Goran Tomic is a Collisionist Autodidact Artist from Sydney, Australia who has exhibited his collages, video installations and performance art over the past 25 years. Raised on Rauschenberg and born posthumously he Flaneur’s the urban decay searching for his Wilderness robe.
light and bitter
sunday lunchtime
with my father
in the cemetery
wind striking stone
beating conflict
bearing down
scratched on a head
marking the days
four poems prowl
as i fly into deeds
that bought me up
for change
to bring me into line
to put me in these lines
the imagery awakes
and in this mist of time
this son of york
moves effortlessly
‘mongst the pines
a slicing of anxiety that lies
most pale in the moonlight
witness the nervous prayer
vistas that were there for us
a very useful sunset
once more cut adrift
lover-to-be – begin
sex and secularity
show boats in the drink
adolescent agitprop revisited
a really low shuck scuttle
across the backs
of daunting zebras
leap or they’ll come for you
get down on the blanket then
harsh noise too dark
once i was a walking erection
entitlement personified
lewd passions break neck
runaway class
runaway signs
sonic experiments
ranging from riffs
exclude ecstasy
include instances
you know
she whispered
you do know
gentle then
gentlemen
we are subjects
of the author
of his latest
and the world won’t end
oh delighting one
after all you will
after all you’ve seen
full-lotus on the mantelpiece
a technique to be admired
move on to more familiar hypnosis
twist yourself into a tree
incendiary personal collections
consisting of salacious clips
behaviour can be useful
a fortune on the pools
north carolina is drowning
and she is a million years old
in his pocket lies your breathing
modern psychology fries
wavemakers made off
with my waking
red brick telephone lines
yes sir she does have two kidneys
racists are usually thick
the meat grinder has read your note
but you are not excused
a hundred-thousand potbellies
can’t be wrong
and personal chemistry
can only take you so far
this blend of surreal chicanery
is remaining
weaving opening pieces
and having to make do
so cease your
fashionable scuttling
i also find that
quite contrived
we held
we necked
as first rains
hit the carriage
we decoded the typology
and oh what fun we had
live streaming the event
simplify and exemplify
or you will be disturbed
try to exercise
begin to form softness
sink into self-defence
only partly consume yourself
more profit for the shucksters
out ways means way out
sullen leaps from the parapet
my stares have been changed
and both are rather weary now
coffee brews with queer desires
following which and taking it on
take what you want and get it to shore
farewell yearning cobra
cats that ridge their backs
time to find
the dreamlike
frame mind
abiding buttered cool
blue-tiled pools and pixled fools
furnish them with everything
be unconscious mind i said
call it out then mother-hen
and this is what that feels like
it creeps into you backwards
with its bug eyes on your feet
on a tight leash
fold and unfold
as the woodland comes to life
in surroundings
i wave she waving
must run
rice cake wars
once factories made sure
still jolly reader
really bad got bored
rather than wait
the creature stirred
who would have thought
of virgin lands
with ringing crystals
so debauched
who then is watching
this unprecedented growth
through a soft lens
reach for a cigarette
vodka
this world
has become a dark world
murdering catamites
behind a white picket fence
what is on offer
we bring you plate
ransom note
thought circuits bathed in flaming gravy
simple weird moments in a deep bass slot
fine dimly wondered march acoustics
sirloin beef broils there bypassing breath
this infernal whooping through my mucus
has transformed the cold machinery of war
break out the psalms and trance-like simul-
ations before the god of winds caresses
your last breath counting your sleeps in a
sound-proofed chamber recycling waste
for a jollier death my knees have turned
against me and now they’re spreading so
there’s little else left here for me to do oh
damn your dreams fish don’t want air and
many more besides a little bit of ghostly’s
gone astray go check for mail and mow
the lawn and throw your groceries in the
bin this must we see it cannot be it flows
through graduated forms a stasis tube
containing light a play with something
different new concerns providing stranger
personal effects aesthetic coffins ripened
love buds please dear uncle am i then the
one am i a shade of energy pulsating in
and out of love of time not out of hate of
signs but talk of peace that mimics all
the body’s core and fights what should
have made a difference and yet
appears in more and more degrading
revelations force fed into my conscious
mind it’s what is endlessly desired
discover walks and roots in forestation
that renew then take up huge amounts
of time – the moments must so easily
slip by be still and concentrate as best
you can with myra hindley on your
knee a flash of bottled radishes pressed
uo against your spine that so inflames
the rash that your humanity decries
irrational darkening dream status
a sinistere mouths
and my glass eye rolls
left arm draped
in a short space
stake gibbet and cross
and repent
base pernicious
and degrading
fire and sword
from lip to ear
crystallised
into a creed
prenatal memory
cognition
black fire town
once there was
a red hot poker
now there’s only
central heating
shadow travellers
offend
a sort of rising
for a few
like-minded friends
and what is left
is postmarked quarantine
daisy gristle welts
green gnomes here lie
and their chunks
anastasia was disposed of
lady chatterley's
a broken tuba now
her topical mouth
is a gift shop
but it’s closed
whose contraption
am i strapped upon
the master-key
is in their hands
and i believe
they watch my dreams
through apertures extending into space
Eddie Heaton studied innovative and experimental poetry under the tutelage of post-modern poet and educator Keith Jebb, achieving a first-class honours degree. He also won the 2021 Carcanet Award for Creative Writing. His work has been extensively published in a number of prestigious literary journals.
