Tway Ta Work Ta’s City                                              (1292 words)

cooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom   c!

So got to = after turning left on the daily morning’s walk across town to the great big mysterious quasi-archaeological dig-site, onto which we volunteered a year, there’s a mile or three left to go /pins & needles/ over here where everyone coming and going so often remark of the slight smell over here. So slight, that some when first smelling it, stop—to see, then to say, What is that smell? But now, no. Now there’s nothing. Then, when they start walking again, there it is; again; ‘e again; a nag of a smell, so faint it can’t be, and so odd that to smell it, one needs to stop trying to, but that’s not enough, no no no NO. Can’t even be thinking of it. Got to ignore it, but that’s hard to do, because once its been smelled, it’s remembered as the worse smell ever and gets connected in tight with this—eh, how’s it best characterized, yes—this metallicly tasting looking and smelling rot of a place we go past daily, here. And, so. There it is. Just a smell but that’s ‘lso more than a smell. It’s a taste. And a feeling. All up down and up. ‘nd each day got to rush past there several blocks. Trying not to look over ‘cross ‘ll the slime-baked formerly Main street flowing at the black squares and rectangles which used to be storefronts before time piled up, broke down, and rolled in and over smothering this whole town’s Main street neighborhood down. Can’t run stores in this smell—what smell, we smell nothing—oh just wait for it wait, and they wait—no no no, we smell nothing—can’t place it can’t touch it just walk faster past it—sorry, we don’t get it ,why’d all these stores shut down—never mind! Turn around, move away, shift gears toward what’s next, that’s the dig-site no not the smell hitting out from behind no, the dig-site, yes. Reaching there’s what’s important b’ slow down hey now, no—there it is ….. turn around =+= no—yes—oh, at last arriving at the site where the dig’s ongoing, forget everything now that = There’s Crockett, u’re partner. Get your scraper. Get your tools, and, go down next to Crockett and start in on the scraping of long-buried but not no more so boards, rock, steel plating, and big tables down what they say they’ve learned of by all the scrapings done already before {or after? What? Before is after? And after is before? Pity the language the way we torture it down so unjustly, class. Pity it pity. God {sign o’ the cross please} pity it it’s been murdered down so what torture what torment = do experience those + + who never experience to die :plaster: } So thus once back in place thus thus scraping down th’ ‘eelactical dig, say mildly the usual t’s, what’s always to say, o’er to; Crockett.

Crockett.

{eh, scrape. Eh scrape eh scrape and—eh}

Eh, Crockett! Another day another fifty cents, eh? Good morning.

Hey.

The walk down I rushed it over. Rain looked up there like it’ll be-being to come down hard today. Do not like to be drenched. You?

Nope. Do not like to be drenched.

Yah (in time with the soft scraping o’ both o’ theirs raspertools) It was one of those—no, but more properly said say it is one of those days where looking out says back, umbrella today—no, yes, uh? You know?

Yes.

And its like—hey yes bring an umbrella the sky’s really up saying that but what if its not needed and then after arrival it just this “cumbersome nuisance”’s got to be stored up for the day someplace. Know what I mean?

{scraped dust pellets drop steadily to the catch-tarpaulin, below}

Sure. But it didn’t look like it might be raining today out o’er my sky. But I start in from that different direction from you. Guess that’s why. Eh?

Yah. Guess so. Any findings yet today?

Who knows.                             gasp /cracker/ who knows /yes/ who can ever know and /switching fast to say something else that’s not leading to the same old why are we bothering with all this when we know damned well that that that th/{cut}       gasp /crackers/ thank God for the holding back of the back on which it’d be written/like it always/gasp     gasp    awkward suddenly yes next to the Crockett scraping out of unison with their scraping     gasp because as it does     gasp as it always must + being a law of nature as it is + gasp       gasp it becomes silly in the extreme to be scraping in unison when we the big boths of all of the uses here volunteering at this site know it’s just based on some myth of the jungle upon which no sane person would generate so much sweat so much strain of the jungle after about a half hour gasp some’s saying telephone pole lot up there where  :those flats where they tore down what the say was a factory you know /gasp/ how much money’s locked up in those poles /damn/ : I was reading up on that you know it really gets to me somehow look at all /that waste/ all those        fallen        scrape scrape scrape trees its a field of corpses don’t think so well think about it a field of the corpses what dies for no reason    /strain/  in the belly of the break tent a little after ten   /sitting/ with that my same partner all the morning {spouting hall off ‘bout a’ noosed up all nooooosed up noooooosed up ‘n nooooooooosed up some big sweet Willy gotcha! /f’ter all mem-mebra zats woosh it got ‘lready approximated woosh / sat down finally at the bench by the door to the tent, and immediately felt a mild breeze waft o so cooly over their clammy arm-sweat so they pushed over a bit to get out of the flow of it and having successfully milded all this down they chatted brightly over some crackers in bags, and two full-up waters.

plank  

So. Got any plans for the weekend? Or just taking it easy.

