Peter Ciccariello

asemic vicissitude

Peter Ciccariello finds his inspiration in the fields and forests of Northeastern Connecticut.

 

His work explores the fine lines between  image and text, and is in constant inquiry about what is and what is not poetry..

 

Ciccariello's work has appeared in print and online, in amongst other places, Poetry Magazine, Fogged Clarity, Hesa imprint,

Leonardo On-Line, National Gallery of Writing, and will appear soon in the 2013 issue of MAINTENANT 7, A Journal of Contemporary Dad Writing and Art

 

 

 



 

 



the loose hat of the confidence by Jefferson Hansen

the loose hat of the confidence man signifying nothing and everything saying "this is me" and "there is no me, exactly" sits flat on his head like honesty making no effort because it is so true seemingly 

        we can all see 
        into another 
        if we tip 
        at just 
        the right way

                                              all confidence 

                                              tricks 
                                              emanate from
                                              empathy

         a pill smells

         of lavender an herb
         sounds
         of musak

 at a door hat in hand the confidence man goes light and polite asking for what he cannot not receive and giving, oh giving, so much into those gaps where he and you entangle 

we are more 

out of what
we call 
our self 
than in
it

                                        and

                                        like Whitman
                                        we each contain
                                        multi-
                                        tudes

     few actions based

     on principle
     many on
     amenability

sometimes you wear the soft hat and coo and purr your way to a desired soft landing it is part of what we call survival part of what we must celebrate part of what we must guard against

               how many
               selves
               in you
               empathize               
               to gain confidence

                                                    even a samaritan 

                                                    must first
                                                    build confidence

                      the angle 

                      of wind
                      out of a forsaken 
                      alley
                      on the wrong 
                      kind of day

a direct address I didn't need but wanted like I want the burn of whiskey on other wrong days when no faith rises up and the landscape goes flat and threatening

   grandmother worries

   about memory—
   grandson plays
   confidence trick
   talks of forgetting
   what he went for
   when he gets there

                                                  vast con-

                                                  fidence game
                                                 filled with 
                                                 even smaller games
                                                 intricate and unpredictable
                                                 like electrons
                                                 where are they

                  what isn't

                  known only
                  to a degree

                  of certainty

the color of confidence could be orange could be violet beware of magenta and pink others off the spectrum confidence thrives in mixture and our mixed personal humanity—the visible spectrum blinds us to possibility and potential

    ah, but don't

    you wish don't

    you long

    for clarity

                                       an international

                                       crisis when Yo-Yo
                                       Ma plays
                                       around broken string —
                                       who's been 
                                       doing that 
                                       for centuries

    saloon piano

    sticking key
    better play the blues
    the crowd demands
    anyway

the confidence woman tries out one voice then another slips and slides her perception of audience until she modulates just right in history we are the people most threatened by confidence

                the science

                of the focus
                group

                                                 the moment

                                                 you're taken
                                                 glides by
                                                 without
                                                 urgency

      oligarchs

      play conflicting
      confidence tricks
      simultaneously
      all day and night
      to immobilize
      a population

when the attempt goes unanswered like decay and dread when all choice becomes somehow closed the way ahead unspeaking and the man comes talking a fine, fine game

                                                  and what if

                                                  that man
                                                  wants good

                          how about he

                          actually does
                          good

     truth itself

     formed by
     the will
     to believe 
     (Wm. James)

    

Jefferson Hansen is the author of the novel …and beefheart saved craig (BlazeVox) and Jazz Forms (Bluer Lion), a selected poems. He is the editor of the Internet arts journal AlteredScale.

Joel Chace

New Sequence 27

New Sequence 28

Joel Chace has published or has forthcoming work in print and electronic magazines such as 6ix, The Tip of the Knife, Counterexample Poetics, OR, Country Music, Infinity's Kitchen, and Jacket. He has published more than a dozen print and electronic collections, most recently Sharpsburg, from Cy Gist Press, Blake's Tree, from Blue & Yellow Dog Press, Whole Cloth, from Avantacular Press and Red Power, from Quarter After Press.

