Jane Simpson


Bridge of Remembrance
(Christchurch, 25 March 2020)

Mesopotamia
Egypt
Vietnam

now 
New Zealand
is on a war footing.

A Vietnamese 
barista makes me 
his last espresso

before the nation 
locks down
at 4.00pm.

A lone police officer in
his bulletproof vest
smiles across

granite space.
The last skateboarder
last cyclist savour

freedom
cafés emptied
shoppers gone.

The Avon ripples
breaks 
its skin

I am in 
a bubble
of one

carry
ancestors
home.



Sleeping arrangements

I slept on my side
the first night

nine weeks’ gestating
in a nest of pillows,

balancing blades,
dreaming of acrobats,

the wedge between back and bed
enough for sleep to squeeze in

off the horizontal,
trunk tilted just a little

side on, no exception
the neck and head;

a foam pillow supports
my latex memory.

*

My latex memory-
foam pillow supports

the neck and head
side on, no exception.

Trunk tilted just a little
off the horizontal,

enough for sleep to squeeze in
the wedge between back and bed,

dreaming of acrobats
balancing blades

in a nest of pillows,
nine weeks gestating

the first night
I have slept on my side.



No memory, no loss

Curtains in the admissions ward are cell-
divisions going back into infinity.

The clock speaks
with stuttering hands. 

The anaesthetist stands at my bed 
and I have prepared my questions:

What is consciousness? Does it stop
when you are anaesthetised?

What of time, when there is
no ‘change of state’?

No dreams, no memory, so does time
cease to exist?

The anaesthetist rocks back
on his heels, but answers like a professor:

Sometimes we discuss these questions
at international conferences

          	*

All those going under, having
shoulder surgery today 

the elderly and frail, hapless 
cyclists, young arthritics

no collective 
unconscious 

our time
adds up to nothing. 
	
          	* 

I wait four hours, am a voyeur
of wheels on lino going in to theatre.

Sedated, I am asleep even before
they take me in – 

no hand holds mine
on the threshold to oblivion.

          	*

I wake with no clock, in a different ward, 
erased; cheated of even his name.




Jane Simpson is a poet, liturgist and historian. She has two collections, 
A world without maps (2016) and Tuning Wordsworth’s Piano (2019), both
published by Interactive Press (Brisbane). 
 
 

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Jane Simpson


Finding him

after the call from St John to say the alarm round his chest
has been activated and the ambulance was on its way

after the call from Meals on Wheels about lunches untaken
from the crate by the front door

after the no-response when I drop in, ring the bell, 
wonder if he has heard, remember
the security code and let myself in
and I see him in his bed
just the way he wanted it to be
so he would never know
it had happened.
Finding him.

Death will silence my scenarios and release 
the music of the profoundly deaf
shutter his paintings on the living room walls 
and flood the house with light.

After death has come and the quick burial he wanted
I will sit among his papers
see outside the bedroom window
the roses he tended, watched grow 
and wrenched
with a sharp spade.
 


No easy peace

(Christchurch, New Zealand, after 15 March 2019)

The widower leads from a wheelchair. 
Little children follow him on bicycles
festooned with streamers and flowers
under the arches of bare trees.

A hooter sounds opposite the Al Noor Mosque.
Massed cyclists jostle at the start,
a shared pathway down Hagley Park. 
All aboard the Peace Train Cycle Ride!

A small woman in brown robes stands
on the steps of the restored Buddhist Centre. 
The abbess speaks noble words – 
distorted by a megaphone.

Cyclists in the sun, cyclists by the fence,
cyclists straddling their bikes,
some leaving helmets and gloves on – 
are still.

The Peace Train heads off, 
weaves through suburban streets.
We stop at the city’s seldom
-visited sacred places:

the Hare Krishna Temple, Synagogue, 
Catholic and Anglican Cathedrals, Baptist Church 
and at the end to the second place
of slaughter.

We listen to speeches, prayers 
and karakia, shift from foot to foot; 
thoughts drift
away from peace 

hope, love, 
forgiveness and trust –
words I want to anchor,
turn into concrete nouns.
	
Cyclists – faith and none – 
arrive at the end, the second mosque,
on bikes festooned with streamers, flowers 
and thorns of peace.



lockdown walk

with a lope
with a twist
with a spring
with a scuff
with a bounce
with a stick
with a jaunt
with a thought
with a song
with a pet
with a single
step



Outside Ballantynes
(the oldest and most exclusive department store in Christchurch)

I stand on the final yellow cross
of waiting, 
lean towards 
the inviting dark,
to figures camouflaged,
their uniforms not quite
uniforms.

I have observed the 2-metre 
silence.
Brace myself to disclose
name    address    phone    email

knowing if I wished 
I could scan the lives 
of customers before me
squashed between lines,
tracings on a sheet.

The doors lumber open. 
A woman greets me from within
her bob, smiles from behind
a lectern.
She is elegance and silver 
smoky    pink    soft    power

asks for my name and number
as if she is asking for nothing
touch    types    strokes     keys

nods and smiles
and I am in
– no signing out –
unhurried elegance
and silver.

Jane Simpson is a poet, liturgist and historian. She has two collections, A world without maps (2016) and Tuning Wordsworth’s Piano (2019), published by Interactive Press (Brisbane). Her latest book is The Farewelling of a Home: a liturgy, and her website is www.poiema.co.nz

 
 

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Jane Simpson


Holding her

My father hands me my red UK
birth certificate. I am 21.

He says it is my right
now I am of age.

I hand my father the birth certificate
he has never seen, never thought he could. 

When he was 24 his mother gave him
an affidavit with his date

of birth and name – no
father, no mother 

a document sealed 
at the lawyers 

with his marriage certificate 
and will my mother 

determined should be opened
only after his death.

My father is now 94.
I hand him his birth certificate.

Silence was the price he paid to secure 
his marriage, kept it except to those

who had a right to know – 
mortgage and life assurance companies. 

My mother died seven years ago.
My father is holding more than she ever knew – 

his mother: her name, 
their place, the date;

his bursting into the world to be given 
three weeks later into

another mother’s 
arms.



a marriage

a bonding 	a binding
a stole wrapped	around hands
after    the vows

an oath	        to silence
the price	of marriage
the in-laws	exacted

lies told	        to those you love
a fur coat 	round her shoulders
for him a cloak	of respectability
 
 

Poem about a poem

this poem spits tacks
this poem rages and rants

it has language
Genetic Risk Assessment

it has blood and gall
calling for a test

substituting strong verbs for
polysyllabic nouns

nine years on bilateral prophylactic salpingo-
oopherectomy trips off my tongue

cheating death 
by 90%

now I want the BRCA1 
the BRCA2

do or die 
mutuation test

NOW

Jane Simpson, a Christchurch-based poet and historian, has two full-length collections, A world without maps (2016) and Tuning Wordsworth’s Piano (2019), and a world-first liturgy, The Farewelling of a Home. Her poems have appeared in Hamilton Stone Review, London Grip, Allegro and in leading journals in New Zealand and Australia.

