Monday, July 30, 2012

Weak Coffee

by Tom Mahony



Man, I hated this place. The coffee was weak, the muffins stale, the waiters arrogant jerks. As I read a newspaper and struggled through a blueberry muffin, I tried to ignore the kook beside me barking into his cell phone and music blasting from the overtaxed speakers. Enough—I would never return to this dump. I rose to leave, to head for my unkempt and lonely apartment. I’d be back here tomorrow.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Violence in the morning

 by Adukuri Jagannath Rao
 
I see rain behind the white clouds, wet breeze beyond the hills . Yesterday's rain-puddles are now mere patches of wet on the mud road. A monster tree carpet-bombed the road with tiny violet fruits which squished like violent blood under the morning walkers' feet.

Other images fell from above. Like pieces of rubble that fell from the house in construction in your morning walk. He who knew my secrets is dead first in the field and then in his house,his own secrets in the lock- and- key of my aliveness.

A droning machine which drew out the earth's blood with its long arms in order to quench people's thirst .Groups of stone cutters who killed the mountains for a living .A white temple which sang its God songs from its loud mouth in the morning.The house workers who had no house shifted their house things to another house ,everything on their heads and nothing over their heads.

An electric mosquito swatter promising peace in sleep leaves blood on our hands.There is violence in the morning, violence in the air, violence in thoughts and words.

Violence is violet fruits,stone-cutters who killed the mountains for a living, loud temple songs, rubble from buildings, drilling machines that tore the earth, mosquito swatting machines, people dying with your secrets.

Friday, July 20, 2012

Of Orals

by Anastasia Greene

no thank you
absolutely not
there isn’t enough light in here
the strain of my pupil, no of my iris
it will blind me
first go the eyes, deuxième va l’âme
the legs will follow et après the tongue
slithering to catch up with the eyes
cut out, cut off from a world
devoid of proper reading light

           non je pense pas
           pas exactement
           rien est possible sans mes yeux
           how can i speak when they’ve come to expect
           articulation or humming from the nose
           pas de la bouche
           the maw without a tongue has no hope of relief
           the eye without a window cannot see
           so it rolls, il cherche les mots pour décrire
           the dissatisfaction of the strain and breathless trial
           of fleeing without legs

                                 so deliberate
                                 exactly comme ça
                                 and sounds in the mise-en-abîme of both
                                 the eyes and the mouth, the light and the soul
                                 l’état c’est moi is impossible if the tongue fears solitude
                                 and l’état is of existence and pain while c’est is what
                                 the english call parle or dit
                                 there isn’t enough light and i cannot be expected to read
                                 or hum or dance if my iris, no my pupil is up in arms
                                 over her exhaustion and the hours i keep
                                 alors je me couche if the me were not so ardent in its reflex
                                 if my tongue had not left me blind, i might not need the light

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

The rain

 by Adukuri Jagannath Rao


The rain comes in the afternoon.  June rain brings buzzing flies, sugar candy for children, wheels hurling wet mud. The day of the chariot  is here when a god of wood walks on slow shoulders .That is when we celebrate life and some times we celebrate death under its wheels. A juggernaut of death.
Our God is made of wood from deep jungles. His body was still in the making in a room when our curiosity would  leave his arms undone. And his feet. And leave his  eyes with no lids. Eyes that would not sleep from staring at our follies.
He is our death wish. His chariot is a tree’s death wish. His wheels are our setting sun’s wheels.We are waiting for our dusk.

Friday, July 13, 2012

Little French Innuendos

by Anastasia Greene


One word—mourir—expresses pain
And pleasure, the Lacanian duet.

And objet represents the unreachable focus
Of desire and wishing—souhaîte.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Fragments

 by Adukuri Jagannath Rao
 
We were concerned with fragments. Little clouds that hung over cities.Fluffy cloud polygons that held promises of rain  because the pied crested cuckoo said so on its northern journey. We went  cuckoos over our  tiny streams , the waters that ran below our feet. The fragment would fill whole streams.The very waters which our machines had probed tearing the earth’s intestines. The earth had blood then in white fine powder.Our feet are still in its prints.

The fragment hung lightly over our lake, tantalizing the city. It was a shapeless polygon that changed its shape like an amoeba., a single unicellular organism with deceptive false feet.By dusk he it became a shred of gray, a blood smear in the death of the sun.

Monday, July 9, 2012

Memories

by Anita Babcock

I stare down at the cutting board. The dead fish that my girlfriend caught lies waiting for me to clean it out. The second fish that I caught is some how still alive. I can sense it is watching me, begging me to end its life already so the suffering stops. I shudder at the thought and then a quick flash happens; I see blue eyes begging me in the same way. I take a deep breath and hold the knife tightly in my hand then place the blade against the neck of the slain fish. I ignore the trick my mind just played on me. My hand is trembling.

“Come on,” I command myself. “Suck it up and just cut the fish!”

            The fish reflects the light coming through the window and the scales shine with rainbows. It is strange to me how even in death, the fish could be so lovely with its bejeweled body. I feel very uneasy at the sight. The knife falls with a clatter to the table as I drop it. Both frustration and sorrow fill me. I slowly count to 10, and take the knife up.

            “Just do it already!” I tell myself, speaking out loud. 

Friday, July 6, 2012

Cat Box Chronicles

by Korliss Sewer



Blue crystals shine like gems
in a sand pile:
a montage of non-edibles
as buried treasure.

Kitty litter prints
track to the window ledge: 
to bask in the sun
and clean crusty paws.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Museum

 by Adukuri Jagannath Rao
 
We saw ourselves, a rod travelling on rails falling off  because it was not shape enough for the rails.We looked at the dark promontory of a day’s night and that made us dizzy, so many stars , so much time. Time sucked us in, our life in a limbo when we walked jauntily. We slept with our eyes open ,our breath slowly being taken away.We were alive like the dinosaur that had existed in the wild plains and now lives in this hall, sprawled in white bones as time stretches. The very bones that had lived before we came.

Our  own bones wept for their dust and the rivers they have to float in to reach the sea. The mathematics of blood that went haywire, as their zeroes on the left went multiplying infinitely .Nothing really mattered , not even the hair on our head that stood erect in tribute to the magnificence of the dome.And  the dome went on endlessly abolishing our body, the bodies in the heavens and  embraced the mindlessness of being a stone , a mere flicker in space.

Our journey began. Nearer  death we are now a rod on the rails that lost its shape. Our rails will continue their journey with other rods that still have their shapes, until they too will  lose their shapes.

Monday, July 2, 2012

Three Seconds

by Valentina Cano



The man,

visible even through the curtain
of rain that covered
the street like chainmail,
called for a cab.
It neared him like an
underwater beast.
He raised a hand
which trembled
with unspent fears
that swam up his fingers to the tips
of his nails.
Blinking like tired light-bulbs
in the dark.