Two Pieces by Toti O'Brien

Out of the Blue

Seas of Shadows

Toti O'Brien is the Italian Accordionist with the Irish Last Name. She was born in Rome then moved to Los Angeles, where she makes a living as a self-employed artist, performing musician and professional dancer. Her work has most recently appeared in Colorado Boulevard, Thin Air, Wilderness House and the Hamilton Stone Review.

Two Poems by Mark Young

at least six toxic gases

The Galaxy came to Toyota
Stadium on Saturday after-
noon. This was their chance,
as we embarked on a new
century, to give a gift of great
value to future generations.
Turned out our browser
didn't recognize any of the
video formats currently avail-
able & the opportunity was lost.
Spectators under the control
of the Post & Telegraph depart-
ment were forced to pay a fee.

A line from Clara B. Jones

Death begins prior to death. Swimmers

perform synchronized routines that

mimic those playful crayon lines little

brother uses. It interrupts itself inter-

minably. The ecological correlates of

these patterns are marked in black ink,

sourced from lampblack, a substance

made in turn by burning tung oil or

pine resin, & produced for decorating

screens that were salvaged & remounted

as hanging scrolls because their usage dam-

aged them. Those very books themselves

record their own deaths, but also note

their reformation as a kind of resurrection.

Evoke the phoenix, hoping that, like the

terracotta warriors, they will return to life.

Mark Young lives in a small town in North Queensland in Australia, & has been publishing poetry since 1959. He is the author of over fifty books, primarily text poetry but also including speculative fiction, vispo, & art history. His work has been widely anthologized, & his essays & poetry translated into a number of languages. His most recent books are The Perfume of The Abyss from Moria Books; A Vicarious Life — the backing tracks from otata; taxonomic drift from Luna Bisonte Prods; & Residual sonnets from Ma Press of Finland.

Three Poems by Connie Backus

white paint on walls

almost everything is doubled up

socks pants shirts

gloves

the mule deer are favorites

w/their own warm coats of chocolate

ice cream swirl

turkey mothers/fathers run close behind poults

always in a hurry playing in the park/the yard

& then

ravens

all the time

ravens

off the side of a hungry canyon

I.                grand coulee separates

herself

she is aloof

watches

she will claim

she is not in a serious relationship

II.              although osprey nests are empty

atop silos they still echo

leaves falling

if you are interested/

if you look close enough

III.            you might see canadian lynx/thick coated coyotes

& cackling geese arrive at banks

for winter

badgers hang out in large rocks

by the ball fields

then there are those rarely seen

but everyone has a story- & what to do

if you see bears & cougars

fungi

if we must have fairy circles

give them peals of wedding  bells

stop

wedding mushrooms wedding

vows oaths explanatory phrases

& they don’t  promise marriage

from an old maple

you don’t care close you

are so mad at the rain in the lake

enough w/feelings enough

circles of greyish day

how about that how

about crying  rings

as a sign of commitment

circles of hollow

on the ocean walk

how about too much before

over & over

the same kind of what happens

give me a hidden tree umbrellaed

& I’ll see the allergies

in a forest of fairy circles

if it still feels if

it still smells sweet

what about circles 

Connie Backus was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. She loves to write about nature and run along the coulee with her daughter. 

MBARI 7: Excerpt by Uche Nduka

Jean Genet is buried in Morocco. He is my out-law brother. Your swag in an airport security line.

A touch of bells. The clarinet has other things on her mind. Browning my bells.

A spine of steel or a spine of straw? A clown nose making a power grab. Or when your eyes change their minds about wonder.

He can’t look away. Who cares if you are distracted by the strolling moon. Telling us about a schlub as much as he knows.

Pitch-bending was a logical choice. They laughed at me when my lust got heard.

The external justifications for our existence are all conundrums. A slide into the sweetness beneath your clothes. Having fun sharing a laugh.

Spread on the surface of the mysteries that entangle us. Making sure the stiletto shoes stayed on point. I didn’t give you shit for doing that un-pop thing, saying that un-pop thing.

In the beginning was a playhouse where peace of mind became an evolving art project. Stressing people out with hopeless explanations. Remembering forgetting slow jams.

Depends on our knowledge of the pages just read. Oblivion without coating does look cool. Breaking water: junketeers, nestseekers, parachutists. A couple of death threats spotlit.

I serve you soup under pine trees. In search of what clarity is hiding. Idealism is not obsolete. Every living thing sings beyond railroad crossings.

Body of proof? Throes? Those drones sent to your cities. We waited until we couldn’t wait any longer to decompress, to deepen the shadow.

That juggler’s vertigo cuts to the bone. Pork cooked in its own fat. The air braids a mood. Floor sanding, dusty grooves. I’m alive because I was rocking away.

Breaking my vow to verbs. This exposure to the fabric of my life. Rubrics bristle, expecting rain. Gone missing, cylinders in a tunnel.

Ridiculing the placid screen. Plunging into fury, again and again. Driftwood teased the storm. You sauntered through the snarl of the storm.

I have placed saltlicks on foreplay and fellatios. You felt you belonged to another planet. You weren’t doing what you were supposed to be doing the way you were supposed to be doing it.

I needed to hear why you felt that way. Daylight threw us over the edge. By no means did everyone agree with the agitating slob.

Horses soaring through clouds. The chamber we share. It’s a little too late to walk away.

They claim they don’t want to take sides yet they crave awards/prizes for their photographs of your drowned bodies.

Boardwalk, mezzanine, past deception. Mountains are our neighbors. The aloof astronaut became cuddly. A pretty serious matter.

Beside the hardware moons locked eyes moons kissed. Beads of sweat on marked-up galleys. We really care about this place so now we shall take dissent to the extreme.

Stoking the lunar module. Even poetry is grist for their commercial mill.

Not the first of their moments together. Crowds gawk at colorblind lovers. It was once a safe landing spot. Orbiters in crescent curves.

Blemishes on lens. A testament to three moon globes. Those bombed out sculptures those bombed out statues those bombed out paintings in Iraq and Syria.

The squirrels and a canon of their own making. Marching music, footwork, watershoes. Too sly to be held back by mere exposure time.

This earthrise is an evidence. A flash fire breathing inside a muscle. Night again in a hand-corrected manuscript. Walking a runway: controversy still coming into focus.

Those broken manacles in the constellation of lovers. I can fuck myself up sometimes. I’m cool about it. You can’t say the dance-off doesn’t love you.

Uche Nduka is a Nigerian-American poet, essayist, collagist. He is the author of twelve volumes of poems of which the most recent is titled LIVING IN PUBLIC (Writers' Collective of Kristiania, Inc., 2018). Some of his writing has been translated into German, Dutch, Finnish, Italian, Arabic, Spanish, Serbo-Croat, French. A 2017 NYFA Poetry Fellow, he presently lives and teaches in New York City.

Ra Blues by Shaimaa Abdelkarim

re/iterations of black gather around 

     our wailings

demanding flesh pain

as if we, black 

     not enough. 

remains of our white shadows,

affirming: we black 

     not us 

black is not echoes of you you you y o u y o u

black echoed in wewewe w w e e

black echoes tr us t

forged deep, 

clouding white skies with blues. 

we hail

cities

     still. 

opening our door

         to the cosmo s.

Shaimaa Abdelkarim (@shaimabdelkarim ) is currently a PhD student mostly researching into the resistant and idiosyncratic desires of legalists and human rights activists. She has some poems at Burning House Press.