I don’t know. I usually don’t plan out ahead that way. Y’know?

Ah. Guess so. /bag chips-crisp back, swallow bag chips-crisp back back back, swallow back unless they come get me say we got somebody in need of a good scare—come and see me—you know /what the hell what/ I’d go get that done if the pay’s right {don’t ya know} or if /what the hell wait/ they came ‘round saying come quick, right now—we got somebody held down needs a big hot flat spanking /huh/ I’d go and do it and probably a bit faster than when I went just to scare the crap out of someone /what the hell wait wait what the hell hell wait wait wait/ cause this time they pointed out they got somebody held down and you know as well as I do that when they say they got somebody held down the one held down’s most likely fighting to get up and the pressure from th’ under-one trying to get up ‘gainst the up top trying to hold down can’t go on forever nothing like that can it’s a knife-edge of balance, its like a new element so exotic, it’s like seventeen baseballs stacked with no props at its like falling alive hey, there’s not much time left so so, no. I don’t have any plans for the weekend. I usually don’t plan out ahead that way. Y’know?

Uh. Sure.

But you. What about you? You got plans?

/whip!/ 

Don’t know. Not yet.

Anyway.

/whip!/ 

Contrary To Your Synchronisation 


On an opposite-word-

in-your-heart day

I stravaig, my consciousness 

enunciating 'Darkness'.

It is mere a word.


The sunny day highlights

an army of ants locomoting 

a green yellow leaf 

up the tired stones of a temple,

another century for the deity

waiting for that single leaf full of glow.


My tongue hopscotch the word.

A crow turns its head.

"It's mere a word." I explain.




The Ecosystem of Faith


On my palm the circles

of perforated clouds

highlight myths and illusions. 


The future, I read, chokes

in the red smoke. It began

even before past was conceived.


I trowel in ripe soil at the base

of a rescue-plant. It is my support tree.

It is the excuse to live, read my hands,

yawn and stretch my summer arms.

The fingers reach for the sky, lies,

and the promises of a cleansing dream. 



Goose


1


This, a good place to begin

the circle, dear jogger, opens up

the park and the morning.


You should not stir the goodness

or the goose.

The skein of the waterfowls are scattered

in the pasture. 

Today's mood made them shells holding

a hollowness and a howl for the sea. 


2


When the exotic wings glide in

the park the goose fights for her

boundary at first.


Zen eventuates. She settles between

the flocking birders and the winter's

slaty sun.

 

We, the local walkers, already gave her

pet names. The goose stare hard

with its hundred names, native pride,

doubting vigilance. 

Kushal Poddar, the author of ‘Postmarked Quarantine,’ has eight books to his credit. He is a journalist, father, and the editor of ‘Words Surfacing’. His works have been translated into twelve languages, published across the globe. 

Twitter- https://twitter.com/Kushalpoe

Reality from Imagination

No more waiting for the apple to fall,
though the branches bend low 

to the ground, as if ready to yield 
to wind and gravity. 

No forward motion in the suspension 
of disbelief. Only retreat

into defeat after defeat.


Weathers 

i

This is the weather the crocodile adores
When the tropic sun bakes
the midday mud
And two million termites dislodge two tons of sod

ii

This is the weather the wildebeest abhors
When the tropic sun scorches
the savannah crossing
And lioness and cobra hold court in the curly leaf
and weeping love grass

iii

This is the weather the crocodile adores 
When the tropic sun bakes 
the midday mud
And two million poets surrender two million hearts 

Open the door to the autumn gales.
Above average temperatures.
Precipitation anomalies.
Dry fuel moisture alignments. 
Wild fires scorching the High Sierra. 
Sacramento. San Jose. Salinos.

