Archive
The World Is Ugly and the People Are Sad
by Karl Elder
The people have done wrong. They have impeached the president. Each night on airwaves he enters their homes, pounding a kind of gavel, his fist, from which partially extends a finger. They sit there and they take it. It is the finger the president uses. It is the finger he uses to push their button.
Karl Elder’s long poem The Houdini Monologues, with accompanying CD, is available from Word of Mouth Books, the imprint of his magazine Seems. Commentary from Elder on his poem “Ode in the Key of O” in Beloit Poetry Journal’s 60th anniversary chapbook, comprising new work from Chad Walsh Award recipients, appears in the journal’s blog, Poet’s Forum.
Acting Debut at the Roundhouse in London
by Nancy Scott
A children’s operetta—Cromwell’s having
a go at King Charles I and the Cavaliers.
Open call; any child who shows up
gets to be in the production, which is lucky
for ten-year-old Michael because he has a tin ear.
That Saturday afternoon, two tiers of scaffolding
had been erected on the bare stage; my son,
flag bearer for the Crown, at the top.
I admire Michael’s enthusiasm
for his adopted history; through all the speech-
making, intrigue, betrayal, my American
child waves the King’s standard
as a rallying cry for a dying cause.
In the final scene, Michael freezes.
The spotlight catches him, a wide-eyed kid
in tattered red tunic, peering down,
mesmerized. It’s 1648 and the flag has slipped
from his grasp. It flutters onto the stage
and gets trampled in a melee of bugles and swords.
Why didn’t you come down for the curtain call?
I asked Michael on the ride home.
After I dropped the flag, he said, I was afraid
what the King’s soldiers would do to me.
Nancy Scott (website) is the current managing editor of U.S. 1 Worksheets, the journal of the U.S. 1 Poets’ Cooperative in New Jersey. She is the author of two books of poetry, Down to the Quick (2007) and One Stands Guard, One Sleeps (2009) published by Plain View Press, and a chapbook, A Siege of Raptors (2010) published by Finishing Line Press.
The Crowd — a drypoint
Click on image to view a larger version.
Veils Suite: The Crowd (1990)
drypoint
59 x 90.5 cm (23″ x 36″)
Marja-Leena Rathje (website) is a Finnish-Canadian artist specializing in printmaking and photography. She is crazy about weathered rocks, prehistoric art and the archaeology of past, present and future. She lives and works near the sea and the mountains of Vancouver and has exhibited widely, both internationally and in her local region.
The Sweet Community
You show me the teeming hive
smoke-dulled into sluggishness,
magnetized—the framed comb
attracting the rapt attention
of all those hovering bodies.
This sweet community, you say,
absorbed in its constant task,
procreation, delivering and seeking,
sipping and sucking, hard at the work
of construction, regurgitating
what they know to raise
the next generation.
You say there is a dance that means food,
a dance for sex, a dance for “follow me.”
And when a virus enters the square,
stacked cities, all humming ceases,
empty shells litter the floor boards,
a spectacle of curled black legs—
they live and die together, collective
wisdom, you tell me: You,
their outsider in a wreath of smoke,
their mesh-masked god of plunder.
Poet, essayist, librettist and occasional radio commentator Ann E. Michael (website) is also a college educator/tutor in eastern Pennsylvania. She is the author of three chapbooks of poetry, an avid gardener, and an advocate for the arts. She co-edited the New Classics issue of qarrtisluni with Jessamyn Smyth.
In the Lab
We begin by laying carpets of rodent cells,
then rest the naïve human life on top.
Look at these heart cells clumped together,
watch how our science makes them dance.
We drop them nutrients once a day
and we divide each new growth
every week. Yes, there are occasional errors:
sporadic bone may grow in heart
but we progress: we can diminish overcrowding
and starvation, all non-productive masses die.
