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Coptic Pizzeria
Dorothee Lang is a writer, web freelancer, traveller, gardener, and the editor of BluePrintReview. She lives in Germany, and currently is into skies, microformats, transitions and visuals. Recent publications include elimae, Nanoism, The, Wheelhouse and others. For more about her, visit her at blueprint21.de.
Oracle
by Jessica Otto
The fake ones eat
the bones and gristle of cats
to see the future. They drink
the blood of rattlesnakes
and wear sharks’ teeth in their
long, flowing hair.
The real ones hide in caves,
hang their dead
in cages, suck
the fallen vertebra
(when the backbone falls
like a clump of grapes)
and the cracked bodies of sun
dried tomatoes when gobs
of red blot their mouths,
where their teeth
have knocked upon the stone
floor. The woman’s eye
is an inkwell; pecked pious
and unfathomable.
She goes naked in her
sagging skin.
Jessica Otto (blog) lives in Arkansas with her husband and many cats, enjoys panning for interesting words and adores poetry and all things micro. She is currently receiving rejection letters from MFA in Creative Writing programs but she keeps trying. Her previously published work can be found in 7×20 (also here), Nanoism, Six Sentences, 50 to 1, escarp, Everyday Weirdness (also here), a handful of stones and amphibi.us. She has pieces forthcoming in Writers’ Bloc and the twitter zine PicFic.
Apophthegm
From the yellow sky in summer afterglow behind
the blackened ash twigs, scratching
my low-pitched roof
to the lightship moored by Trinity Buoy Wharf
in a force five backing six
I look for a Sinai desert,
that’s got our mothers and our fathers,
Theodore, Poemen, Ischyrion, each plaiting reeds
outside his hut:
Gerontion, give me a word,
a must-have word for me who lives where
the ground is hardcore, hand-shell tarmac,
fireweed and mallow breaking through,
a word that winds the slow great greasy
around the daily presses and merchant banks,
that swings a pick-axe three meters deep
into the gravel, turns clinker and broken pots,
washes blue cyanide from contaminated land.
Henrietta Cullinan was born in London. She lives in East London and teaches Literacy and Creative Writing at Hackney Community College, working with adults and young people. She is a musician, wife and mother. She has had poems published in the Rialto, Iota, Aesthetica, Obsessed with Pipework, Pulsar and Trespass magazines amongst others.
Black Heart Wind
by Eric Darton
Once upon a time, say five years ago, the world was filled with endless Pincus the Tailor jokes. At least you understood the supply to be limitless. You see, S. told you two, maybe three of them and somehow you got the impression that the well of Pincus jokes was bottomless — the few you’d heard represented only the tip — the visible apex of a fabulous mass of Pincuses floating hidden in the midnight sea.
What had you seen? A couple of threads. What did you assume? Whole cloth. The other day, when you asked S. to tell you some more Pincus jokes, it turned out that she only remembered the two you’d already heard. The third one, she speculates, might be another of her Jewish jokes that you retroactively Pincus-ized.
What caused you to imagine a fantastic abundance of Pincus jokes? Some of it may have had to do with the generous mode of S.’s telling, from which you inferred that there were lots more jokes where those came from. But what converted your appreciation of two jokes into a belief in Pincus as a symbol of the infinite was the simple desire that Pincus be not so much immortal as ever-recurring, each joke dying yet imminently reborn, deepening with each repetition and variation until they took on the character of a late Rembrandt self-portrait — the sort of painting you hoped your soul would come to resemble in its old age.
Never assume. That’s what Tom DeMattis, your Emergency Medicine teacher said once. It makes an ass of u and an ass of me. But how to live a life without assumptions, those single-minded creatures born of need? And most particularly the need to have actuality conform to your desire in a way that may be altogether insupportable and which no amount of wishing makes so.
It’s one thirty-seven a.m. You can’t sleep, certainly not next to your beloved. At least not tonight. It just won’t work. Your legs cramp. You can’t figure out why she doesn’t turn around, hold you and apologize. Perhaps she can’t. Any more than you can imagine her incapacity to imagine how her unkindness caught you behind the knees, yet you had to try to keep walking, just to keep a little dignity. Wearing your thin coat. Out of a Gogol story. It’s all you’ve got.
Pincus, he ought to be able to help you through. He’s joined in your mind with S., but really, she was the door-opener. It was you who took Pincus and made an idol of him. And despite your disappointment — your anticipated delivery of those million jokes — you recognize that the act of door-opening is no small thing. Just because someone opens a door doesn’t mean they’re going to walk across the threshold with you, does it?