Open the door to the brown and cream
Laguna Mountains skipper
(whose mottled wings have not been seen
these twenty years past)
near the mountain that carries its name.

Open the door to philosophy.
Poetry. Descriptions of the natural world. 
Aesthetisation. Politicisation.
Pesticide poisoning. Loss of habitat. 

Open the door to the scholiast 
underlining Pound’s personification 
of Jefferson e Mussolini, 
in the latticed shelves of Langson Library.

Open the door to anaesthetisation. 
Patronage. Personal interest. 
War. Perhaps then, we might see,
how nature ends in art, and art in nature.

As the age of digital reproduction
redacts both. Accelerating towards the sale
of the century.


After the Dreaming

Did the Gundungurra people see
the coming of the British colonialists into their world, 
the chicken pox, small pox, 
influenza and measles, or were they taken 
by surprise as they fled for their lives? 
 
Did the Dharawal people see 
the events of the Appin Massacre
where men, women and children were forced 
by armed men on horseback 
over the cliffs to their deaths at Cataract Gorge?

And what of the other massacres
veiled in secrecy, 
the Black War in Van Diemen's Land,
the Waterloo Creek Massacre,
and 'the war of extirpation' at Gwydir River?

Should we, if we could, still mention the cultural war
against our distant cousins, 
the bloody history of dispersal 
and dispossession, 
the ongoing exploitation and maltreatment, 

every European massacre and genocide?
Should we don the black arm-band
and cry into our cups 
at the back of the lecture theatre, 
or, might we join ourselves to the disquisition

and call it like it is: The Great Australian Silence?


Dead Dog Paradox

Was the dead dog man's best friend?

Did the dog deserve to be set on fire?
Did the dog deserve to be beaten with an iron bar?
Did the dog deserve to be hanged in the street?

Who set the trap to cut the dog in half?
What was the dog’s name?
Why was the dog skinned alive?

Had the dog played ball in the park?
Had the dog gone AWOL ?
Had the dog run amok in the town square?

Who threw the first stone?
Who wielded the knife?
Who shouted the orders?

Was the dead dog man’s best friend?

Mark A. Murphy has published poems in 18 countries.  When he isn’t writing, he spends his time editing online poetry journal, POETiCA REViEW www.poeticareview.co.uk

By order of the commissar

The war with Russia

has been going on for almost 10 years,

there are battles big and small

the land suffers from raids,

the hands of bloody deeds –

those cursed Muscovites.


The Ukrainians fight for their land,

their serving in an army style,

on the graves flags and various flowers,

nothing will awaken patriotism in the gray mass.
 

War as a sacred duty,

everyone will pick up a machine gun,

once by order of the commissioner

the Military Commissariat will call all to the front.
 

Lightning courted Grom

Faded, tarnished, blackened,

where the sun parted from the sky

thunderstruck and it brightened,

and the wind follows the steppe.
 

Demonstrating the power of muscles Thunder,

he noticed the female gender,

hit the neighbor's house,

the owner goes to patch the antenna.
 

Blue-haired Lightning laughs,

attract’s Thunder by eyes,

Grom’s heart is beating wildly

kisses are not wasted in a coma.
 

Thunder approaches the Lightning,

he doesn't know how to start a conversation

he doubts his strength, love is life,

and words are half of it.
 

Taking the king forward with his feet

Taking the king forward with his feet

the boyars wanted to do this the last time,

military headquarters in Rostov

met with the first ray.


Among the rebels, in Panama hat

the Bald Leader drags his feet,

collection of prison customs

he has a reliable rear.


The Bald called after him and to the weapons,

looters, prisoners, murderers,

thousands of rapists, folk bloodsuckers.

 
Columns of criminality army

were went to Voronezh

Roshvardiski's defense units

crushed and demolished.


The Wagnerites shot down 8 birds on the road,

set fire to the oil depot and trucks,

Prigozhin longs for Moscow,

using the weapon of the Ptura’s air systems.
 

The «descendant of Pugachev»

was walking, taking the capital Moscow,

he lacked courage,

the Leader of the rebels should tell the truth

to himself and to people

Vyacheslav Konoval is a Ukrainian poet whose work is devoted to the most pressing social problems of our time, such as poverty, ecology, relations between the people and the government, and war.

