Murat Nemet-Nejat

mez breeze

Mairead Byrne

Liz Solo

I Will Dance

You will fail

And I will grow wealthy

Your hair will drop out

And I will laugh all day long

Your house will fall into ruins

And I will sunbathe in my garden

Your children will run away and beg to be given to foster families

And I will feed my grand babies crumpets and jam

You will be lonely and friendless and even dogs will avoid your door

And I will flourish and grow flowers

You will choke on your own bloated rage until you pop an artery and keel over

And I will write songs of celebration

You will die and be buried in the dirt where you belong

And I will wear a velvet dress and dance

agnes pratt

my mother has a black eye

they called on the phone

they said there was an accident

they said a bottle of hair conditioner

flew out of someone’s hands

during bath time

and hit her in the eye

they put makeup on it

to try and hide the bruise

but it does no good

the bruise shines through

purple and mean

brown around the edges

my mother is propped up in the bed

her hands are rigid

yet trembling

clasped in front of her

on the royal red bedspread

hands that were once

always working

sketching and making

sculpting and painting

pulling landscapes and faces

on to the blank page

filling emptiness

with secret messages

and flower gardens

and moments captured

in graphite

and watercolour

daily chronicles

in oil and clay

next to the bed

are esther’s lotions

made from newfoundland berries

and essential oils and essences

extracted from native plants

you can smell the forest

the juniper and the moss

the chamomile

it creates a shield

against the cloying stink

of the agnes pratt nursing home

i work rose geranium

and lavender

into her hands

pushing them gently open

her fingers still narrow and fine

her skin

thin as paper

her veins

narrow faded threads

pink and fragile

today her hair is down

she says

when it was being brushed

she looked up

and her mother was there

holding the brush

running it through her hair

i massage the clary sage

onto her forehead

rub her temples

smooth out her worry lines

stroke her cheeks

and wipe the cheap drug store makeup

from underneath her eye

apply a cold cloth

she is looking over

into the other world

she is not sure

it is me who is here

but she knows

i am someone to her

someone close

she starts to tell me stories

and her sentences trail off

but i know that the endings

to most of them

will tell of the bad man

who torments her at night

and the woman

who sabotages her meals

and puts glass in her bed

so that she can’t sleep

heart murmur

the edge is in front of me. the edge of the world. whatever lies beyond is enshrouded in a shifting grey mist that shimmers with mysterious glinting light. i can taste salt. sweat dribbles down my back. there is the sound of the cold ocean churning far below.

you and i stood here many times, on the edge of these cliffs. we’d climb up here along the bluffs, after hours spent exploring the length of the beach. a favorite old pass time. i would pick up white beach rocks when they shone among the round grey ones, collecting them as they led me in a meandering path along the shoreline. white rocks for healing. sometimes I sought black rocks to bind my enemies, or coloured ones to amuse the kids, or rocks with fossils or formations that contained magical symbols.

we walked along many other beaches, too - all those summers when we did long tour runs. before you became old overnight. before you gave up. before you were not there anymore. back when we were still fearless. back when the people would come from miles around to see the shows, and when, on our precious time off, we would follow unknown roads to find out where they led.

we discovered many shorelines to wander over those distant summers. there was a beach where big hunks of lime coloured talc had been strewn, out of place on the grey rocks. there was the beach of only red rocks and one of pure white sand and another with small polished ovals of grey and green. we walked the coastline of the island, exploring every nook and cove and bay.

one afternoon we traveled through three rock cove and lourdes and winterhouse to a rarely run road at the edge of black duck brook and we decided to follow it as far as it would go. we travelled for miles along a headland until reaching the end - the bottom of a steep gravel hill.

there we found an abandoned cove where fishermen sometimes lived during the crab season – a few grimy work gloves hung on lines strung between the bowing shacks. rusted out crab boats listed on the grumbling harbour, and we got out of the car and sat on the rotting wharf and smoked. the beach was a pile of jagged maroon shards and you named the place he cove. driving up out of the deep incline, the wheels skidded in the gravel and we couldn’t gain traction. we feared we might have to spend the night in he cove until finally, haltingly, we lurched up and out and made our getaway into an orange-purple sunset.

