The Golden Tree

The golden tree leaves it’s leaves, and they descend like bits of something, their karma being fulfilled perhaps and they moving to something even better. They pass a smaller red tree, on the way down to the ground; and a green one, larger than the first two yet; still waits proudly and full of verdant branches atop. The world is not only ambitious, it is incredibly, highly, impossibly ambitious. Every angle is thought of. And more new angles are created. Nobody notices the tree leaves, for what value has it in their racket? The radio is full of the news of the politician that got caught trying to sell the otherwise protected ecosystem, green land, to his developer friends to create urban sprawl. It’s good he got caught. The deer and coyote, the porcupine and beaver, the woodpecker and butterfly, the moss and agate even, and of course the trees, will be safe for now. For a little bit perhaps. The golden tree leaves blanket the ground. A man beyond them puts out his thumb, in the hitchhiking symbol and sign, and a car stops. But he is just in jest, having fun, because he knows the driver and was waiting for the ride. oh golden tree, who are thee? If the souls that we knew before don’t come up again in talk or something,- we may forget them altogether. hmm. The new developers must already be waiting in the wings. They must be making plans. They surely wake up early. They are ambitious. Their mothers are proud of what they accomplish. They will make so much money one day. Of a poet or mystic, they don’t care and never shall. Pure nonsense. But no matter what they do or say, the golden tree, in early autumn, was there, was there, was there at one time. The Akashic or something kinder than the world and it’s ways, surely knows this also. 

Cheesecake

sitting on the table next to my little red chair

vines cover the wall of the backyard that now lives in my memory

kids in bright-colored tee shirts stand beside me

 waiting for the cheesecake to be served

sunlight dapples the fence behind mama 

i keep this memory in the taste of sugar 

i keep this memory tucked in my subconscious

in a little teal box with sparkles that i have tied 

with a piece of my soul 

mama is glowing in this memory 

this moment will be replaying in the corner of my mind forever

and maybe this moment is always happening 

floating in the ripples of time. 

one year on the earth 

one candle in the center of the cheesecake

eyes that were bigger than the universe take in 

the first sight of a flickering flame 

little hands reach out to touch the golden glowing thing 

one chubby finger touches the flame and pulls away 

big eyes turn into glossy marbles,

tears dripping down puffy cheeks

mama’s hands hold onto the tender little arm 

she whispers words that I couldn’t yet understand 

words that talked to my heart instead: 

It’s gonna be okay

Hired Ghost Cigarette Plague

gentle          kick
        ing             cycle
    holi
    day     screech
beach                    wing’d
          net
      horrific rally
                       swe
               pt           pet
scheme
           ream
                  beam
   picnic               rest
less
             pond
          prevent
          ed
                      explosive
bone
bike
sight







Interested Curb Hill

ire
   ire
      g o i n g
virtual        primary
         under
         statement
                      Revolt
ballot pressed sheets
wheat thin king dome
reversal Nut crack
crackling sung hanging
m a g a z i n e
                    lubrication
        bAsIc clean wrench
contrasted
               oblivious

Neighborhood OP-ED
k e e p                  urgent
               gle                  e
         glue         gloomed
hurricane
                   Mutual
             rust

Slow zone phone stone
overturned limbo LED
rEEf wandered conversion




Diss Miss Hiss Swish

listen Free ur than a feeler
fumigation National psychosis runner
an Errand Err or stymied swamp
fist cuff muffler storybook ledger
page wedger fluffy mist
coast armful of puzzle zipper
weeping seeping entrail poppy
seeded search party bestseller
confirmation basis bias dais
tiered welt felt sweltered chin
heaving Having five cents Water
bottle Sensory overlord Sword
Had swallowed Demonic log
In fanciful aside Residing
cabin Wood Should Could under
where stand flying trapezoid knives





gRoSsLy GREASY palm StAiRs

….. reveal a firecracker recommendation
slobbered consumerism exile thrust rust
eat end amend ID inheritance Screwed
suicidal FanNy PaCk rAcK rIb nip bib
earth to earth to thirst to worst clenched
spinal rectal recital ant sunflower ram
Cumbersome smack dab launcher raunchy
ranch pyramid headache tank rank pan
cake corpse sniffing fog soggy zero times
denominator bewildered tombstone deck
satellites sickened Standing stubborn sky
….. whereas popsicle pitch indulge
rotten whim sickle manhole Latin beat
neat brownstones eyed paradoxes…..