 
 

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Jane Simpson


First selfie

a portrait of the breast
taken from below
the other breast looking on
beady-eyed

I reconstruct my surgery
forensically
through bruises the nurses forewarned –
a lexicon of reds
my innocent skin
belied

How to get out of movie mode — 
the unexpectedly
pert breast looking back
from 50 years ago —
cupped
Berlei
Bendon
Triumph!

 

In the surgical ward

I wear orange
a high vis vest
over broken roads

a tee-shirt
saffron robes
a peach wedding dress

a touch of black
desert sands
grit and pizzazz

I am zest and zing
skin peeled
the colour of courage

under the knife.
 


Who is my neighbour

The neighbour opposite who lent me 
her lawnmower the week I moved in and her neighbour 
next-but-one.

The mechanic, just shy of eighty — his garage, the back 
of his childhood home — turning the radio down.
Nothing like this has happened before.

The cancer survivor uprooting trees
starting her garden over 
two weeks before, a year after the lockdown 

when the theatre nurse dreamt and slept
at night, and we called out and talked
and shared home baking.

	Last week, a garage sale 
	blocking the drive.

	Thursday, police cars 
	several hours in a quiet street. 

The hospital ringing — two days after we think it must 
	have happened — she hadn’t come into work.

The daughter we do not see 
	who found her.

The woman next-but-one
	I last saw on her front steps 
	
at the garage sale
	just shy of sixty 

giving me her childhood — 
	her mother’s trusted mixing bowls.
                      

Jane Simpson, a Christchurch-based poet and historian, has two full-length collections, A world without maps (2016) and Tuning Wordsworth’s Piano (2019), and a world-first liturgy, The Farewelling of a Home (2021). Her poems have appeared in Hamilton Stone Review, London Grip, Allegro and in leading journals in New Zealand and Australia.

 
 

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Jim Meirose


So Now What Is The Truth?



