Category: Issue 1 / Winter 2012

Portrait of a snowy hill All the flowers on all the hills are seared white with snow. Their softness hardened by cold, As breasts standing tall, Breasts touched by a hand, raw and shivering. A real hand, Sharpened by air, Not a warm bedtime hand of memory. And I thought of you, Telling her you… Continue reading Rebecca Nash

Still Life Your poetry is an empty room. Your poetry is portrait photography against a stark white background. Your poetry is excessively ergonomic android software. Your poetry is literary late twentieth century male American prose style. Your poetry, so simple! So aesthetic! So abstract! So symbolic! Your poetry is civilized. Your poetry is a slide… Continue reading Sarah Natalie Webster

For Kent Bach, The words were not ready,—at first for innocent things like going to a party; then papers, their job interviews even eschewing of jury duties; and before long they were failing too in meaningful conversations. They wavered, stayed hidden;—too much was left implicit, for you absolutely would not be kept waiting at the… Continue reading Chris Holdaway

a gay poem richie with the jesusbeard stands outside the arch of planetrees / a flagpole / the world limping in skin tights assassinating the characters of westerns and co-workers. he sings quite well and one day the flat of his hand brushes by my leg     man alive he’s the man with the… Continue reading Alex Taylor

New York you greeted me at your ugliest twenty blocks deep you stripped my clothes soaked me glass-skinned so my impression was see-through we kept things classy we didn’t bruce lee feet sweep each other or pluck thorns from roses stand up, New York you’re more than this authors swing their hardest punches at you… Continue reading Vincenzo Anastasia

melaleuca in the estuary there are nymphet girls, slim-bodied, with doe limbs and navy swimsuits that cross over on their fauny backs. they’re gliding on the insistence of the tide, facedown in the water, snorkel masks suckered to their cheeks. and they drift into my ankles, and they startle unselfconsciously. I remember to remember them,… Continue reading Katie Winny

Un-peopled in a room where people sit in a circle behind tables, where sounds are exchanged gently from hand-to-hand, I sit with no hands to speak of, tapping my foot and touching my knees, as if no one can see. the taste of food is strange with metal, and I miss you within the hour.… Continue reading Amber Knox

No Oaks Stand Old brick-and-iron brewery, borders invaded by brushes of fennel, by wildgrass home to shipping containers, to refrigerated units, fans spinning only when the southerlies blow the wildgrass doesn’t mind my father worked here my father died here and the grasses grow on, grow tall as the brewery sinks, and the wind whistles… Continue reading Jamie Robertson

some are drawn to kill all their enemies I am tired. I am standing in my room. I am going to clean the toilet with seawater. I have been working all day. I work so that I can gain enough power to trap myself in revolving doors. Now I have finished work. The fog will… Continue reading Gregory Kan