Patrick McManus

BARRI GÒTIC


graffiti
bad graffiti
faded hippy
by the hotel
bad smell
of the drains
the window
of the room
like a cell
with a view
like a prison
daylight barely
filters down
falters fades
a deep well
the safe which
does not work
will never close
the ripped scars
upon the wall
the lift that
does not work
or does sometimes
the brown stains
that adorn the sink
the broken window
that heaves open
the singed lampshades
of dead stale smoke
the power cuts
suddenly striking
the bathroom ceiling
sad paint all flaky
toilet flush wobbly
bidet on the move
gently rocking
door self opening
all so revealing
light that flashes
flashes all night


I
I
I must be back!
back in Barcelona!
¡Barri gòtic!
¡Hola!


***
***

Joel Chace

itsstory, 15 & 18

***

***
***

Susan Lewis

Fresh New Order Of


1.


amassed
+ frightless


despite the leaden
evidence


+ what you may
imagine


(hueless)
(anhedonic)


until you fold
or crumple


or its sated
apposite,


(& by opposing


end them)


which is to say


breathe


& thus ruffle
(or fly like the wind)


(+ lie like a


friend)


alone enough
or not too far,


fine stretch of claws
& beak,


extravagance of species
(specific)


taking off,
swarming,


improbably clouded
as my thoughts are wont to


blinker off & on,
roaring like


an aggregation of
signicants


massing,
critically,


lasting,
mythically


stamping on a fresh new
order of finitude


inured to the high whine
of pain


& rusty treasure




2.


another song
(hung from a)


cobb=d & baubled
& let naught


get in


or transgress


+ finish what you
muss


+ missed,
caress the pate of


somewhat rich &
this estrange,


stretch,
fall in,


ministrate
locked as in


horns


as in megastore


as in this life
or wield,


ply the current of an
other


(&


repeat)




***
***

Vivekanand Jha

Non-conformist


This guy: reformist,
revolutionist and non-conformist,
has no inhibition and restraint
on brazen and palpitating passion.


He is hell-bent to turn this heaven to hell
He would spit and urinate where he dwells
He wants this mundane world crumbled and crashed
Like computer with one click
of mouse on virus carrier:


Without bothering its pros and cons
without any semblance of shame
without calculating any plus or minus
He will have no peace and bliss
till he delivers baby through his anus.