               Okay, said the interrogator, rising. He motioned to the guard who was in the room.
               That’s all for now—take him back to his cell.
               Okay. Come on, Ray.
               Once back in his cell, Raymond slapped the concrete wall, his eyes clenched shut, his mind racing.
               —Jesus Christ Jesus Christ Jesus Christ what will my wife say how will she find out maybe they’ve already been to the house and told her she’ll see my car missing they’ll ask her about it she’ll say its at work that’s where Raymond is at work what’s wrong she’ll ask them and they’ll tell her I’m arrested and she’ll just be so upset and she won’t know what to do she’ll want to come down here I know to see me I know but where did Angie go after the police grabbed me I just saw her duck her head down in the car across the street when they grabbed me don’t tell me she walked home, don’t tell me she walked across town at three in the morning to get home she’s a witness to what I did and I told them I was at work with Angie and they’ll check the sign in sheets at the tower and they’ll know I was never in there tonight, and neither was Angie they didn’t think the car across the street from the drug store was mine, they thought it was just one of many cars parked across from the drug store in a line, that’s good for Angie or she would have been nabbed as well it’s good that she got away but what will she tell the police, they’ll go down to the tower in the morning to talk to her and will her story match mine I don’t know and what will she tell Massingill about why I don’t show up for work in the morning maybe she’ll tell him I am sick and told her to tell him I was sick yes that’s what will happen but these pills these God damned pills I have to have, I curse the day I took the first one and I curse the stupid idea I had to stop at the drug store and throw the trash can through the front window and go in looking for a big score of pills I’ve never done anything like that before in my life Angie needs pills too I told her we’re going to get enough pills to last for months if I do this and she said go ahead and do it and the cop shone the big flashlight in my eyes when I was coming out the broken window and I saw Angie ducking down in the car across the street all lit up with the flashing police car lights and it was really her idea, she said while we were at Findon’s why don’t we break into the drug store and I went along with it and oh my God what about when my wife learns what I did and that I’ve got this problem with pills, it’s bad enough she’ll have to dig up bail money I wonder what the bail will be for breaking and entering I’ve never been arrested before I hope she can get the bail together what if it’s a million dollars no it can’t be a million dollars I don’t want to go to prison they caught me red handed coming out of the window they know it was me smashed the window and went in I just have to stick to my story that I stopped to see what was what with the broken window in the drug store if I stick with my story I won’t go to prison I can’t go to prison I’d die in prison and I had to have the stupid gloves on thinking that if I had gloves on there wouldn’t be any fingerprints but now I have to tell them I had the gloves on because my hands were cold that’s a really thin lie the trash can has no fingerprints on it though the trash can and the locked cabinet back in the pharmacy that has the hard drugs that I was too stupid to realize that they would have the hard stuff locked up in a cabinet as soon as I saw that I took off to get out I didn’t have any way to bust the lock on the cabinet, I was dumb enough to think I’d just find the pills on the shelf back there and that was when I first kicked myself for doing this whole thing at all and Angie was hiding in the car across the street when the cops said get on the ground, get on the ground—and they handcuffed me and read me my rights and threw me in the back of the cop car Angie I don’t know how Angie got away because the cop car stayed in front of the drug store to watch it until it could be boarded up and the owner came down and she must have just slithered out of the car and snuck away through the yards of the houses across the street and got to the next block and got away that way and I hope she got home all right I hope they didn’t grab her if they’d have grabbed her they’d have told me they had a witness in custody but what’s my wife going to say when she finds out I spend the night with Angie at Angie’s place not at the towers it’s going to come out after they check the sign out sheet and interview the guards no sir, the guards will say—no sir, no one left this office around three o’clock in the morning and the handcuffs hurt I’d never been handcuffed it really hurts they were on too tight but they wouldn’t listen when I said they were too tight they just laughed and slammed the back door of the cop car over and in the morning the judge will set bail, and my wife will be there, mortified, and she’ll have to make bail and one by one the truths about me will come out to her as the whole thing unfolds I’m ashamed of the pills I really am ashamed my wife had no idea I had this problem I always made enough money to buy pills and she didn’t notice that the money was gone but now there’s less money now that she’s not working and I couldn’t buy pills, not at street prices, so breaking into the drug store when you’ve got the shakes for lack of pills is really what you have to do but she won’t understand even if she makes bail and we drive home to the house the silence between us you can cut it with a knife nothing will ever be the same between us but this will all be after I see the judge and it will be about the time Angie will show up at work and will she think to lie for me knowing like she does that they nabbed me or will she stay away from work afraid that the cops will show up there and pick her up I named her oh why the hell did I name her no but she doesn’t know that the judge will ask me why did you break into the drug store and my wife will be standing there, and I will lie like I’ve been lying and say I didn’t break into the drug store and the judge will ask are you an addict and I’ll say no and he’ll ask why did I have gloves on and I’ll say my hands were cold and he’ll say but God, it was eighty degrees last night, it’s the middle of a heat wave, you were trying to keep from leaving prints weren’t you and I will say no and I hope Angie will be up in the towers lying for me knowing that I would lie for her knowing that if the company found out I was arrested for this I would be let go, just like that, and I’d just be sitting home with my wife with her staring at her addict husband, fuming, wondering where our next meal is coming from—oh we’ve got money in the bank we could survive on that a while so that might be okay, but maybe she’s already been told by the cops that I was with Angie that night, and it won’t be the same between us it won’t able to be the same between us and I need to get a lawyer but that costs money too and I don’t want a public defender they are no good the TV shows all say that, I’m in a TV show now about a guy who broke into a drug store, such a low crime it’s not even exciting enough to be in the movies or on TV and I feel nauseous I feel I’m going to vomit I feel filthy they pinned me to the ground to handcuff me and my face was in the blacktop and I got all scraped up why don’t they give me medical attention they ought to give me medical attention and I do need a lawyer because I’m a criminal now, I’m not what I was before, not just Raymond, but Raymond the criminal who’s ruined his life by doing one stupid thing but I got to lie I got to keep lying like about the towers, I’ll just tell them Angie and me went to leave at three and there was no guard on duty, yeah that’s what we’ll say we’ll say we looked for him but he was not around so we just left guards need to go to the bathroom you know that’s probably what it was and my hands were cold, so cold, I put my gloves on and isn’t it funny how Angie even laughed seeing me put them on because it was hot out but I just felt like fooling around and it’s funny how we were driving along and I saw it—the drug store window was broken, and somebody needed to do something and I pulled over and went to look I left my cell phone in the car and I was going to go to the cell phone and call 911 but the cops just roared up and it all started, this nightmare—if only I could talk to Angie so our stories will match, that’s the only problem our stories will not match, don’t I get a phone call don’t I get one phone call, I could call Angie but no I don’t know her number by heart and plus they’re probably listening to everything that goes on the phones here— and I’ll just have to boldface lie and I need a lawyer I can get a lawyer, Ronnie my money man will know a good lawyer, I need a lawyer because I am a criminal oh I’d never admit it to them, or to anyone, but its true I am a criminal and nothing but bad things are going to happen to me for the next several days—but what about beyond that—trial—prison—I can’t go to prison I can’t imagine prison oh no I need to talk to Angie bad I need to see her before the morning but that won’t happen, I am lost, I am God-damned lost, a God-damned no good lost criminal without even any pills to take—how long will I be alone in this cell what are they doing what are they waiting for—maybe they’re picking up Angie, lord I hope not, I know Angie and I think alike she’ll lie for us, not for me, but for us, she’s such a good woman not like my wife she never ever understood me that’s what drove me to drugs that’s what drove me to Angie I’m innocent, she’s the guilty one, if it wasn’t for her none of this would be happening—yes it’s true it’s not a lie I am innocent, innocent—that’s what I’ll keep telling them, and everything will turn out all right and then I’ll be able to divorce my damned wife and Angie and I can be together—yes I am innocent, I am innocent, I am innocent—I’ve got a sickness that’s what it is I’ve got a sickness I don’t need punishment I need treatment—I’m sure they’ll give me treatment no prison no prison—I’m a sick man a very very sick man—
               The door opened.
               Raymond—come with me.
               The guard led Raymond back to the interrogation room. A different questioner was there.
               Sit down, he said. Raymond sat down.
               The questioner shuffled some papers.
               We spoke to Angie Roberts, he said.
               Raymond’s eyebrows rose.
               You did?
               Yes. As a matter of fact, we picked her up. She’s down the hall.
               You arrested her—
               No. We just asked her to come down to answer a few questions. Unfortunately, your stories don’t quite match. You weren’t at work with Angie Roberts. You spent the day and most of the night at her place. Isn’t that true?
               Uh—okay. Yes that’s true.
               You cheating on your wife, Raymond?
               No! Angie and I are just good friends.
               The questioner drew himself up in his chair and pointed at Raymond.
               Baloney! Isn’t it true that you and Miss Roberts are lovers?
               No—
               And isn’t it true that you left her house about three a.m.?
               Yes. That is true. But we’re not lovers. We were doing work—
               That’s baloney! She says you’re lovers. How would your wife feel if she knew you had a lover—that you were cheating on her—
               Raymond half-rose, but the guard standing behind the questioner took a step forward and Raymond sat back down.
               Well? How would she feel?
               She wouldn’t like it. But it’s a lie.
               Why would Miss Roberts lie about this?
               She’s—she’s got a crush on me. Always tries to get close to me, flirting you know—you know how women can be.
               So she’s just making it up?
               Yes.
               What time did you leave her place?
               Around two thirty.
               You drove toward home alone?
               Yes.
               And you stopped at the pharmacy around three, and you threw the garbage can through the window and went in—
               No! The window was already broken. I stopped to check it out and was getting ready to call 911—
               You stopped to check it out with gloves on?
               Yes.
               Why?
               I—I didn’t want to contaminate the crime scene with my fingerprints.
               The questioner leaned back smiling.
               Well—that’s the first true thing you’ve said all night—you didn’t want to contaminate the scene of your own crime with your fingerprints. You threw the can through the window and you went inside—
               No!
               —looking for drugs—what kind of drugs you on, Raymond—Percocet? Oxycontin? Vicodin? Xanax? What were you looking for?
               I wasn’t looking for anything. I just went in—
               The questioner rose and pointed at Raymond sharply.
               Aha! You went in after all didn’t you!
               No—I—I didn’t mean to say that—
               No. Of course not. What you meant to do was lie, but you’re not even a good liar. You said you went in. Did you go in?
               Raymond sat silent.
               Well? Did you go in—it’ll be rough on you if you lie—
               Raymond put a hand on the table, palm down.
               I’ve had enough. I want a lawyer. I won’t answer any more questions.
               That’s because we’re getting too close to the truth! Isn’t it Raymond?
               No. You’re trying to twist my words—
               You’re twisting them yourself! All right—guard—take him out to a phone—is there a particular lawyer you would be calling Raymond? Or do you want a public defender—
               No. No public defender. I got to call my wife. She’s got the number of the lawyer.
               All right—take him out then. Let him call his wife. Good luck, Raymond.
               The guard brought Raymond out of the room and down to a phone up on the concrete wall.
               How do I call out?
               Dial nine and then your number. I’ll go down the hall so you can talk private. But I’ll be watching you.
               The guard walked away. Raymond hesitated a second, then bit his lip and dialed the number. A few seconds passed and then he spoke into the phone.
               Nancy? Nancy—I—
               He listened to a voice in the phone, then spoke.
               Okay—so you know then—the cops have been to the house and you know.
               He listened.
               Listen Nancy—I can explain everything. But I’m in really hot water—I need you to call Dan Simpson—
               Never mind what kind of pills I’m on—no—she is just a person I work with—
               I need you to call the lawyer and have him come down to the county jail—I need a lawyer—no, no—don’t hang up—Nancy!
               !
               Raymond hung up the phone and turned to the guard, who was down the hall. The guard came up.
               Listen, said Raymond to the guard—my wife—she doesn’t have the lawyer’s number. His name is Dan Simpson. Would you have his number here—or is there a phone book I can use—
               Dan Simpson you say?
               Yes.
               I’ll see what I can do. For now, you go back in the cell—
               But I just need a phone book—
               No, you go back in the cell. You’ve had your phone call.
               I just get one phone call?
               Yup. Come on.
               Raymond wiped his sweaty brow—why don’t they have air conditioning in this damn place why don’t they—and he followed the guard, who locked him back in his cell.
               Once back in his cell, Raymond once more slapped the concrete wall, his eyes clenched shut, his mind racing.
               —I might have known that God-damned Nancy would act this way—sure she should have been down here by now, a good wife would have got me a lawyer when she was told her husband was arrested but she’s no good wife she told me Go to hell and hung up on me wait until I get my hands on her wait until I get my damned hands on her I’ll slap her silly like I do and why did Angie tell them we were at her place that is the truth how dare she tell the truth and we are lovers but why give that up to the police it’s not the police’s business how dare she tell the truth the truth the truth—it’s no good when you tell the truth it just gets you into trouble—but she did tell one lie she told them I left her house alone, good girl to tell a lie like that, good girl to tell a lie—for me, her lover—but no she’s not my lover, I told the police she is not and that is what’s true what I told the police is the truth not what’s really true—but prison, prison—there can’t be prison—
               He tore at his hair.
               Oh my God.
               And Raymond sat on his cot, put his spinning head in his hands, and wept.
               My God, my God, my God—what’s true?