isle aux morts, the isle of the dead. margaree. foxes roost. st luniere. griquet. englee. great harbor deep. bear cove. savage cove. cape ray. burnt islands. rose blanche. bay d’espoir, bay despair.

we drove past scores of derelict villages and towns, each with its own church and graveyard still standing, defiantly marking the places where generations had come and gone. we walked among the headstones, looking for clues etched there. we visited the ruins of the viking settlers, their reconstructed grass houses lining the plains by the wide ocean. we searched the flat shale beaches for the ancient fossils preserved there and walked together on the rim of the pre-historic seabed.

that night i dreamed i was a great queen, dressed in gold, set upon a high seat and holding a crystal wand. it had been so real that i felt strangely different about myself the next day. it’s a sign, you said. maybe a past life or a vision to decipher. you said you were sure it was significant and i did not doubt that you were right.

when we saw the rainbow we hopped into the car and decided to follow it, to see where it began, or ended, to see what was really at the end of the rainbow. we drove madly, criss-crossing roads, chasing the rainbow for a half an hour. when we finally found the end we drove underneath it and the colours dissipated above our heads. i looked back and thought i could see the rainbow's edge bathing at the lip of the ocean. we got out of the car and tried to see the colours, to touch them, but only the mist caught the light and made our faces glisten. make a wish you said and i closed my eyes and wished for money.

we walked the shore for hours one afternoon and found a hidden beach where all the stones were in the shape of ragged hearts. a lost beach of distorted stone hearts and that day we devised a magic spell to drive out old hurts and dispel bad things. we casually wandered to our own separate places and i picked up a stone and hurled it into the water. then another and another, eventually filling a dozen knurled rocks with my aches and casting them away. down the beach i could see that you were doing the same.

on the way back up the path to the road a bright red rock stood out in the mud. i picked it up – a small and perfectly heart-shaped stone, symmetrical and light. it had been flung up from the beach away from its misshapen relations. i washed the dirt off in a puddle and it grew soft and pink as the water evaporated from the surface. that one is for you to keep, you said, and i put it in my pocket.

now i am standing in the clouds. seagulls bawl and plunge into the haze, their voices rising in long melancholic wails. i am holding the perfect pink heart and warming it between my hands. I breathe on it and the surface blushes slightly and i know that it was never for me to keep. no thing is for keeping. i open my hands and throw the stone up into the glittery mist and watch it arc and fall out of sight.

Maria Damon

 Femmage to Creeley

Chris Funkhouser 

VORTEX III or IV (IV)

HAZE [HAS A] RODE [DUO REDO] SWEAR [SWEET SWEEP] THERE [OTHER ETHER] OUT [OUTLAW OUTLET] OAK [BOOK LOOK TOOK COOK HOOK NOOK ROOK KOOK]

NATTY [NAZI NATION NATIVE ANTE] OPAL [ORAL OVAL ANAL TONAL ZONAL] WHEAT [WEAR WEAN WENT WIT] HERS NERVY COMO [CAME DEMO] UNTO [UNTHAW UNITY] OLLY

PESTO [POETS MIST MAST MOST MUST] MONK [MOON] BE [EBB]

ZAP [ZIP] ARIZONA

SUISSE [SOUSES] WAR REND [REAM] ORE SHUN TERM [TARDY TREND] ONCE RIBBON [ROB] MOOR OBESE [OBO OOZE ORB] RISK [IRKS ARKS RASP RUSH RISE] HIGH [THIGH]

NORTH MOTTO [MOTOR MATE] NEWS TERN CHESS [CHEST CHEFS CHEW] TREE [TIRE TORE TERSE] ASTER [ASSET HASTE] RANCH [RICH INCH] ESTE RUES [ROWS] MONT GEOMETRY

