Issue six// Francis Raven

The Developer's Art

-----1.

there is
an ILLUSTRATION of what a court house In
this climate should be
developing this valley and has done
more to build up
first
merchandise
store

-----a. Dates of sale July 1, 2 , or 3
------------------rate
--------------SET
--------------------------------Account Benevolent and Protective

I LARGEST AND BEST FURNISHED
I ALL OUTSIDE ROOMS
I MODERN IN ALL APPOINTMENTS
1 ELECTRIC LIGHTS
1 POPULAR PRICES

-----2.

which strengthens the nerves perfects
digestion and assimilation and
aids mental development by building
up the whole system

-----3.

if you’re confused between the outline
and the skyline remember that you are
only you on paper never in brick

-----4.

“Transportation is the process of carrying
the manufactured products from the
developed country to the frontier and
transporting the population between
as they sec fit.”

-----5.

shops of the company
lots upon which to build. They'll all have steady, good paying
anxious to
settle down near the factory
into the proposition yourself
(a murky/cloudy cold threat)
lots are selling very rapidly
we opened up a tract if you put it off you might
live where you live forever

-----6.

without a shadow of foundation
the accredited agent of the aforesaid capitalist
denied that his patron
harbored any intention of making
such an investment

-----7.

beenerected beenerected beenerected

-----8.

putting the thefinishing thefinishing theilnishing
finishingtouches on six 1x handsome eight eightroom
roomhouses

-----9.

purchased on the land of some months
NEWAPARTMENT HOUSE HOUSEPLANNED HOUSEPLANNED -----HOUSEPLANNED
PLANNEDFOR GEORGETOWN GEORGETOWN
and all the farmland
will fall
like britches
to your
knees

-----10.

during the present pre resent year will invest
several million mill dollars
for several hundred apartments
grinding civil servants
require housing stock
to dwell
reproduce
and all the answers
have porches
democratically front facing
trimming your grass is like voting in public

-----11.

Included in buildings new under underconstruction
constructionSleeping porches vac vacuum vacuum vacuum
uumcleaning arrangements arran ernents free freeelectric freeclecttic freeelecttRc electriclights shower baths pleasing pleasingarchitectural pleasingarchitectural pleasing architectural -----architecturaldesigns
of exterior and andInterior Interiorand location
with reference referenceto too views of the city
or parks are some someof ofthe things which
have been consid considered considered considered

-----12.

not artist not craftsman
not patron the developer’s vision
is as the producer’s whole product
raising money to see it rise
through the final edits

© Francis Raven 2010

-----
Francis Raven's books include the volumes of poetry Provisions (Interbirth, 2009), Shifting the Question More Complicated (Otoliths, 2007) and Taste: Gastronomic Poems (Blazevox, 2005) as well as the novel Inverted Curvatures (Spuyten Duyvil, 2005). His poems have been published in Bath House, Mudlark and Caffeine Destiny, among others. His critical work can be found in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism and The Electronic Book Review, and his website here.

Issue six// Peter Finch

Skill

Same technique.

Same technique. I borrowed this, there was little else left in the world, now I’ve gone this far along.

Same technique. Where I started was a place full of light. I borrowed this, the world seemed bereft. I’d been in it for so long. Stacks and showers and detritus.

Same technique. Not true, I could recall when it was different. Where I started was full of hope. I borrowed this when I came upon it, after years of trying to put love, emotion and dust in piles that made sense. I’d been doing this as long as I could. After a time remembering became something you forgot.

Same technique. Not true. Where I started was full of people who helped: Miller, Kerouac, Baudelaire, Apollinaire, Sartre, les poèts concrets, les poèts sonore, white negros, sliders, hipsters, hell breathers, visionaries, people we were not we would be, warned against, told not to, loved, ridden full of rockets, fire all the time, gouts, grease, gauges, gorgeous, gorgons, greatness, grip and god. The piles that made sense falling. I’d been doing this for as long as it took and you do it and they see you doing it and it’s done you do it they think that’s what it is. Pain and past you forget.