His poems have appeared in many magazines, including Anarchy Anthology Archive, International Poetry Anthology, Literary Waves Publishing, Sparks of Kaliopa, Reach of the Song 2022, Diogenes for Culture Journal, «Scars of my heart from the war», «Poetry for Ukraine», «Rhyming», «La page Blanche», «Impacted», «Military Review», «The Lit», «Allegro», «Innisfree poetry journal», «Antunes Galaxy Poetry», «Ekscentrika», «Mere Inkling», «EgoPhobia», «Fulcrum», «Omnibus», «Lothlorien Poetry Journal», Revista Literaria «Taller Igitur», «Tarot Poetry Journal», «Tiny Seed Literature Journal», «Best American Poetry Blog», «Quilled Ink Review», «Chronograph Poetry Journal», the Appalachian Journal «Dark Horse», «Agape», «Mascara Literary Review», «Gray Sparrow», «ArLJo», «Ekstasis», «The Bloom Litarery Journal», «Novus Litarery Journal», «Lyrical Somerville», «Charleston Poets», «Briefly Zine», «Varied Spirit», «Taos Poetry Journal», «The Skinny Poetry Journal», «Academy of the Heart and Mind» Journal, «ARIEL CHART» International Literary Journal, «Poesia Ultracontemporanea», «New Ulster 124», «Revista Cronopio», «Gotic Nature», «WordCityLit», «TSaunders Pubs», «London Grip New Poetry», «Mill Valley Literary Review», «Zeitglass»,  «The Coin»,  «Coal Literary Journal», Orenaug Mountain Poetry Journal. 

Vyacheslav’s poems were translated into Spanish, French, Scottish, Italian, and Polish languages.

His poems also have been read at meetings of various poetry groups, including Newman Poetry Group, Never Talk Innocence, Voicing Art Poetry Reading for Ukraine, Worcester County Poetry, Brussels Writer’s Circle, and Poets Anonymous May Middle-Met, Brett Show by Andrea, the Manx Bard group, Allinghman Art Festival, Versopolis Poetry Expo 2023, poetry readings «Poetry of Struggle and Solidarity», «Poetic Voices», Coal Literary Journal’s Eve, presentation at Albert van Abbehuis Fling. 

Vyacheslav’s poems were presented at War Art Project.

He is a member of the Federation of Scottish Writers.

“What Has Passed”


An empty wine bottle

(reincarnated as a vase

for a dead rose)

tries its damnedest

to believe in ghosts,

but regardless

if that flower is loved enough

to let rot,

it's best to let what has passed

haunt or rest (both a leap

of faith that leaves one

grounded) in our yesterdays.



“Love Shaped Death”


It's there like an urban legend

spider crawling down your throat as you sleep,

or is it a mosquito one kills

with a dramatic clap,

only to be revulsed at realizing

the blood on your hands

is your own?


Perhaps this is the reason for guns

under pillows, or long looks

at grocery store bouquets

that force you to remember a name

you forgot you forgot,

but giving you something to talk about

with yourself when you get home.

Relatively Relative

In those gardens, tucked away from the city,
one of the main attractions when visiting you;
the affluence that laced this air with distorted tendrils,
a world away from my usual backdrop, and somewhat
strangely more exciting.

After we left that council funded attempt at tranquility,
we crossed the tree lined roads, that living room 
now just a fragmented memory, brandy snaps and whiskey 
in decorated glasses, your grin just slightly terrifying, overseeing 
everything.

Those stairs to steep for comfort, complimenting
the vertigo that was often caused by your presence, 
which left us all way too early, your wisdom expanded 
over three decades, only spoken in half drunk
conversation, your echo only ever intended to be 
a memory. 


No Chance of Rest

Together we gather, encapsulated in this web,
that hangs heavy with grit smeared rain drops
between broken branches of yew, 
still not ripe enough yet to carve into arrows.

This snare trap of time, with inheritance 
we never wished to accept. 
Our recreation once again cut short;
only the higher echelons have parks 
that remain open all evening. 

We retain strength in thimble sized vails,
the same tasks repeating like decreasing
circles in puddles of oil. 
The same days, weeks and hours 
shuffled like wine-stained playing cards. 

This handed down grind, which somehow
evolved into gratefulness, 
embraced with broken arms, 
which we still manage to retain a grip
on for long enough, and to eventually 
suggest a change. 