Mutual Happens Giraffe
strutting stunned hinge
skin trap tarp warp burp
same argumentative ooze

supplemental façade self-buttoned
bottom inane entity barrage onion
certain stupid super salutary figs
supple dimpled conceptional morons

FaiLinG Obtuse spruce
UpUpUpUpUpUpUpUp
grunt manage foreign shelter





Shrimp Shampoo Radiation

messiah differs facing squadron
,   of   somehow   ,   hear   ,   indicates
  genial              environmental      ,
             crusted               released
Tank           took                        Tone
,
      nice Ram   ,,   nice vice Ram
&               Toon        a page to
   drown oppressive swaggering
,      egg

Joshua Martin is a Philadelphia based writer and filmmaker, who currently works in a library. He is member of C22, an experimental writing collective. He is the author most recently of the books peeping sardine fumes (RANGER Press), [Ruptured] >> Schematic <<  MAZES (Sweat Drenched Press), destructive paradox slips on banana peel (Cajun Mutt Press), and Dance of Resistance Brainwaves (C22 Press). He has had numerous pieces published in various journals including Otoliths, Synapse, Version (9), Don’t Submit!, BlazeVOX, BRUISER, and Unlikely Stories Mark V. You can find links to his published work at joshuamartinwriting.blogspot.com

Wings of Knowledge 

I'm a Girl, Don't Break My Wings, 
Let me soar with the joy learning brings. 
In this world of challenges, I face, 
Education is my saving grace. 

An orphan, I've known hardship's touch, 
No shoes on my feet, but a pen I clutch. 
Toys don't entice, books are my desire, 
With knowledge, my dreams will reach higher. 

Don't burden me with adult strife, 
Let childhood be a time of life. 
Give me the gift of knowledge's sip, 
For education, I'll take the leap.
 
I'll polish shoes, bathe the dogs, 
I'll do whatever it takes, no logs. 
But don't steal from me the right, 
To education's guiding light.
 
I'm not asking for pizza or pastry, 
Just the chance to learn, oh so necessary. 
God made me poor, that's true, 
But it's in your hands to help me through.
 
So let me carry a bag filled with books, 
Unlocking minds, with curious looks. 
Education is my path to rise, 
To shape my future, reach the skies. 

I'm a girl, with dreams so grand, 
Give me knowledge, hand in hand. 
Don't break my heart, don't clip my wings, 
With education, my spirit sings. 


Anila Bukhari is an extraordinary achiever, receiving multiple national awards for her outstanding work in girls' education worldwide. Her contributions have been so impactful that she was honored with the prestigious International Best Community Service Award by the House of Parliament in London in 2023. In 2021, she also received the International Book Peace Award from Italy. Anila's remarkable journey is filled with beautiful moments. She has authored 11 books and numerous anthologies, inspiring readers around the globe. Her dedication to social work and the arts has garnered global recognition, with artists paying tribute to her incredible achievements. Not only that, but Anila has also selflessly donated dolls and her hair to uplift cancer patients. Her story is a testament to the power of determination and compassion.

The Sea is Too Vast My Friend


The passengers gather atop the ship before it leaves the harbour. It’s a ‘thing.’ Other ships are around and I can see right away that there is competition among ship builders to construct the largest one. How something can be over fourteen stories tall and float and manoeuvre confidently I do not know. Each vessel has to wait until the one scheduled to leave before it sails from the harbour. And when arriving somewhere, it is strange to learn that no ship’s captain is allowed to drive, for some kind of insurance and international law purposes, but that a small boat drives out to the giant ship, a boat that holds a person who shall enter and take the ship to dock. But the sea. What of the sea? I am sure that nothing much changes with the sea-goers through the decades other than fashions, styles, the latest talk about the world and their worlds that seems significant at the time but is prosaic in reality. The sea is the thing, no? At night I watch it through a window stationed behind where we are sitting. I cease to hear the conversations then and notice another ship in the distance going the other way. It is large but appears small upon the vast and seemingly infinite sea. I wonder for a second if they look upon us as some of us look upon them. And if so, what do they think? And do sirens or mermaids, ghosts of sailors, or even monsters, live in and about the sea? Though it sounds silly, looking at its space and thinking of its depth then, I just don’t know. I feel fragile, like a skeleton barely put together. Do you ever feel such as that? The sea throws one back upon oneself, or rather can, sometimes. It is like a person that you and I shall never fully know. It is so vast, in fact too vast, my friend. 

