Start
X
A SUMMARY OF MY LIMITATIONS
I painted a small crowd,
people on plastic cutouts
details down to hair texture
became allusively representative.
Held off on some expressions
like staring in mid-thought.
Life size and transportable,
I placed them at various corners
near houses of copious civility.
They milled about held
imaginary conversations, smoked.
Conceptual in their bathroom brakes
like vandals impersonal, aloof
wary of destruction for its own sake.
people on plastic cutouts
details down to hair texture
became allusively representative.
Held off on some expressions
like staring in mid-thought.
Life size and transportable,
I placed them at various corners
near houses of copious civility.
They milled about held
imaginary conversations, smoked.
Conceptual in their bathroom brakes
like vandals impersonal, aloof
wary of destruction for its own sake.
Colin James has a chapbook of poems DREAMS OF THE REALLY ANNOYING from Writers Knights Press. He has currently returned to school after a long hiatus.
X
THE SPY WHO SHAGGED ME
he says: it was dry,
like trying. like some
big swell of time in the light on the wall.
that night we cooked meat,
de-shelled it was bloody.
he says I was crying
in a place where you had never been taken.
it was five a.m.
a reasonable time for peeling.
I am bleeding. he says:
I killed the pigeon;
a man has to eat.
like trying. like some
big swell of time in the light on the wall.
that night we cooked meat,
de-shelled it was bloody.
he says I was crying
in a place where you had never been taken.
it was five a.m.
a reasonable time for peeling.
I am bleeding. he says:
I killed the pigeon;
a man has to eat.
Ally Turner is twenty and living in Montreal. She is a virgo. This is her first publication.
X
SWIMMING LESSONS
They say home
is within–and how deep?
I am made of water.
I cannot swim.
is within–and how deep?
I am made of water.
I cannot swim.
Lucas Regazzi is an artist interested in exploring the capacity of poetics across visual and written mediums, however his work is often photo-based with a focus on notions of the image. His poetry either operates within a specific conceptual framework or exposes an emotional catharsis.
X
MY TIMEX ONLY TELLS MESSIANIC TIME BUT I HAVE OPTED FOR THE INDIGLO FEATURE
that feeling when
there you are
another kafka, a spinning lispector
in ur fight-tight leotard
siphoning svelt and
marauding some hatchet
down a thousand winded kisses
at this point of
absolute departure
ur grimacing ass in its grand biologism
puckers another plain goodbye:
‘good grief!!’ it murmurs, ad infinitum
aiming itself
at that marxist-leninist leaflet
that just so happens to be the admin
of ur favourite meme page
“mimesis ain’t (nothing but) shit”
an argument which
ought to
beg the question:what is memesis &
how can a
meme be cis?
if writing is a missive on missing!
ALLCAPS
if writing is a missive on kissing!
ALLCAPS
then writing
ALLCAPS
ain’t nothing but a
biomechanical wartorn bore,
a salt mine sex drive
slumming its gears in
slimy tedium
there you are
another kafka, a spinning lispector
in ur fight-tight leotard
siphoning svelt and
marauding some hatchet
down a thousand winded kisses
at this point of
absolute departure
ur grimacing ass in its grand biologism
puckers another plain goodbye:
‘good grief!!’ it murmurs, ad infinitum
aiming itself
at that marxist-leninist leaflet
that just so happens to be the admin
of ur favourite meme page
“mimesis ain’t (nothing but) shit”
an argument which
ought to
beg the question:what is memesis &
how can a
meme be cis?
if writing is a missive on missing!
ALLCAPS
if writing is a missive on kissing!
ALLCAPS
then writing
ALLCAPS
ain’t nothing but a
biomechanical wartorn bore,
a salt mine sex drive
slumming its gears in
slimy tedium
THEOREMS ON THE GOOD NEWS BY FRANCOIS LARUELLE BY MLA CHERNOFF
Theorem 0 or the Transcendental Theorem,
On Nontransferable Identity
Eros is the stink of all verbs,
a musk bound to some faraway
beach where
half-lives kiss the half-light
of jilted sentiments
& bisected coconuts bear
the weight of their own
snared semblances:
a fridge well-lit,
made crisp
by harm, by amour.
ouef.
it is neither:
metaphor nor metonymy.
thus
[t]here [can be] no
reversibility.
Theorem 00--On the Statute
Thanatos is my butt
slamming against your butt,
growing enormous and vibratory.
[I]nnumerable
and solitary […]
obtained before any kind of identification.
death plants
the thickness of its absence
in the skull of
my butt.
Those who pretend to
kill God and the Subject […]
are disabused by [this] announcement.
Theorem 000--On the Abolition of the Statute
Each time I leave my laptop unattended
at the library, I bequeath to passers
by a message on an otherwise blank Word document.
“Stealing this computer won’t explain poetry” ---
a lie emboldened, size 36 Papyrus.
[The] impotence of thought [is its]
infinite culpability: [a]n event
without remainder.
It is the way we endlessly circumscribe
the contours of our dumb faces, asking,
‘when did you become so various?’
U and I: the difference between silly and sully.
[T]he announcement is identical
to the Abolition of the Statute.
The announcement announces
nothing
if not itself.
It is an old Jewish joke
the colour of smoke,
it is a minion emoji.
[P]hilosophy, then, is already made,
but made for [YU] and for [YU] to rejoice in
beholding it.
Philosophy, then, is already made,
it is a sigh, reeking: ‘O.K.’
It is the way your lovence
may teem with the stupor
of its own ream
(emboldened, size 36 Papyrus;
breathy at the seams).
On Nontransferable Identity
Eros is the stink of all verbs,
a musk bound to some faraway
beach where
half-lives kiss the half-light
of jilted sentiments
& bisected coconuts bear
the weight of their own
snared semblances:
a fridge well-lit,
made crisp
by harm, by amour.
ouef.
it is neither:
metaphor nor metonymy.
thus
[t]here [can be] no
reversibility.
Theorem 00--On the Statute
Thanatos is my butt
slamming against your butt,
growing enormous and vibratory.
[I]nnumerable
and solitary […]
obtained before any kind of identification.
death plants
the thickness of its absence
in the skull of
my butt.
Those who pretend to
kill God and the Subject […]
are disabused by [this] announcement.
Theorem 000--On the Abolition of the Statute
Each time I leave my laptop unattended
at the library, I bequeath to passers
by a message on an otherwise blank Word document.
“Stealing this computer won’t explain poetry” ---
a lie emboldened, size 36 Papyrus.
[The] impotence of thought [is its]
infinite culpability: [a]n event
without remainder.
