John Pursch

All-Out, Butyl Steerage

Mingle freely at the gala's vapor lock,

clamoring for jutting parlor tricks

and donut boys given over to time travel.

Popping out of the portal in antique gear,

marshaling too much reserve, holding back

when all-out, butyl steerage is called for,

relying on relics long submerged,

our hero plunges headlong

into the enemy's third tour

of dutiful, four-alarm fire,

only to be raked under the shoals

by fedoras and boas of a font

rarely seen in this century.

Such are the verisimilitudes

of warehouse work,

launching clerks and boxboys

into lies of brute, impending regret.

A cavalcade of wanton images,

soupy in its cluttered sawdust protocol,

delivers stringent, hyperbolic missives

at twice the regular clip,

unraveled and scented with lilac.

John Pursch lives in Tucson, Arizona. His poetry has appeared in Breadcrumb Scabs, Calliope Nerve, Camel Saloon, Carcinogenic Poetry, Clockwise Cat, Counterexample Poetics, experiential-experimental-literature, Four and Twenty, Orion headless, Puffin Circus, and vox poetica. You can follow his work at http://twitter.com/johnpursch . 

Christopher Barnes

Ungodly Piggling Anarchists

Foreign Office thinks we're a cut above
not knowing our raison d' etre
is persuasive deniability
they try to pin us down.

Our dynamite's in the diplomat's bag
a slap in the face to pride.
We're heirs to a set-up
that must be snared.
A front-rank flying start.




Christopher Barnes: in 1998 I won a Northern Arts writers award. In July 200 I read at Waterstones bookshop to promote the anthology 'Titles Are Bitches'. Christmas 2001 I debuted at Newcastle's famous Morden Tower doing a reading of my poems. Each year I read for Proudwords lesbian and gay writing festival and I partake in workshops. 2005 saw the publication of my collection LOVEBITES published by Chanticleer Press, 6/1 Jamaica Mews, Edinburgh.

On Saturday 16Th August 2003 I read at the Edinburgh Festival as a Per Verse poet at LGBT Centre, Broughton St.

I also have a BBC web-page www.bbc.co.uk/tyne/gay.2004/05/section_28.shtml and http://www.bbc.co.uk/tyne/videonation/stories/gay_history.shtml (if first site does not work click on SECTION 28 on second site.

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, including a film piece by the artist Predrag Pajdic in which I read my poem On Brenkley St. The event was funded by The Policy, Ethics and Life Sciences Research Institute, Bio-science 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 http://ptag.org.uk/whats_on/gallery/recent_exhbitions.htm

The South Bank Centre in London recorded my poem "The Holiday I Never Had", I can be heard reading it on www.poetrymagazines.org.uk/magazine/record.asp?id=18456

REVIEWS: 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 www.myspace.com/queerbeatsfestival On September 4 2010, I read at the Callander Poetry Weekend hosted by Poetry Scotland.

Michael Tugendhat

Psychosis


Like imprecision, psychosis
is nothing but a botched amputation

where you live amidst the nowhere.
In hidden life

she chews through you
toward incapacitated

momentum.

There is nothing
in the imperfect

but a shade
of something other.

The cuts in your wrist
are just wide enough

for blood to pour through,
palms flush cold

where the knife inserts
in the bow-tie veins

of your wrist, the dog licks
below at the blood pool

you’re knee deep in it now,
that schizophrenic cool.




Michael Tugendhat has been living with bipolar, psychosis, and obsessive compulsive disorder for the last two years. His memoir is due out from Turquoise Morning Press in 2012. This memoir details what life is like with a mental illness. He hopes to educate and inspire. He lives and writes in Philadelphia.