Category: Issue 5 / Spring 2013

Magdalena I went to Paphos, because there was Aphrodite! With the foam, And only the foam. I was there and I have interesting memories. Lost: ring; my husband; the days and minutes. Magda, can you visit me on Sunday or Friday, or…?    

Rotoiti So I woke up in the cave / I was naked / except for my clothes / which were ragged and useless I was cold / and stoked the fire / with a stick the smoke twisted up and around itself / in the darkness of the roof / searching for some way out… Continue reading Bill Nelson

I am like your body in the sea (for tennyson) , let me calm your tongue, love, in the shallows of god’s west as once (when the demands of your clothes and the salt of mountains behind your lips, were mine to press against)                                                   i did i cannot rest i have seen cities of other… Continue reading Diane Marie

Macrocarpa (Cupressus macrocarpa) He was bruised lucid when I found him, The ruptured contents of the radiator Still rising up through lower branches. He would later tell me oh how it hurts And ask me to hold him, but early on In this piece he started with a punch line. A sentence punctuated by my… Continue reading Paul Gallagher

As I See It In the embryo the paired paramesonephric ducts or Müllerian ducts   run down the side of the urogenital ridge ending up at the Müllerian eminence in the primitive urogenital sinus Müllerian ducts exist in embryos of both sexes In females they develop to form the uterus, cervix and Fallopian tubes In… Continue reading Mikaela Nyman

Plaza Normale As you know, “Without nothing I’m nothing”. I get the impression Of things burned into other things. That’s what life does I mean it infests me. The slope for breakaway carts, The new hill as a structure. Can I guess your name? I am reclaiming hesitation Because it means I Anticipate myself. The… Continue reading Drew Boston

Winfly (from Southward Bound: Antarctic Cycle) Winfly dawns like any other For those of us who are accustomed To the gentle rhythm of day and night That rocks us through the months and years. We eat our breakfast, we put on our coats, we go to work And strangers in the street slip past unnoticed.… Continue reading Hanne Nielsen

rusty mechanics you want to unsettle the score. mislead from the front. erase the alarm. undo your duty. invoice your opinion. discharge your glass. mistake one for the team. you’re getting unmixed messages. inverse psychology. conviction notices.     current the news is puppies and sex offenders mum says there’s some sick people out there… Continue reading Alex Taylor

Macaroni Cheese Well I was going to read the instructions but it turns out we have a slow Mac and also I don’t like to talk too much so sometimes I just go to the supermarket and walk around until I find something that I want to eat but most of the time I just… Continue reading Carolyn DeCarlo & Jackson Nieuwland

A Sky Is there no way to see the Scorched, scoreless, serious Syrian Sky blue—across it A carrier pigeon flies from Damascus To Sidon (Toghtekin to al-Assad)— ‘Fatimids sending forces’—across Cymbal-crash-bright, deep, clear azure, clean As swiss of hot sword on whetstone ringing Across crusade sky?     A Sky Is there no way to… Continue reading Lee Posna

Silo Sonnet Silver-rust silos lean as if to launch like chromed hourglasses through the stratosphere, gold snow of pollen. Thin ladders ensconce their bald metal domes, monks tonsured of hair. These rockets, they have pillared in the earth all heavy thoughts of flight, carved of them roots— seeds winnowed from the husk, lifted from dirt;… Continue reading Andrew David King

Night interview Is it the past that hurts?               This is where I try to sleep Did you reason with it?               For a time And the flowers?               There were a purple      they paled in the middle Did they please the room?               They pleased themselves You were gifted clothes.               No fit      was fire enough There was talk of a… Continue reading Joan Fleming

FIDDLEHEAD Rangitoto, Tamaki-Makau-Rau, Aotearoa This little isle, there where for evermore      The waters beat all round about its foot,      Bears rushes on the soft and oozy shore. No other plant that would put forth a shoot      Or harden, but from life there is debarred      Since to the surf it yields not from its root. Dante,… Continue reading Steven Toussaint