It is the way we endlessly circumscribe
the contours of our dumb faces, asking,
‘when did you become so various?’
U and I: the difference between silly and sully.
[T]he announcement is identical
to the Abolition of the Statute.
The announcement announces
nothing
if not itself.
It is an old Jewish joke
the colour of smoke,
it is a minion emoji.
[P]hilosophy, then, is already made,
but made for [YU] and for [YU] to rejoice in
beholding it.
Philosophy, then, is already made,
it is a sigh, reeking: ‘O.K.’
It is the way your lovence
may teem with the stupor
of its own ream
(emboldened, size 36 Papyrus;
breathy at the seams).
MLA Chernoff lacks. MLA Chernoff is the fullness of a floor-swept boredom: dusted, through and through. Their solicitations have been featured in ditch, The Hart House Review, AND Acta Victoriana, AND angelfire.com. MLA Chernoff lives in Toronto and (naïvely) believes in love and/or/as resentment. The velocity of this bio is their dissertation––a thanatropic tepidity in the key "dang."
X
A DINNER PARTY TO HEAL ALL WOUNDS
I don’t love you anymore is a dessert
my mother’s stuffed her face with
thirty years
so let her have her Roger
and his bomber jacket
and O’Doul’s Amber,
his bachelor funk recipes
heavy on the instant mash.
His heart bobs on a geyser
of blood when his mouth opens,
leaps past your drawn face
leaves a slugtrail down the drapes.
I want your best friend
with the black eyed curiosity
of a child psychopath
operating on a squirrel,
a kitten licking milk
in the dark.
There will be much flashing
of steel and many stabbings.
Then, the party dismembered
by rooms. You by the gazebo,
tearing things out.
Give up your hollow
body, batwinged skin,
the wind will play Manilow
through your reeds of bone.
A black hole of drunk,
I’ll snatch a dangling pink string,
momma-bird you foie gras.
my mother’s stuffed her face with
thirty years
so let her have her Roger
and his bomber jacket
and O’Doul’s Amber,
his bachelor funk recipes
heavy on the instant mash.
His heart bobs on a geyser
of blood when his mouth opens,
leaps past your drawn face
leaves a slugtrail down the drapes.
I want your best friend
with the black eyed curiosity
of a child psychopath
operating on a squirrel,
a kitten licking milk
in the dark.
There will be much flashing
of steel and many stabbings.
Then, the party dismembered
by rooms. You by the gazebo,
tearing things out.
Give up your hollow
body, batwinged skin,
the wind will play Manilow
through your reeds of bone.
A black hole of drunk,
I’ll snatch a dangling pink string,
momma-bird you foie gras.
JM Francheteau toured with Worst Case Ontario in 2015, put out a chapbook called kids (Hurtin’ Crue Press).
X
BLUE FLOWERS
i woke up wanting blue flowers
i sat in the sun eating cantaloupe
it was diced into small squares and i ate them
one by one with a gleaming metal fork
i try swimming in the ocean at least once a year
each time i like it less
why is it a crime to dislike the ocean
i lie very still on the bed while my husband is sleeping
he likes that i would be lost without him
what kind of love is that
he once asked if i would die for him and i said
no and we had a fight
what kind of love is that
i woke up wanting blue flowers
around me above me inside
i sat in the sun eating cantaloupe
it was diced into small squares and i ate them
one by one with a gleaming metal fork
i try swimming in the ocean at least once a year
each time i like it less
why is it a crime to dislike the ocean
i lie very still on the bed while my husband is sleeping
he likes that i would be lost without him
what kind of love is that
he once asked if i would die for him and i said
no and we had a fight
what kind of love is that
i woke up wanting blue flowers
around me above me inside
DEMEROL ON A TUESDAY
he knighted me slut of the british empire
he told me i looked like the girl from the porn he watched
“redhead begs for cum”
petite with great tits
tits just like mine
i suited my body shut
with the power of my mind
finally i was only giving what he was giving
double martinis espresso steak
i wore my false eyelashes
i wanted to be the prize he was continuously losing
he told me i looked like the girl from the porn he watched
“redhead begs for cum”
petite with great tits
tits just like mine
i suited my body shut
with the power of my mind
finally i was only giving what he was giving
double martinis espresso steak
i wore my false eyelashes
i wanted to be the prize he was continuously losing
Sofia Banzhaf is a writer and actor who currently lives in Toronto. She is the author of Pony Castle which won the Metatron Prize in 2015.
X
THE BARE FACTS
What wave is it, that when it hits against the body
makes the sailor on duty pay attention,
and later say, it’s nothing, strolls around the room again,
looks out of the window at the scattered lights of the street?
What come-and-go is spends the body of its gait
against the spotted hull covered with marine parasites?
Do you hear the noise? Does the noise come from the corridor
or does it come from your desire?
(Some kind of noise that stumbles with the some kind of silence within you)
Maybe they already turned on the reflector to ask for your help!
Maybe it was that jealous woman who stalks you!
But no, not yet, nobody walks down the hallway to your door,
no one stumbles with the chair inside you, your hero costume
spread on the chair, the same as your hero feelings,
ready for when you spring into action.
Resume the same discourse, begin the same conjecture,
the classic flaw in the middle of the road,
the Divine automobile with the flat tire
obstructs the traffic of tears and the dead,
circulating in opposite directions.
Resume the same interruption, the historical razz
of the flat tire, the sophism of each resurrection,
the rusty anchor of every embrace, the movement
from within desire and the movement from outside the word,
like two twins who cannot agree to be born.
(Here the wit of the phrases suddenly twang
when it notices the illusionist’s top hat;
that soap perfumed by literature
with which I wash the unreal parts of my body,
in other words, the radius of action of what we call the soul,
the entrails of the body,
the dance of the seven veils
veiled by the transparency of the dilemma,
and at night, before bed,
the dentures in the glass of water,
the false wound in the glass of water,
the false desire in the glass of water.)
The signal the signal the signal
What comes-and-goes wears away the body's gait
against the spotted hull covered with marine parasites?
You stopped walking around the room.
But do you hear that noise? Does the noise come
from the corridor or does it come from your desire?
Come and go talk around a chair
where there is a strange folded suit,
go back and forth around an old, broken car
hinders traffic on the highway,
crisscrossed gestures chatter of windows and stairs
carve the Greek statue whose sense hesitates and falls,
the path between a window and a reflector
that has not been lit, while the broken shells
of the darkness crunch and dissolve
under the sudden flutter
with which darkness drives the night.
makes the sailor on duty pay attention,
and later say, it’s nothing, strolls around the room again,
looks out of the window at the scattered lights of the street?