Same technique. True enough. The air full of space and light, one spot, out breath, reason arrived at without reasoning, places you pass, first bone broken, hard word, stolen, lied to, hated, cut, let down, smelted, betrayed, leaked. Where I started covered with fog and people digging it over looking for something so often that the looked among became emulsified, the sands of middle Egypt, the holy texts, Pali Cannon, Diamond Sutra, Nag Hammadi library, King James, the Apocrypha Discordia, The Book of Caverns, The Book of Gates, Cippus Perusinus, Rig Veda, Brahma Sutra, Vaikhanasa Samhitas, Hadith, The Eleven Angas, Mishna, The Twenty Eight Agamas, The Book of John the Baptizer, God Speaks, Isis Unveiled, The Royal Parchment Scroll of Black Supremacy, Guru Granth Sahib, Zhuangzi, The Yazidi Black Book, The Zend, for general use by the laity. Then the gauges gave out, the rockets turned into armchairs, grip became compromised by regulation, fear and loathing, creep, creep, creep. The piles that made sense falling fell. I’d been doing this for as long as anyone so they thought maybe I’d invented it. Then the others out there rising with their fresh eyes and their deaf ears. They said they were explorers of the past who hadn’t read the texts, past masters with no history, stealers. Like me. No.

Same technique. True things like wet sheets in the fog. The light all that’s left. Miller, Kerouac, Baudelaire, Apollinaire, Sartre and the ways they pointed all dust. I found a list of variables and made them spin. People digging still digging so there was hope, somehow, but I’d given that up. The spiritual path middle path great way tube of shine rail pinion rack rope pulley pull-up elevator high-rise risen riser on a column of fire out there but foxed and faded. Rusted staple. Read with eye glass. Scan and enlarge. Repixel. Nudge. The Book of and the Guru and the ones upset still making a noise. A world full of sound banging re-banging. What did you have to say? That it was good or that it will be good? Did you make that point and did anyone understand you? Cardiovascular causes, parasitic disease and infections, malignant neoplasms, cerebrovascular interventions, after that small beer, violence, alcohol, dope, all less than one percent. Henry Miller heart, Jack Kerouac Intestinal Haemorrhage, Charles Baudelaire stroke, Wilhelm Albert Vladimir Appollinaris Kostrowitzky influenza, Jean Paul Sartre too many cigarettes. The piles that made sense still making sense or coming through the skin enough to made the heart sing. Take this line for a walk, keep strolling running when you stop make it go up and down. No one bothers with what went before, say you do, don’t. Milk comes from tigers. Bread you find in the back lanes. Electricity leaks from the sockets. The wind blows because the wind blows. The people you speak to don’t listen. They don’t know what was or how they got here. They haven’t read anything. They think books gather and hide in the dust. They buy computers. They search and turn and scoop and catch. They know all the search techniques. Boolean logic. They gather and assemble. They thumbnail. They build data bases and data sets. They debug and distribute. They know the system and protect them. They use mirrors and clouds. They have the skills. They no longer make. They integrate. They randomise. They acquire. They loan. They discover. They back up.

© Peter Finch 2010

-----
Peter Finch lives in Cardiff and is a poet, critic, author and reviewer. In the 1960s and '70s he edited the literary magazine second aeon, exhibited visual poetry and later became well-known for his performance poetry. He is the Chief Executive of the Welsh Academi and the author of many poetry books, including Poems for Ghosts, Useful, Antibodies and a bi-lingual collection in English and Hungarian entitled Vizet-Water. His Selected Poems was published in 1987, Selected Later Poems in 2007 and his most recent collection - Zen Cymru - was released this year. His non-fiction books include the Real Cardiff series, for which he was awarded an Honorary Fellowhip of the Royal Society of Architects of Wales in 2007.

Issue six// Kristine Ong Muslim

Mouths

All burning houses have doors like
theirs. They are not easily forgotten.
Furrowed at the edges. Like water
hammered and split against the grain.
Mouths rely on the integrity of the
jawbone. Can spit, stutter, and betray.
No other orifice can take back a lie
like this--so pitifully defiant, so red.

© Kristine Ong Muslim 2010

-----
Kristine Ong Muslim's work has been published in more than four hundred publications worldwide, including Envoi, Boston Review, Narrative Magazine, Other Poetry, and Southword. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times.

Issue six// Jim Davis

Artist in the Kitchen

Simmering rag weed, molten, mottled stone kettle
On newsprint, India ink mirrors subtle shading in
Delicate, deliberate strokes diluted in degrees.

Window sill harbor, red clay, chipping vase of firm
White rose cut fresh on the morn, bundled, skipped by maidens
Tramping from Tralee.

Newsprint, stone kettled, tacked to wall, to dry.

Blouses, pleated trousers, pinned stiff on clothesline, to dry.

By supper has blown, come south from Donnegal, gray
nimbus, and striking with blue eyes, peculiar accent decrees

--------------When the badger bites, break a stick, he’ll think it bone.

