Saturday, November 23, 2013

David Bircumshaw


Belgians

Belgians are tall people. Belgians are short people. Some Belgians are chocolate-hating teetotallers.
Some Belgians do nasty things to children. Listen, there are Belgians sobbing, trapped in latex.

Nobody had told the earthworms they were Belgian, even as the executions began. In the distance

there are Belgians drumming, in formation, like an antique redcoat army. The King of the Belgians
had a teddy-bear named Mr Kurtz. There are borders, boundaries, treaties and disputes

and a map hung on a smoke-yellow wall in London. Look, I can see Belgium growing

like a mauve investment. One day it will become a Gulf State. Or an arrangement of someone,

and a dim landscape, sleeping by your side, its names draining away like rivers.

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Friday, November 22, 2013

Laura Young



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Nazar Honczar

Stinky socks are
in Ivan's closet
Nazar in them

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Foremother (riddle)

I let the spirit go
He apes me --
He twines me

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I've got the prominence in my heart
but blackrend's stronger
As long as it

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Mayfly

Rivers surge
and me -- I rise again?

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ріки скреснуть а я - воскресну? о весно! дай

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Guelder rose was eaten by the aphid
I dewlap nightingale
Ukraine


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Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Vernon Frazer


View from the Basement

verbatim spray revealed 
deep dish panorama setting

tonal grit a sticky one
when removal warranties 
shimmer appeal’s delay

during a wishful sleep
hormonal protrusions intone

a prayerful synesthesia
no candelabra music left undreamed

*

dashing hopes display
their fluid crash to wreckage

halls define a corridor slash
when the vector line fractures
bore themselves into shale

creeping near bone and tine
keeping the retinue for solo encore

or a replay of invective

*

pretended value less intended
the decaying resonance lingers 
past gauntlet hopes betrayed

the trigger options cast a course
sealing off symbolic value of sights
defective or better left moribund 

these obvious pillars of displacement

***

Invasion 

the great machine ate tonsil wars
against a splenectomy plangent
reptilian segue new tonsils du jour
no habit accrued to bend yet
so tensile nor fender to the touch
as rendered mast habitant crucible
cold slouch passing vertebral organ
plants vestibule leisure in spruce
a corollary inquest surging north
dimension welling naval desks
aperture to the pastry mentioned
toward the torrid as a last display
reproof amended as mendicant 
diatribe ranting canto disability 
mentors astonished legion debts
crashing normal template rigors
where bandit snatchers abduct
their own canister replicas torn 
through emblazoned wicket feet
tearing eyes emboss disorder
hobnail quatrain Duluth trick
imprints delectable tapestry lather 
ecumenical as low breeding tracks
flailed down the dogma climb
forensic reinstated bulletin powder
clam shell attack forthcoming
aficionado splendor details trail
the fulminating derailment car
bannered slatwise portrait well
shards blanket renewal pending
new vociferous treaty alignments
nestling along the trestle penny
jumping the future track to copper
alloy butlers impound square data
stationed northern rattle nights
ecliptic as a moon crossing
where stratified helmets deal
noon blankets to the seedy
gloss needing refill cantors
nattering mattered facts across
pineal spectrum ladders flattened
to breeding castle kulaks who feed
wavering platelet conundrums 
to pratfall addicts on the fly 
or dieting cubist memoir frames
costing noon epithets that wander
ration frames in noon glasses
filtered round opprobrium canes
acid flinched to catamaran osprey
eagled forth to venture serpentine
national settings on next coast time
where assets prove illegal hunches
played at meal times while passive
legends resist immature lathering
amid rumors wiling middle ways
to sunset casters surfing on a roll
declension numbers not permitted
nor the lattice-leaves at seed
among the feeding plectrum ruins 
electric on shore where more bounds
trail moon blanks to crescent stares
blinding satellite prawns to sonata
near amperage blasters fitting more
of the slain repertoire into lasting
deviation norms no formal decree
pronounced a syllable backward
as the bygone day at the end of
its own rhetorical feed blathers
chronicle unrefined tangent players
gathering inter-modular combo
papers where samba rebuking
gander platters timbrel fumed
allegiance to the brag, uniting
sated arboreans reeling still fate
from the last gasp of an autumn wind

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Jesse S. Mitchell


Redeemer

Swing your fists at me.
…..(this dead yellow grass)
There is only one way to get free
…..(this dead yellow grass)
Turn your radio up
All the way up, full blast.

And everything is electric 
And everything burns.
…..(this dead dry yellow grass)

Believe in the tree, for it is made of light.
Believe in the forceful wind, it is made of light.
Believe in the creaking limbs, these are made of light.
Believe in the root ball, it is made of light.
Believe in the earth that contains it, for it is made of light.

There is only one way out of here.
…..(this dead yellow grass)
By the light reflected back towards the eye,
…..(this dead yellow grass)
By returning the stare.