What come-and-go is spends the body of its gait
against the spotted hull covered with marine parasites?
Do you hear the noise? Does the noise come from the corridor
or does it come from your desire?
(Some kind of noise that stumbles with the some kind of silence within you)
Maybe they already turned on the reflector to ask for your help!
Maybe it was that jealous woman who stalks you!
But no, not yet, nobody walks down the hallway to your door,
no one stumbles with the chair inside you, your hero costume
spread on the chair, the same as your hero feelings,
ready for when you spring into action.
Resume the same discourse, begin the same conjecture,
the classic flaw in the middle of the road,
the Divine automobile with the flat tire
obstructs the traffic of tears and the dead,
circulating in opposite directions.
Resume the same interruption, the historical razz
of the flat tire, the sophism of each resurrection,
the rusty anchor of every embrace, the movement
from within desire and the movement from outside the word,
like two twins who cannot agree to be born.
(Here the wit of the phrases suddenly twang
when it notices the illusionist’s top hat;
that soap perfumed by literature
with which I wash the unreal parts of my body,
in other words, the radius of action of what we call the soul,
the entrails of the body,
the dance of the seven veils
veiled by the transparency of the dilemma,
and at night, before bed,
the dentures in the glass of water,
the false wound in the glass of water,
the false desire in the glass of water.)
The signal the signal the signal
What comes-and-goes wears away the body's gait
against the spotted hull covered with marine parasites?
You stopped walking around the room.
But do you hear that noise? Does the noise come
from the corridor or does it come from your desire?
Come and go talk around a chair
where there is a strange folded suit,
go back and forth around an old, broken car
hinders traffic on the highway,
crisscrossed gestures chatter of windows and stairs
carve the Greek statue whose sense hesitates and falls,
the path between a window and a reflector
that has not been lit, while the broken shells
of the darkness crunch and dissolve
under the sudden flutter
with which darkness drives the night.
Sergio A. Ortiz is a gay Puerto Rican poet and the founding editor of Undertow Tanka Review. He is a two time Pushcart nominee, a four time Best of the Web nominee, and a 2016 Best of the Net nominee. His poems have been published in hundreds Journals and Anthologies. He is currently working on his first full length collection of poems, Elephant Graveyard.
X
THAT SUMMER
They were a couple of carefree kids
They were the first people that brought me out to clubs
They were arguing about how to deal.
She was sounding almost like a real celebrity
She was so manipulating, so conniving
She was a fashionable girl.
He was wearing a pair of shiny black sneakers
He was sitting in front of the fire
He was a troubled kid.
Then they drove around Mulholland, having the best time
Then, he says, he was finding it difficult to breathe, sleep, eat
Then, that summer, things started to change.
They were the first people that brought me out to clubs
They were arguing about how to deal.
She was sounding almost like a real celebrity
She was so manipulating, so conniving
She was a fashionable girl.
He was wearing a pair of shiny black sneakers
He was sitting in front of the fire
He was a troubled kid.
Then they drove around Mulholland, having the best time
Then, he says, he was finding it difficult to breathe, sleep, eat
Then, that summer, things started to change.
Sennah Yee is from Toronto, where she wrote her thesis on gendered robot design. She has two chapbooks about mopey couples at Dancing Girl Press, THE AQUARIUM and THE GL.A.D.E. Her first book CRITERIA FOR CRAZY is forthcoming from Metatron in 2017. Though named after a racecar driver, she has yet to get behind the wheel. Find her at: www.sennahyee.com
X
WATCHING KRISTEN STEWART’S PERFORMANCE IN THE TWILIGHT SAGA
opened my mouth to the true feeling of the word “conflicted.” Can you come home too angry? Is there something wrong in the want to want to kiss and tell? Oh, have I promised myself to the wrong commitment?
Kristen, show me the way out!
Kristen, show me the way out!
DON’T WEEP FOR YESTERDAY; IT’S OVER. LIKE THE SNOOTY WAITER IN FERRIS BUELLER, WEEP FOR THE FUTURE.
“Did you have a good time, that night.
How happy were you.”
—Sachiko Murikami, “Three New Year’s Eve travellers cuddle their carry-on doggies.”
On a scale of here to there, how present are you?
Would you say you’re on a sled or in a car
or in a tough economic situation that prevents your getting anywhere.
If you’re on your way, are you rounding a penny?
There’s matters of life and capitalism at which to bite your thumb, or
the whole history to look back on and think, That was dumb.
What kind of animal would you rather be?
In the grand scheme of gleaning, life is more than you gather
from the view of your two eyes. Who else has eyes?
It suits ice to be frozen in the moments as they pass,
and if you slip this might not be your cuppa.
Steep in the time, the rest of the night, and wear fur.
How happy were you.”
—Sachiko Murikami, “Three New Year’s Eve travellers cuddle their carry-on doggies.”
On a scale of here to there, how present are you?
Would you say you’re on a sled or in a car
or in a tough economic situation that prevents your getting anywhere.
If you’re on your way, are you rounding a penny?
There’s matters of life and capitalism at which to bite your thumb, or
the whole history to look back on and think, That was dumb.
What kind of animal would you rather be?
In the grand scheme of gleaning, life is more than you gather
from the view of your two eyes. Who else has eyes?
It suits ice to be frozen in the moments as they pass,
and if you slip this might not be your cuppa.
Steep in the time, the rest of the night, and wear fur.
Chris Johnson lives in Ottawa and works as the Coordinating Editor for Arc Poetry Magazine. He also coordinates workshops for Ottawa's Tree Reading Series. Coincidentally, he's quite uncoordinated.
X
SET CALENDAR REMINDER FOR ‘ENCROACHING DARKNESS’
I'm not going to read my monthly horoscope
for a couple of days in a small experiment
with postponing the placebo of foresight.
If you think about it, we're always
walking through a bead curtain on the
atomic level. Maybe it's more like a gauze
of potentiality. I think things are starting
to come a bit loose in my face. Lately
leaving without saying goodbye to anyone
has been giving me the reported thrill
of shoplifting. I regret not trying it
at a more appropriate age. I had a dream
that someone made an art project about
their sexual history with someone I'd like to
have in my sexual future and for every time
he ejaculated in her eye, she slingshotted
a capsule of white paint at a suspended line
drawing of herself. What I think we were
trying to express is I'm losing interest
in my fantasies but don't know what to
replace them with. Every morning I unearth
myself. The first hour is for brushing dirt
off the fossil and back into the creekbed.