Jim Meirose's work has previously appeared in Otoliths, and also in many other leading literary magazines and journals including Alaska Quarterly Review, New Orleans Review, South Carolina Review, and Witness.
 
 
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lindsay cahill



drunk as a poet on payday

Pablo Neruda said that laughter is the language of the soul…
I know— I am familiar with the works of Pablo Neruda,
and as your president, I would demand a science-fiction library
with an A-B-C of the genre: Asimov, Bester, Clarke…
but no Ray Bradbury.

it’s the Lisa Simpson Book Club—
Poe, Ginsberg, Kerouac.
those are my only friends—
grown-up nerds like Gore Vidal,
and even he's kissed more boys than I ever will…
but solitude never hurt anyone:
Emily Dickinson lived alone,
and she wrote some of the most
beautiful poetry the world has ever known…
then went crazy as a loon.

and it was Mrs. Bouvier, y’know, who drove her friends,
Zelda Fitzgerald and Sylvia Plath, so crazy
with jealousy over her good looks;
but don't be bashful— when I was your age,
kids made fun of me because I read at the ninth-grade level…
although, I hardly consider A Separate Peace the ninth-grade level.
pssht, more like pre-school.
it’s the Ayn Rand School for Tots
where A is A, and Helping is Futile.
and I’d just like to remind you that Shirley Jackson's The Lottery
does not contain any hints on how to win the lottery—
it is rather a chilling tale of conformity gone mad:

the turkey's a little dry?
the turkey's a little dry!
oh, foe, the cursed teeth!
what demon from the depths of hell created thee?

truth is beauty; beauty, truth, sir!
but the truth can be harsh and disturbing—
how can that be considered beautiful?
oh, damn you, Walt Whitman—
damn-you-Walt-freaking-Whitman!
Leaves of Grass, my ass!

goodbye, Springfield—
from hell's heart
I stab at thee.


train to Squaresville

hear me roar: a poem for women

Breaking News: an overworked and underappreciated housewife
has parked on the Springfield bridge, refusing to budge.
oh, I always knew someday Mom would violently rise up
and cast off the shackles of our male oppressors.

thinking too much gives you wrinkles.

is the remarkably sexist drivel intentional,
or is it just a horrible mistake?
don’t ask me, I’m just a girl.

that’s not funny, Bart—
millions of girls will grow up thinking
that this is the right way to act—
that they can never be more than vacuous ninnies
whose only goal is to look pretty, land a rich husband,
and spend all day on the phone with their equally vacuous friends
talking about how damn terrific it is to look pretty,
and have a rich husband!

ugh, well I don't know what phallocentric means, but no girls!
if the Bible has taught us nothing else— and it hasn't—
it's that girls should stick to girls' sports,
such as hot-oil wrestling,
foxy boxing,
and such-and-such.

that’s it! when I get married— I’m keeping my own name!
er, maybe that should be ‘if I choose to get married’…

I know! we’ll make our own doll!
she'll have the wisdom of Gertrude Stein,
and the wit of Cathy Guisewite;
the tenacity of Nina Totenberg,
and the common sense of Elizabeth Cady Stanton!
and, to top it off, the down-to-earth good looks of Eleanor Roosevelt.

it’ll be a tribute to the trailblazing women who made our country great:
Georgia O'Keeffe, Susan B. Anthony,
and Marjory Stoneman Douglas…
I'm sure you haven't heard of her,
but she worked her whole life to
preserve the Florida Everglades.

women don’t have to be second class citizens;
the first step to liberation is to free ourselves
from these male-imposed shackles!



lindsay cahill works and experiments in Niagara Falls, Ontario. her poetry has been featured in print anthologies, one-mags, and carved into punky cardboard zine collections across Canada, including ditch, poetry, Steel Bananas, lapse and Dead Souls, among others. in 2010, she founded dead gender magazine—an independent and international art and lit mag dedicated to anti-elitism and general awesomeness. she most recently completed the visual project SOMEANTICS: OCCUPY ACME—a collection of signage used by Wile E. Coyote on The Road Runner Show. lindsay’s currently working on her first full-length poetry manuscript, This is indeed a disturbing universe—a remix of the first ten seasons of The Simpsons—from which the pieces above are taken.

