ISSUE 04 SAMPLE POEMS

Amy Groshek
Dahlias: This Occasional and Fragmented Optimism

            for D

In the dream I wake up and there’s Cate Blanchett
in bed beside me. Cate, I say, how did you get here?
She says, Wouldn’t you like to know?
Impossible, the bedroom full of dahlias,
the doves that coo and hobble on the sheets.
Cate, I say, you should know that my relationships
come with a solid four-month limit.
Relationship? She smiles and then she laughs.
Impossible, Cate Blanchett’s nipples swung
above my bleary eyes, her climbing
onto hips which rise and rock like the old boat
where gaunt Noah breathes his prayer, lifts
the cage’s latch. Out flies the dove, and testifies
the promise—so they say. But my guess
is Noah knows how precious he is and how,
in time, God’s hand will set him down. Easy then,
to wait for a flower, a dove. Ceremonious even,
my housemate’s hands in the roots, the soil
this coming month, that mount the long white lights,
that pour the water again, again:
I do this now, bring me, in time, the white
and precious thing.
In minutes the cat will knead
the sheets, his rough tongue, his teeth
on my chin, my cheeks, time to dress and eat,
to fill the office chair for another day.
What if this world
doesn’t intend me anything?
In the next room, lined in great
clay pots beneath lights waking in crisp flickers,
fleshy, the trunks of the dahlias,
waiting for the season to come back to them.

Alison Brackenbury
Message in a bottle

They have turned off all water, while they fight
The floods’ rush to the substation.  All night
I hear the water hidden in my house
With newly quickened senses.  So a mouse
Feels the cat’s rustle blacken its huge light.

For we keep water, flat in flowers’ brown jars,
In bottles, in worn bags, which go by car
To dusty stables. Out of cupboards fell
One glittered flagon from some lost hotel
Which I had saved.  For what? O, whose dry star?

A pocketful of rain, a clouded moon:
Though butterflies were swept away by June,
Remember water, love.  I will write soon.

Luke Kennard
from Wolf on the Couch

V.

‘All superheroes are essentially giant phalluses,’ says the wolf. ‘If you were a superhero, which would you be? Batman, Spiderman or Superman?’

‘Batman,’ I say.

The wolf writes, “Thinks penis is a bat” on the whiteboard.

I am back on the couch now, trying to keep still.

‘Now for the Rorschach test,’ says the wolf, picking up a pile of white cards.

On each card the wolf has daubed black and red ink.

‘They’re supposed to be butterfly paintings,’ I say.

‘What?’ snaps the wolf.

‘I mean they’re supposed to be symmetrical,’ I say. ‘You’re supposed to paint one side and fold it over.’

‘Fascinating,’ says the wolf and writes, “Believes everything should make sense” on the whiteboard. ‘A fine sentiment from a man who thinks his penis is a bat,’ he adds.

For a full list of published issues, see the order page.

UPCOMING ISSUE

Issue 04 (Pre-order)

£4

in the UK (free p&p):

Overseas (+ £1.20 p&p):

Poems from:

Ivy Alvarez, Alison Brackenbury, Sam Byfield, Temple Cone, Brooklyn Copeland, Claire Crowther, Amy Groshek, Jane Holland, Luke Kennard, Rupert Loydell, Lisa Markowitz, James Owens, Samuel Prince, Jayne Pupek, R.L. Swihart, Nathan Thompson, Christian Ward and James W. Wood.

Artwork from:

John Warwick (cover), Harmony Becker, Michael Costello and Asad T. Syed.

Interview with Luke Kennard.

Plus: various 'small presses' interviewed.

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ISSN 1754-1913