Failed Excuse

It doesn't seem so quaint and fine,
once it's crawling across your doorstep,
interfering with the breakfast tables;
residing in cupboards and meterboxes,
rifling through handbags and trouser pockets.

Eyes, however, suddenly begin to remove their glaze,
once fabrics and prescriptions beguin 
to burn at the edges and crumble 
at the slightest touch. 
The excuses now run painfully thin, 
like water pouring through crumbling dam cracks.

And now they claim protest,
but only with trepidation, 
a spare hour amongst hypocrisy, 
that still fails to convince them.
they now stir tea in broken cups,
"it will soon pass", they all promise.


The Same Plan

In this equal space, the clash of church
bells and car speakers, screams and barks
entwined like daisy chains around 
the neck of this city,

Washing hung with decomposing pegs,
casting secrets over ancient brick walls
smudged with soot like ash stained tables,
steam from gutters creating a convenient 
fog.

The buildings scraped empty and regenerated,
a crude taxidermy, as cracks widen within 
windows, telephone wires like buntin,
decorated with flags of this disposition. 

Another promised plan, a plaster
over gangrenous wounds, dangles
mid-air but never reaches the ground;
our mouths remain open, but it never
passes our throat. 

-

Jonathan Butcher has had poetry appear in various publications including The Morning Star, Popshot, Picaroon Poetry, The Transnational, Cajun Mutt Press, Mad Swirl, and others. His fourth chapbook 'Turpentine' was published by Alien Buddha Press.

730-

Jesus Lizard
Jesus Wept
Jesus’ Son
Judas Hole
Judas Tree
Jesus H Christ Attorney at Law
Judas Priest
Judas Door
Jesus Saves
Jesus Christ Foretopman
Jesus Christ and Jerry Cruncher Resurrection Man at Large
Jesus Christ Superstar
Jesus Camp
Jesus of Montreal
Judas Kiss
 

				732-

100 word review challenge to Howie Good’s
Stick Figure Opera: 99 100-word Prose Poems.


Imagine word salads made of image
clusters leaking from holes in a canvas
by Dali. And one by Cocteau. With a
side of Bacon. Or shotgun art made by
someone like Burroughs at ten paces
with a pump action, shooting five-gallon 
paint cans, resulting impact something like
forensic evidence. Like blood splatters.
With a side of fileted Pollock. Like Dada
at the MAMA. I mean the MOMA.
Opening night Patrons of the arts dancing 
a Lobster Quadrille to a Resurrection Jazz 
Band. Dressed in top hats with pink boas
and Robante gowns. That’s a Stick
Figure Opera: 100 words exactly.


733-

The Eggplant That Ate Chicago or
The Ham Sandwich That Killed Mama 
Cass. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes or
It Came from Schenectady. The Grilled
Cheese Sandwich with the Profile of
Jesus Christ or The Block That God Forgot.
The Thigh Bone Connected to the Hip
Bone or Zen Bones, Zen Bones.
 

734-

Exploding Trees
Frost Quakes
Arctic Sea Smoke
Fog Freeze
109 below
Climate Change
Weather events
or rock groups


740-

“When I make a film, it is a sleep.
I am dreaming.”

“Realism in unreality is a constant
pitfall.”

“He or she exists only if introduced
with events in a dream.”

“I have always liked the no man’s land
of twilight.”

“What are you trying to say?
I was trying to say what I said.”

Jean Cocteau, “On Orpheus
 

743-

Memory is what happens next.
“a memory is nothing/nothing is
a memory.” Bernadette Mayer.
“Just because something has never
happened before doesn’t mean it
can’t happen again.” (unknown)
(Sports Center? ESPN?) “I seem
to remember my future works although
I don’t even know what they will be.”
V. Nabokov, The Gift. 
“Shove a slogan down the throat
enough times I becomes an acquired taste.”
Jenny Xie. “I confess I don’t believe
in time.” V.N. “an image of the dead or
the fingernail/ of a new born child.” 
John Berryman


748-

You don’t know Jack(s)

Jack(ie) Kennedy
Jack(ie) Robinson
Jack(ie) Jensen
Jack Shit (e)
Jack Off
Jack Rabbit
Jack Tar
Jack Johnson
Jack Spicer
Jack beanstalk
Jack Kerouac

Jack Giant Killer
Jack(son) Polloc
Jack(b) Nimble
Jack (b) Quick
Jack Dempsey
Jack Micheline
Jack (a) Lope