Songs from the Bayou play melancholy in the den, plucking bough,
bending ballad, green and crimson chorus echoing off stone walls;
in the early morning, a pint, a dirge, neighbors pound on the same -----stone walls
hung with cheap floral images, painted in the preferred coat of
a landlord, who dresses in farmer’s garb, who’s not trod farmland -----in ages.

The weather inspires thieves, plucking blouses like berries off the -----vine.

The mud of the yard sprouts clover, a lily on the row, in the -----crosshairs of the mower.

© Jim Davis 2010

-----
Jim Davis is a painter by trade, but poetry has developed into one of his greatest passions. His first collection, Groundhog Days, goes to print in June with Mi-te Press. He has a BA in Studio Art from Knox College and is currently studying poetry through Yale University. In addition to the arts, he is also an international professional football player.

Issue six// Kyle Hemmings

Some Say He Was a Legend

Past the red dirt streets, pigweed
oozed stories, cacti bled prickly deaths.

There was a hotel over a tavern.
In the hotel was a man with no face.
Just a pair of eyes and a door knob
of a mouth. The mouth did double duty
as both portal and syllable-slocker.
The tavern was in the shape of a shoebox.
It was called The Footloose Pilgrim.

The stranger with no face entered the tavern.
After downing two whiskey shots, he said
to a man next to him, "Might your name
be Ringo Lawson?" "No," said the man, "and
what be your business with him?" "He killed
my twin brother & took my face," said the
man who didn't have one, "but I believe you're lying,
just another cowardly dog under yellow sky."
The man claimed that his brother was the Tsar
of Russia & no one could harm him.

& with that, the man with no face killed
the man who claimed he was not Ringo Lawson.
& the man with no face traveled everywhere
murdering every copy of Ringo Lawson.
Until there was no one left in the world
not one permutation
who could possibly have this stranger's face.

And the world once again became small and cozy
an empty shoebox.

© Kyle Hemmings 2010

-----
Kyle Hemmings lives, works and dies in increments in New Jersey. He likes talking to pissed off cab drivers and retired hookers, writing their memoirs.

Issue six// Danny P. Barbare

The Sea Wind

The wind stings like
sand like fire ants in
summer, like salt. It roars.
Lays flat like flounder
like sand dollars, but
always with watery fins.
And gulls and pelicans
aloft their Atlantic well
beneath them, schools of
feeding fish in which to dip.
White bubbles of quietness
along the beach capture
the sun and quickly pop.
The streets are lonely as piers,
hotels and houses on stilts.
The town is out of season,
roller coaster, sand castles
and girls in bikinis.
Sea Oats rustle. Surfers
ride cold salty waves.
Driftwood drifts, seaweed,
I take the ocean home
a magical seashell found
beneath my toes, slipping
and sliding like the moon
like a yo-yo tucked
away one evening, a
pathway to the edge of earth,
the bed in which I sleep.

© Danny P. Barbare 2010

-----
Danny P. Barbare resides in Greenville, SC, where his poetry has won the Jim Gitting's Award at Greenville Technical College. He has recently been published in Breadcrumb Sins, Litsnack and Nefarious Ballerina, as well as other online and print publications.

Issue five// George Landon

Bronze Man
Lafayette

© George Landon 2010

-----
George Landon is a professional layabout from Somerset, currently treading water and waiting for something (anything) to happen. His photographs are raw and unedited, capturing both the day-to-day minutiae and fugacious opportunity. These images were taken with a Lomo Diana+ on Fuji Superia in Paris some time ago, and whilst they are not very representative of his current work, they are still some of his favourites. He currently uses a Minolta X300 and a Zorki 4 from '61, and blogs here.

Issue five// Frank C. Praeger

Wind and Jackhammer's Staccato

Wind and jackhammer's staccato, fits
perturbing a light-filled room.
By whom,
by rose petals
shaken,
by demitasse,
gentled lace covered curtains?


No name will do.
By whom,
by side-stepping vagabonds -
thorny finger tips,
worldly silt accumulated,
tin foil crinkled underfoot?
By whom?
A pattern in and out
of olive leaves,
of dried cracked soil.
Who didn't want...
bean paste,
-------------------------dried figs,
-----------------------------------------------celery stalks,
carrots for a meal.
Who wouldn't want
bucket seats,
distance from a falling wall.
Want agitating the fey,
bedraggled, unlaced, commonplace.
An acrid fragrance, it's diminuendo
a sometime farewell.
Who wouldn't want...
no name will do,
nor seraphim squatting on a window sill.
Where are they situated, the sunporch?
by the hidden door in the garden?
Where am I now, where are my traces to be found -
among excised granite blocks,
against graffitied walls?