EASTER [EASE] RUMOR [MOM] NO [INTO] MERRY [MERCY MARRY] UPPER BUCKS [BRICKS]

PETS [PRESTO] CONFAB [MONGER MONKEY]

WANT [WENT WIND] REST [ERRS] ROMP [FORM OR] ETCH [ARCH BATCH CATCH LATCH MATCH PATCH] INFER [INNER] FACT {FEST FELT FETCH FEAT] FROM LATE TUESDAY DARN [DAWN DEN DENY] LIGHT [MIGHT RIGHT FIGHT SIGHT] THROUGH

WED [WAND WIND] SEDAN [SAD SEA SODA] AFT [DAFT RAFT YET YURT] ERGO [ENRON] ON

THIS HAS A [HAZEL] ROD [ROUT ROE] SWEAT [SEW] THEIR {THE THREW] OUTLAY OKAY [HOOKY COOKIE] SOAR [SORT STORY SORE SPOOR SCORE] NORTH [NOT NORM] HORN [HERON HERB] NEW

JEERS [JARS JETS] YON THAW [RAH] SENT [SET STUN] EWE [WEE] RYES [ROSY RESIN RELY] EAST CENT REAL [RAIL RAP RALLY RAN]

PEN SYLVAN [SLY] ANIMA [ASIA] NOTRE HEARS [HEATS HEAD] TEEN [THEN] NOSY [SLY] VAIN [VINE VANISH] AND [SAND HAND BAND] SOOT [SCOUT SHOUT SNOUT SPOUT STOUT SOUGHT] HEALS [HEWS] TEN NAYS VENIAL

DAY ON ETHICS SIFT [SOFT SHAFT SALT SAFE DAFT] RENO OMEN DONE [DOWN] TIGHT

HAZARD OUST [OPUS OUTS OURS] EARTH [EAT EACH DEATH OATH] ERIS NOTE EXPECT [PECK SPECK] TEA [TIDE TOAD TREAD] THIS [THIN TIE TETHER] SLIME [TIME STAMEN]

DAYS [DEIST DAISY] WORTH [WITH WOOT] ROUGE [ROUGH RUG] HOSE [SHED EVE] ENTER [INTO NET END] ESSAY THRU [MYTH] BOUGH [OUCH OUGHT] SEND [SOUND SUN SUNG] AYE

PLEA SELL [SAIL SELF SOIL] STEM [STUN STERN] TONE [TOO] AWE [AWAKE AWARE] ACHE [BATHE] READ [ROAD RID] DOOR [YOUR BOOR ION POOR] GOT [GOO GO TO GROTTO] WET [WHAT] HERD [HERO] OVEN THE

INTEND [INTENT INTERN] RENT FORM OREO FOR [NORM] MATE [MAT] NAB [ONE OAF] OUTS [OUST] HEFT [HOOF] LOW [ALLOW PLOW BLOW FLOW GLOW] NIGH [INCH] AWARDS

WANT [WIN WING WINK] REST ROMP [OMS OR ARM] ITCH [WATCH]

SPOTTED [SPUTTER SPATE] RIND [RING RIFF] ROAM TIN STAT EMEND [EVENT CEMENT MEANT MEET]

SPORT [SPOTS] ERA [ERECT] DIVA [TRIVIA] TON IS NO [ICON SIN] TEXT [TAX TAP TIP TOP TARP] EKE [ACTED EXCITE] DATA [DATE DRAT DITTO DITTY WATT] HITS [HOST HEIST HOIST HISS HATS] TIME [ICE IRE LIME]

$$


Listen:

https://soundcloud.com/ctfunk/vortext-iii-or-iv-114-114

Joel Weishaus

Your Name, This Net
for Alan Sondheim

Traced against the empty, traced through the header, it's a waste of the essence, of the body of canons.

Everywhere is artificial,
a waste of depth,
nothing works in depth.

