his mind
It was her fault
For him turning himself into a stranger
But no matter what they said, he was never given to throw his fist
That’s why they never really trusted him
And every grazing insult
Only built the shore line of his thoughts further
*
Somewhere between the restless sedation of TV programmes
Walls so papery, when there’s the silence
You can hear next door’s set
Her mother unfurls a coil of words
He’s Barrett’s boy and you know what that means
She knows to keep the deep waters
Of her words as calm as she can
But her mother taps sharp point nails
On skin already raw
She’s already been getting ideas above her station
You’re too good for this house
She feels anger come
And can’t swallow hard or fast enough
So she leaves the argument with a slamming door
Instead of the usual soft slow click
His flat is only streets away
She texts ahead
And he tells her he’s waiting for her
And pretty soon this world will feel alright
Michael Wilson: My writing spins uncompromisingly through the themes of mental health, sex, drugs, and rock and dole. Finalist of Cheltenham UK All Stars Slam 2008, Winner of Bolton Slam 2009 , and upcoming semi finalist for the Radio 4 Slam this year.
Michael Wilson Barry Seiler Chrissa Sandlin Mary Ocher G David Schwartz Jesse S Hanson Adejoh Momoh Keith Nunes Christopher Barnes Tiffani Hollis
Barry Seiler
Poems at the Door
The bed is thick with me, arrangement of flesh
And pill. The couch, the floor, the kitchen chair,
What do they care, the weight of me lifted
And done? But the door—the door—
When the door asks which side are you on,
How will I reply?
_____
When is a door not a door?
What is black and white and red all over?
When the door is ajar who will enter, leave,
Or get the joke? Who will deliver?
_____
In the dream the door kept blowing open.
I kept rising to close it.
Rain blew against the door.
I heard footsteps and traffic sounds.
Later my father entered the room and said
He’s sleeping, only sleeping. Let him sleep.
_____
I came to the door, my forehead damp.
I pressed it against the wood.
Beneath the peephole
The wood was damp and cool.
Inside the wood I hear a ring of worshippers
Humming ecstatically.
Barry Seiler lives in the small mountain town of Roxbury New York with his wife, cats and cockatiel. He has published four books of poems, the last three with the University of Akron Press.
Michael Wilson Barry Seiler Chrissa Sandlin Mary Ocher G David Schwartz Jesse S Hanson Adejoh Momoh Keith Nunes Christopher Barnes Tiffani Hollis
The bed is thick with me, arrangement of flesh
And pill. The couch, the floor, the kitchen chair,
What do they care, the weight of me lifted
And done? But the door—the door—
When the door asks which side are you on,
How will I reply?
_____
When is a door not a door?
What is black and white and red all over?
When the door is ajar who will enter, leave,
Or get the joke? Who will deliver?
_____
In the dream the door kept blowing open.
I kept rising to close it.
Rain blew against the door.
I heard footsteps and traffic sounds.
Later my father entered the room and said
He’s sleeping, only sleeping. Let him sleep.
_____
I came to the door, my forehead damp.
I pressed it against the wood.
Beneath the peephole
The wood was damp and cool.
Inside the wood I hear a ring of worshippers
Humming ecstatically.
Barry Seiler lives in the small mountain town of Roxbury New York with his wife, cats and cockatiel. He has published four books of poems, the last three with the University of Akron Press.
Michael Wilson Barry Seiler Chrissa Sandlin Mary Ocher G David Schwartz Jesse S Hanson Adejoh Momoh Keith Nunes Christopher Barnes Tiffani Hollis
G David Schwartz
My Mother Said I Was Her Favorite Son
My mother said I was her favorite son
Doesn't she know I am the only one?
She gave birth to me
And then two girls you see
Yea sure I'm her favorite son
G. David Schwartz is the former president of Seedhouse, the online interfaith committee. Schwartz is the author of A Jewish Appraisal of Dialogue. Currently a volunteer at Drake Hospital in Cincinnati, Schwartz continues to write. His new book, Midrash and Working Out Of The Book is now in stores or can be ordered.