***
***

David Gitin

Air Alphabet


receptacle of the snows
white belly


omphalos
soulworms


traverse
rarefied


air
echoless


ozone life
lightning


spark of cosmos


***


Valhalla


children collect
torch lilies wild


in a landscape
one scans for embers


a boat
toward ancestors


***


Sinfonia


          for Luciano Berio


from the vortex
a river of words


unstable rhythms
symbols


to supply value
the unnamable


caught in our skins
expelled


sunflowers
sage


gesture
presses


the soul
keep


going
the sail


projects through space
a community


corroded mineral
consciousness alloyed


to mammalian greed
reptilian control


a spiral
module


playing mathematics
to embrace unknowable


life
exaggerated


particulars
aggregate


as truth
mark


the turn
future


where the river appears
to end


curved space
keep


going


***
***

Steve Tills

from Life Sentences


Playground unattended on rainy fall afternoon initiating media
marketed associations of TV-reel predators in richest country but which
it will not root out while National Securities monies go to cronies
pretending to search, destroy Bin Laden. Man all day long amending
resumes in his head always meaning to send them out some day
and change jobs with the new skills he can't list on one page ever again.
The sound of the ducks' quack quack in the little pond at the hospital
next to the contagious factory next to the office of the man with a ponytail
who practices psychiatry and writes out 150 piece script for Valium
for the boy who sells him his lime green Florida jeep. Cat tails forest
nine feet high growing unexplored more and more each year, man seeing
bump high side of village park as hump of brown-green sod diagnosed
with cancer by automatized metaphors. Woman needing to tell husband
to stop sniffling as man wanting to tell wife to stop sniveling needing
to not do so. Three extra-large crows' nests in 80 foot tall tree which has dropped
its leaves possibly home to some of town's biggest birds, practically homeless
man gathering things needed from park trash cans saying something to car-home
girlfriend on break from day's scavenging. Eleven page swath of person's
peanut shells aging quickly on side of rode on wet fall day actually discard
words person plugging in so that they won't go away. Maladjusted seasons
last years of male civilization, content man driving by in white Honda Civic
telling himself on way back from writes done on lunch break at 1:something.
Full grown woman beating herself up flogging man who loves her, hating
to see her hard on herself for such soft hidden pathos. The person who abused
her subordinate until she could no longer afford to be intimate deciding
that sincerity didn't secure the job she got for her daughter that she made
sure everybody heard her describe as a supervisor's position. Man walking
into words actually images of words reeling after recalling movie Crash
thought depicting world of real characters played by real people colliding
with others like enormous syllables jammed into increasingly shrinking syntaxes.
Woman interpreting dark orange dream as light pink premonition
listens to son coming in at 6:30 in the morning rehashing medium gray dreams
as if they had been black and white ones. Post flanking left side of queen size
bed thought to resemble chess piece pawn on sixty-four squares for 64
different sexual positions or objects pretending to contend with each other
though the spaces themselves dictating neither direction nor intention.
A man believing Thanks-giving by family and friends at Christmas to count
their blessings being together outweighs presents-exchange watching Indian
or Mexican American mentor at McDonald's parking lot advising 45 year old
protégé or son in way that foregrounds mentor’s advising role and authority,
not his advice. The request "May I have one of these" becoming "I don't mind
if I take the whole plate" standing out in the mind of grown man observing
youths he considers uncouth and unrealistic.


***
***

Andrew J. Jones

Spain’s enough. God Already
Himself’s blessed the fields. He
Lives just distant from Sunday.
He can hear them drinking.


***
***

Jukka-Pekka Kervinen

***
***

Gloria Avner

Anti “Ocean”

Listen you

sucked bones

you dangle

tangled inner

tingle

hold me up end

fold me

stop this

or any other

ocean

spilling bones

again dead fish

in worn out shoes

an ache a way

no way to stop

her stall her

ball her

make her turn

(your life)

around say hey

you wait you

why not here

not now why

two score 

more to go

don’t go

slow

no stay

this sea this sky

right here

not the winding

bumpy road past Ararat,

down Khyber pass

by folding bicycle

fear  survived revived

Swat valley snowstorm

rescue  on the way

to India to Himalayan

hermit foothills

flapping tattered flag

whipped prayers

gone flying free

from cliffs edge

before Lama Govinda

welcomes all to tea

talk cookies company

before the fevered german

jumps disappointed from the ferry

splashes Bombay waters

drops his wallet

in alleged rescue pull out

via fishing pole and sees

important papers

turn to new wet bedding

for smart starfish

men in uniforms want him

to stop

not walk wet away

and not resist arrest

for misinterpreted inept

attempt at suicide

men with uniforms

without an ear

for languages

shoot holes into your tires

I say stay

here would you

hear me read you

reach you on the waves

across your desk

less than a stone’s throw

though three thousand miles

away and more while Miles and I

play smiling while we sing

into the garden.

Gloria for David on the radio –Feb. 7, 1010

***

***

Lakey Comess

First snow


           deceives you into imagining pure space, though treachery undercoats black ice.


Polish defence of diminished capacity — it's almost believable, but at odds with logo led
cultural theory. How many women left you in tears? Curiosity dictates the question. You're
thinking strategy, objective attention. We know how you lie.


Sometimes tongues make sharper weapons than pinpoints of light.


It's as abrasive a sound as you will ever hear — practice doesn't always make for perfect.
Now there is a real blotch on the copybook. It looks like coffee. Here was a private address
gone public and here is a white, open place on a matchstick. I can dance there, too. So could
you, if you had a mind to in your next orbit, skirting explanation.


You have difficulties considering bloody knives following textual assassination. Or is it
asinine textualisation which follows technological surgery?


Your feathers appear freshly laundered as new punctuation.


***



All these bon mots


Affronted? No, only weary. Affront was eclipsed by a barrage of righteous viciousness.
"Don't look for a reason," says flesh of your flesh, reasonably. "Bullies don't need reasons to
bully."


In other words, electrodes clamped onto wrists, forehead, pulse points cannot do justice to
pain printed out on long sheets, graphed maps, peaks of torment, your nasty Himalayas.


Step and goose-kick with others, happy in the thick of it, whirling in throng,
protected by numbers, anonymity lined up for kill. What a racket.


