Art from Channie Greenberg
Monthly Archives: July 2023
Poetry from Duane Vorhees
THIS STREET
This warm wide street
murders the infant ice.
It carries benefit and debt
from Perdition to Paradise.
It’s walked by gamblers and planners,
sharers of a barrel
or a quarrel.
Perceived to be staid
by beseechers and besiegers
looking for worship or a war,
by flatterers, benefactors,
prophets, and the perfidious–
it’s radical and erratic,
as wild as a wave.
PHASES
1
The horned owl would hunt at night.
I watched it from an egg,
blinked
and couldn’t find its flight.
Worried that it went extinct,
unable to sleep, I mourned
until I found, faint, its horns.
2
Fishes glimmer in the nets
spread across the deep.
Trapped, they surrender to death
in their cold, dark, and cramped keep.
But, oh! What schools they inspired;
when stars spawned, no one higher.
3
The orange on the sky tree
is burnished like polished brass
trumpeting Eternity’s
emergence from a dark past.
How sweetly that orange glows
all today and tomorrow.
ROSES OR LOTUS, LINE AND POLE
My self lives with several selves
that confront, ignore, cooperate.
Sometimes the Army of Roses quelled
rivals with promises of passion.
The Lotus Ashram would dominate
through its acceptance of inaction.
Or I’d be the weathered bosun’s mate
on discovery from Line to Pole.
I oscillated from soul to soul.
I joined that Army but deserted
when I learned passion had gone awol.
Alas, when romance eluded me
I tried the Ashram to forget it.
I got to Bali and Moosonee
but then got strapped to mast, unshirted.
Now content, selves meld with line and pole.
BESTIALITY
White teeth
I mourn–
they’re shorn
like sheep–
and bones
grown limp
like shrimp
and prawns.
My thumb,
adrift,
a skiff
of chum;
my tongue,
threatened
vegan
dugong.
The knees
wobble
and stall
like bees,
and toes
crackle,
rattle
like crows.
The heart
quivers,
shivers–
tense hart.
A MAN’S MOTIVATION, EXCUSE, AND RULE
An idea, an acre,
an ounce, an inch of skin–
a man’s motivation
for mayhem may be quite thin.
By fiat, by fire, by fist,
by bullet, or by blade–
a man’s excuse and rule
can be tradition or trade,
opportunity or lust,
inspiration, or luck.
A try will lose, will triumph
through cowardice, through pluck.
Poetry from Noah Berlatsky
Get Out of the Water Jellyfish float like lungs in the sea and lungs float like jellyfish in a different sea. Everything is breathing with life and ick. That is the kind of pantheism we are talking about. Every beach is on the edge of another beach and you can walk there on the jellyfish. They pulse with the transparency of borders. Our lungs yearn to mate and evolve in the jellylike sea. We will never stop evolving. The jellyfish are going to kick your ass, God with their universal love that stings.
Photography from Isabel Gomez de Diego
Poetry from Henry Bladon
The Sweet Smell of Chaos The frantic fizzle-frazzle fanatic, pounding the sidewalk proposing splintered logic and energised by hypertrophic rhythm. Pulsating patterns propound a maelstrom mindset, a confused calibration housed in a chocolate-stained cabinet. The metallic clang from a spoonful of sympathy is mixed in a sunlit side room. Sudden alchemy from a cobalt portal. The succulent sound of ozone. The taste of psychic salvation. Someone crunches on a red apple and starts to cough. Dark Matter There was a hippy unreality in my dream. I was in an online echo chamber where thoughts queued for attention and words were bending into a black hole. The background was populated with pixelated memories of the 90s rave scene and pieces of leftover pizza. There was anxiety when conversational voids appeared in a debate concerning early climate change warnings. The galactic rulers filled the space with free streaming particles and announced that cosmic microwaves would be available in all new-build cosmic houses. In the corner of a park, a man was standing on a box and yelling into a broken megaphone, asking: if we can’t see it, does dark matter really matter?
Short story from Gustavo M. Galliano
ÚLTIMA GRAN PANDEMIA
Por Gustavo M. GALLIANO
Nadie supo cómo, donde o porqué surgió. Bastó su génesis para que se propagara por todo el desprevenido planeta, y ya no hubo retorno. Contagio total, sin tiempo de medicinas.
Me ha contado en secreto mi amigo imaginario Xerafín que el huésped primario fue un humano. Que decidió abrir su pecho y exclamar, en sincero frenesí, las tres fantásticas palabras: “¡Solidaridad, Resiliencia y Paz!”.
Al instante, el virus se propago por el aire, pandémico, vinculando cuerpos, mentes y almas, en cada rincón. El planeta muto, sus habitantes no volvimos a ser los mismos.
Y ese día fue hoy.-
LAST GREAT PANDEMIC
By Gustavo M. GALLIANO
No one knew how, where or why it arose. Its genesis was enough for it to spread throughout the unsuspecting planet, and there was no return. Total contagion, no time for medicines.
I have been secretly told by my imaginary friend Xerafin that the primary host was a human. That he decided to open his chest and exclaim, in sincere frenzy, the three fantastic words: "Solidarity, Resilience and Peace!".
Instantly, the virus spread through the air, pandemic, linking bodies, minds and souls, in every corner. The planet mutated, its inhabitants were never the same again.
And that day was today.-
BREVE BIOGRAFÍA de:
Prof. Gustavo Marcelo GALLIANO.