Then I start wondering if the headache
could sell on the secondary market.
As for the rest of my assets, I promised
the washed-up paleontologist in the mirror
through two layers of windburn –
I'm holding onto my tickets to the apocalypse
until I find out who the starters are.
for a couple of days in a small experiment
with postponing the placebo of foresight.
If you think about it, we're always
walking through a bead curtain on the
atomic level. Maybe it's more like a gauze
of potentiality. I think things are starting
to come a bit loose in my face. Lately
leaving without saying goodbye to anyone
has been giving me the reported thrill
of shoplifting. I regret not trying it
at a more appropriate age. I had a dream
that someone made an art project about
their sexual history with someone I'd like to
have in my sexual future and for every time
he ejaculated in her eye, she slingshotted
a capsule of white paint at a suspended line
drawing of herself. What I think we were
trying to express is I'm losing interest
in my fantasies but don't know what to
replace them with. Every morning I unearth
myself. The first hour is for brushing dirt
off the fossil and back into the creekbed.
Then I start wondering if the headache
could sell on the secondary market.
As for the rest of my assets, I promised
the washed-up paleontologist in the mirror
through two layers of windburn –
I'm holding onto my tickets to the apocalypse
until I find out who the starters are.
YOU DON’T HAVE TO GO HOME BUT YOU CAN’T STAY HERE
HETEROSEXUAL DESIRE IS BORING
ALL SEXUAL DESIRE IS BORING BECAUSE IT'S MEDIATED BY
BULLSHIT
THE JUKEBOX WILL PLAY ANYTHING THAT'S ALREADY IN
THE JUKEBOX
THE SHELTERLESS KNOWLEDGE THAT YOUR MOST PRIVATE
SOCIAL FEELINGS HAVE BEEN CONSTRUCTED FOR YOU IS
ONE WAY TO SELL DRINKS
CULTIVATE TENDERNESS AND COURAGE OF IMAGINATION TO
ENCOURAGE LESS CONVENTIONAL ATTRACTIONS
I'VE KILLED AN AVERAGE BUT FOREBODING NUMBER OF
PLANTS
SO WHAT IF I WANT TO SEE WITHOUT BEING SEEN
BODY HORROR IS A LIFESTYLE, NOT A GENRE
WRITING WITH A FLAT AFFECT ABOUT YOUR UNSATISFYING
HETEROSEXUAL ENCOUNTERS IS BORING
IF YOU AREN'T HAVING FUN OUT THERE, IT'S TIME TO START
CONTRACTING THE LEAGUE
BE THE NON-SPECIFIC ACHE YOU WANT TO FEEL IN THE WORLD
SOME WOMEN EXPERIENCE THEIR DESIRABILITY AS A STORE
CLERK IN A FANTASY VIDEO GAME, CONTROLLED BY AN
EXTERNAL INTELLIGENCE, SELLING MAGIC POTIONS AND
UPGRADED WEAPONS
PRONE TO GLITCHES AND LOOPS, YOUR SELF-PRESENTATION
PACES A SQUARE IN THE CORNER, HELPLESS AND FURIOUS
YOU WATCH YOURSELF BEGIN TO MAKE ASSURANCES WHOSE
LANGUAGE YOU CAN'T TASTE
I WON'T CLAIM TO SPEAK FOR MEN IN THE HOPE THEY WILL
FINALLY DO SO THEMSELVES
THESE FANTASIES ARE ALWAYS ABOUT RESOURCES
BEING MANIPULATED BY MY PHYSIOLOGICAL RESPONSES TO
THE PATHETICALLY LIMITED RANGE OF PEOPLE I FIND
BEAUTIFUL IS BORING
I'M TIRED OF BEING CONVINCED I ENJOY THE SENSATIONS
OF PANIC
REMOVE ANY INTERVENING ABSTRACTION AND I WILL
GENERATE A NEW ONE
INFINITY SCARVES HAVE A LOT TO LEARN
ANYTHING BILLED AS AN "ENCOUNTER" MAKES ME NERVOUS
IF MY HANDS ARE FREE, WHO'S HOLDING THE LEASH OF MY
BAD HABITS
WHAT IF THERE'S NOTHING BETWEEN US
UNABLE TO AFFORD AN INDOOR WATERFALL, WE MISTED THE
AIR AND WAITED FOR THE ORCHIDS TO INSTALL THEMSELVES
ALL SEXUAL DESIRE IS BORING BECAUSE IT'S MEDIATED BY
BULLSHIT
THE JUKEBOX WILL PLAY ANYTHING THAT'S ALREADY IN
THE JUKEBOX
THE SHELTERLESS KNOWLEDGE THAT YOUR MOST PRIVATE
SOCIAL FEELINGS HAVE BEEN CONSTRUCTED FOR YOU IS
ONE WAY TO SELL DRINKS
CULTIVATE TENDERNESS AND COURAGE OF IMAGINATION TO
ENCOURAGE LESS CONVENTIONAL ATTRACTIONS
I'VE KILLED AN AVERAGE BUT FOREBODING NUMBER OF
PLANTS
SO WHAT IF I WANT TO SEE WITHOUT BEING SEEN
BODY HORROR IS A LIFESTYLE, NOT A GENRE
WRITING WITH A FLAT AFFECT ABOUT YOUR UNSATISFYING
HETEROSEXUAL ENCOUNTERS IS BORING
IF YOU AREN'T HAVING FUN OUT THERE, IT'S TIME TO START
CONTRACTING THE LEAGUE
BE THE NON-SPECIFIC ACHE YOU WANT TO FEEL IN THE WORLD
SOME WOMEN EXPERIENCE THEIR DESIRABILITY AS A STORE
CLERK IN A FANTASY VIDEO GAME, CONTROLLED BY AN
EXTERNAL INTELLIGENCE, SELLING MAGIC POTIONS AND
UPGRADED WEAPONS
PRONE TO GLITCHES AND LOOPS, YOUR SELF-PRESENTATION
PACES A SQUARE IN THE CORNER, HELPLESS AND FURIOUS
YOU WATCH YOURSELF BEGIN TO MAKE ASSURANCES WHOSE
LANGUAGE YOU CAN'T TASTE
I WON'T CLAIM TO SPEAK FOR MEN IN THE HOPE THEY WILL
FINALLY DO SO THEMSELVES
THESE FANTASIES ARE ALWAYS ABOUT RESOURCES
BEING MANIPULATED BY MY PHYSIOLOGICAL RESPONSES TO
THE PATHETICALLY LIMITED RANGE OF PEOPLE I FIND
BEAUTIFUL IS BORING
I'M TIRED OF BEING CONVINCED I ENJOY THE SENSATIONS
OF PANIC
REMOVE ANY INTERVENING ABSTRACTION AND I WILL
GENERATE A NEW ONE
INFINITY SCARVES HAVE A LOT TO LEARN
ANYTHING BILLED AS AN "ENCOUNTER" MAKES ME NERVOUS
IF MY HANDS ARE FREE, WHO'S HOLDING THE LEASH OF MY
BAD HABITS
WHAT IF THERE'S NOTHING BETWEEN US
UNABLE TO AFFORD AN INDOOR WATERFALL, WE MISTED THE
AIR AND WAITED FOR THE ORCHIDS TO INSTALL THEMSELVES
Meghan Harrison is a Toronto-based writer, editor, and performer. Her poetry has appeared in/on Queen Mob's Teahouse, The Puritan, and Matrix, among other places, and she recently published the chapbook Pride Fight.