 
 
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Michael O'Brien



dreaming of droughts

An airbus made of a waterfall. Whatever happens cake needs to be made w/ sugar. Nothing can be done, good or bad, about it. It’s like rain. Bela’s dead - nout to be done again. Vapour becomes invisible - can’t repeat experiment in a lab. I take it all on blind faith, the holy ghost too. Expanding, the airbus becomes warm. I watch an old man sitting across from me write out a postcard - I wonder if he knows about the cubic volume of this yoke? Closing my eyes I dream of droughts.

                fair weather clouds a child learns a new word



dial 0161 for nostalgia

The moon moves into advertising and door-to-door sales. ‘I never saw that coming’ says some planet. To make itself more relatable to potential clients the moon watches 6 plus hours of tv a day. Watching the home shopping channel one evening they buy Mecca and an unspecified amount of seahorses. ‘I think it’s a good deal’ it says to itself the next day.

cold day
things-in-themselves
as verbs

Watching a day labourer become a brick the moon feels good about its posture and exercise regime - which includes a tae bo vhs that always brings forth the dreams of OJ Simpson. Riding the wave of feeling good the moon goes to the bathroom and writes: ‘meet me here at 7:30 for the plague and a handjob’. On the back of a bibliography the moon writes down a mechanic’s number.

Michael O’Brien lives in Glasgow Scotland. His work has appeared most recently in Never Ending Story, Moonchild, Failed Haiku, Quatrain Fish Occulum. He is the author of As Adam (UP Literature, 2012). He was also a runner-up in the Mainichi Daily News Haiku Contest in 2009.
 
 
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Ken Bolton / September Poems / 9.

11  (Two Blues)


I leave a note that says 
“I’m having coffee at Mr Surly’s”
& go there—
where this poem
‘finds’ me
staring at a sea
I sometimes refer to
as the Aegean,
tho in fact it is
the Adriatic—wondering
why I’m here.
                  To
have a coffee?
Tho I have forgotten that.
(The waiter will
remind me.)  To
do God’s will?  Not
likely.  Who lives
in all those churches,
shouldn’t they do it?
as they’re drawing pay?
God's will, I mean.
I doubt that I am here
to reap the benefit
of my education—
“Ah, Europe!” being the 
entire accrued payout.  
This, this moment,
may not be unrelated—
          #
I never go to Asia.
It is not a firm enough idea.
          #
The nett result of
all this history, the
variegated sameness—the
brands that are everywhere
or interchangeable, i
Simpson, Upim, Kookai—
is to make me feel mortal
& to make the ‘old’ ideas—
humanity, fame, vanitas—
seem plausible.  Melancholy,
& enchanted by the sound
of a scooter motor 
whizzing past behind me—
or seen thru a doorway—
the silence stitching 
itself together,
restoring lassitude; entranced
by the just proportion & calming
patina of a wall,
opposite the arch that frames it—
which I look thru—
(the smell of petrol, the
cheering futility of the desire
that gunned the accelerator
in the first place—
the going nowhere).  “I’ll
have a short black, please.”
Then I add “Espresso”
by way of amplification.
The waiter has shown up.
You would have to say “eventually”—
But I don’t care.
The hill out there looks great
silver grey against the blue,
the blue above, the blue below

continued

 
 
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Derek Motion


real jessica

om.
alba my paris my amour my
real-estate idol island hilton.
l’equipe the electric picnic; viva
duff! fifa, qantas, cnn…
budget travel bus eireann.
the lingus hillary, the space big
brother / desperate belle;
clara power afl runes
bus, car, airport, tire? get
real get blue: jessica simpson du musical?
master space master power – high virgin
mischa barton de la love jennifer hawkins
(youtube) plus tv1 the veronicas’ coupe;
australian housewives. real jessica.
om.


flickeration

walking goes long (walking through dusk
chains falling about the wayside (this hollywood
afternoon (but with a pirouette & stolen shadow
the maybes wait (you can stand & not fidget

rules vanish with breathing (with the clear night
& your accent is a separate person (looks betray
the calm sociopath as you speak (making order
out of this supposed line that flickers (& goes

bump (in the morning we are friends this making
you cry (joy or post-fucking bliss it is (the fear
of witches of mazes of (violent change being the
only way small elements are observable (for now

most of us go home (with only a few cares & patches
seeing the universe unlike it is (prevailing because



Derek Motion is awaiting the birth of his first daughter; nevertheless he blogs at TypingSpace, edits fourW, researches some sort of phd. & writes poems.


 
 
 
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Brentley Frazer



THE CYBERNETIC OPAQUE
The flux of life is pouring its aesthetic aspect into your eyes, your ears
   — and you ignore it because you are looking for your canons of beauty in
   some sort of frame or glass case or tradition.  ~Mina Loy

HDTVs bleeding in a field
(the outer man beneath an inner balcony)
widescreens leprous as snow
(phosphorus gas and powdered glass)
before dust undoes her belly
our bellicose peripheries
the unattainable millimetres
out of reach.

Photographs of laughing
machines. Elementary shouting
up from the digital beach.

Take control assign yourself some
privileges modify your own CSS
make the breast a political statement
again. Your stylesheet has a scripting
error. I simply cannot be seen with you
in public.

High stake games.
The highest stake
in the captive house.
Kill
the crowd.
Reality curls up
follows the sun
around the garden.
Agent for Change.
Surveillance footage
follows last hours.
Evasion advisers
spy agencies broken.

Unlock the code with genital secrets
lose advantages
expire
like intrepid vandals
out on the horizon at sunrise
               Mina’s dove wing
fallen in sugar
               stirs her latte
with a feather.



WHEN DID THE DANCE END

                Worm on the ruined carpet
an hour before Oscar choked
to death on a bowl of pasta
the argument got heated
                from the tequila
          and his particular brand of machismo
got lost on me

because it’s not
even a worm it’s
                a moth larva

and I’ve seen this drunken dare
a thousand times

and never envisioned then

          (how could I? Would I want
                to?) the tiny hands reaching
out for his dad.

          Outcrossing insects on a nuptial flight
innocence like piles of wings on the windowsill.

          So I saw on Facebook this chick who with
I once spent the most debauched summer
and the way I remember her
          —hippy braids
and beads wearing a tie-dyed satin slip
always forgetting her panties

          driving
in the rain listening to Floyd in a paisley
painted VW, weed thicker than the exhaust
gaffer-tape from theatre class holding down
the hood...

          what happened to that girl?
All that self-loving, no wrong

          turns left to take, no undiscovered country.

          And where did I leave that boy?
          On a bus
stop seat somewhere I bet, like a beaten
paperback with missing pages
          exhausted
on the long run from the familiar.




Brentley Frazer was born in Queensland in 1972. He is widely published Australian poet, literary critic, publisher and editor. His poems and other writings have been published in Australia, New Zealand, France, U.K, U.S.A, India, Japan and Slovenia. In 2010 he wrote an MA thesis on memoir and authentic voice under the tutelage of true crime/nonfiction author Lindsay Simpson. He is currently in the final stages of a PhD (poetry/experimental literature/creative nonfiction) at Griffith University supervised by the poet Anthony Lawrence and the writer Nigel Krauth. He was editor of the ground breaking art and Literature Journal Retort Magazine 2001-2013 and is currently publishing editor of Bareknuckle Poet ~ Journal of Letters. More information at www.brentley.com.
 