Martha Deed

Dead Bird

1

The feathers are long and thick and black
and ‒ well ‒ feathery
and the body is small for the length
of the feathers
a dead creature
or perhaps what we see
is only part of the story

2

the image is not always
worth a thousand words
possibly looks can deceive
will rule this day

3

how much truth
can you find
wearing pajamas
at noon

4

tuft of feather
half buried
five feet from the rest
conclusion:
hit in flight

5

no feet
no head
what eats
pig feet
boar's head
enjoys tiny remnants
on its plate

6

no

7

we have made
a tentative finding
of the bird's i.d.
and cause of death
and we
will release our findings
once next of kin
have been notified

8

Intelligence reports the predator
was given safe haven and even fed
in private trees

We are in delicate negotiations
regarding the felling of these trees
in order to protect our flying allies
we are keeping our options
open ‒ ground action remains
a possibility when our allies
choose to harbor terrorists
in their branches

9

we can tell you
this bird was not killed by a drone
this bird was not on our no fly list
this bird was killed by a bird
doing its thing
being a bird

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Martha Deed recently completed a mixed-genre book of poetry and primary documents to reconstruct her daughter, Millie Niss's death in a community hospital, The Last Collaboration (Furtherfield, 2012) and editing Millie's poetry collection, City Bird (Blazevox, 2010).  She has five previous chapbooks: The Lost Shoe, The November 2010 Project, and This is Visual Poetry all from Dan Waber's imprints, 65 x 65 (small chapbook project), and #9 (Furniture Press).  Her poems have been published in Shampoo, Moria, Edifice Wrecked, CLWN WR, Big Bridge, On Barcelona, and many others. Her website: www.sporkworld.org/Deed

 

Philip Meersman

W(ar)T

Story, Painting, Picture, Book.

History, Amnesy

Concentration, Camouflage, Foxholes, Preemptive Strike

Blitzkrieg, Shoot-and-scoot, Run n' Gun,

Ambush, Skirmish

Scorched Earth, Booby Trap, Minefield

 

Smurfs in, Smurfs out

Declaration, Headline News

Torture, Slaughter, Plunder, Rape

 

 

Story, Painting, Picture, Book.

History, Amnesy

 

 

 

 

 

Philip Meersman ♂
°1971
Writes in NL, EN, FR, DE, ES & multilingual forms
Creates impro, sound & poetry installations & performances using current affairs, socio-political & environmental issues in BE, NL, FR, IT, AT, BG, MK, RO, IL, AR, EE,…
Translated in AR, BG, EE, EN, ES, FR, IT, IW, JP, MK, RO, RU & ZH
Appointed member of the International Academy of Zaum and president of their Belgian branch
Published internationally in magazines, (festival) anthologies, & on the www
Co-founder of DAstrugistenDA, artiestencollectief JA!, BruSlam, ESPN & TnXR-productions
Coordinator of the Belgian and European Championships Poetry Slam

Teaching poetry & performance + consultant & scout for poetry programming
Words are weapons & images of a(n un) certain meaning

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ann Neuser Lederer

Hover of Nets All Over

Flared, bitten banners

Fibers

whose mouths mouth syllables
trying to lip-read loosely in the failing light

In fibrous, padded wind tunnels

    fingers finger the plasticy bas-reliefs,

descending towards uncertain ranges

                               towards sudden static

                                                         tented
copters, which ought to paint arrows

All Deserts Color Coded

blues of their densities clotted,

yellows indelible

        shadows concentric
circles outbound to the west

Ann Neuser Lederer was born in Ohio and has also lived and worked in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Kentucky as a Registered Nurse. Prior to nursing she studied art and earned degrees in Anthropology. Her nonfiction and poetry appear in online and print journals; anthologies such as Bedside Guide, A Call To Nursing,  The Country Doctor Revisited, and Best of the Net; and in her chapbooks Approaching Freeze, The Undifferentiated, and Weaning the Babies.

 

 

Joel Chace

New Sequence 24

New Sequence 25

New Sequence 26

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joel Chace has published or has forthcoming work in print and electronic magazines such as 6ix, The Tip of the Knife, Counterexample Poetics, OR, Country Music, Infinity's Kitchen, and Jacket. He has published more than a dozen print and electronic collections, most recently Sharpsburg, from Cy Gist Press, Blake's Tree, from Blue & Yellow Dog Press, Whole Cloth, from Avantacular Press and Red Power, from Quarter After Press.

 

Unorthodox Carpenters, Unorthodox Plumbers by Jefferson Hansen

                                     for my parents, who built the house I grew up in

Forgetting the hum and buzz of the fan. Ignoring the freezer kicking in. Radio news in the background—horserace politics, murders, stories about birdwatchers—drops to the floor before touching ears.