X
WHEN MY BODY IS NEXT TO YOURS IT IS SAFE
Found a new colour
in the pussy of my friend.
Now I’m living good.
Studying the waves of paper.
Biking recklessly over pot holes.
Accelerating towards
divine failure.
Burning bridges.
I am reckless and tender.
Last time I saw her
I left her feeling light and wet
like a wave bending towards the sky.
I am feeling so many things.
An error in data.
Kissing in back allies.
Kissing on dance floors.
Kissing on street corners.
Kissing for the camera.
Kissing 11.
She brings the generosity out of me.
Generous,
I have been bad.
Have been committing crimes.
Have been existing and suffering.
From the chemicals
the melancholy
the typing.
The girls of silkscreen.
The girls painting in their bedrooms.
Abandoning their bodies
on the Internet.
Feeding cats
Shellac on Parc.
$10 drinks.
People are nice to us because
god damn it look at us.
Feeling between 11’s legs
in the backseat.
Sitar for her stare.
Paddle for the stare in her eyes.
Kissing by the fountain.
Kissing for the motion
moving through and out
of us.
in the pussy of my friend.
Now I’m living good.
Studying the waves of paper.
Biking recklessly over pot holes.
Accelerating towards
divine failure.
Burning bridges.
I am reckless and tender.
Last time I saw her
I left her feeling light and wet
like a wave bending towards the sky.
I am feeling so many things.
An error in data.
Kissing in back allies.
Kissing on dance floors.
Kissing on street corners.
Kissing for the camera.
Kissing 11.
She brings the generosity out of me.
Generous,
I have been bad.
Have been committing crimes.
Have been existing and suffering.
From the chemicals
the melancholy
the typing.
The girls of silkscreen.
The girls painting in their bedrooms.
Abandoning their bodies
on the Internet.
Feeding cats
Shellac on Parc.
$10 drinks.
People are nice to us because
god damn it look at us.
Feeling between 11’s legs
in the backseat.
Sitar for her stare.
Paddle for the stare in her eyes.
Kissing by the fountain.
Kissing for the motion
moving through and out
of us.
HER MAJESTY
The future seems impossible
because it really truly is.
It takes a million miracles
to compose a moment.
So when I show up at the club
I’m feeling delicate.
All these plastic people.
Shiny in the glow of their cells.
And me,
me too.
because it really truly is.
It takes a million miracles
to compose a moment.
So when I show up at the club
I’m feeling delicate.
All these plastic people.
Shiny in the glow of their cells.
And me,
me too.
MOONSTONE
Girls can be cruel
Angels in the cold
Their opaque truth
The performance of laughter
on the dirty floral carpet
Like everybody
I fantasize about LA
My least talented endeavour
is Destruction
No one deserves money
My friend is an asshole
but I need him
His revenge feels bad
His abandonment for my betrayal
No one deserves anything
Naked on this island of existence
Sound is power
Holy shit
Angels in the cold
Their opaque truth
The performance of laughter
on the dirty floral carpet
Like everybody
I fantasize about LA
My least talented endeavour
is Destruction
No one deserves money
My friend is an asshole
but I need him
His revenge feels bad
His abandonment for my betrayal
No one deserves anything
Naked on this island of existence
Sound is power
Holy shit
Ashley Opheim is the founder and managing editor of Metatron and author of the poetry collection I Am Here. Her work and the projects she has been involved in have been featured on and praised by the likes of The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, CBC, DAZED, PAPERMAG, Flavorwire & Fast Company. Her poetry and art have been anthologized in Canada, the United States, Spain, Romania and Peru (forthcoming) and has been translated in multiple languages. She is currently completing her first full-length collection of poetry, Ambient Technology and the Iridescent Glitch, and writing for The Museum of Symmetry, a virtual reality game for The National Film Board of Canada.
X
PLANTLICKER
it was holed up
at the end of a cobblestone alley
like a secret
actually
half of it had
merged with a wall
so it was more like
the ingrown idea of a tree
than a tree
a low relief mosaic
on nights when
the moon was bright enough
i would sneak out in my socks
pull on my rollerblades outside
& go hug the tree
& lie in the crook of its trunk
& talk to it abt my problems
it didn’t feel one sided
it listened & it held me back
i thought
but then again
i am the patron saint
of reading too far into things
so
at the end of a cobblestone alley
like a secret
actually
half of it had
merged with a wall
so it was more like
the ingrown idea of a tree
than a tree
a low relief mosaic
on nights when
the moon was bright enough
i would sneak out in my socks
pull on my rollerblades outside
& go hug the tree
& lie in the crook of its trunk
& talk to it abt my problems
it didn’t feel one sided
it listened & it held me back
i thought
but then again
i am the patron saint
of reading too far into things
so
APEROL ANGST
confessing to a poet friend
on a trip one summer
where we drank a lot
that in spite of everything
feeling so pleasant
i couldn’t stop thinking
‘how quickly reality can be inverted’
a car could run over someone’s foot, say,
or isis abduct us on the bus
i wanted him to think
i was interesting
but he said ‘oh,
i don’t like that
i don’t like that at all’
a year later
i read somewhere that
‘always imagining the worst’
is the definition of anxiety
according to freud
on a trip one summer
where we drank a lot
that in spite of everything
feeling so pleasant
i couldn’t stop thinking
‘how quickly reality can be inverted’
a car could run over someone’s foot, say,
or isis abduct us on the bus
i wanted him to think
i was interesting
but he said ‘oh,
i don’t like that
i don’t like that at all’
a year later
i read somewhere that
‘always imagining the worst’
is the definition of anxiety
according to freud
Oscar d'Artois is the author of Teen Surf Goth (Metatron, 2015). He does not currently live anywhere.
