EDITOR NOTE

Issue 28

This issue is darkness and softness. This issue is what if being born human is not enough. What should I become next?

We transform and transmute and it is never enough. The devils inside are clanging at our doors. The faces we hide peek and peer through us — asking to come out and play. You think you have one shadow, but you have many.

And it’s not that I’ve lost my grip on reality, but that reality is slowly losing its grip on me. Still, we must all keep our cool. Pretend we don’t know this is a puppet show.

This issue is not make believe. It is alive and weird and true. As always, I’m grateful to all the artists and poets who contributed to this issue.

I piece my soul together with their words and visions.

Contributors: Jessica Khailo, Jasper Glen, Savannah Cooper, Sarina Frauenfelder, Robin Gow, Jay Dye, Hannah Wonagsegid, Emanuela Iorga, Joan Mazza, Lorelei Bacht, Sarina Frauenfelder, Kim Ramos, Uri Bram

Claudia Dawson, Founding Publisher & Editor
October, 2022

POSTPONING THE SINGULARITY

At some point we thought,
“the mind’s a machine,”
and made it true.
But when you’re God,
you breathe flowers into the world
and forget where you placed them.
Too many to count,
to keep counting.

I wish there were a word for it
that did not mean neglect
or blissful ignorance.
Someday, we’ll have words
for the kind of faith
borne of deserts, dying to know
sensations beyond thirst.
A word which means: a place
for pillows near pillars of salt.

Only when we’re God
will we learn to coax words forth
from clogged milk ducts into
the wax bodies that pray for them.
I can only know enough to dwindle,
enough to ebb for many miles
and keep those meanings tied to tart,
forbidden currants in the garden.

I think that I would let them
stain my lips and fingertips,
let them ruin me like a selkie
becoming tired of her animal body.
I might tempt the bees to taste them
if it could turn their wings
to selenite, their honey to carnelian,
their bodies to something
not meant to fly, but beautiful.

 

Jessica Khailo (she/her) lives in the state of Washington with her husband, two children, and one very good dog. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys complaining on walks through the woods, knitting, creating dodgy artwork, and singing her heart out like no one is listening. Her work has appeared in The Citron Review and is forthcoming this fall in Coffin Bell Journal, Gastropoda, Jupiter Review, and Amethyst Review.

barely

i hear their room is always closed

they can't tell the difference between beef pork or chicken by taste because they never asked

someone else fills out their personality quizzes

while they watch quietly

with their hands behind their back

they took the bus one day and forgot to get off

 

Hannah Wonagsegid is a graduate of CSUDH with a B.A. in English Literature and a minor in Creative Writing. She has both written for and been on the editorial board for her school's 2022 issue of their Multi-Literacy Magazine, Enjambed. She has loved writing from a young age and enjoys writing surreal and weird kinds of poetry.

creatures

i pushed both thumbs into the light
and i became of it.       its warmth

wrapped compact around me, weaving
me skin, bone,      beat.      the face

folded onto itself and i was:      one,
     and two.       that is how i met you.

what is it that we are? what saw before
eye-stalks?      you, murmuring: this gold

is fixing us a home. it is intentional.
will i be born? i asked – and just like

that, we compressed into a pillar
      of fear.       i feared      i would

be crushed or stuck or sucked out of 
the skull – what if i broke? but no

other river-bed to follow,      so we
     followed,      and all of a sudden.

i did not understand:      the air. the
derm suddenly scaled.      the nostrils

and palate holed out. i     inflated, i      
unfolded,      i did not know we had

so many pipes, such     vast. a
blare rose and bawled me,      folded

my lip into a hurt.      you said: look
here,       these pinks are moveable.      

and so,     i found      my thumb.

 
 

YOU KNOW ME:

 

i am the ghost that moves your slick
body-machine forward,

the true nature that speaks your hands.

i have witnessed your tumbles, you:
rolling marble, you consequence,
you series of therefores.

i am the originally, the first
word in the book, the gates

that open, the horses that run, run, run.

the larger than life, the poking
of the arm through the sleeve. you are

one of my pebble eyes, keyhole
that thinks, that feels. i need

you to remain open, you

pinhole in the wall, you avatar, you
puppet show, you child.