Wrap, don't desire (Spinoza). Quantum tunnels are ghosts crossing over to the Other.

Outside my window, nothing is named.
I look through and know there
were lovers in those ashes,

traced in memories that hold the door open.

I cry over the threshold, "It’s all empty!"

Dark angels fly past wrapped in bodies of glass.

Look for your name in the depth,
in the darkness, in the rapture
of nothingness.

-Joel Weishaus

V Manuscript

Jon Woodson

The Battle of the Archers

you don’t even stand up in your day,

you shift your stance, winding from

foot to foot, making yourself low

and slight, trying to slip around what

they loose at you, the spare darts they

will allow, their recompense. some

pull takes away the weakness of the eye.

they are dancing in the line of the ridge

with the orb of the sun at their backs.

they are taunting with their songs and

twanging with their taut bowstrings.

we know them, they are our cousins

or something more distant. more distant

now. they have teeth on their darts—

white and sharp. not really teeth—

more like voices with dangerous words,

pretty things that put you in pain

if you listen. there is no magic, only

that string of gut that takes on the strength

of the bow. they will not stand there long.

they are thirsty. they are tired. they want.

they want to drive at us and to know our flocks.

you don’t stand up in your day. you crouch

and you bend so that you appear

to be dancing if anyone is fooled

by appearances, but you are making

yourself into a bird or a sidewinder,

anything but a friend or a brother.

nothing is more kindly than a dead man,

he gives you everything that he has.

he smiles as he lies down to surrender

his flocks, his stream of water,

his weapons, his magic up under the cliff.

you don’t even stand up in your day

unless you want to lie down

in that shadow and never stop giving things away.

John Rawls at Hiroshima

Hiroshima by moonlight was clinical and lunar

and secure enough, if not civilized.

Subsequent heavy rainfall, then persistent showers,

had washed away some of the residual radioactivity.

Records indicate that troops occasionally

patrolled the destroyed area of the city.

Everyone else is better off than they would have been

under some lengthier form of campaign.

Arriving autonomously by jeep, the ignorant vehicle

driven by autonomous driver, universal

implications were at rare intervals lopsided in the landscape;

little was rational or reasonable.

The approximate perimeters of total destruction from blast and fire,

like everything showing, demanded an equal indifference.

Everyone else is better off than they would have been

under some other regime of fairness and flame.

There were contours of long-term danger and shame

that suggested we keep this field of imperfection

to sit in while making our pitiless picks in the future.

Death makes us uncomfortable, desolation

makes us want to rebuild, to veil

what abstraction reveals in the muster of frays.

Everyone else is better off than they would have been

under some other plan of disintegration.

The mistake is plain. The bare-persons are gone,

and they ought to be here,

but not in the way that they are shadowed now.

The jeep idles, the intractable night is full of potential.

He will drive off and defend the good,

placing life between the pillars of slavery and the atom.

Everyone else is better off than they would have been

under some other average utilitarianism.

[Harvard University professor John Rawls, a leading figure in moral and political philosophy, was the author of The Theory of Justice.]

Aviation in August

Over the bay the C 130 banked like an osprey
coming down for a strike
at the surface. The tide was ambiguous, and I thought
of some Frost—neither out far nor in deep: research
supports the idea that most thinking 
is a recombination of previous thoughts. No troops
birthed from the slow body, no spiders on wind-threads,
no dandelion fluff. Just flight practice. Around. Around.The perfectionist OCD of war. No waves today, 
and pebbles underfoot. Then an apache gunship lines along 
obsessively, and from my companion
I get a monologue on the logic of wanting
to be a door gunner. To be able to have the danger
in your wallet like a credit card with 
some fantastic limit—if you don’t get
shot out of the sky. It’s a dead language going across
the sky and meaning nothing here “at home,”
the only grammar apparent, a young girl stuffing 
an overdetermind breast into the flimsy chute.