Michael Wilson Barry Seiler Chrissa Sandlin Mary Ocher G David Schwartz Jesse S Hanson Adejoh Momoh Keith Nunes Christopher Barnes Tiffani Hollis
My mother said I was her favorite son
Doesn't she know I am the only one?
She gave birth to me
And then two girls you see
Yea sure I'm her favorite son
G. David Schwartz is the former president of Seedhouse, the online interfaith committee. Schwartz is the author of A Jewish Appraisal of Dialogue. Currently a volunteer at Drake Hospital in Cincinnati, Schwartz continues to write. His new book, Midrash and Working Out Of The Book is now in stores or can be ordered.
Michael Wilson Barry Seiler Chrissa Sandlin Mary Ocher G David Schwartz Jesse S Hanson Adejoh Momoh Keith Nunes Christopher Barnes Tiffani Hollis
Mary Ocher
Proper adjustments
Big blue veins
I wish they’d be any other color
but blue
But they don’t care, see -
Opposing your wishes
they grow and spread and take hostage
of the body
as it opens,
and the blue veins conquer:
We have always been"
the emperors,
We have always ruled
this waste-place,
and nobody else but us”.
Firsts
Will you then admit?
And babies are not different from
And blushes are not different from
And turning plates on dining floors
Are not too different
not at all
And hands, they burst through thick earth-twigs
And roots, and vanity,
And many firsts.
Lots and lots and lots.
Mary Ocher was born in Moscow, in 1986, grew up in Tel Aviv, is now living in Berlin.
Michael Wilson Barry Seiler Chrissa Sandlin Mary Ocher G David Schwartz Jesse S Hanson Adejoh Momoh Keith Nunes Christopher Barnes Tiffani Hollis
Big blue veins
I wish they’d be any other color
but blue
But they don’t care, see -
Opposing your wishes
they grow and spread and take hostage
of the body
as it opens,
and the blue veins conquer:
We have always been"
the emperors,
We have always ruled
this waste-place,
and nobody else but us”.
Firsts
Will you then admit?
And babies are not different from
And blushes are not different from
And turning plates on dining floors
Are not too different
not at all
And hands, they burst through thick earth-twigs
And roots, and vanity,
And many firsts.
Lots and lots and lots.
Mary Ocher was born in Moscow, in 1986, grew up in Tel Aviv, is now living in Berlin.
Michael Wilson Barry Seiler Chrissa Sandlin Mary Ocher G David Schwartz Jesse S Hanson Adejoh Momoh Keith Nunes Christopher Barnes Tiffani Hollis
Chrissa Sandlin
Sleeping with My Depression
I've been sleeping with my depression.
Sometimes it knows the worthless me
Better than the rest of these ignorant people
To whom I am tied or related.
So, I'm having this casual affiare
In the empty day before the lights
Shrink this house into a home.
I think I'm enjoying it.
We are a powerful couple, on the edge
Of our own sacrificial volcano.
I scream; the day shakes. I was young
And peace flies in the fire to make me so again.
What if they find out?
Affairs creep out from under mats,
Become like real life, turfed over
With a familiar foundation.
I won't enjoy it as much
When we're living together.
When I'm drinking something else
To blunt the carve of the sucking wave.
Chrissa Sandlin is a poet living in Texas who has found that depression and anxiety both push and fight her work.
Michael Wilson Barry Seiler Chrissa Sandlin Mary Ocher G David Schwartz Jesse S Hanson Adejoh Momoh Keith Nunes Christopher Barnes Tiffani Hollis
I've been sleeping with my depression.
Sometimes it knows the worthless me
Better than the rest of these ignorant people
To whom I am tied or related.
So, I'm having this casual affiare
In the empty day before the lights
Shrink this house into a home.
I think I'm enjoying it.
We are a powerful couple, on the edge
Of our own sacrificial volcano.
I scream; the day shakes. I was young
And peace flies in the fire to make me so again.
What if they find out?
Affairs creep out from under mats,
Become like real life, turfed over
With a familiar foundation.
I won't enjoy it as much
When we're living together.
When I'm drinking something else
To blunt the carve of the sucking wave.
Chrissa Sandlin is a poet living in Texas who has found that depression and anxiety both push and fight her work.