Lorelei Bacht's poetic work has appeared / is forthcoming in The Night Heron Barks, Queerlings, SoFloPoJo, Barrelhouse, Sinking City, Stoneboat, One Art, SWWIM, and elsewhere. They can be found on Twitter @bachtlorelei and on Instagram @lorelei.bacht.writer. They are currently watching the rain instead of working on a chapbook.

The Subconscious

Thing is, your body is root magic.
Sanskrit in the brain. We are all Somalian.
The thing writ on the body of Kafka. Hoopla.
One day, consciousness obscured by high-
functioning: overlooks the brute tundra
And in so choosing, entrained compass
God’s cruel trick to catch commercial
Learn iconic hook and jingle.
Be a repeat customer
Coiled in deep circuitry
To reappear upon trigger.

Press record it is not Christmas. Imagine parchment paper
Heart parachutes, the brain stem a stone tablet
Instructions packed separately in plastic.

The awareness a wire has
When you prick it up.
Seek dandelion.
A conduit for completing circuitry.

Caught sleepwalking again, Zombie sans
Thought, an inside job.
How wired awake are you right now.
Two energy drinks deep.

I was also an automaton walking through the kitchen with morning coffee.
Consciousness can’t keep constant watch.

The actionable undertow, unquestionable
Bridge, a substratum of what lies beneath.

Law suit, real estate litigation, but rock decorum
A tentative peninsula, emergent per se
Covenant between the two- fancy strata

Hell is words in your head
Family law: if I could declare an undertaker
Another year of my personality an undefended quarry hauling
Non-exhaustive list of things the body can learn: bravery, pattern, pain

A bell sets exciting!
We too are rapped on the head.
As our time comes we reflect on how barbarian we’ve been.

I feel caught forward.
I find myself doing things I am missing.

 

Jasper Glen's poems appear or are forthcoming in Posit, Streetlight Magazine, Amsterdam Quarterly, Tofu Ink, fauxmoir, NiftyLit, Pinky Thinker Press, The Antonym, and other journals. He holds a BA in Philosophy and a JD, and lives in Vancouver, Canada.

THE DEVIL

Aiwass

throat me with a pen & i’ll peel for a secret 
did ur father eat           forked tongue or did you
scavenge for ice cubes /          i’m not asking for lilies just a pond 
six swans turned glass            break a vase break a vase

brother, religion is gushing us like pigs
i wanted a thumb but received a box of chocolates

show me ur teeth         i need to sharpen them
ur body will be useful to the cause     a finger
to a pyramid of light               where do u hide ur ancient

boys with their shot guns on a blue planet boy with 
their fingers in the lake boys with their tarot 
turning sullen in the wake of a wrong reading

a future is basking in ultra violet        u r here

 
 

BAPHOMET 

 

Only you really know I am half animal.
Half female. Half daughter. I see you
perched in the living room on the blue chair
your tongue a ribbon of light.

When will you come and save me?
I am trying all my devices. Ritual after
ritual. I can feel the precipice always—
a dangling depth there just out of reach.

In my nightmares I am naked down to the bone.
I wonder in a dense garden looking
for my daughter. She evaporates
from the bed. How can a man

be so alone with so many practices?
My magick is the only part of me
that is true. Come enter me.
Is there wholeness? I tilt.

 

Robin Gow is a trans poet and young adult author from rural Pennsylvania. They are the author of several poetry books, an essay collection, and a YA novel in verse, A Million Quiet Revolutions (FSG Books for Young Readers, 2022). Gow's poetry has recently been published in POETRY, Southampton Review, and Yemassee.

The Murder Vortex

When it arrived
it seemed natural.
We needed someplace
to dispose of the dead,
anyway. It was a blessing.

