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.

Anthony Ward

Begrudged



For those who think we’re ‘pleasuring ourselves with sadness’,
Well, maybe we are!

This is the only way we can derive pleasure,
From feeling sad.

Whereas you- you can derive pleasure from just about anything,
While begrudging us what little pleasure we have.




Anthony Ward has been writing in his spare time for a number of years. He derives most of his inspiration from listening to music, especially Blues and Jazz- since it is often the mood which invokes him to set his thoughts to rest. He has been published in a number of literary magazines including South, Word Gumbo, Perspectives, Message in a Bottle, and Blinking Cursor amongst others.

Ariana D. Den Bleyker

Hold On



It’s really something from the past
               when you and I split     up.

Let’s be honest, who doesn’t say too much.
in those odd hours through the fractured, spotted
syl-la-bles falling upward into their mouths.

In this splitting and reforming,
through these pretzel-like graceful movements
propelling us, we levitate
our wanting someone,
our wanting to change.

Swim down, swim into it. Hold onto
the decaying that keeps us alive.




Ariana D. Den Bleyker is a Pittsburgh native currently residing in a small town in New York where she is a wife and mother of two. She is passionate about poetry because it speaks to her, influences her daily life, and encourages her to write while she draws much of her energy from her own life experiences. Her most recent work was featured in The Homestead Review and will be included in the upcoming editions of Stone Highway Review, Burnt Bridge and scissors and spackle.

Felino A. Soriano

Recollections 83


|translation|



as yet: of yet a fragmented wholesome
whole then vehicle to tongue you, listener; I
as operating function, finger twisting
non-verbal meaning: may you feed the I
of my language’s plural? read my
manual upon operating sans transgressional
best?




Felino A. Soriano (b. 1974) is a case manager and advocate for adults with developmental and physical disabilities. In 2010, he was chosen for the Gertrude Stein "rose" prize for creativity in poetry from Wilderness House Literary Review. Philosophical studies collocated with his connection to various idioms of jazz explains motivation for poetic occurrences. For information, including his 45 print and electronic collections of poetry, over 2,800 published poems, interviews, and editorships, please visit his website: www.felinoasoriano.info.

Valentina Cano

Anti-Depressant Waltz


He began to see things in

too many colors.

Spikes of anger that

took shape before him

like taloned domes.

He tried to wring the colors out

in a struggle of limbs.

He tried to make things

clear (glass, pool-water) once again.

They refused to leave.

The colors soaked into his carpet,

dancing in a taunt of scales,

dipping under him,

sliding to the edge of the kitchen tiles

and back again.

He clutched at his head

with hands that swelled

in a nightmare of congealed blood

thick, chunky,

like ripped blood sausages.




Valentina Cano is a student of classical singing who spends whatever free time either writing or reading. Her works have appeared in Exercise Bowler, Blinking Cursor, Theory Train, Magnolia's Press, Cartier Street Press, Berg Gasse 19, Precious Metals and will appear in the upcoming editions A Handful of Dust, The Scarlet Sound, The Adroit Journal, Perceptions Literary Magazine, Welcome to Wherever, The Corner Club Press, Death Rattle, Danse Macabre, Subliminal Interiors, Generations Literary Journal, Super Poetry Highway, Stream Press, Stone Telling and Perhaps I'm Wrong About the World. You can find her here: http://coldbloodedlives.blogspot.com

Kevin Limiti

Going through a maze
A toxic jungle
Headfirst into the weeds
No stopping for water
An array of colors
Strewn across with regrets
Feelings, son, feelings
Says my transcendental father
And I steep myself finally
Like a boulder into mud
And the water cleanses me
Thinking nothing of memories
But holding out for regret
And hating every minute
That I lived in this thicket.



Kevin Limiti has been suffering from Schizoaffective Disorder since he was seventeen years old.

Matthew John Davies

Lamb Licked

again
the small mass
of laboured friendships
has delegated the ersatz faith

the only one
the one that is scrolling
past erstwhile lovers
contemporised
what chance does she have?

the little lamb who
joined society
licked joyfully by envelopes
 


Matthew John Davies' blog is at http://theundersizedshadow.blogspot.com/

Re-launching

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The Editor