Maureen Jivani’s poems have appeared in the United Kingdom, the United States of America, New Zealand and Australia both online and in print magazines including Frogmore Papers, The Glasgow Review, Magma, nthposition, Orbis, The Rialto, Seam, Smiths Knoll, and The Wolf. Her first full collection of poems, Insensible Heart, is available from Mulfran Press. See’s also been featured at Peony Moon.
In the still forest heard from far away
by Alex Cigale
In the still forest
a noisome bellow
like a bull gator’s
a wild grunting sound
heard from far away
each grunter his own
particular timbre
hammering a stob
a short wooden stake
inches in the ground
with a heavy iron
shaft called the roop
drawing it back and
forth over the top
to send vibrations
into the mound
the tremors driving
crawlers to the surface
in trembling droves
swarming en masse
in prompt answer to some
indistinct instinct
escaping earthquakes
to breathe or to breed —
split down the middle
one worm becomes two
making either a head
or a tail of it
but species survival
is never a sure thing —
you don’t go worming
you don’t get to eat.
Note: See “Worm-Grunting: Luring Earthworms Out of the Ground” for a video of the practice. This poem is included in Collecting Life: Poets on Objects Known and Imagined, an anthology from HeartLodge.org in search of a publisher.
Alex Cigale’s poems recently appeared in The Cafe, Colorado, Global City, Green Mountains, and North American reviews, Gargoyle, Hanging Loose, Redactions, Tar River Poetry, 32 Poems, and Zoland Poetry, online in Contrary, Drunken Boat, H_ngm_n, McSweeney’s, and are forthcoming in Many Mountains Moving and St. Petersburg Review. His translations from the Russian can be found in Crossing Centuries: the New Generation in Russian Poetry, in The Manhattan, St. Ann’s, and Yellow Medicine reviews, online in OffCourse, Danse Macabre and Fiera Lingue, and forthcoming in Crab Creek Review and Modern Poetry in Translation. He was born in Chernovsty, Ukraine and lives in New York City.
Postcard from the migration
by Steve Wing
Click on image to see a larger version.
Steve Wing (PBase gallery) is a visual artist and writer whose work reflects his appreciation for the extraordinary in ordinary days and places. He lives in Florida, where he takes dawn photos on his way to work in an academic institution. He’s a regular contributor to qarrtsiluni, as well as to BluePrintReview, where he has a bio page with links to some of his other publications.
Vegas Meditation
by Tina Celio
In a dim little corner of a penny slot dungeon,
I begin to take myself too seriously.
Half the merit and value of keeping your hands
busy with a habit or pastime is just that:
putting forth an effort. Showing up.
Developing an appreciative squint.
Watching your breath for a cold spot.
Summoning a kind of begrudging tolerance
of the haggard asthmatics and Buddha-breasted
tourists who ferry in on the mother ship
into this vast, black sea space — motley millions
Hoovered aboard on a neon tractor beam.
The plan rarely accounts for what days and days
will make of the cash-carrying, amoebic masses
astride punchy machines, always waving, snapping
for a new cocktail or looking torturously studied.
Some of us — only some of us — might call
life among transplanted, farmland amnesiacs a living.
I might be one. But not now, lips stuck to the end
of a cigarette, eyes wandering in the shadows
down below their feet, fretting along the twinkly
nonpareil of the arcade, drifting among them
and their felted shuffle, their twittery millabout.
Drink in hand, the eyes run dog-loose.
This other discipline – watching people, sequined
loads of them — to observe, concentrate and be with —
is most serious and important at times like now,
when I’ve put myself in a dim little corner.
I must sit out, reflect. I must will myself out
of a hole. What is it about that flushed,
flat-faced dealer? Is he smiling? Is he giving
something away? I need to keep busy.
That’s why I came, after all — to be here among
the dapper and the housedressed, all of us
doing the same kind of thing not very skillfully.
To seek the universal in the middle class mope
who peers savagely into his bucket, in the rolling
boil of bodies that is mostly a rampant offering of tits,
all hoisted up and ripe with angst to take
what happens as it comes.