Michael Wilson Barry Seiler Chrissa Sandlin Mary Ocher G David Schwartz Jesse S Hanson Adejoh Momoh Keith Nunes Christopher Barnes Tiffani Hollis
Adejoh Momoh
The Others
My memory is adrift: constantly engaged in bouts and
bouts of thoughts that both be wrong and right.
As the tide rises, I offer prayers to mighty Allah:
‘Does he still live?’. ‘Do not take this like you took the others?’
My sanity is adrift: woefully the others haunt my day
dreams: dishing pain/suffering in deathfully cold slivers.
To heavenward I turn, the others who in death engaged
should in death remain.
Should he join the others, in pain would my days be
consumed. The fangs of death would I with much
pleasure embrace: all my hospital nights of near death
would I willfully recall.
My many loves have the others been: with their
deaths, I die over and again.
Stuck Where I Am
From this end to that end I will to move:
All my toil, my labor is in wait for the
night.
In lowly tones, you ask that I wait:
It was my mistake: for with military might I
flung my heart open, but still was I
open to bindings from the world I left: my ideas
preconceived I didn’t deny.
Was I not listening? When by fire you commanded,
‘deny all that to you is familiar, accept all that
which I offer you’
How do I come to terms with man denying family?
‘I was lost but now I’m found. I was alive
and now I’ve drowned’
Adejoh Idoko Momoh: I was born in Kaduna, Nigeria in 1988, I have loved poetry all my life. Draw my inspiration from old classics. Use poetry as a creative outlet for negative energy. I hope someday to have a book of classic poetry published.
Michael Wilson Barry Seiler Chrissa Sandlin Mary Ocher G David Schwartz Jesse S Hanson Adejoh Momoh Keith Nunes Christopher Barnes Tiffani Hollis
My memory is adrift: constantly engaged in bouts and
bouts of thoughts that both be wrong and right.
As the tide rises, I offer prayers to mighty Allah:
‘Does he still live?’. ‘Do not take this like you took the others?’
My sanity is adrift: woefully the others haunt my day
dreams: dishing pain/suffering in deathfully cold slivers.
To heavenward I turn, the others who in death engaged
should in death remain.
Should he join the others, in pain would my days be
consumed. The fangs of death would I with much
pleasure embrace: all my hospital nights of near death
would I willfully recall.
My many loves have the others been: with their
deaths, I die over and again.
Stuck Where I Am
From this end to that end I will to move:
All my toil, my labor is in wait for the
night.
In lowly tones, you ask that I wait:
It was my mistake: for with military might I
flung my heart open, but still was I
open to bindings from the world I left: my ideas
preconceived I didn’t deny.
Was I not listening? When by fire you commanded,
‘deny all that to you is familiar, accept all that
which I offer you’
How do I come to terms with man denying family?
‘I was lost but now I’m found. I was alive
and now I’ve drowned’
Adejoh Idoko Momoh: I was born in Kaduna, Nigeria in 1988, I have loved poetry all my life. Draw my inspiration from old classics. Use poetry as a creative outlet for negative energy. I hope someday to have a book of classic poetry published.