Why I Am Not on the Money

I have heard that Oprah Winfrey

is on the kwacha in Malawi

I have heard that Madonna

is on the pula in Botswana

I have heard that Kanye West

is on the dirham in the Emirates

I have heard that Paul Anka

is on the rupee in Sri Lanka

I have heard that Cher

is on the franc in Niger

I have heard that George Clooney

is on the franc in Djibouti

I have heard that Justin Bieber

is on the franc in French Polynesia

I have heard that Beyonce

is on the krone in Norway

I have heard that Barak Obama

is on the florin in Suriname

I have heard that Mick Jagger

is on the franc in Madagascar

I have heard that Scarlet Johansen

is on the manx in the isle of Man

I have heard that Tiger Woods

is on the dollar in the Solomon Islands

I have heard that Steven Spielberg

is on the som in Kyrgzstan

I have heard that John Bon Jovi

is on the lira in the Holy See

I have heard that Lady Gaga

is on the pa’anga in Tonga

I have heard that Leonardo DiCaprio

is on the loti in Lesotho

I have heard that Angelina Jolie

is on the lira in Italy

Why I Am Not an Ice Dancer

The things that I reject are the things that define me.

I know the popular wisdom says

that we should be shaped by what we embrace,

but they just say that to get the word embrace

into the room. I am not going to go around

embracing anything. In fact, if I go around

it will be because the world is undetectably circulating

and I am fixed up so that I go around

even though I am lying in my bed perfectly still

trying to wait until the vertigo passes.

The part that disturbs me is the habit

the ice dancers have of going in reverse

before they do something colossal. Who wants

to back up to the crisis, or play turn about

with the moment of truth? Like the sky divers,

I want to go at things head first, joining

hands with the other Icaruses and then lighting

those flares, so that we make trails kiting

the whole way down. All the ice dancers make

are ugly scratches on the ice, by the way.

So, there’s another heartfelt demerit set

in my black book of estimations. Now ballet

fakes weightlessness with feathery clothes

and fragile women on their toes, but truly

falling weightlessly to the ground

is pure and simple and realistic. Which reminds

me of the sentimentality of water ballet—

half in, half out, need I say more? Buy hey,

I know it’s hard. I know it sounds like sour grapes.

Ice dancing. It’s just that it’s philosophically inadequate.

Why I Am Not a Woman

I am not a woman because

I am a massive brooding humpback

of testosterone ice hurtling

out of intergalactic insolence

zooming toward collision

with the Earth on a trail of vodka

and optimism at twenty

or thirty times the speed

of child support.

All the way down the path

of my descent,

I knew my destiny.

All the way along the curve

of my trajectory

I had a sense of my

ultimate purpose.

But then I was confronted

and I had to stand up

before the thermal

intake window of forasmuch.

When I couldn’t make up

my mind, I slapped a stack

of credit cards down on the counter

and requested all three

moral bypass operations.

Why I Am Quiet and Keep to Myself

Nikola Tesla was quiet and kept to himself
Walt Whitman was quiet and kept to himself
John Lennon was quiet and kept to himself
Ralph Waldo Emerson was quiet and kept to himself
Thomas Edison was quiet and kept to himself
Karl Marx was quiet and kept to himself
Mikhail Kalashnikov was quiet and kept to himself
J. Robert Oppenheimer was quiet and kept to himself
Louis-Ferdinand Céline was quiet and kept to himself
Charles Baudelaire was quiet and kept to himself
Vincent Willem van Gogh was quiet and kept to himself
Alexander Fleming was quiet and kept to himself
Ray Bradbury was quiet and kept to himself
James Baldwin was quiet and kept to himself
Ramana Maharshi was quiet and kept to himself
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was quiet and kept to himself
Wernher von Braun was quiet and kept to himself
Walt Disney was quiet and kept to himself
Samuel Clemens was quiet and kept to himself
Daniel Boone was quiet and kept to himself
Roger Williams was quiet and kept to himself
Joshua Slocum was quiet and kept to himself
David Livingstone was quiet and kept to himself