Violently Sterilizing the Growing Tree

I massaged the beach
from my scalp
with hotter water
then the split tips of my hair are used to.
And out of fear,
they coiled in tight spirals
that haloed my head.

I rinsed my night
of missed-busses
and tear-covered phones
from my burning cheeks.
And rigid lungs.

From my static breath grew
a stronger sob,
whose rain I rinsed
gone, once again.

I scrubbed my chest

with steel wool and clawing nails,
and from the etches in my untouched
skin, tissue lumped together
forming breasts that I learned
to hide.

I scraped bone from my nose and chin
and from a raw skull
calcified features that I learned
to graze under my fingers.

From picked lips
words spat
whose sound I began to sculpt
and worship.

I became myself
in the bathroom
where I deconstructed a premature body.
Sprouting from the nubs
of cut branches,
grew a person whose sound
I worship.

Battle of the Bans

I grew up in an age & a country where banning books was commonplace. Authors – Henry Miller & William S. Burroughs. Titles – Lolita & Lady Chatterley’s Lover. I seem to remember that Ulysses was not long off the list; & there is a marvellous story, which I’ve never checked in to preferring to keep the memory intact, that Barchester Towers & Doctor Thorne were banned for almost a century because they appeared under the author’s name of A. Trollope.

Not that I’m against banning things. I marched calling for an end to nuclear proliferation – ban the bomb. I marched in support of outlawing racial discrimination. I believe commercial whaling is wrong, that industry should have an incredibly strict set of environmental guidelines. I believe capital punishment is totally wrong, & have written earlier of how its legality in New Zealand depended on which political party was in power until a conservative Attorney General broke with his party & said it should be outlawed forever if it could be (re)introduced on a political whim. (& a little later, I remember reading an essay by Camus – Reflections on the Guillotine? – where Camus describes his father, who was a strong advocate of the death penalty, attending a public execution & coming home totally opposed to the State taking lives.)

But never books, or movies or records, no matter how distasteful & offensive they might be.

I have seen nationalists like Ho Chi Minh & Fidel Castro basically forced into the Communist Bloc because their leftwing views were unpalatable during the Cold War. I have seen the Russians crush a revolution in Hungary, & felt it quite strongly because of the protests outside the Russian Embassy which was directly across the street from where we lived. I thought JFK was the hope of the world & mourned his death. I was shattered when later Martin Luther King & RFK were also assassinated. Mandela – happy birthday, Nelson – was a figurehead in prison for most of my life & I remember weeping with joy the day he was released.

I am ambivalent about nuclear power.

The coming of Nixon fucked the world. L. blames most of the current troubles on “my generation” – the beats, the hippies, free love, lotsa drugs, lack of censorship. There’s some truth in it, but for a different reason. I do not believe we went far enough! Not quite sure what I mean by that; but I feel that at some point we decided we’d done enough, got sidetracked or comfortable or aged, & stopped pushing. Stepped back to revel in our small achievements. Got steamrolled.

I am anti-terrorism where the innocent are killed or maimed yet I am pro-Palestine, feeling their cause is just & they’ve always had a rotten deal. Where do you draw the line? I think the U.S. & its allies are reaping what they sowed – the seeds of Bush’s arrogance; Le monde, c’est moi – in Iraq & Afghanistan though again it is the innocent who suffer. At least in the Cold War there were sides. Now, with just one megapower, there is no-one else to turn to, no-one to stand up & get in the way.

I have seen in an earlier time in N.Z. laws enacted which gave the police the power to raid houses if “they suspected drugs were there”. Up until the time someone blew the whistle, this power was used probably 50 times & only once for drugs. I watch the new anti-terrorism laws in many countries with horror. The presumption of guilt instead of innocence, & such gobbledygook! We can’t tell you what you’ve been detained about, & because of this you can’t tell us what we want to know because we don’t know what we want to know & you don’t know what we want to know & don’t know what you know or don’t know. & & &…..

I see that the trial against the last Australian in Camp Delta at Guantanamo is to go ahead, even though it has been proved there is no chance of a fair trial.

& why this rant, this scattershot diatribe? Because on the news today the Australian Government is talking about banning, outlawing, charging Islamic bookshops because they might be stocking ‘dangerous books.’

The thought police are breaking open my head.

2005