A visitor from out of town, you see, has lost his luggage, his dress suit along with it. On top of which, he must make an important speech that same evening. What a fix! Recognizing his plight, a well-meaning person advises him go see Pincus, from whom the desperate man bespeaks a suit of beautiful worsted. Pincus won’t take any measurements though, just says “Come back in an hour.”
When the customer returns, the suit is ready. He tries it on to find that it is cut all wrong — one leg’s too short, the other’s too long. The sleeves are lopsided as well. No time for alterations, so Pincus shows the man how to hold one arm up, stretch his neck out, turn his leg just so, tells him he looks like a million. Off the man goes to make his speech, filled with confidence in his appearance. When he walks out on stage twisted up like a pretzel, a guy in the audience turns to his neighbor and says: Poor bastard. To which the neighbor replies: Yeah, but he’s got one hell of a tailor!
Now your coat’s a joke, and what makes the joke richer is that you cling to it. Nothing but threads. And on closer inspection no one is at fault. Don’t blame the Lord. Don’t blame the Tailor. Just wear it. See? Even now you hardly feel its weight. Given time, to Pincus all glory goes.
Eric Darton is the author of the New York Times bestseller Divided We Stand, a cultural history of the World Trade Center, (Basic Books, 1999). His other books are the novels Free City (WW Norton, 1996) and Orogene (EDB, 2009) and the story cycle Beaky Chronicles (2008). Darton’s latest book is Things Fall Together (EDB, 2010), the first volume of his five-volume cultural journal Notes of a New York Son, 1995-2007. Read more at his website.
Hideous Progeny
…I bid my hideous progeny go forth and prosper. I have an affection for it…
Mary Shelley, “Introduction,” Frankenstein (1831)
daughters & monsters—
I often think of Mary, patiently unwinding the skein
of her nightmares, sentence after sentence,
on the carefully blotted page,
through a labyrinth of dead-end relationships,
not least of all with death—
we run off,
bodies of chaos,
with poets, passing heroes
bound for Attic wars,
revolutionaries, boys
with motorcycles, worse still,
other women—
like Mary, I have stopped trying to decide
if it is a hero in the shape of a monster, a monster
in the shape of a hero, a mask with the eyes
of a hero or monster behind—
we enter the world
breathing consequences—
nothing but trouble,
even the most dutiful daughter
will one day make her bed
& roll in it in ecstasy—
fathers & mourners
when you write about Mary’s achievements, I see
we are not reading the same story & I have stopped
trying to tell you that I will never stop
trying to tell you, I will tell story
after misread story—
you stand stiff
in your doorways
faces carved by the traces
of angry tears you cry
& do not cry.
the dream of betrayal
is an old story
but when the last doubtful hero has abandoned the quest
& the ship turns back, where the darkened
water meets the glare of frozen waste, Mary awakens
to who & what remains, staring back the black waves
as they break—
daughters & monsters,
knowing love fails.
wanting to believe
love leaves us
fearless in its wake—
Leslie Ann Minot received an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College in 2004, and has previously published poetry and translations of poetry in The Chicago Review, The Red Rock Review, New Letters, and neon geyser/porcelain sky. She has published critical articles in The European Romantic Review and Excavatio, as well as in collections on Victorian sensation fiction, Caribbean literature, Georges Sand, and Muriel Rukeyser. Currently, she is watching too much Dark Shadows on video.
Palindrome
Direct link to video (HTML5 player available in Chrome and Safari browsers)
This is a “videopainting” about what society demands from us as either immigrants or citizens: to assimilate our individual identities and cultures into a larger mainstream persona. The metaphor of a mannequin — arriving from the factory with pre-painted makeup on large arresting eyes, pre-fab white skin, and the seemingly perfect bust — is evocative of the dehumanizing aspect of cultural assimilation. However, this image we construct to integrate into our cultural surroundings is often incomplete, tentative or conflictual; many find themselves going forwards and backwards with this facade, sometimes equally behind and in front of it. This short film is a palindromic painting of an emotional landscape that plays on the mirrors of identity, the multiple masks we offer in different settings, and our subconscious rebellion that emerges in times of epiphany.
*
Isabelle Carbonell (website, blog) is a documentary photographer and documentary filmmaker whose determination to give a voice to the voiceless has driven her to document political, social, and environmental injustices around the world. When filming, she becomes her environment — sleeping, eating, and breathing with those she is focusing on, transcending the divide between observer and subject easily. With all the ambitions of an artist, she also employs her rigorous academic training as a researcher to produce an in–depth reportage. As a result, her documentary films and photos try to reveal a deeply complex social understanding while still offering an exquisite artistic vision. Isabelle’s documentary skills have taken her to countries such as India, Qatar, Cuba, Mexico, Vietnam, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua.