***

Ha-Unebu

Art brute
artbrute
ArtBrute
Tia hormiga black Madonna
Cocaina y codeina
At the table at the Dystonia Bravo
All hell breaks loose when I open the shutters.
Breathing apparatus, rolled up sleeves, iron lung.
Cajero
Diver bird.  End of the world.
Better off today but still far from perfect…
Big stone spirals gonna pierce open the sky
Temple-needle-eye, gonna let out all the rain
To the last grasp.
Stranger still, tiny things populate our world with us,
Microorganisms inhabit everything we do, every word we say.
And we are still waiting
Carry home the moonlight in buckets, what does spill over, the shadows down the mountain. 
And light the fires
The burning fires
With the
Tiny men, tiny people, with tiny movements, and the tiny sun, tiny little stars,  and tiny tiny eyes
That shine in any kind of light.
Fever pitch
Coughing fit.
And respiratory fluctuations
Solar flares like brainstorm, that swell up around equatorial distances. 
Prime Minister forget-me-not
Proteus-head, caught me on a bad day and the bridge is out
I know a lot and forget a lot
And dizzy in the details, King Asoka, he had the hands for nation-building.
Alleyways to pathways to avenue-neurological disorders, makes it hard to keep hold, slippery, knock at the door
And the misfire will let you in. 
ART bRUTe
ARTBRUTe
aRTBRUTE


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Jim Benz


(B)anality

I. First Cycle

A bearded tongue.

II. Second Cycle

Accept it as it is.
A centered emptiness.

III. Third Cycle

A child was born.
A circular space.
A couple of nice outfits.

IV. Fourth Cycle

A defiled expression.
A disembodied head.
Aesthetic qualities.
A false terminology.
A few days later.

V. Fifth Cycle

A fierce warrior goddess.
After a minute passed.
After she fed the multitudes.
A gigantic metaphor.
A layer of wounds.
All our names were related.
Also occurring.
A lyricist and a composer.

VI. Sixth Cycle

A magnifying glass.
A minor aspect of her oeuvre.
A more complicated sense of being.
A mother who weeps.
An abandoned river bed.
An altered state.
An equal regard for connotation.
A new curling iron.
An extraordinary world.
A natural conclusion.
A new sign.
An image of the symbol.
An ink splotch.

VII. Seventh Cycle

An invariable pretense.
A normal conversation.
An ornamental fragment of a line.
Another shadow of language.
Any way that we can do it.
A paradigm of regeneration.
A pleased expression.
A puddle of tears.
A raging flood.
A reinvention.
A rule pronounced.
A second glance.
A series of statements.
A set of press-on nails.
A severe glare.
A side table.
A silhouette of two trees.
A small figure.
As previously determined.
A sweet-faced kid.
At first glance.

VIII. Eighth Cycle

A tongue lashing.
A vast field.
A vital link.
A younger sibling.
Baggage of the possibility.
Before the apocalypse.
Beneath a stone house.
Between the North Sea and the Alps.
Between us.
Beyond the perpendicular apex.
Blame it on his mother.
Borders that still exist.
Bright lights.
Broken beneath his feet.
Broken into sand.
But she loved him.
Carved wooden sandals.
Ceding the dilemma.
Characters in a play.
Clothes piled on the floor.
Clutching the window sill.
Coming to grips.
Compared to her dissociation.
Confronted directly.
Connecting to the stronghold.
Consistently insightful.
Contents of an hallucination.
Cutting into her hide.
Dead by means of silence.
Destructive power.
Deviations of the known.
Discovered in the role of a center.
Disjointed phrases.
Distress and disintegration.

IX. Ninth Cycle

Divided into three sections.
Double-crossed.
Do we like it.
Do you have a name.
Dreams and fantasies.
Dry arid land.
Ego blows.
End of the world.
Established as an intermediary.
Every day.
Everyone looks happy.
Evidence of the tongue clamp.
Exposed by a circular image.
Extremely pleasing.
Flashing your tiny nothings.
For a couple of minutes.
For an understandable relapse.
Form does not conform.
For the purpose of avoiding.
Four more mouths to feed.
Four years later he returned.
From his confusion.
From the essential function.
From time to time.
From where he was standing.
Full of loathing.
Gravestones raising questions.
Ground into mulch.
Haunted by multiple losses.
He asked.
He came back smiling.
He didn’t stay.
Held in place with nails.
He'll be staring blindly.
Her father demanded something else.
Her mother would have wept.
He supported the family elsewhere.
He wasn’t one of them.
He wiped his nose.
His arms outstretched.
His major contribution.
His predominance.
His teeth gleaming.
His white knuckles.
Hit in the head by lightening.
How it all began.
How nervous she feels.
How they were beaten and starved.
Huddled in a constricted space.
Human faces filled with emotion.
Human stones.
Humdrum.
I bet you were happy.
If you ask other people.
I have no idea how long.
I let him hold the gun.
Implosion of form.
In a big tent.
In a fictional account.
In order to serve.
In silence.
Intense layers.
In the altered space.
In the doorway.
In the form of an apocalypse.
In the manner of a fractal.
In the newspaper.
In the rice fields.
In these moments.
In the very center of the circle.
Introspection.
In which it appears.
I stepped in it.
It called out.
It looked like trouble.
It makes a nice ornament.
It seems to hang very well.
It senses everything.
It serves as a work space.
Its impetus is to act.
It's not itself.
It turned to blood.
It was an old joke.
It was a statement.
It was groaning.
It was growing weary.
I wasn't there.
I won't discuss the conflagration.
Just this once.