X
BIRDS FLY INTO THE MOUTH OF THE SUN
Birds fly into the mouth of the sun.
They trudge through dirty leaves and nests,
dig out the guts of worms in wet grass,
and all of their tiny chicks feed on vomit
once choked on by their mothers, their fathers.
And when a bird learns to fly all they do
is jump, and their bodies take over, instinct
kicks in. And some of them surely die from the
fall down, those great-great heights, but some live.
And the living ones nestle into their brick holes
with their mothers and fathers, unrecognizable,
and chew pebbles and rock-hard bread, and break
their beaks on the pavement, the hollow bones of their
enemies. And the lucky-living ones burrow their heads
under wings in the night-night, sift their straw-
twig homes, and sing when the sun rises, the sun sets,
when the moon rises, the moon sets. And it’s easy to
feel brave when we see them above our heads flying
South somewhere, and if we’re with someone we ask,
how far do you think they’re going, how far is it to
come back, will they even make it? But we’re all sure
they’ll make it. In the V, birds simply follow the birds
in front of them, and the bird at the centre-point follows
their own blind will. But they make it and come home,
make it and come home. They don’t die when they fly
into the mouth of the sun. They tell each other apart
often by the sounds they make when they’re alone.
They trudge through dirty leaves and nests,
dig out the guts of worms in wet grass,
and all of their tiny chicks feed on vomit
once choked on by their mothers, their fathers.
And when a bird learns to fly all they do
is jump, and their bodies take over, instinct
kicks in. And some of them surely die from the
fall down, those great-great heights, but some live.
And the living ones nestle into their brick holes
with their mothers and fathers, unrecognizable,
and chew pebbles and rock-hard bread, and break
their beaks on the pavement, the hollow bones of their
enemies. And the lucky-living ones burrow their heads
under wings in the night-night, sift their straw-
twig homes, and sing when the sun rises, the sun sets,
when the moon rises, the moon sets. And it’s easy to
feel brave when we see them above our heads flying
South somewhere, and if we’re with someone we ask,
how far do you think they’re going, how far is it to
come back, will they even make it? But we’re all sure
they’ll make it. In the V, birds simply follow the birds
in front of them, and the bird at the centre-point follows
their own blind will. But they make it and come home,
make it and come home. They don’t die when they fly
into the mouth of the sun. They tell each other apart
often by the sounds they make when they’re alone.
JC Bouchard’s poetry has previously appeared in The Puritan, Arc, Hart House Review (Winter Supplement), and Queen Mob’s Teahouse. He is the author of two chapbooks: Portraits (In/Words Press) and WOOL WATER (words(on)pages press).
X
TODAY WILL BE A CHANGING DAY IN YOUR LIFE
A “found poem” using only titles of Dr. Phil episodes
Can this family be saved? Intervention or anything
men can do, women can do better. Secret regrets
when family members attack. Does this mom really
want her child back? Leaving life in the tunnel.
Last chance or divorce, shaming the family name.
Ways to ruin a marriage:
Married a Rapist
My Ex is Accused of Murder
Psychic Dilemmas with Medium John Edwards
Stepparent Abuse?
A Family Slaughtered For Teen Love
Caught on camera: abused husband or abused wife? You decide.
My ex is slowly killing our daughter:
young, privileged, and in a deadly gang.
I fear my daughter will be kidnapped
and forced into sex trafficking.
Young, gorgeous, privileged, and destroying her family.
My teen daughter faked two pregnancies. I’m worried
my daughter may turn into a terrorist. I think
my daughter poisoned my son to death.
My beauty queen baby girl has gone ballistic!
You’re not hot enough, beauty, the OCD beast.
I believe my ex murdered our children:
my husband, Pablo, and his other woman.
Love scams; I feel trapped by my controlling
husband. Love scams; my mother chose her catfish
over her family, dangerous and violent love.
I’m over it.
I’m over it.
Steve Harvey, what are men thinking?
Oversexed And Unprotected
Secrets Gone Wrong
Three’s A Crowd
Suburban Dramas
me
Me
ME
selfish people
How far would you go for your kids?
Housewives: the mistress revealed,
secrets, lies, and regrets,
mini mean girls.
Reality TV stars’ real life drama: bad girls, financial infidelity, blended families,
and beautiful people in an ugly divorce with a baby trapped in the middle.
men can do, women can do better. Secret regrets
when family members attack. Does this mom really
want her child back? Leaving life in the tunnel.
Last chance or divorce, shaming the family name.
Ways to ruin a marriage:
Married a Rapist
My Ex is Accused of Murder
Psychic Dilemmas with Medium John Edwards
Stepparent Abuse?
A Family Slaughtered For Teen Love
Caught on camera: abused husband or abused wife? You decide.
My ex is slowly killing our daughter:
young, privileged, and in a deadly gang.
I fear my daughter will be kidnapped
and forced into sex trafficking.
Young, gorgeous, privileged, and destroying her family.
My teen daughter faked two pregnancies. I’m worried
my daughter may turn into a terrorist. I think
my daughter poisoned my son to death.
My beauty queen baby girl has gone ballistic!
You’re not hot enough, beauty, the OCD beast.
I believe my ex murdered our children:
my husband, Pablo, and his other woman.
Love scams; I feel trapped by my controlling
husband. Love scams; my mother chose her catfish
over her family, dangerous and violent love.
I’m over it.
I’m over it.
Steve Harvey, what are men thinking?
Oversexed And Unprotected
Secrets Gone Wrong
Three’s A Crowd
Suburban Dramas
me
Me
ME
selfish people
How far would you go for your kids?
Housewives: the mistress revealed,
secrets, lies, and regrets,
mini mean girls.
Reality TV stars’ real life drama: bad girls, financial infidelity, blended families,
and beautiful people in an ugly divorce with a baby trapped in the middle.
Julie Mannell is a writer of poetry, fiction, and essays. She is the recipient of the HarperCollins/Constance Rooke Scholarship, the Mona Adilman Poetry Prize, and the Lionel Shapiro Award for Excellency in Creative Writing. Her work has been featured in the National Post, the Toronto Star, and Joyland amongst others. Mannell is the contributing editor at Matrix Magazine.