Eating Godzilla
by Jason Crane
for some reason, we started with the tail
you’d think that would be the toughest part
but after we’d sliced away the scales
the flesh was surprisingly tender
and no, it didn’t like taste like chicken
well, maybe a little
but it also had that metallic
just-out-of-the-microwave aftertaste
probably from the lingering effects of the radiation
Kazuhiro had insisted on serving side dishes
despite our obvious inability to finish
the great green lizard in one sitting
so we’d sautéed Mothra in a sesame sauce
and served him (her? it?) in lovely
sculpted bowls that fit perfectly in the hand
I’d suggested also eating Raymond Burr
just for old times’ sake
but by this time he was more fat than meat
and who can be bothered to pare all that away
just for a few grizzled bits of TV lawyer?
anyway, after the tail was finished we
cracked open Godzilla’s skull to get at
what we thought would be
the salty brain encased within
imagine our surprise, then, when
the skull turned out to contain
thousands of Pez candies
in a variety of fruity colors
Iwai-kun suggested handing them out to the children
who’d naturally gathered ’round us
for a look at the sundered source
of their nightmares
you should have seen the smiles
on their faces as he
reached his hands into the skull
and drew forth the rainbow
of sugary delights
he tossed the Pez out like Mardi Gras beads
and the kids scrummaged for them, squealing
Download the podcast (music: “Crude Friendly,” by Kevin Baird)
Jason Crane is a jazz broadcaster and writer, a husband and father, and he rides a bicycle. Jason hosts the online jazz interview show The Jazz Session, featuring in-depth interviews with jazz musicians from around the world. His first collection of poems, Unexpected Sunlight (FootHills Publishing, 2010) is now available from the store at jasoncrane.org.
Andy Warhol (The Vancouver Art Gallery, 2004)
by Daniela Elza
an i.con turned around
upside d.own until it does not
make sense.
until symbol is b.led from
the hammer and the sick.le—
they lie flat as if the workers were
in a hurry for their lunch break. and
someone forgot their shoe in the picture.
until camouflage is not in.visible—
evolves into what should be seen
reds and p.inks and yell.ows.
make it something to zero in.
while Michelangelo is reduced to a hand
in the corner of a canvas. Christ
is j.us.t an.other face—
the cross a memory we have misp.laced.
the last supper— flagged in
a 50$ bill. t.rust and freedom
the shapes of photography
the s.hades of pain.ting
until the electric chair has f.illed
a whole room with itself replicating
through the n.eon col.ours of oblivion.
Daniela Elza has released more than 120 poems into the world in more than 40 publications. Most recently her work appeared in Vallum, Matrix, ditch, educational insights, BluePrintReview, One Ghana One Voice, 4 poets (Mother Tongue Publishing, 2009) and is forthcoming in The Trumpeter and The New Orphic Review. Daniela lives with her family in Vancouver and sporadically blogs at Strange Places.
Heart’s Desire
Artemis—
I choose my feathers and stripes,
believe this. I marry nock
unto the bow.
My vow travels
with the avid
shockwave of the pluck;
it leaves a whir of thin air
about the ear.
I love
to load and pull back—
release the grip
of will.
My ache’s
my aim; my arrow
stakes its claim
exactly.
Rosemary Starace writes and paints in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts. She is co-editor, with Moira Richards and Lesley Wheeler, of Letters to the World, an international poetry anthology representing the Wom-po Listserv (Red Hen Press). She is author of the poetry collection Requitements (Elephant Tree House). Her poems can be seen online at Orion and Umbrella. More writing, art, and book information appear on her website.
The Railway Children
Scavs, scranners, nourished on nettle stems, tree sap
and windscreen fluid. Slygrogging on the embankments,
defacing the timetable at Stalybridge station, they find
haven in trackside pyramids of palettes or the tunnels
themselves that bombinate with the zoom of intercities
due and gone. They kip in the ditches under tweed
potato sacks and pass round a crocked paraffin lamp
to get off on the residual vapours. Conspicuous as amateur
snipers their backcombed hair frizzing up from fields
of marzipan corn; they launch raids on the slowed down
trains, harangue the guards for Demerara sugar sachets
and shortbread then smear their tribe’s signature on first
class windows with the liquid soap. Crossing the pennines
chances are you’ll see them, pegging it through the sedge
feral in keefiyahs and woad, all whoops and spittle
signalling in semaphore: We are the gross of our Father’s abandon.
Samuel Prince has had poems appear in various print and online journals including Mimesis, Under the Radar, nthposition and Umbrella. He lives in London.
qarrtsiluni 