 
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Jane Joritz-Nakagawa


Documentary 5


"this journey I must close myself"

of identity itself...of object of desire...none of us know quite who we are...at the mercy of institutions....

some more exiled than others...

did you know you wanted    /            it?

i

ii

iii


the important thing is that jessica simpson cured her
zits / using proactiv face cream


i
because i said

ii
because i

iii
sa(i)d

i

iv


after beating the dog with my fists i covered them in hand / lotion so she would not recognize me my
mother often said people will like you better if you
compliment them, but,
at night the birds were replaced
by bats....

v


did you know you                                wanted [it]?


iv

where the suicide occurred . . .

& the making of worthless objects (thwarted vaginalia)
. . .the object of desire itself....


iii
science faction impending erasure from history.

victim of your Shininess Flees

Velvet Hair scheme brain schemes

i invite over repeated squirminess

don't pulse out of me...."the dolorous and beautiful secret of which i died"

ii
soft bodied and usually ...

i
discovering new planets (in which to live) (something flew by) could be a new illness....



Jane Joritz-Nakagawa's first poetry book, Skin Museum, was published by Avant Books, Tokyo, Japan in 2006. Her second book, Aquiline, is forthcoming.

Other poems have appeared in journals such as New American Writing, 580 Split, Tinfish, ACM, One Less and others. Email is welcome here or here.

 
 
 
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bofa xesjum


benny and his neighbors

benny had no friends, but he was far from alone in the world. he lived in a big building, in a large city. benny needed four things to survive - oxygen, water, a certain level of warmth, and protein - and he was provided with all four. unlike many other inhabitants of the building and the city, benny was grateful for being provided with these four things. this attitude earned him the contempt of many of his fellow creatures, but others were contemptuous of him for other reasons as well. when he was not sleeping, enjoying warmth, or ingesting water or protein, benny spent much of his time developing elaborate card or board games, that neither he nor anybody else would ever play. benny’s room was in one of the central corridors of the building, and as such, he had a total of six neighbors. adrian lived in the room on benny’s left. he collected crimean war action figures, and had no friends. clyde lived on the room on benny’s right. he wrote haikus, and had one friend - darrell, who lived in the room on his, clyde’s, right, i e, two doors down from benny. the corridors ran from east to west, and earl lived in the room across from benny on the north side of the building. earl lifted weights, and he had one friend, chester, who lived in the room above him, and also lifted weights. frank lived across from benny on the south side. he was interested in old time american football, and he was writing a book about red grange, in which he argued passionately - and with a wealth of metrics and statistics - that red grange and jim thorpe and bronco nagurski were better running backs than jim brown or o j simpson. frank had no friends. gustave lived in the room above benny. he painted watercolors and he had two friends, eduardo and horatio, who lived in the rooms to the left and right of him. hank lived in the room below benny. he had no friends, and he professed to enjoy action-packed spy novels and to attempt to write them himself. he was actually an agent of the commission, charged with spying on, and reporting on, his neighbors. all the inhabitants of the building were classified as omicron males. as such, they were allowed no contact with females of any class, although they were eligible to apply for reclassification to upsilon males, where they would be allowed some contact with some classes of females, under the strictest supervision. omicron males were regarded as having a low probability for violence, and as such were allowed to socialize in a lounge, or common area, for two hours every evening, where they could attempt to upgrade their classification by making friends. any inhabitant found guilty of violent behavior was permanently reclasssified as a rho male, and exiled to another city, on another planet, along with the zetas - males who had exhibited violent tendencies or actions against females- and the omegas, the completely hopeless ones. omicon males, if they accrued three friend points, could apply for reclassification to upsilon males, where, as noted above, they could have some contact with females, or they could be reclassified to chi males, with access to more extensive exercise facilities, and to team sports. they could make as many friends as they wished, but friend points only counted when friends were made with neighbors. most inhabitants, like benny, had six neighbors, but it was possible to have as few as three. however, most of the inhabitants in benny’s building evinced no interest in advancing to either upsilon or chi status, and the lounge was almost never crowded. most of those who did frequent the lounge did so out of boredom or restlessness or for reasons they could not articulate. one night, after a somewhat frustrating day with a game he was trying to develop involving prime numbers, benny went down to the lounge. there, the only person he encountered was hank. despite the outward appearance of placidity, and the lack of violent incident, the building was a seething hive of resentment and long-simmerimg fantasies of rebellion. it was hank’s job to ferret out these wisps of smoldering revolution, such as they were. somewhat surprisingly, on this occasion benny began the conversation. how is your new hard-hitting action-packed spy novel going? benny asked hank. very well, thank you, hank replied. i wish i could say as much for the protein we were served this morning. protein is protein, benny answered. i thought the water had a funny taste too, hank persisted. maybe some dragons from the andromeda galaxy poured some unnameable substance into it, benny replied with a smile, and some hard-hitting secret agent men can track them down. make a joke if you like, hank replied with a smile of his own, but some people really have expressed some complaint with the quality of the water, and with the quality of the oxygen too. no, said benny, the only real complaint they have is with existence itself, and with its infinite mystery and sadness, which we wander through even as the neaderthals did, under the laughing eyes of a trillion stars.

bofa xesjum is another member of the ensemble built around the horace p. sternwall stable of writers who also have a number of books available on lulu as by the 'total dissatisfaction press'.
 
 
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David Wolf


Sager

I

Towels only. In the bin. Think of the thymotic as you disintegrate in your hammock, listening for the gar’s song. Where’s that option sheet? Famous? How so? Focus. Frying like your brain in the public domain. Can we call the sky turquoise? Late arrival after late arrival.

You imagine moving toward the owl’s call. Evening’s leavening shade. Only nexus? Only a learned yawn?

Torpor heightens, a sustained yank of yield, an old take on the whole mess of time’s innards creasing.

Dispersal lingers—actually its smoke—over an obvious improvidence. Blustery nothingness totters. Empty grind of ruin to rot, atomized—today’s distractions scatter the remains of what, the latest exodus?

More havoc rustles free of the trunks in the attic, minutiae mocked on cue. Your overfilled kettles of ideals spill forth.

Or was it just a gravelly dream and a dead sway toward the rewrite of sanity’s overwrought narrative deep in the headland ground down?

To opine pickled as a tier of odorless nonesuch, to fail to scatter the hail’s expiring exchange: the toss that does not fade.

Ceaseless as fog in dreams only—a jab at the initial melody rallies dissonance, extending a oneness, useless and salient.

Forgetfulness at high tide like frost on the leaf, curious as false unction, or just rolling forth from source to source.

Pleased as understatement’s blatancies, lilac intransitives, curses dear to the onion’s splayed melody: arcing inscape’s nod.