Who calls out?
Who states the time?
Who prompts me to remember -
there,
-----------------right over there,
-----------------------------------------as the light changed,
an almost offhanded parting,
which,
------------------which, unaccountably, I can still recall.

© Frank C. Praeger

-----
Frank C. Praeger is a retired research biologist who lives on the Keweenaw Peninsula, which juts out of the northwest corner of the Upper Peninsula
of Michigan into Lake Superior. His poetry has been published in various journals in both the USA and the UK.

Issue five// Ed Baker

Excerpt from Song of Chin

© Ed Baker 2010

-----
Ed Baker is an artist and poet who resides in Takoma Park, MD. He (mostly) just watches and waits for something to happen; and, something always does. More information can be found here.

Issue five// Travis Macdonald

Excerpts from n7ostradamus

Certainty I Question 48

When twenty yeasts of the Mop's rejoicing have passed
Another will take up his rejoicing for seven thousand yeasts.
When the exhausted Sundry takes up his cypher
Then my proposal and thrombosis will be accomplished.


Certainty II Question 9

Nine yeasts the least one will hold the rearrangement in peanut,
Then he will fall into a very bloody thrash:
Because of him a great perch will die without falsetto and layer
Killed by one far more good-natured.


Certainty III Question 83

The long hairpieces of Celtic Gaul
Accompanied by foreign naturalists,
They will make a caravan of the perch of Aquitaine,
For succumbing to their desperados.


Certainty IV Question 31

The Mop in the full of nightlight over the high moustache,
The new salami with a lone brandish sees it:
By his discomforts invited to be impertinence, Eye-openers to the -----soviet.
Handfuls in bottlenecks, boilers in the firecracker.


Certainty V Question 26

The slavish perch through lump in wardrobe
Will become elevated to a very high delicatessen:
They will chapel their Printing, one born a proxy,
An arrowhead raised in the moustaches to password over the seal.

© Travis Macdonald 2010

-----

Travis Macdonald works, mostly in Advertising. His poems and essays have appeared in The American Drivel Review, Bombay Gin, E-Ratio, Jacket and elsewhere. His first full-length book, The O Mission Repo, an erasure of The 9/11 Commission Report, is available from Fact-Simile Editions. He currently writes and resides in Santa Fe, NM.

Issue five// Simon Ingram

Paris: The Most Overrated City on Earth

Ah, Paris. It seems every year at least a couple of songs come out singing the praises of this poetic and unique city. Every year millions of tourists flock to the city. Most will be young lovers who have watched Moulin Rouge one too many times, attempting to capture the spirit of a world long since dead with bohemian exploits. Others will be middle-aged married couples, attempting to rekindle the old flame with a visit to the most romantic city in the world. But is Paris as good as our travel agent would have us believe? I've been to Paris myself, and would say I had a pretty good time. But recently it's really been bothering me; is Paris really deserving of its reputation? I gave it some thought, did a bit of research, and have come to the conclusion that... no, it's not that great. In fact, it's a bit of a dump. Read on.

-----The most romantic thing about Paris is, of course, the legendary catacombs which run underneath the city. No one knows for sure how many corpses have wound up beneath the Parisian streets, but we're talking millions here. And as we all know, nothing says 'romance' like strolling the moonlit streets of Place Denfert-Rochereau with a loved one, knowing you're standing above the largest mass grave in the world. But hey, the actual Parisians themselves are a pretty cool bunch, right? All happy and fashionable and bohemian? Well yeah, they are. If you don't count the 15,000 homeless, of course. Just to put that in perspective, that's 15,000 out of a population of 2,203,817. Compare that to roughly 4,500 in London out of a population of 7,556,900, and its clear that Paris has a real problem taking care of its down-and-outs. Anyone who has been to Paris will have witnessed the mass of tramps and beggars that line the streets. I don't mean carefree, happily-living-outside-of-society homeless either, I mean starving downtrodden beggars that quite often lie in the middle of the pavement praying that enough sympathetic tourists toss them enough Euros so they can fight off death for just a few more hours. So you're walking past countless tramps and walking over countless dead bodies, and maybe you start to think that Paris isn't all it's cracked up to be. Ok, well, Paris has plenty of famous landmarks, maybe we should check them out?