A hazy familiar abstraction....
Like a decoupage painting
Designed as a distraction
Like watching you dreaming...
Mesmerized by a wistful whiff of
Melancholy and underlying yearning
for the joy of a blossoming aliveness.
You, a relay of impressionist painter Claude Monet
All while in the deep end of steep sleep;
I was transfixed and transported in your succoring still,
Even if for a sparkly shine of a firefly
Nestled in the arms of the numbing night,
Like the brevity of life itself...beautifully rendered
Even if only in your dream state;
Until daylight swallows the night
And dreams come AWAKE!
Jacques Fleury
Jacques Fleury is a Boston Globe featured Haitian-American Poet, Educator, Author of four books and literary arts student at Harvard University online. His latest publication “You Are Enough: The Journey to Accepting Your Authentic Self” & other titles are available at all Boston Public Libraries, the University of Massachusetts Healey Library, University of Wyoming, Askews and Holts Library Services in the United Kingdom, The Harvard Book Store, The Grolier Poetry Bookshop, Amazon etc…He has been published in prestigious publications such as Muddy River Poetry Review, the Cornell University Press anthology Class Lives: Stories from Our Economic Divide, Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene among others…Visit him here.
Jerome Berglund has worked as everything from dishwasher to paralegal, night watchman to assembler of heart valves. Many haiku, haiga and haibun he’s written have been exhibited or are forthcoming online and in print, most recently in bottle rockets, Frogpond, Kingfisher, and Presence. His first full-length collections of poetry Bathtub Poems and Funny Pages were just released by Setu and Meat For Tea press, and a mixed media chapbook showcasing his fine art photography is available now from Yavanika.
Shane Coppage is an emerging writer with a fine arts degree. His words have been published in Humana Obscura, Cold Moon Journal, The Japan Society London, Shadow Pond Journal, and The Winged Moon Magazine. Connect with him on Instagram @shane_coppage.
Marjorie Pezzoli is a silk painter for 25+ years, visual artist, storyteller, and poet. Her writings deal with grief, hope, cosmic wonders, and stuff that catches her eye. Her poetry has been published in numerous anthologies since 2019. Many of her writings are inspired by her photographic observations taken while walking Beau, the dog with Betty Davis eyes. Marjorie looks for words that are worth a thousand images. wwwPezzoliart.com
and we all know whose fault it was
ask her if she fools around, if you
can get her number, and
she laughs, and you ask if she has any x,
if she has a friend who puts out and
get it where you can, right? and it sure as shit
wasn’t creeley who told me that,
wasn’t cirino or eliot, cuz all the fucking
poets ever did was lie
all that asshole tony ever did was
keep the acid for himself, and it was your father
who taught you how to pull the trigger,
sure,
but he would never let you
take the blindfold off
would never tell you who you’d hit
and he had that guitar autographed
by pettibon, had that girlfriend your mother
never found out about, and did you
cry when he died?
did you go through his pockets
of his sunday jeans
looking for cash or a credit card?
and i remember you kept telling me he
owed you something, but you were
always a pussy, always thought you were
missing out
always thought the future was
just around the corner
said you wanted to be ready for the
moment that would change everything,
but the moment had already
come and gone
no religion
my whole life spent waiting for
everything to go wrong, and i end in this
house, on this day, setting fire to the
past while the roof collapses
i end up too old to die young,
and with mixed emotions about it
i end up terrified of the fact
that i might not live forever
that i might end up nothing more
than the person i’ve become
defacer’s blues
and all the pretty girls dead of
accidental overdoses, and all the
parties you were supposed to
meet them at
the ones where you show up alone
already drunk and stoned,
where you fade into the darkest corner,
and it’s a gift, always being the
ugliest person in the room
it’s a thankless job traveling everywhere
with a shovel and a holy book,
with a can of gasoline and a book of matches,
but none of these corpses are
going to take care of themselves
none of your freedoms are going to
last forever, and it always feels strange
pretending to give a shit
about the state of the world because,
seriously,
what the fuck are you possibly
going to do to stop war,
to put an end to starvation
or genocide?
who are you going to kill to
assure the rest of us a
lifetime of peace?
seems like you should’ve
thought of something
by now
in the garden of dying stars
or junkie truth,
which is not the truth
a victim’s idea of power
grey sun in a grey sky
and this old man sleeping in his
hospital bed looks like me,
like my father,
like the spaces that grow between us,
and hope matters,
of course,
but let’s not fuck around here
the false king is a dead man
the poet without a gun
really has nothing to offer
and i remember telling you this on
the day before your lover’s suicide,
and i remember all of the reasons
you gave for hating me
i remember silence
young boy crying in the middle of
main street, and
then the scream of brakes
only a small loss,
right?