Mind’s truncated song, utensils idling in the jammed drawer as we rejoice, qualms aside, now to utter what overshadows, what ignites the lingering clutter of sincerity’s exultations.

Lyric assurance and timely episodes astir, a revival of the rumpled inner view—and a vintage gone awry . . . O larking grape.



II

missives sweetened, ontology rusting in the peppered harping of ego’s roost . . .

open to a restive platter of hooey, a day, mist shifting, emblematically ripe

riffing now, perception’s handle falsely elevated, vastly rearguard, but what does the moon owe you?

pageantry’s hindrance, earthenware’s realized form: how many other layers rival your most straightforward posturing?

hinges creak like an etched sense of the redo, a makeshift tall order, a faint rally on the palette

endleaves give pause as you relive the cover’s maudlin feel . . . and the odor of remembrance in pages held fast

reversals barely mentioned, slide off, some too rare—perhaps what we have is an earlier shine taken to the arcane

. . . may the mire be sieved on par, the runic plunge hidden in folds of illusory heft blanching at eked-out ratiocination
 


III

spirited winnowing at dawn all faltering gloss . . . as the atonal reign of prophecy’s echo rings more decay

sung to the tune of . . .

sliding along the horizon, the bulbous cargo ship—
sodden wad of chew between gum and lip—
fish pond Sunday evening, unctuous Tuesday afternoon—
cry of the chaos mongers, cry of the loon—

life is meaningless? —snip, eep, pip,
butterfly on the woodpile tells me to get a grip
could the sky be peeling to a more idyllic hue?
ruddy lake turning a stoney blue

four caws of the crow woke me from nettled sleep—
dreams a-roiling the sizzling shallow deep—
exertion’s surface charms: a heap of ballyhoo—
I’ll doze until a gale renders free the morning dew

The prospects ooze? Salute the seasoning. What emanates now only sharpens the shred. I’ll wave to the onrush, keep to the nadir. Speck or spark. Care assumes the onus, garish in noon light. Ate? Tanked circus of the eaten.

Inscrutable hulking sun. Moody, sound. A grating and sour singe—go thank yourself. Even you. Sans retinue?

Run as you go, flow as we flow, shave the smile from your face. Regard the chemical haze drifting into the empty bay. Wavelet rush of wing-weary plunge. A dog’s single bark at the singular lark. A sufficient hunch to tighten the long-faced empirical flicker.

magnitude’s haze, alloy of wisdom with its knotty graces, a soothing bewilderment easing an answer’s rosy dissolve



David Wolf is the author of five collections of poetry, Open Season, The Moment Forever, Sablier I, Sablier II, and Visions (with artist David Richmond). His work has appeared in Cleaver Magazine, decomp, The Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, New York Quarterly, Poet & Critic, River Styx Magazine, and numerous other literary magazines and journals. He is a professor emeritus of English at Simpson College and serves as the poetry editor for Janus Head: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature, Continental Philosophy, Phenomenological Psychology, and the Arts.

 
 

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Joe Balaz


FIGURING OUT PIDGIN

KIRK DOUGLAS WEN TURN INTO SPARTACUS



Brian got wun big dimple
like wun inverted pimple

right in da middle
of his chin.


It made him self-conscious
but I not going say anyting

even dough my eyes
stare at it

wen he not looking.


In our circle of friends

dey call him Kirk Douglas
behind his back

but he dunno dat.


At wun crazy house party we had
wen everybody got drunk

Albert wen pull wun mean prank
on Brian

wen he wen pass out
on da couch.


He wen fill in da dimple
wit some soft putty

and put wun adhesive bandage ovah it.


Den he wen write wun note
foa Brian dat said,

You just had surgery, brah—
Everyting going be okay.


Albert wen tape da message
to da front of Brian’s tee shirt

on top of his chest.


Remembah da old movie Spartacus

wen dat gladiator
wen shove da head of his trainer

into wun big pot of soup
to drown da buggah

because da guy
was always mean to him.


It wuz nutting like dat

but if you take wun good look
at Albert today

you going see

dat he stay walking around
wit wun limp

and he get wun big black eye.


In da movie
Kirk Douglas wuz just acting

wen he wen dish out
some big time payback.


In regards to Albert dough

he wen find out
dat Brian wuzn’t pretending.



DA TWO CHICKENS



From wat I remembah

I got da two of dem
wen I went to wun carnival.


Looking through da wire
of da framed enclosure

I saw all da fluffy baby chicks
in wun big yellow mass

huddled all togettah

in da middle of wun pen
warmed by plenty lightbulbs.


I wuz about four-years old

so it wuz wun big deal
to take two of dose buggahs home

and make dem my pets.


Unlike people
chickens grow pretty fast

and as dey got oldah

dey wen eventually
turn into white Leghorn roosters

wit big kine bodies.


Wen dey wuz still juveniles dough
I played wit dem

and I used to lay dem on dere backs
and rub dere stomachs and chests.

One of dem wuz so mesmerized
dat da buggah would always fall asleep

so much so

dat on one occasion
I taught da ting wen die

until it wen “peep” its way back into life.


My oldah siblings
watching me freak out at first

had wun good laugh at dat.


Da biggah laugh wen come latah dough
and it still follows me around today.


In wun very short time
da roosters became full grown

and dey wuz kept in anadah coup
separate from da small Bantam chickens

dat my parents had.

Dose buggahs wuz good layers
wit dere brown colored eggs.


All da poultry had wun purpose

and I wen find out
dat my maddah had adah plans

foa da Leghorn roosters.


It wuz wun unreal surprise
wen I sat down at da dinner table

and she wen lift da lid
off of wun platter.


Somehow I knew right away
by da biggah bodies

dat dose wuz my former pets.

Needless to say
I nevah eat anyting dat night.


In da morning
I got solid confirmation too

wen da coup dat dey wuz in
wuz empty.


One of my oldah braddahs
likes to share da chicken stories

and he still tells ‘um to dis day.


I got to admit
dat foa family memories it’s kinnah funny

dough it wuzn’t too hilarious foa me
wen it happened.


Now dat we stay much oldah

at least we have anadah ting to laugh about
wen we talk on da phone long distance

as both of us take wun humorous view
at da long look back.



HONOLULU GOING GET HART



Dallas get DART

but it’s not da kine
dat you trow at wun bullseye.


San Francisco get BART
but I not talking Simpson.


Honolulu going get HART
but it’s already having cardiac problems.


To say dat taxpayers in da islands
got railroaded

is like saying
dat da ocean has plenty watah in it.


Da price tag of da coming
Honolulu Area Rapid Transit is soaring

and da project is way behind schedule.


Building da rail system
on wun per-capita basis

going end up being

da largest infrastructure fiasco
in da history of da United States

in wun place

dat also has da highest
per capita cost of living in da nation.


Da adah crazy ting
about da whole situation

is by da time da train
becomes operational

da buggah
not going make wun significant difference

wit da growing traffic congestion problem.