Michael Wilson Barry Seiler Chrissa Sandlin Mary Ocher G David Schwartz Jesse S Hanson Adejoh Momoh Keith Nunes Christopher Barnes Tiffani Hollis
jesse s. hanson
seeing love
I climb all day some stairs in my head
I have to go fight the devils off
I don’t like to face the truth
I turn my back instead
You look out over all creations
You hold no truck with preachers
You honor the old promises
You recognize no nations
this is where I dwell in madness and sorrow
this fear operating from my shoulder
this cursed world without is now within me
this damn mythical tomorrow
Your words of recognition calm me
Your rules of iron, your heart of wax
Your sad brown eternal bottomless eyes
Your vina, bell, and mrdanga call me
here in these haunted brackish waters
here upon these raw boned blooded knees
here where my appeals have been denied for so many ages
here I turn on the wheel of insane religious potters
seeing love, the world turns away in shame
seeing love we sin the harder
seeing love the armies come to kill it
seeing love the world remains the same
Michael Wilson Barry Seiler Chrissa Sandlin Mary Ocher G David Schwartz Jesse S Hanson Adejoh Momoh Keith Nunes Christopher Barnes Tiffani Hollis
I climb all day some stairs in my head
I have to go fight the devils off
I don’t like to face the truth
I turn my back instead
You look out over all creations
You hold no truck with preachers
You honor the old promises
You recognize no nations
this is where I dwell in madness and sorrow
this fear operating from my shoulder
this cursed world without is now within me
this damn mythical tomorrow
Your words of recognition calm me
Your rules of iron, your heart of wax
Your sad brown eternal bottomless eyes
Your vina, bell, and mrdanga call me
here in these haunted brackish waters
here upon these raw boned blooded knees
here where my appeals have been denied for so many ages
here I turn on the wheel of insane religious potters
seeing love, the world turns away in shame
seeing love we sin the harder
seeing love the armies come to kill it
seeing love the world remains the same
Michael Wilson Barry Seiler Chrissa Sandlin Mary Ocher G David Schwartz Jesse S Hanson Adejoh Momoh Keith Nunes Christopher Barnes Tiffani Hollis
Keith Nunes
We Are One
Three fours and she’s curdling in the milk
Smacking diving cormorants with a piece of wood
That looks like Buddha
I peel away the skin of my grandfather
And emerge veins out of place
A smile I don’t recognize
She substitutes befuddled for a tap beer and
We slide toward a dilemma
Full of Bulgarian businessmen and
On the stroke of one we are two
She slides on purple Docs and I
Immediately revolutionise the map
Telling Aunt Mary there is a spade and
An ace she can use to unearth heaven
Back at the front they are dying for a cuppa
At the rear five fatties with rounded burps
Collapse at the sight of Father Tomlin flying
And on the stroke of two we are one
Holy Hole
The hole needed to be dug
The spade needed to be cleaned
He wanted a compliment but
She needed a reason
Now they talk through lawyers
He hasn’t dug a hole in a long time
Keith Nunes: I am from Tauranga. A former journalist I now write poetry to stay sane and fight off my ever present depression. I've been published in a number of poetry journals and ezines in New Zealand and overseas over the years.
Michael Wilson Barry Seiler Chrissa Sandlin Mary Ocher G David Schwartz Jesse S Hanson Adejoh Momoh Keith Nunes Christopher Barnes Tiffani Hollis
Three fours and she’s curdling in the milk
Smacking diving cormorants with a piece of wood
That looks like Buddha
I peel away the skin of my grandfather
And emerge veins out of place
A smile I don’t recognize
She substitutes befuddled for a tap beer and
We slide toward a dilemma
Full of Bulgarian businessmen and
On the stroke of one we are two
She slides on purple Docs and I
Immediately revolutionise the map
Telling Aunt Mary there is a spade and
An ace she can use to unearth heaven
Back at the front they are dying for a cuppa
At the rear five fatties with rounded burps
Collapse at the sight of Father Tomlin flying
And on the stroke of two we are one
Holy Hole
The hole needed to be dug
The spade needed to be cleaned
He wanted a compliment but
She needed a reason
Now they talk through lawyers
He hasn’t dug a hole in a long time
Keith Nunes: I am from Tauranga. A former journalist I now write poetry to stay sane and fight off my ever present depression. I've been published in a number of poetry journals and ezines in New Zealand and overseas over the years.
Michael Wilson Barry Seiler Chrissa Sandlin Mary Ocher G David Schwartz Jesse S Hanson Adejoh Momoh Keith Nunes Christopher Barnes Tiffani Hollis
Christopher Barnes
Waiting For The Love Train
White-out. We’re in the portacabin, a winking of slides.
Collingwood’s monument piking a matt finish Tyne
is newsprint grey. Then a lovely mistake
a body-snatched Midas is found axed
his twin hears a rumour of a skull in a cistern,
in black-gothic print. (The ink unheard)
Anita Harris swallows
the crystals of Peter Pan. (What’s this lesson about?)
Ah…the media, the peeling back of trivialities.
There’s gnashing inflation
and dustmen write Marx flame-swirling barricades.
It’s Social Studies (excuse me sniffing) a diamond-studded version
by the dangerously well-heeled. Then
fog pulls plug on dog racing. (Are you sure?)