Nacido en Gödeken, Santa Fe, República Argentina. Escritor, poeta, Jurado en certámenes literarios Internacionales. Periodismo digital. Docente Universitario de la Facultad de Derecho de la UNR, en la asignatura Historia Constitucional Argentina. Miembro del CICSO (Centro de investigaciones en Ciencias Sociales). Secretario Técnico de REDIM.
Se ha desempeñado como Corresponsal Especial en diversas revistas internacionales de Arte y Literatura (Cañ@santa, Sinalefa, ViceVersa, Long Island al Día, RosannaMúsica, etc).
Integra la Red de Escritores en Español (REMES), Poetas de Mundo, Unión Hispano-Mundial de Escritores (UHE), la Fundación César Égido Serrano, Naciones Unidas de las Letras (Ave Viajera y Proyecto Mundial Semillas de Juventud), entre otras. Actualmente es colaborador especial de Revista Poética AZAHAR (España), Revista Literaria-artístico PLUMA y TINTERO (España), Revista Literaria KENAVÒ (Italia) y Revista OFRANDA LITERARA (Rumania) donde también integra el Colegio Editorial.
Ha obtenido distinciones y premios en certámenes y concursos internacionales de cuentos, narrativa, micro relato y poesía. Publicó libros (LA CITA, 5 AUTORES) y participe de antologías y revistas publicadas y traducidas en más de 100 países.
Ha sido designado como Embajador de la Palabra y la Paz por diversas instituciones: WWPO (USA), Círculo de Embajadores Universales de la Paz (Francia / Suiza), Fundación César Égido Serrano y Museo de la Palabra (España).
Reside en Rosario, Santa Fe, República Argentina.
BRIEF BIOGRAPHY of:
Prof. Gustavo Marcelo GALLIANO
Born in Gödeken, Santa Fe, Argentine Republic. Writer, poet, jury in international literary contests. Digital journalism. University Professor at the Faculty of Law of the UNR, in the subject Argentine Constitutional History. Member of CICSO (Social Sciences Research Center). REDIM Technical Secretary.
He has worked as a Special Correspondent for various international Art and Literature magazines (Cañ @ santa, Sinalefa, ViceVersa, Long Island al Día, RosannaMúsica, etc).
He is a member of the Red de Escritores en Español (REMES), Poetas de Mundo, Union Hispano-Mundial de Escritores (UHE), the César Égido Serrano Foundation, the United Nations of Letters (Ave Viajera and the World Seeds of Youth Project), among others. Currently he is a special contributor to AZAHAR Poetic Magazine (Spain), PLUMA and TINTERO Literary-artistic Magazine (Spain), KENAVÒ Literary Magazine (Italy) and OFRANDA LITERARA Magazine (Romania) where he is also a member of the Editorial College.
He has obtained distinctions and prizes in international contests and contests for short stories, narrative, short story and poetry. He published books (LA CITA, 5 AUTORES) and participated in anthologies and magazines published and translated in more than 100 countries.
He has been designated as Ambassador of the Word and Peace by various institutions: WWPO (USA), Circle of Universal Ambassadors of Peace (France / Switzerland), César Égido Serrano Foundation and Museum of the Word (Spain).
He resides in Rosario, Santa Fe, Argentine Republic.
Poetry from Mykyta Ryzhykh
the faucet is clogged as if after the verse of death like the winged word of a wingless crane like the erection phase of an automatic gun faucet is clogged but leaking such a strange dream had a dungeon dispatcher while the subway cars crashed into each other at an inexplicable speed what can god know about the dungeon if even his only son did not descend to us below the earth's surface *** silent weapons shoot louder a blind butterfly shines brighter the wingless man flies further the sky falls on everyone's head the same way the birds of hell have come to gouge out the eyes with their claws and I look at them without eyes without a mouth without wings living corpse along the river flowing into the pipes of war my late grandfather always told me about the importance of wings in childhood my grandfather didn't tell me anything about guns and sky bridle in prayer in prayer hello grandpa give me paradise apples in this hell of a grave in this hell of a live *** the cash register of the store is the door to narnia near the rack with comics the cashier sleeps behind the back of the cashier there is a cupboard from which kafka comes out leading to the path the path leads to the forest with butterflies in the belly of nature seminal lobes rush with atoms molecules fight in love the chocolate hare jumps to the cotton candy stream the stream by which we will die of thirst with sugar on our lips *** body in a sheet of cold snow dead man in sky-colored robe newborn in naked silence child in the name as if in religion teen with dildo like god adult with childhood in the auricles old man with body reaching for the sky *** heart torture chamber dwarfs of minutes scatter birds fly like jet planes wait those are not birds they are jet planes the fish plays suicide on the dream shore the bird on the back of the survival stub screams: hangman here hangman *** niche industry of porn magazine a lump with a deity inside the stomach indigestion of sadness flowing through the veins myopia of approaching my love every time i try to touch you every time i try every time you leave soulless beer can niche industry niche industry of disappointment in people used can of beer and emptiness on the pages of a porn magazine *** neural network is called intelligence I call myself a neural network I'm just an ant, fill my chest with reflexes I'm not human anymore I'm artificial intelligence I'm artificial i'm not smart i am a walking reflex I am a walking disappointment - and then I woke up and went to clean up the shit after the cat *** manna from heaven falls from the sky directly into the mouth another day of eating wealth from which nothing will be born (Reprint by BarBar) *** cotton candy smothers us with sugar a stream of blood and tears of the dead flows near the house we have nothing to eat and drink (Reprint by BarBar) *** fire does not give rise to perspective the birds don't sing autumn does not come autumn from now on without legs without god without man (Reprint by BarBar)