X
BLACKBIRD SONATA
that fudged campaign
in the humpy hill, still
muse still brave,
the paltry unverdict
a thing only permanence
could bluff like
the edgy grass
where in the black
birds survey on dermis
and the nation
in this light
is any famine, is silence
always too young,
early and comic,
too flung into desperate notes
too cubed, like the felt self
and ruins turned petrified soliloquy
nothing spares that back-sacking run
through the rusting hill, geometries
in the adjacent coo
the avian script is no allegory
we need like men and supplies
we need walls from which to keep watch
we need air to whip about
apologies
we forgive this whiting heat its rippling darks
these are not the vagaries
of a blackbird
none of us knows
the true cost of exile
is we’ve let our scanty
rations burn, this routine
ache of independence
its peopled rumours, chasing rats
when the cans of New Brunswick
sardines run out
we are much too Jacobean, for these times
everything is packaged
to look earthen, like gold, a matrix
against which to weigh the true
cost and landscapes
what we leave behind
with gods of our infancy
drools cast into the dirt—
is the least of our claims
to be too sober,
before, too drunk
to know these phantom
peaks
are neither the cankers of victory
nor the songs, suspect
of this age
let the blackbird transmute all
her mourning into song, let the blackbird demand permanence
a refusal to drown
her spasms up the railroad
enough to chart the vital distance
the blackbird, fission loss and wilting,
no matter which new names
we’ll crash into blameless glass, protests
against that joy
we’ve forgotten how to feel
beneath the puritan watch of thinning light
forget all the mad kings
who promised us
to never again bend to the barons,
lance-bearing, dread-bearing
keepers of district
digging all our graves with one hand, still
there is no apothecary to stop this disease
they will tell us
the need that we author
our own atrophied smiles,
and we can’t stop crabbing
the bingo moneybag
that we’ve grown accustomed
to the phantom feel of the lynch
second-hand market trays commissioned for elevators,
provisions, forms of the do-gooders’ logo’d bins
are never the questions
but the simile
of whether our deaths
like their deaths will ever
level all but the churched sky
in the humpy hill, still
muse still brave,
the paltry unverdict
a thing only permanence
could bluff like
the edgy grass
where in the black
birds survey on dermis
and the nation
in this light
is any famine, is silence
always too young,
early and comic,
too flung into desperate notes
too cubed, like the felt self
and ruins turned petrified soliloquy
nothing spares that back-sacking run
through the rusting hill, geometries
in the adjacent coo
the avian script is no allegory
we need like men and supplies
we need walls from which to keep watch
we need air to whip about
apologies
we forgive this whiting heat its rippling darks
these are not the vagaries
of a blackbird
none of us knows
the true cost of exile
is we’ve let our scanty
rations burn, this routine
ache of independence
its peopled rumours, chasing rats
when the cans of New Brunswick
sardines run out
we are much too Jacobean, for these times
everything is packaged
to look earthen, like gold, a matrix
against which to weigh the true
cost and landscapes
what we leave behind
with gods of our infancy
drools cast into the dirt—
is the least of our claims
to be too sober,
before, too drunk
to know these phantom
peaks
are neither the cankers of victory
nor the songs, suspect
of this age
let the blackbird transmute all
her mourning into song, let the blackbird demand permanence
a refusal to drown
her spasms up the railroad
enough to chart the vital distance
the blackbird, fission loss and wilting,
no matter which new names
we’ll crash into blameless glass, protests
against that joy
we’ve forgotten how to feel
beneath the puritan watch of thinning light
forget all the mad kings
who promised us
to never again bend to the barons,
lance-bearing, dread-bearing
keepers of district
digging all our graves with one hand, still
there is no apothecary to stop this disease
they will tell us
the need that we author
our own atrophied smiles,
and we can’t stop crabbing
the bingo moneybag
that we’ve grown accustomed
to the phantom feel of the lynch
second-hand market trays commissioned for elevators,
provisions, forms of the do-gooders’ logo’d bins
are never the questions
but the simile
of whether our deaths
like their deaths will ever
level all but the churched sky
Canisia Lubrin was born in St. Lucia, holds an MFA from Guelph-Humber. She teaches writing at Humber College, is a member of the Humber Literary Review collective, the Ontario Book Publisher's Organization Advisory board and incoming co-host/director or Pivot Reading series. Her début collection, Voodoo Hypothesis is forthcoming in 2017 from Wolsak & Wynn.
X
PROFESSIONAL SMILE
Ronan Nanning-Watson is a storyteller, writer, and filmmaker born on the unceded Musqueam, Skxwú7mesh, and Tsleil-Waututh territories of Vancouver, B.C. There he attended 10 schools before receiving a BFA in critical theory at Emily Carr University. His poetry has been published in Soliloquies Magazine, his short film featured in the New York Times, and his plays at the Vancouver Cultch and the Shadbolt Center for the Arts. He co-wrote, directed and produced his first feature film in 2014, Crusade.
X
LETHAL WEAPON 2
Carl Fink drove six hours past fields of wheat and broken down trailers, past sad towns with boarded up buildings, past stretches of flat nothing, so that he could check into a shitty motel in Hutchinson, Kansas. He wouldn’t go on stage until later that night and the weather was good enough so he sat on a park bench in the common area of the motel, next to a garbage can and an empty pool. He looked down at his feet and saw a group of ants piled onto a piece of hamburger left in a McDonald’s wrapper. Their shiny black bodies moved with purpose. He checked Instagram on his phone, checked Twitter on his phone, and checked Facebook on his phone. When he was done the piece of hamburger was gone. The only things left were a couple of dead ants. He thought maybe that could be funny, maybe he could work that into a bit, but he grew bored and decided to masturbate on his queen bed. After that he checked his phone again but not much had happened in the world while he had been masturbating. His sister posted a picture of her kid, and he clicked the ‘like’ button. He flipped through channels and saw that Lethal Weapon 2 was on TV. He remembered as a kid renting that movie at McCullough’s Convenience Video with his dad. He remembered the possibilities of that chunky VHS tape in his hands. When the movie was over, after Danny Glover had shot the South African Diplomat in the face, Carl found that he had been crying again, although he could not remember when he had started. He drove to a liquor store in town and bought a bottle of bourbon and then he drove to a McDonald’s and bought two double cheeseburgers and a large fry. Sometimes after eating he felt a sharp pain in his right abdomen. Sometimes when he drove and there was an empty stretch of road, he liked to close his eyes, to see how long he could stand to drive that way. Sometimes ants died from eating too much garbage. He was working on it.
Anthony Sabourin is a writer based in Ottawa. His work has previously been published in In/Words.