It’s just like wun racehorse being lame
before it even leaves da starting gate.


If you wuz against da rail system
in da first place

den you had some credible foresight.


If you wuz in favor of da ting

den please accept your certificate
of being wun humungous babooze.


Dallas get DART
San Francisco get BART

and now Honolulu going get HART
while all da city arteries stay clogging up.

babooze = stupid fool; idiot.

Joe Balaz writes in Hawaiian Islands Pidgin (Hawai'i Creole English) and in American English. He edited Ho'omanoa: An Anthology of Contemporary Hawaiian Literature.

Balaz is an avid supporter of Hawaiian Islands Pidgin writing in the expanding context of World Literature. He presently lives in Cleveland, Ohio.
 
 
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Issue sixty-five Date of Publication May 1, 2022.
Individual pieces Copyright © 2022 by their respective creators

Editor: Mark Young

Most of the images in Otoliths can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Karl Kempton portraiture: oceano dunes to tide line Part Two: drawn, #1 drawn, #2 Linda King Two Poems Mark Pirie Four Poems Dario Zumkeller Manifesto of the Olfactivism AG Davis Self-Portraits Mark Cunningham 7 Owls Sanjeev Sethi Five Poems Ken Friedman Six Philosophical Events Demosthenes Agrafiotis « Réorientations, révisions » {essai sur la poésie visuelle} QUA(e)RRY LIGHT James Cochran Vertigo Jim Leftwich skeletonized egerminated auctioneer Zenobia in Pocosin Ezekial hiromi suzuki Breafast at Denny's Michael J. Leach Three Poems Elancharan Gunasekaran Four Poems Louise Landes Levi Dream Girl KJ Hannah Greenberg Six Photographs Chuck Joy Two Poems Marco Giovenale Hidden Jimmy Crouse Bookkeeping Andrew Cyril Macdonald Three Poems Nicholas Alexander Hayes Two Poems Mario José Cervantes Ten Pieces of Vispo Timothy Pilgrim Three Poems Alan Catlin The Berrigan Sequence Paul Ilechko Three Poems Jim Meirose Torch Adam Fieled Perfect Gregory Stephenson Two Collage Poems John Sweet Four Poems Sterling Warner Equus Aloft Jack Galmitz Untitled Poem Lynn Strongin Rich Rags + Red Pony & Red Priest The Blues Deliver Texas Fontanella A Wall, in Parts A Wall, in Parts (Cont’d) Richard J. Fleming Three Short Prose Pieces Sarah Bilodeau Three Paintings M.J. Iuppa Minnows John M. Bennett Eleven Poems Ten Pieces of Vispo Twelve More Pieces of Vispo Carla Bertola & John M. Bennett Thirteen Pieces of Vispo Harvey Huddleston Requiem bofa xesjum over fred flynn flashing by John McCluskey Snow & Ice / Winter in Connecticut Ben Egerton Antiphony | Anti-phoney

John Gallas shipdreams Nathan Whiting Two Poems Laurent Grison Two Art Works Volodymyr Bilyk Topical Chores Xe M. Sánchez Three Poems Ellen Wardman Pink Flamingos Barbara Parchim cypher Bruce Robinson Three Poems Jeff Bagato Going Golden More from the Asemic Junk Kit jim mccrary A BOOK OF LEAVES Gale Acuff Five Poems Grzegorz Wróblewski Common Knowledge harry k stammer Three Poems Howie Good Two Collages & Two Prose Poems Jen Schneider Five Poems & Prose Pieces Alberto Vitacchio CUTS CUTS continued CUTS concluded richard lopez & Márton Koppány Four Haiku Heather Sager Two Poems Keith Polette Eight Haibun Michael Basinski trefoil opems Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal Keep My Eyes Daniel f Bradley Two Poems Dave Read Five Asemic Pieces Robert Beveridge Five Poems Tom Beckett Two Poems Mary Kasimor Three Poems Connor van Bussel The Frozen Star and the Greyhound R. S. Stewart Three Poems Tony Beyer Four Poems Daniel de Culla Three Visuals John Levy Five Text Pieces Joanne Bechtel Three Photographs Kenneth Rexroth Five Pieces from the San Francisco Bay Guardian Nathan Anderson Five Poems Jeff Harrison Two Poems Bill Wolak Seven Collages Clara B. Jones An Interview with Nicole Raziya Fong Nicole Raziya Fong from LIGHT AND OBSOLESCENCE Charles A. Perrone A Perfect Match Russ Bickerstaff What I am not seeing Paul Dickey Two Poems Sabine Miller Half-fruits Keith Nunes Three Poems Diana Magallón Four Tesselations Bob Lucky Three Prose, Two Blackout, Poems Cecelia Chapman & Jeff Crouch Last Exit

bart plantenga That Summer Snapshot Joshua Martin Seven Poems Jillian Oliver Rue Réka Nyitrai Three Poems Marilyn Stablein Four Water Dreams Jerome Berglund Three Haiga Christopher Barnes after Riot Days by Maria Alyokhina of Pussy Riot Peter Cherches Five Short Prose Pieces Jürgen O. Olbrich & Hubert Kretschmer Eight double pages from Zwei Kay Kestner Two Poems Cameron Morse Three Sonnets Eric Hoffman More Translations of Haiku by Ozaki Hōsai Gavin Lucky Two Poems Kiriti Sengupta Three Poems Patrick Sweeney Four One-line Poems Robin Wyatt Dunn on Moreno Drive Jane Simpson Three Poems Elmedin Kadric Untitled Visual Kit Kennedy Four Poems Steven Tran Senses and Notes dan raphael Four Poems Andrew Taylor Five 'receipt' Poems Charlotte Jung Two Poems Michael Borth Five Poems Carol Stetser Mail Art Collages 2022 Penelope Weiss Three Meditations and a Visual Marcia Arrieta Five Collages, Seven Poems John M. Bennett & Jim Leftwich tink pael Márton Koppány Insight - Hungarian Vispo No. 20 Rich Murphy Three Poems Cecelia Chapman Never Shoe 2022 J. D. Nelson Nine Poems Kit Willett Two Poems Angelo 'NGE' Colella Two Visuals & A Poem H. A. Sappho GONE UNDER THE UMBRELLA Martin Stannard Four Poems Michael Brandonisio Primitive Trees in Winter Paul Pfleuger, Jr. Three Variations Katrinka Moore Four Visual Pieces David Jalajel 13 Snapshots from the Ark (Sea Monsters) Keith Higginbotham Five Poems Susan Gangel Six shots of the new world order Judith Skillman Three Paintings Bob Heman from INFORMATION Guy R. Beining Two Visual Series

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Otoliths would like to acknowledge the Juru People who are the traditional custodians of the land where this journal is prepared.

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