Tina Celio enjoys crowdsurfing as well as occasional crowdpleasing via her website. She holds a bachelor of arts in English from the University of California, Irvine, and lives in Orange County, California.
(I Wish You To) Move
How many people
How many people wish to me dead
How many people wish me to be dead
How many people wish upon me, death
Not so much wish
As they are secretly excited
Secretly excited at the possibility
Secretly excited at the possibility that
Secretly excited at the possibility that they beat out one more person
Beat out one more person that should’ve beaten them
Should’ve beaten them or mild lack of concern
Mild lack of concern or ambivalence, let’s say
Even complete couldn’t-care-less-ness
Couldn’t-care-less-ness which has a tinge of fuck you in it
How many people
Wish
To me dead
I know the feeling
For in pure numbers
It is easy to count one in
No wishing death upon any one
Individual
In particular
Not wishing
Not wishing death
Not wishing death upon
Not wishing death upon anyone
But in pure numbers
Round and conclusive
There is lung cancer
There is colon cancer
There is car crash
Jiggly back fat
Not a direct cause
But the inability
To move the torso
With explosive energy
Would lead me to ambivalence
Leads me to ambivalence
Leads me to feelings of ambivalence
Lack of feelings
Non-feeling as ambivalence
Not a leading cause
But yet a nice round number
Included in a nice round number
To be included in a nice round number
Is not to wish death
Not to wish death to be upon
Not to wish someone dead
In a similar way
I do push-ups
I am not afraid to lift up my shirt
To fix my belt buckle
In a similar way
I run sometimes
Sometimes past people
Sometimes I run past people and whisper things under my breath
Sometimes I run past people and whisper under my breath, “death is on
your heels”
Sometimes I run past people and whisper, “move, asshole”
I would not be surprised
If these people
Wished death
To be upon me
I would not be surprised if these people were ambivalent about death
being upon me
I would not be surprised if these people couldn’t care less about
death being upon me
Secretly
Keeping score
Chalking up another line
Secretly excited to diagonally cross the four pillars to make five
Secretly familiar with death
Secretly ok with it finding me first
Secretly wishing
Secretly wishing it found me first
Secretly wishing it finds the guy who does push-ups and runs, first
It’s no secret
No secret to me
No secret to death
No secret to you
That we like round numbers
No secret that we have a soft spot for the individual
No secret that we secretly wish
We didn’t
Gary Dubola Memi currently lives on Long Island and commutes into Manhattan five days a week for work. On these mornings, you can find him writing poems aboard the Long Island Rail Road. These poems are instantly posted on his personal blog, Railroad Poetry. Gary lives with his wife, dog, mother-in-law, brand new son, dust and belongings of various weight. Select works have been published by Snakeskin, ProtestPoems.org, and a handful of stones. Gary’s personal blog gets the juiciest bits, most of which are deemed as unfit to “re-publish” under the archaic notion that they are “previously published.”
Building Our Houses Closer Together
High-rise apartments are fully occupied,
twenty-nine floors of twenty-two residences each.
The numbers beg to be multiplied, to yield
a reassuring statistic. Six hundred and thirty-eight
microcosms stacked, framed behind drywall
and glass. A pillar of that many lives
only reassures us of our littleness,
and perhaps the unspoken wish
to be on top of one another,
sharing daily commotion in noises
that trickle down the barber pole
of neighbors: the thud of shut cabinets,
the high-pitched trill of a shower head,
an alarm clock’s beep signaling that
like you, out there in the morning dark,
someone else has just awakened.
Hannah Stephenson is a poet, writer, and instructor living in Los Angeles. Her poems have appeared in ouroboros review, Mankind Magazine, Spoonful, The Birmingham Arts Journal, and Artsy!Dartsy!. You can visit her daily poetry blog, The Storialist, at www.thestorialist.com.
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