Quick-melting night was a lopsided spiral galaxy.
Gobstoppers, blackjacks, a hard rubber
space hopper, Thunderbirds are go!
And ten minutes of spine-chilling spectacle
through the atoms of a sizzling tv
- a big old Isley Bro. whipping up
white-light spandex and fool’s gold boots
and a deal of blind poker
chucking shadows on an easy-wipe table.
War Criminals In The Government-To-Be
“Snivel-sob,
you’re turning over our bleeding dossier.
I eavesdropped the phone.”
Miss Anyface, a plonking redhead
with a saddle-horse list,
hummed permissively.
“Top Drawer sent you?
Analyse and Smear Department?”
She maims a false docket
in sticky-hot fists.
“Our initiative is the Labour Camp.”
She deletes words from a document.
“Shall we march on
to Black Markets, the thick-of-things,
Spoiling Tactics,
the downgrading of murder?”
from the ‘Spooks’ poems
Christopher Barnes: in 1998 I won a Northern Arts writers award. On Saturday 16th August 2003 I read at theEdinburgh Festival as a Per Verse poet at LGBT Centre, Broughton St. Christmas 2001 The Northern Cultural Skills Partnership sponsored me to be mentored by Andy Croft in conjunction with New Writing North. I made a radio programme for Web FM community radio about my writing group. October-November 2005, I entered a poem/visual image into the art exhibition The Art Cafe Project, his piece Post-Mark was shown in Betty's Newcastle. This event was sponsored by Pride On The Tyne. I made a digital film with artists Kate Sweeney and Julie Ballands at a film making workshop called Out Of The Picture which was shown at the festival party for Proudwords, it contains my poem The Old Heave-Ho. I worked on a collaborative art and literature project called How Gay Are Your Genes, facilitated by Lisa Mathews (poet) which exhibited at The Hatton Gallery, Newcastle University funded by The Policy, Ethics and Life Sciences Research Institute, Bioscience Centre at Newcastle's Centre for Life. I was involved in the Five Arts Cities poetry postcard event which exhibited at The Seven Stories children's literature building. In May I had 2006 a solo art/poetry exhibition at The People's Theatre why not take a look at their website The South Bank Centre in London recorded my poem "The Holiday I Never Had", I can be heard reading it here. I have written poetry reviews for Poetry Scotland and Jacket Magazine and in August 2007 I made a film called 'A Blank Screen, 60 seconds, 1 shot' for Queerbeats Festival at The Star & Shadow Cinema Newcastle, reviewing a poem...see http://www.myspace.com/queerbeatsfestival
Michael Wilson Barry Seiler Chrissa Sandlin Mary Ocher G David Schwartz Jesse S Hanson Adejoh Momoh Keith Nunes Christopher Barnes Tiffani Hollis
White-out. We’re in the portacabin, a winking of slides.
Collingwood’s monument piking a matt finish Tyne
is newsprint grey. Then a lovely mistake
a body-snatched Midas is found axed
his twin hears a rumour of a skull in a cistern,
in black-gothic print. (The ink unheard)
Anita Harris swallows
the crystals of Peter Pan. (What’s this lesson about?)
Ah…the media, the peeling back of trivialities.
There’s gnashing inflation
and dustmen write Marx flame-swirling barricades.
It’s Social Studies (excuse me sniffing) a diamond-studded version
by the dangerously well-heeled. Then
fog pulls plug on dog racing. (Are you sure?)
Quick-melting night was a lopsided spiral galaxy.
Gobstoppers, blackjacks, a hard rubber
space hopper, Thunderbirds are go!
And ten minutes of spine-chilling spectacle
through the atoms of a sizzling tv
- a big old Isley Bro. whipping up
white-light spandex and fool’s gold boots
and a deal of blind poker
chucking shadows on an easy-wipe table.
War Criminals In The Government-To-Be
“Snivel-sob,
you’re turning over our bleeding dossier.
I eavesdropped the phone.”
Miss Anyface, a plonking redhead
with a saddle-horse list,
hummed permissively.
“Top Drawer sent you?
Analyse and Smear Department?”
She maims a false docket
in sticky-hot fists.