X
THERE’S A FALCON INSIDE THIS GROCERY STORE
I’m standing in the cheese section and everything’s fine, and then people start screaming over by the entrance and it turns out a falcon’s flown through the automated doors and is now fully inside the grocery store. It’s banging into walls and windows, knocking over stacks of bean cans, making children cry, and generally flying around in a panic clearly not knowing what it’s supposed to be doing in this situation. And then it starts swooping down at the customers and screeching in their ears, as if it’s thinking, “Oh I’ll just casually ask some of these people how to get out of wherever I am,” but when it comes out it doesn’t come out so casually it comes out as “KYYYAAAAAAAAAA!” So everybody’s freaking out.Then the manager comes on the PA and says, “There’s a falcon in this store!” as if nobody’s realized that and then she tells everybody to run for their lives, and that’s what everybody does. Everybody runs for their lives. There’s a display of whole wheat Kraft Dinner by the automated doors and one guy grabs a box and just as he’s about to leave he throws it in the air behind him thinking he’ll try and hit the falcon on his way out. And then everybody behind this guy sees what he did and thinks that looks like a great idea and soon everybody’s grabbing a box of KD on their way out and throwing it behind them like it’s some sort of store tradition, as if there’s a sign beside the KD display that says before you leave the store, grab a box of KD and throw it behind you.
Jordan Moffatt is a writer and improviser living in Ottawa. His short fiction has appeared in many places on the web, has been printed in (parenthetical), and is forthcoming in print for Matrix Magazine and The Feathertale Review. He received an honourable mention for the 2016 Blodwyn Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the 2016 Lit POP Award.
X
THE AVIARY
I painted a small crowd,
people on plastic cutouts
details down to hair texture
became allusively representative.
Held off on some expressions
like staring in mid-thought.
Life size and transportable,
I placed them at various corners
near houses of copious civility.
They milled about held
imaginary conversations, smoked.
Conceptual in their bathroom brakes
like vandals impersonal, aloof
wary of destruction for its own sake.
people on plastic cutouts
details down to hair texture
became allusively representative.
Held off on some expressions
like staring in mid-thought.
Life size and transportable,
I placed them at various corners
near houses of copious civility.
They milled about held
imaginary conversations, smoked.
Conceptual in their bathroom brakes
like vandals impersonal, aloof
wary of destruction for its own sake.
André Babyn's work has appeared in Maisonneuve, Hobart, Grain, Pank, HTMLGIANT, and elsewhere. In 2015 he was the recipient of the Adam Penn Gilders Scholarship in Creative Writing, and in 2010 he won the Norma Epstein Award for Creative Writing. He recently obtained his Master’s in Creative Writing from the University of Toronto, and he serves as the Fiction Editor of the Puritan.
X
THE SECRET ORIGINS OF THE EVERYDAY
I painted a small crowd,
people on plastic cutouts
details down to hair texture
became allusively representative.
Held off on some expressions
like staring in mid-thought.
Life size and transportable,
I placed them at various corners
near houses of copious civility.
They milled about held
imaginary conversations, smoked.
Conceptual in their bathroom brakes
like vandals impersonal, aloof
wary of destruction for its own sake.
people on plastic cutouts
details down to hair texture
became allusively representative.
Held off on some expressions
like staring in mid-thought.
Life size and transportable,
I placed them at various corners
near houses of copious civility.
They milled about held
imaginary conversations, smoked.
Conceptual in their bathroom brakes
like vandals impersonal, aloof
wary of destruction for its own sake.
Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa, where he is home full-time with the two wee girls he shares with Christine McNair. The author of more than thirty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, he won the John Newlove Poetry Award in 2010, the Council for the Arts in Ottawa Mid-Career Award in 2014, and was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2012. In March, 2016, he was inducted into the VERSe Ottawa Hall of Honour. His most recent titles include The Uncertainty Principle: stories, (Chaudiere Books, 2014) and the poetry collection A perimeter (New Star Books, 2016). An editor and publisher, he runs above/ground press, Chaudiere Books (with Christine McNair), The Garneau Review (ottawater.com/garneaureview), seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics (ottawater.com/seventeenseconds), Touch the Donkey (touchthedonkey.blogspot.com) and the Ottawa poetry pdf annual ottawater (ottawater.com). In fall 2015, he was named “Interviews Editor” at Queen Mob’s Teahouse, and recently became a regular contributor to both the Drunken Boat and Ploughshares blogs. He spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in- residence at the University of Alberta, and regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices at robmclennan.blogspot.com
X
FALL OF MAN
I painted a small crowd,
people on plastic cutouts
details down to hair texture
became allusively representative.
Held off on some expressions
like staring in mid-thought.
Life size and transportable,
I placed them at various corners
near houses of copious civility.
They milled about held
imaginary conversations, smoked.
Conceptual in their bathroom brakes
like vandals impersonal, aloof
wary of destruction for its own sake.
people on plastic cutouts
details down to hair texture
became allusively representative.
Held off on some expressions
like staring in mid-thought.
Life size and transportable,
I placed them at various corners
near houses of copious civility.
They milled about held
imaginary conversations, smoked.
Conceptual in their bathroom brakes
like vandals impersonal, aloof
wary of destruction for its own sake.
Chloé Galarneau peaked in high school when she won some public speaking competitions. She now avoids speaking in public.
X
THE ASSASSINATION OF SEWER RAT JACK
I painted a small crowd,
people on plastic cutouts
details down to hair texture
became allusively representative.
Held off on some expressions
like staring in mid-thought.
Life size and transportable,
I placed them at various corners
near houses of copious civility.
They milled about held
imaginary conversations, smoked.
Conceptual in their bathroom brakes
like vandals impersonal, aloof
wary of destruction for its own sake.
people on plastic cutouts
details down to hair texture
became allusively representative.
Held off on some expressions
like staring in mid-thought.
Life size and transportable,
I placed them at various corners
near houses of copious civility.
They milled about held
imaginary conversations, smoked.
Conceptual in their bathroom brakes
like vandals impersonal, aloof
wary of destruction for its own sake.
Sarah MacKenzie is in the midst of completing her degree at Concordia University, where she continues to fall deeper and deeper into a pit and fit of prose writing. She was the 2016 recipient of Concordia’s Irving Layton award in fiction, and her work has been published in The Stoneslide Corrective.
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Please use eccentric formatting in poems/stories sparingly.
Include a <100 word bio. Send files as .docx or copy/paste full text into the body of the email.
Fiction: 1 story, max. 3000 words
Poetry: 5 poems, max. 10 pages
Note: We are no longer accepting visual art.
Please use eccentric formatting in poems/stories sparingly.
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