How humble the raised fist, what lost idealism, crushed innocence.


Comparisons are odious, comparing fist to size and shape of owner's heart,
small and narrow. An x-ray will bear out the truth of this, bare the statement.


Now you can truly see — as well as hear — the size of the space you occupy.


Wrap sock around fist for a perfect fit.


Put rock in toe of the sock for a perfect weapon.


It damages, but doesn't break skin.


Choices are uncomfortable, given certain dimensions.


***
***

Cheryl Pallant

Kitchen Renovation Sutra


     for Abram

how much
when
now
find chop saw corner bead
measure backer rod laminate butt joint
how much where
don’t know which
corner bead dry wall screw
shoot nail compressor sweep
track stud joist double hung stud
frame caulk panel lift crack spackle hammer drill
propane off carry water sweep dirt drill lath scab
load bearing ball cock backer rod
drywall tape cast iron stack
measure which
sheet rock screw jack stud plumb electrical
tighter looser hand me lift there carry
casement circuit file valve bang blow how much hack
mud tape spill rub wash
base molding fur jamb measure riser soffit
center butt joint carry water propane off how much


***
***

Max Richards

Anzac Day 2012

Another chance missed
of attending Dawn Parade.

This time, instead
of sleeping in, I wake

early to rain, bow my head
to its sound, not the Last Post.

My nephew's class, he tells me,
have been learning about

soldiering and history.
Did I know why the brim

turns up on the Diggers'
felt hats? Because when

they lifted their rifles
to their shoulders, biff

and the hats would fly off.
Yes, I say, and yet

when I was eighteen
I was a foot-soldier

in the New Zealand Army,
and our felt hats had brims

not turned up, lemon-squeezers
everyone called them --

we drilled, we sloped arms,
no-one's hat went flying.

No, in my day there weren't
wars to be sent to. Lucky!

I offer to mimic the Last Post
(in a Chinese restaurant

it's my portable aural
Shrine of Remembrance)

but he lets me off.
Two lucky generations,

mine and his, 'sacrifice'
mere lip-service.


***
***

Dominic Fox

Seven Pits (work in progress)


Beginning like ending an improper severance --
the cut thread frays, the dancing cable crackles
across the worktop. Onward under sufferance

towards no known end, pioneer of feckless
consecration, brusque kickstarting tyro,
spatter-gowned convener of debacles:

just see if you can swing this, until giro
cashed at least: make straight-backed riverdance
swish move to exit, grinning down El Toro.

***

Severance packaged as opportunity
for self-improvement; for remediation,
transplanted thriving, fresh immunity.

I am again myself after a fashion:
aspie, neurotic, wilfully acute;
shrinking from rancour as from radiation

of that last meltdown. I had thought
aspie meant serpentine, or rather dry:
as shed snake-skin, as dying rasp of drought.

***

Drought being metaphor, scorched to the letter,
do well with similes; reduce to clear
in moments, like a microwave through butter.

Take visionary upsight as a near-
cousin of perception, perhaps ill-
bred: given to trances, to obscure

utterance, to scarcely convivial
fits and moods. Show antisocial splitter
hell-bent on self-enrichment, going fissile.

***

Trance may be overstating it -- try dazed
auto-hypnosis, low-level mania
sparking within the cloud, transport confused

with tiredness; neural extemporanea
freaking the cortex, everything running down.
No need for draught of laudanum, or zanier

lysergic brain-melt bringing vision on
like migraine aura. I am indisposed
by dint of instress, nursing a damaged crown.

***

Indisposed, that is, by innermost
disposition; or perhaps hormonal
balls-up wrongly diagnosed as lost-

Eden complex -- sheen of kitchen-vinyl
drying in sunlight being the Eden I
cycle back to. Be it ingrown kernel

or stock implant, perennial sci-fi
premise, there is memory at last
to cling to or set down beside the way.


***
***

John M. Bennett

pu to


business meal bought time
hashness skree bell’s
sloppy ring yr hand s
unk in treinta güevos
sitios cops asleep be
neath the curb their
loss hand ,bladed
)testive race( rea
ched the ,nur blank
,pause shadow ,hung
ry for a neck the


drunk fought cloud


]derisive plate crack[
balazo
ni modo


***
***