gotta look at the bigger picture
gotta build better bombs
the poor can take care of themselves,
and tough shit if they can’t
no one starves in
a nation of corpses
no one needs god
when a holy man can
fuck them just as good
understand this, and you might
just turn out okay
[we danced to save them all]
this boy with the knife in his throat thinks he
has something to say,
but he is beyond words
he is a prince and a king and a corpse,
and we are all trying to
forget his name here in the kingdom of nil
we are tell his sister
we love her
we are telling her she belongs in movies,
but she won’t take her clothes off for us
she won’t get in the back seat
and the blood is on our hands,
is in our smiles and our dreams, and
none of the bibles we’re given ever
have anything intelligent to say
none of the children
playing out in the streets
have parents
none of them have homes
and the soldiers laugh as they hand out candy,
and they laugh as they open fire because
no one can ever get revenge if
no one is left alive
no one sings as sweetly
as the hangman’s latest lover
no one’s life ever ends up
being worth very much at all
John Sweet sends greetings from the rural wastelands of upstate NY. He is a firm believer in writing as catharsis, and in compassionate nihilism which, as luck would have it, has all the best bands. His published collections include NO ONE STARVES IN A NATION OF CORPSES (2020 Analog Submission Press) and THERE’S ONLY ONE WAY THIS IS GOING TO END (Cyberwit, 2023).
the humans come out
& so do a few loud crows
after the snowstorm
—
tail end of winter
pretty warm in the sunlight
too cold in the shade
—
green buds have appeared
on Mom’s lilac hedge out front
first full day of spring
—
two deer & then three
in someone’s yard on Iris
missed the bus again
—
slept all day & night
I wake up past eleven
disoriented
—
bio/graf
J. D. Nelson’s poems have appeared in many publications, worldwide, since 2002. He is the author of eleven print chapbooks and e-books of poetry, including *purgatorio* (wlovolw, 2024). Nelson’s first full-length collection is *in ghostly onehead* (Post-Asemic Press, 2022). Visit his website, MadVerse.com, for more information and links to his published work. His haiku blog is at JDNelson.net. Nelson lives in Boulder, Colorado, USA.
“Things Unintelligible but Understood”:
lines from Wallace Stevens, a found poem
Consider the odd morphology of regret
Note the decline of music
The grapes are here and now
Starry voluptuary will be born
At least the number of people may there be fixed
There is no such thing as innocence in autumn
Machine within machine within machine
The cabinet of a man gone mad
No man shall see the end
Naturalized: Lines from Hala Alyan’s, The Moon Turns Back:
a found poem
He plays devil’s advocate.
May father plays soccer.
In dreams I am in Nevada.
Half-life in exile.
I’m not your side bitch.
Those fucking K-Mart towels when did we
give them away?
I loved them.
Pink as slaughter.
You can’t put a corpse back together again.
I type all the metaphors I can.
I can’t keep pretending to love.
Patti Smith Photo Album #1
Mundane objects imbued
with deep, personal meaning:
Bolano’s writing chair,
Hesse’s decrepit writing machine,
Virginia Woolf’s tarnished
walking stick,
Jim Carroll’s narrow, single bed,
Fred Smith’s recovered childhood toy;
all their owners gone. A woman
with a camera remembers.
736-
Spy of the First Person. Patti Smith
and her day book. Sam’s Old KY home
Adirondack chairs on the back lawn
facing the hills. Empty now.
737-
Patti Smith punk rock star or
stay at home mom. Surrealistic
pillow maker or Rimbaud re-
incarnated. As a woman
Collector of memories. Just Us
Kids or a museum of dead things.
On the M Train. Or off.
Babel or Coral Beach. I. She.
Contains multitudes.
Patti Smith Polaroid Sequence Nov/Dec
Pasolini Monument: two doves intertwined in stone
Genet’s A Man Contemplating Death on Mapplethorpe’s
Birthday: A Still Life
Editing Sam Shepard’s last manuscript
A white horse head in Wales
Dylan Thomas’s grave with plain wooden cross
Rimbaud’s elaborate headstone
Sharing coffee with ghosts of Camus, Sartre, and Simone
in the Gallimard garden
A solitary bird sings of the death of Proust
Jim Carroll’s well-thumbed Penguin paperback of Schulz’s
Street of Crocodiles
The bound twig broom used to sweep dying leaves from
Mishima’s grave
Sam Shepard’s Depression era Gibson
Puccini’s composition piano
Photo of Rosa Parks Dec 1, 1955
Joan Didion: pure writer
The guardian angel near the grave of Bertolt Brecht
Patti Smith at the interval contemplating Tosca:
“ I have lived for art, for love.”
A letter in the hand of Emily Dickinson
Dante’s headstone
Zappa’s ‘Hot Rats’ album cover
Ralph Fiennes on the set of Coriolanus
The ruins of Hadrian’s library
After Reading Burchfield: December Moonrise, #8
Flat saucer shaped clouds in gray
blue sky are pocked by puncture wounds
shining bright as fallen stars or creatures
like birds of another species. Irradiated
seeds sprout plants that only bloom at
night. Moonrise over distant hills make
the landscape more unreal than it already
seems to be.
Blistered cones of light
where the moon
should be