A Harley howling its way down the alley is not just a Harley howling its way down the alley. A morning glory opening to the dawning sun is not just a morning glory dawning. A cockeyed bookshelf is not simply a cockeyed bookshelf, nor is a level table merely a level table.

A table echoes: leaning forward from the green plastic chair to make my first pb & j sandwich over that white table on Columbia Avenue. Yet this table is tan, and was never on Columbia. A morning glory dawns into a bundle of symbols about awakening. I warm to them, however unjustified by the bare molecules. And something cockeyed creates nervousness, even if fully supported.

Worlds coalesce: a surface to place the tape measure, the vacuum in the closet relative to these crumbs on the carpet, a male voice droning out of the radio, slight breeze from the fan, pushing button to turn on vacuum, it sucks and howls, dancing with my arm, my feet, circling the crumbs, knee first aching (why did I hike yesterday?), then ignored.

Hesitancy. Approximation. Guesswork.

We are all unorthodox carpenters, except for carpenters, who are unorthodox plumbers.

 

 

Jefferson Hansen is the author of the novel …and beefheart saved craig (BlazeVox) and Jazz Forms (Bluer Lion), a selected poems. He is the editor of the Internet arts journal AlteredScale.

Philip Meersman

Office Suite

I power pointed death

bulleting the deceased

adding graphics ‘n sound

deconstructing war

no longer an army

no longer an arm

but pieces

of chess

of flesh

scattered over the screen

squashed onto the retina

Bold, Underlined and Italic

Save changes or discard?

 

 

 

 

 

Philip Meersman ♂
°1971
Writes in NL, EN, FR, DE, ES & multilingual forms
Creates impro, sound & poetry installations & performances using current affairs, socio-political & environmental issues in BE, NL, FR, IT, AT, BG, MK, RO, IL, AR, EE,…
Translated in AR, BG, EE, EN, ES, FR, IT, IW, JP, MK, RO, RU & ZH
Appointed member of the International Academy of Zaum and president of their Belgian branch
Published internationally in magazines, (festival) anthologies, & on the www
Co-founder of DAstrugistenDA, artiestencollectief JA!, BruSlam, ESPN & TnXR-productions
Coordinator of the Belgian and European Championships Poetry Slam

Teaching poetry & performance + consultant & scout for poetry programming
Words are weapons & images of a(n un) certain meaning

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Susan Lewis

My Life in Sheets

1.

blank or

           betwixt & between

the leafing,

            paged –

the flesh rolled &

                        soothing,

eyes nosing over

           lipped seam

(being one & the

            sane)

lapping,

cottoned to

your hybrid

            flash—

 

2.

elastic hug well-

-nigh marsupial,

bound & gagged

(naught admonished)

missing your

own semblance

trembling like any

or anon

what with words withered

by your frayed nerve-

-slaughtered expectation

piling mercy on the lost

last candied calves

stalking

strapped &

balanced

in their come-hither

wrappers,

stranded & straddled

by your standard model,

misconstrued &

moribund,

mould’ring in

chat chat chat

clatt’ring lost teeth
& shut lids

& weak progressive
chins

(or else blindly listing

toward another old idea)

Susan Lewis is the author of "How To Be Another" (Cervena Barva Press, forthcoming, 2013), “The Following Message” (White Knuckle Press, 2013), "At Times Your Lines" (Argotist e-books, 2012), "Some Assembly Required" (Dancing Girl Press, 2011), "Commodity Fetishism," winner of the 2009 Cervena Barva Press Chapbook Award, and "Animal Husbandry" (Finishing Line Press, 2008). Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, appears regularly on the Altered Scale Blog, and has been widely published in such journals as Atlanta Review, Berkeley Poetry Review, Boog City, Cimarron Review, Cross Connect, Eclipse, Fact-Simile, Fast Forward, Fourteen Hills, Fugue, The Journal, Kitchen Sink, The Madison Review, Monday Night, The New Orleans Review, On Barcelona, Other Rooms, Otoliths, Pool, Phoebe, Raritan, Right Hand Pointing, Seneca Review, Shadows of the Future, The Argotist Otherstream Anthology, So To Speak, Sycamore Review, Verse (online), and Verse Daily. Her collaborations with composer Jonathan Golove have been recorded and widely performed, and her collaborations with artist Melissa Stern have been exhibited in New York City and Seattle. She is Managing Editor of MadHat Press, MadHat Lit, and MadHat Annual, and occasional guest editor at Altered Scale and Right Hand Pointing.