Mermaid Relief

by Craig Conley

Mermaids!

by V Smoothe

Seeking My Stars Again

by Elizabeth Kate Switaj

Came down from the trains
Came past trash cans 
                cascading Coke cans
Crawled down through shattered shells
                     with pieces of moon

Spread arms over breakers
    and floated out until I could believe
 stars

 that finally glided towards JFK
but I was shivering
                and pulled my arms back
                    kicked back to shore

I’ll try swimming out again
when more scales have grown between
my legs you ripped apart
                       to better find me

from Magdalene & the Mermaids (Paper Kite Press, 2009)

mermaid_2

by Tristan Waddington

Monster Gardens

by Scott Keeney



Anything but ornamental
we pegged each other
as a memorial
in nine utter parts—

eyebrows raised, lips
held tight, no need,
light heart, to spell
or spill things out.


2

A couple of sphinges
staring at each other
as if to carve an exit
into eternity—

What if Paul Bunyan,
having lost his Babe,
caught a woodsman
by the legs and
ripped him in half?


3

The castle built
on the elephant’s back,
the guide
banging the drum,

the legionnaire passed out
in the elephant’s trunk,
the empty eyes
and missing tusks.


4

Raptorial
yell, centripetal eyes, the moss-
winged dragon climbs
dog and lion
to seize the sky
from the idea of God.


5

Inside the mouth of hell,
that two-toothed Moloch,

the stone tongue forms
a picnic table.

We sit down to eat
the sandwiches we brought,

smile at each other
and our rational ways.


6

The sun is rising.
The nymph must be sleeping.

*

You who have travelled the world
come here and rest in
this bench like a basket
as it sinks into the earth.

*

The rotunda,
the owl.
We enter,
we who.

*

Come back when the sun is sleeping.
You know she won’t be there.


7

A mermaid with a shoe on her head—
we weren’t supposed to stare?—
with wings like sugar cookies and a tail
that slipped back into the ocean
some thirty miles away.

Now when we see Neptune
with his Age of Aquarius beard
we understand what he is
going through.


8

Cerberus wanders the Sacred Grove
with his detachable heads
that fall to the ground
whenever one barks.

Ceres will stop and put the heads
back on, but Venus—
those snouts
have torn her forearms off.


9

The temple brings boredom
compared to the Graces
embracing their bodies
in the cavern, the source
of all obscure thought.


Scott Keeney’s works have appeared most recently in Columbia Poetry Review, Court Green, Everyday Genius, Gobbet, On Barcelona, Stirring, and UCity Review.

Collaborative Prezi Poem

Help create a collaborative Prezi poem by following this link.

If you want some ideas about what a Prezi poem can do, have a look at these examples.

sea in her head cried the sea

by Bobbi Lurie


yes he fled
sunk himself deep
dead to the blue ends of the divided
dead on a rock
exposing the bone as in the dark knight
the white knight turned dark
for life
for life
does it
red canal of muscular strength slit swiftly
and love so easy to lose
twitching with fear
the ripeness and readiness for death
almost automatic in our souls
knife tip held to our throats
and about human love i say
it is most always
a contradiction
in terms



Bobbi Lurie's fourth poetry collection, "the morphine poems," will be published by Otoliths this summer. She is also the author of  "Grief Suite,"  "Letter from the Lawn" and "The Book I Never Read."

The US Government Responds to Truck

Truck's turn for submersion made waves even before it went underwater. On 26 June, The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, no doubt aware of our direction for the month, put up a page denying that any evidence of mermaids or their kin has ever been found.

What, do you suppose, a belief in mermaids would displace?

Elizabeth Kate Switaj
Oxford
III of July 2012

Secret Brush Strokes

by Marcus Speh

Jungle beans. Arctic 

badgers. Green steaks. 

Following clouds. Tarnished 

vagabonds. Ludicrous 

fingers. Fantastic booleans. 

Waxing lyrically. Must stop. Back 

to basics. Verbs. Nouns. Places. 

Placemats. Cutlery. Action. Plot.

Poop.

I’m a gentle dragon’s fierce egg. 

Not quite clear who I’m going to be 

once I hatch, not even to me.

My heart’s got a spout 

and some red thing 

comes out of it. It 

walks next to me, 

talks reason, makes me 

fall in love.

(Witty writing tends to 

wilt unless it’s Wilde.)

At the harbor, he could

hear the muffled sounds

of a fog horn calling lost 

mermaids and footloose 

lovers by their true names.

Writing at home while rain fingers

sing Chorals on the window sill.

A young man madly in pursuit 

of sound, milking rather than 

playing the keyboard, shouts 

at invisible musical ghosts.

One day a girl almost

destroyed the world by

making a single secret

brush stroke.

Her lids fluttered uncontrollably 

as she struggled to leave 

the cocoon. The butterfly 

catcher put his finger on her 

tiny head and squished it. 

He had no need for fairies.

Stay with us or if you can’t, 

don’t, but then go where we 

can’t see you and if you can’t

do that, then don’t go, please.

MARCUS SPEH is a German writer who lives in Berlin and writes in English. His short fiction has been published in elimae, kill author, PANK and elsewhere. First published in 2009 at Metazen, his work has been nominated for a Micro Award, two Pushcart Prizes, two Best of the Net awards and two Million Writers Awards, and was longlisted for the Paris Literary Prize. Known as a staunch supporter of penguin rights and maitre d' of the legendary DADA venue Kaffe in Katmandu, he blogs in English at marcusspeh.com and in German at marcusspeh.de. MadHat Press will release Marcus' collection of short fiction, Thank You For Your Sperm, later this year.

Truck's July Stretch of Highway

Last week, an intense bout of rain left parts of Belfast under water. A photograph of a man kayaking down the street, a few blocks from where I live, went viral on Twitter (though the water in most parts of town seemed far too swift to breed infection). In another neighborhood, a man used his surfboard to transport trapped neighbors.

But the rain stopped, the queen left town, and the water went back to its usual courses.

This month, Truck is following that water, taking a turn for submersion (and if we're lucky, there will be a bit of subversion along the way too). The theme, interpreted broadly, is mermaids ands sirens. And you can still send submissions to me at ekswitaj@gmail.com; I would especially like to see responses to the work that will be posted in the next few weeks.

Even if you don't want to submit something formally, there will be opportunities for creative collaboration coming up. I hope you'll add to the currents.

Elizabeth Kate Switaj
Belfast
I of July 2012