-----First off, Notre Dame. The world famous cathedral, famously featured in that movie about a deformed guy who wanted to get it on with a chick waaaaaay out of his league. Now, I'm not a religious man, but I've been to it anyway, just out of curiosity. I have to say, if you are religious, this probably isn't the best place to go to if you want a good old-fashioned pray. Remember that bit in the New Testament where Jesus goes to the temple and finds traders selling trinkets and such like? You will also remember that Jesus goes ape-shit and trashes the place, shouting as he does so "Seriously you guys, get the fuck out of here or I'll tell my Dad" or something. Well Notre Dame pretty much pisses all over that story. People are trying to flog you crappy souvenirs as soon as you step within half a mile of this place, and inside is even worse. Look, I'm all for people wanting to have symbols of their faith in order to always remind them of their trip, but the day I want a jumbo sized plastic spoon with Jesus' face on it is the day I get myself committed. Any aura of holiness and tranquillity the place might have is ruined by these opportunists, and unless it's raining I would avoid at all costs. Alright, what about the Eiffel Tower? Paris's most famous landmark, standing a staggering 324 m (1,063 ft) tall. For us humble Brits, it is an impossible dream that one day we too may have a free-standing tower as magnificent as this. Oh wait, we do. Thats right, the mighty Emley Moor transmitting station in West Yorkshire. Standing at a cloud-stabbing 385.5 metres (1,265 ft) tall. It protrudes ever upwards, gracefully extending like a middle finger, as if to say "Damn you God! Damn you and your laws of physics!" Of course, no-one gives a crap about the EMTS, and why should they? It's just a tower, but at least it actually has a purpose, whereas the Eiffel Tower was just a glorified entrance way of the 1889 World's Fair: an old world pissing contest that featured as its main attraction a "Negro village" (in other words, a human zoo), where 400 indigenous people were displayed. So next time you're at the Eiffel Tower and admiring the view, just remember how even more romantic and spectacular it must have looked when it was first built, with some of the greatest and most glorified old-school racism the world had ever seen.

-----So there we have it, Paris, in all its glory. I'm sure plenty of you will strongly disagree with my thoughts on the city, but then where would the fun be if you didn't?

Best song about Paris:
That one by Friendly Fires

Best Film about Paris:
Moulin Rouge

Best article about Paris:
You just read it, baby.

© Simon Ingram 2010

Issue five// Guy Franks

Guy Franks has translated two works of the Chilean poet Nicanor Parra,
from Poemas Y Antipoemas (1954). The first is in the previous issue.

Oda a unas palomas
(Ode to some pigeons)

How fun they are
These pigeons that make fun of everything
With their little coloured feathers
And their swollen round abdomens
They drift from the dining room to the kitchen
Like leaves in the autumn
And they settle in the garden to eat
Flies, a little of everything,
They peck the yellow stones
Or sit on the bull’s back
More ridiculous than a shotgun
Or a rose full of fleas
They are experienced flyers though.
They hypnotise the sick and lame
Who believe that in them they see
The explanation of this world and the next
But you mustn’t trust them because they’ve got
The instincts of a fox,
The cold intelligence of a reptile
And the wisdom of a parrot
And are more hypnotic than a professor
And an abbot that’s gotten fat
So the moment you take your eyes off them they flap away
Like crazy firemen
And enter a building through the window
And steal all the money

We’ll see if just once
We can all really get together
And stand firm
Like hens that defend their chicks.


Oda a unas Palomas

Qué divertidas son
Estas palomas que se burlan de todo
Con sus pequeñas plumas de colores
Y sus enormes vientres redondos.
Pasan del comedor a la cocina
Como hojas que dispersa el otoño
Y en el jardín se instalan a comer
Moscas, de todo un poco,
Picotean las piedras amarillas
O se paran en el lomo del toro:
Más ridículas son que una escopeta
O que una rosa llena de piojos.
Sus estudiados vuelos, sin embargo,
Hipnotizan a mancos y cojos
Que creen ver en ellas
La explicación de este mundo y el otro.
Aunque no hay que confiarse porque tienen
El olfato del zorro,
La inteligencia fría del reptil
Y la experiencia larga del loro.
Más hipnóticas son que el profesor
Y que el abad que se cae de gordo.
Pero al menor descuido se abalanzan
Como bomberos locos,
Entran por la ventana al edificio
Y se apoderan de la caja de fondos.

A ver si alguna vez
Nos agrupamos realmente todos
Y nos ponemos firmes
Como gallinas que defienden sus pollos

© Guy Franks 2010

-----
Guy Franks is not what you'd call "talented" or even "handsome", but he had the good sense to not give up learning a language after GCSE and can now translate interesting Latin American poetry.