“Our initiative is the Labour Camp.”
She deletes words from a document.
“Shall we march on
to Black Markets, the thick-of-things,
Spoiling Tactics,
the downgrading of murder?”
from the ‘Spooks’ poems
Christopher Barnes: in 1998 I won a Northern Arts writers award. On Saturday 16th August 2003 I read at theEdinburgh Festival as a Per Verse poet at LGBT Centre, Broughton St. Christmas 2001 The Northern Cultural Skills Partnership sponsored me to be mentored by Andy Croft in conjunction with New Writing North. I made a radio programme for Web FM community radio about my writing group. October-November 2005, I entered a poem/visual image into the art exhibition The Art Cafe Project, his piece Post-Mark was shown in Betty's Newcastle. This event was sponsored by Pride On The Tyne. I made a digital film with artists Kate Sweeney and Julie Ballands at a film making workshop called Out Of The Picture which was shown at the festival party for Proudwords, it contains my poem The Old Heave-Ho. I worked on a collaborative art and literature project called How Gay Are Your Genes, facilitated by Lisa Mathews (poet) which exhibited at The Hatton Gallery, Newcastle University funded by The Policy, Ethics and Life Sciences Research Institute, Bioscience Centre at Newcastle's Centre for Life. I was involved in the Five Arts Cities poetry postcard event which exhibited at The Seven Stories children's literature building. In May I had 2006 a solo art/poetry exhibition at The People's Theatre why not take a look at their website The South Bank Centre in London recorded my poem "The Holiday I Never Had", I can be heard reading it here. I have written poetry reviews for Poetry Scotland and Jacket Magazine and in August 2007 I made a film called 'A Blank Screen, 60 seconds, 1 shot' for Queerbeats Festival at The Star & Shadow Cinema Newcastle, reviewing a poem...see http://www.myspace.com/queerbeatsfestival
Michael Wilson Barry Seiler Chrissa Sandlin Mary Ocher G David Schwartz Jesse S Hanson Adejoh Momoh Keith Nunes Christopher Barnes Tiffani Hollis
Tiffani Hollis
Disrepair
In neat little rows,
They sit.
Windows open, curtains flutter.
In neat little rows,
They stare.
On crooked broken path,
I crumble.
Windows latched, shades drawn.
On crooked broken path,
I fall.
In neat little rows.
They stare.
They stare, but cannot see
Past weathered weather vane.
They stare, but cannot look
Through shuttered window pane.
Lights off, faucet drips
Tap Tap Tap.
On crooked broken path,
I fall.
I fall, but cannot break
Through barricaded doors.
I fall, but cannot crash
Through rotted termite ridden floors.
Lights off, faucet drips.
Please Please Please
In neat little rows,
They sit.
Tiffani Hollis: I have been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder for about a year, but the condition has wreaked havoc on my life for at least the last 15 of my 31 years. I have made ruinous mistakes and am now trying to find my peace in writing and art.
Michael Wilson Barry Seiler Chrissa Sandlin Mary Ocher G David Schwartz Jesse S Hanson Adejoh Momoh Keith Nunes Christopher Barnes Tiffani Hollis
In neat little rows,
They sit.
Windows open, curtains flutter.
In neat little rows,
They stare.
On crooked broken path,
I crumble.
Windows latched, shades drawn.
On crooked broken path,
I fall.
In neat little rows.
They stare.
They stare, but cannot see
Past weathered weather vane.
They stare, but cannot look
Through shuttered window pane.
Lights off, faucet drips
Tap Tap Tap.
On crooked broken path,
I fall.
I fall, but cannot break
Through barricaded doors.
I fall, but cannot crash
Through rotted termite ridden floors.
Lights off, faucet drips.
Please Please Please
In neat little rows,
They sit.
Tiffani Hollis: I have been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder for about a year, but the condition has wreaked havoc on my life for at least the last 15 of my 31 years. I have made ruinous mistakes and am now trying to find my peace in writing and art.
Michael Wilson Barry Seiler Chrissa Sandlin Mary Ocher G David Schwartz Jesse S Hanson Adejoh Momoh Keith Nunes Christopher Barnes Tiffani Hollis