X. Tenth Cycle

Just this once.
Keeping up the charade.
Kind of like a repetition.
Languages with the same last name.
Largely unpopulated.
Larger-than-life.
Left to die.
Like a bird.
Listening to voices.
Look at the screen.
Man woman.
Menaced by psychosis.
Modeling her dream on a question.
My eyes, my eyes.
My feet crossed at the ankles.
My voice steady.
Networked and programmable.
No material.
Non-mimetic.
No reference except for myself.
Not associated.
Nothing like my counterpart.
Novelty of exposition.
Objects transformed.
Obscured by rain.
Odd phrases.
On a beach
Opportunities for growth.
Our clothes.
Our faces.
Our guns.
Our house is full of flies.
Our intention was not to please.
Our record of inscription.
Our shoulders were touching.
Out in the kitchen.
Outside the moment.
Over there.
Owners of the language.
Pale and deranged.
People inside our circle.
Perfect for something.
Poised as if dying.
Predominance of a specific value.
Process of searching.
Projective power.
Put it on the kitchen table.
Raised like an altar.
Read sequentially in the proper tense.
Replacing the outside world.
Scattered at our feet.
Senseless quotations.
She fell instantly in love.
She felt no lightness of being.
She is ready.
She replied quietly.
She said it is going to swallow him.
She still hasn't answered his question.
She wakes up extra early.
Shrinking and delinquent.
Sitting quietly on the floor.
Six months from the outside world.
Someone who frightens her.
Someone who is entirely different.
Sometimes in belief.
Sorting out all the tangents.
Space has become confused.
Stereotyped and inadequate.
Stiff from time.
Still fragrant and green.
Such as it is.
Such promise.
Supranational spaces.
Surrounded by a concrete fence.
Sweet grapes filled with healing.
Symbols of apotheosis.
Taller and also stronger.
Tapping at the windows.
Technology.
Thank you very much.
That's how it goes.
The actual calling.
The beginning of the end.
The commotion over there.
The contract and the white spaces.
The dangling streets.
The door of their apartment.
The experience.
The first bombs.
The first cycle.
The first three paragraphs.
The fraying edge.
The function of a crippled dog.
The illusionist.
The invasion of comprehension.
The meaninglessness.
The mighty waves.
Then softly repeating.
The object of her love
The outside and the individual.
The poverty of frequency.
The power to preserve.
There are more than three distances.
The referential function.
There is nothing more to say.
The retractable lens.
There was nothing special about it.
The same expression.
The same people twice.
The temporal pause.
The tongue of nations.
The very desk.
The voice on the radio.
The whole damn surface.
The woman.
They are at a party.
They eloped.
They were living in Berlin.
They wondered.
Think of a time.
This is worth knowing.
This time is different from the other time.
This will not seem so negative.
This would imply he hasn't understood.
Those who are hurting.
To codify.
To consume.
To damage property.
To destroy.
To feed the crowd.
To feel more involved.
Together at each lull.
Tongue of the belt.
Tooth wounds.
To show you how it feels.
To superimpose ourselves.
To the detriment of being.
To the expressed object.
To the left and right of vacancy.
To the observation.
To which everything is related.
To whip the child repeatedly.
Treated as an object.
Two lanes and a cell phone.

Coda

Three streams of thought: typography and reflection. Unceasingly developed. Understanding the

individual movements. Undetectable moments. Very seriously. Visions of the center. Watching them die. We can't understand anything. We deserved it. Weekdays and Sundays. We have been at it for aeons. We laughed repeatedly at every opportunity. We should be thankful. We spoke in his absence. We were shooting photos. What are you doing today. What did he say about the production. Whatever he meant by that I don’t know. What is behind the camera. What she called the calamity. What surprised you most. What they meant. When he pronounced his purpose. When he spoke coherently. When I drove to the shore. When time disambiguated. When we were still a bar code. When we tested for depth. When we were just being born. When you squinted. Which lasted for about an hour. Widespread approximations. With a cork screw. With frayed cuffs. Within its own realm. With jealous pleasure. Without confusing. Without fruit. Without knowing. With the genuine article. With the other stragglers. Woman man. Word as an object. Words relating to time. Yellow jogging shorts. Yet again. You opened up by chance. Your mouth is an eye. Your tongue is spatial.

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