Diane Marie

excerpts from Little Death 1 It is the summer after school’s end and we are outside by the river on the night of the flying ants. It is the hottest day on record. The last time anyone remembers being this warm we weren’t in love or even born yet. On the weather there was a… Continue reading Diane Marie

Gregory Kan

I want my bed I want my bed to be a speaker so I can be sound. The mattress is raised above the ground but the optimal distance is undecidable. I note what has been given, altered and then taken away. None of these things is a pocket, a wish, or a spoon that has… Continue reading Gregory Kan

Ruby Solly

Sea in It’s a fact that every family has an aunt with her fingers crossed behind her back. She will (probably) inhabit the following (filling up every corner and fold) 1. A house by the sea. With more sea in than out. 2. Tent like dresses. That let her feet become acrobats dangling from her… Continue reading Ruby Solly

Ross Brighton

excerpts from Birds a nervous disposition birds of television low action poised naught attrition the bounds                              (cloaked) generally dark dawn a priest an action movement rocks side a region of me face sunning whistle (little)       radiance globe       set              far a rebel of late bride brought into the open and taught the son of the polite season quite difficult to… Continue reading Ross Brighton

Hera Lindsay Bird

Children are the orgasm of the world This morning on the bus there was this woman carrying a bag with inspirational sayings and positive affirmations all over it which I was reading because I’m a fan of inspirational sayings and positive affirmations. I also like clothing that gives you advice. What’s kinder than the glittered… Continue reading Hera Lindsay Bird

Jackson Nieuwland

Rescuers extensively trained I led the firemen. I said, “Fire men!” The firemen fired then lead flew through paramedics’ eyelids. Survivors dialed for policemen. We heard sirens. My firemen and I fled from a herd of policemen. This was tiring. We said, “Please policemen, we are firemen.” They said, “Try again.” We replied, “We’re on… Continue reading Jackson Nieuwland

Issue 3 / Summer 2013

Editor’s note— It’s summer, at least in the southern hemisphere, and this issue is in some respects our lightest and heaviest to date—lighter in tone, heavier in your hands. Work comes once again from diverse sources; from previous contributors, wildcard submissions, from graduates of creative writing schools, and poets working after-hours. ‘Firsts’ for us include… Continue reading Issue 3 / Summer 2013

Oliver Quincy Page

For Evan Blumgart I’ve never said anything that rivals your one pointed breath the finest thought I’ve ever known. You belong in the slipstream of casual carless love and wanderings in a city that beats out your name on worn asphalt heat rising off a loft roof in waves. You are afraid, ‘…edibility of my… Continue reading Oliver Quincy Page

Lauren Strain

Years and so much life – years full as the sky in a Dark August. I wish that words could rain from my hands too, but they never come out. But my sister is more beautiful; she is the yellow room Set against thundery skies. Even when we were small, She was Snow White to… Continue reading Lauren Strain

Alex Taylor

close[t/d] you’re determined that nobody knows what you’re really like how you actually are what planet you’re from it’s difficult to construct an impression when you do it so badly perhaps that’s why nobody mistakes you for yourself I never would have picked you as if that is a kind of compliment you wonder if… Continue reading Alex Taylor

Magnolia Wilson

National Anxiety The party is very loud and mostly the view is just of a hundred pairs of highly glittered or neon shoes, wide angled along a gummy hardwood floor. So much coloured and stomping and endless stomping. Late in the night, when bodies finally hang like deflated Lilos over couches, you, in someone else’s… Continue reading Magnolia Wilson

Lynley Edmeades

La Strada Roads are never busy here – the further south you go, the less narrative you see. It’s autumn – going south means gold. A gold that will soon turn to just tree. I stop to visit an old friend, her new baby. Another place, a new couple – I drink wine and relish… Continue reading Lynley Edmeades

Cameron Churchill

Holes I am the man who digs a trench, four walls for you walls made of mud four eyes made for the cathedral how pretty it would be to be with a beauty in the country but here I am with the worms in the mud I can smell excess this hellhole reeks of excess… Continue reading Cameron Churchill

Megan Towey

World of Floods Driving on the curb cured of swamplands and horizontals my atmosphere dear takes wholesome bites of water outed are the undersides of bridge smudged chasms birdy hellcalls and undone song he knows only fire pursues the winged torn letters three years gone of the antediluvian disintegrated into charm and clarity and the… Continue reading Megan Towey

Mark Pirie

School’s Out Autumn leaves; ain’t no summer up here, I’m crawling along the roof school’s out and so are the lights. Not much of a weekend – usual entertainment: a DVD a game and a piss-up; instead I’m up here. The night-chill stiffens my cheek. I prise off the copper right beside the High Voltage… Continue reading Mark Pirie

Katie Winny

self-timer Subject matter: self, at a teetering age. Self, in skinny furs, enamel brooch slipping off sagging blouse, an avalanche. Self asks self, are you okay. There is no need to be. Harnessed clutch of hair, trailing over shoulder as a bundled animal. Self is ruptured open by the cold. Confused lambs die in the… Continue reading Katie Winny

Eden Bradfield

Sandra, 41 the back of her van says ‘exotic plants’ but i am not so sure if there’s many plants in there at all because when i saw her husband – let’s call him glen – unload a box, beige and unfussy, (he wore khaki shorts and a plaid shirt himself) i did not see… Continue reading Eden Bradfield

Richard Osler

After Seventy Years Her kisses are missing. Call 911. My mother, her eyes, are missing, their colour, blue, Precambrian lake blue, that old, that used to a world, in its spin, its rounds around a necessary brightness. The sun is missing. The purple flowers of the Agapanthus lily are missing. Gone seventy years. My mother… Continue reading Richard Osler

Zarah Butcher-McGunnigle

1 We were going to. After switching damaging recover. (we need more pronouns.) Grass aches against the epicentre of baldness. Since, may, continuous, concede. (Mother. Move your hair. The bald spot is showing.) To abnormalise: (Describe the worst event in your childhood.) To thaw pre-frozen emotion: (Imagine you’ve just won a prize. What do your… Continue reading Zarah Butcher-McGunnigle

Issue 2 / Spring 2012

Editor’s note— The number of self-published periodicals that begin with best intentions yet never make it to a second edition could fill an ocean… or perhaps a large lake. Following the debut-issue elation, we experienced the inertia and faced the realisation that we had to do it all again. We learned much from last time,… Continue reading Issue 2 / Spring 2012