Soon we realized it was sentient.
It communicated through
a strange appendage
like several snakes
writhing in chaotic
orchestration.
By studying the perturbations
of the apparatus
experts claimed to understand
the creature’s desires.
Usually it wanted flesh,
though occasionally it would request
cocaine. The binges were
the worst. The appendage
flailed hyperactively
when it went on a bender,
mumbling indistinct
paradoxes to its readers,
driving some of them mad
with impossible thoughts
while the lucky ones
had weeks of night terrors
and a lingering rotten stench.

But the creature was right
more often than it was
wrong. It could predict
the future with above
average accuracy.
Not perfect, but
good enough to run
a casino out of business.
Murder vortex divination
became commonplace.
The appendage was consulted
for political strategy,
personal advice,
dating compatibility.

Before leaving the house
a young girl would check
the video feed on her phone.
A stiff appendage. He loves
me not. A perceived stiffness
was foreboding. No motion
meant death, disaster. A slight curl
in the tip was good luck.
These became the arbiters
of society. People consulted
the appendage for the kind
of coffee they should make
that morning. Opinion was split
on whether the thing was divine
or demonic. Thelemites danced
its circumference claiming
to have predicted its arrival.
When the fundamentalists
finally got around to shooting
at it, we realized that the thing
cared not for weapons.
Its surface was unable to be harmed
by bullets or explosives.
As far as anyone could tell
it was immortal. This is what
it had told us through its arm.
It could not be destroyed.
It had used a particularly
violent flick of the limb
to say this.

In school, children stealthily
watched the arm for answers
to tests, for advice on the SAT.
In video games they played
the role of murder vortex,
strategizing to consume
as many bodies
and as much cocaine
as possible.
The high score was
over a trillion bodies
and several thousand tons
of coke.
In the games,
instead of cocaine,
they called it diet cola
and gave it the appearance
of a soda can.
They did this to avoid
being censored.

 

Jay Dye is a poet and artist from California. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Calliope, Marathon Literary Review, Sapere Aude, and Scribendi. Her art has been exhibited by the Clyde H. Wells Art Gallery and on New Art City. She is also an editor for Tab Journal. She can be found online at jaydye.org, on Twitter @jayyyyyyydye, and on Instagram @ghostprincessxyz.

Schrödinger Nights

He dreams of her at nights,
or maybe not, we'll never know—
sleep is a steel box
we can’t unclasp.

If he's woken sharply
the truth leaks
and he learns,
too late, if she was
with him.
Only briefly:
the memory
fades, like
waves into sand.

Most nights, he sleeps
fine, and wakes blind
to what he dreamt of.
Her presence with him,
in him, indeterminate.
Unobserved, she lives
in him, and doesn't.

 

Uri Bram is the publisher of Words We Need Now, a comic about words that don't exist, and the creator of the party game Person Do Thing.

Magical Thinking

You wonder what’s become of me,
why I don’t answer my phone, assume
I’ve turned silent and secretive.
This long hiatus in quarantine
has demonstrated my facility
with wizardry without idolatry.

Don’t call it hocus-pocus, nonsense,
or voodoo bullshit. This isn’t bumbling
astrology or Ouija boards. I honor
intuitions, inner warnings that rise
in dreams or wake me with flashes
of insight into what is near—deer

drinking at the pond, an owl before
I hear them hooting in the woods.
In grocery stores, I still wear a mask
and sun visor. Obscured beneath
my baggy clothing, I observe
your aura, hear your noisy mental

chatter. The crystals hanging
in my windows are more than mere
decoration. They invite jinns
and genies who obey my whims.
I’m never alone. Surrounded by
oaks and beeches, this earth is alive

with invertebrates and fungi within
my cone of power. When I sit quietly
and still my thoughts, I can see
the future. Revenants speak.
When I hold up my palms to face
the sun, they bloom yellow roses.

 

Joan Mazza worked as a microbiologist and psychotherapist, and taught workshops on dreams and nightmares. She is the author of six self-help psychology books, including *Dreaming Your Real Self* (Penguin/Putnam). Her poetry has appeared in *Crab Orchard Review, Prairie Schooner, Slant, Poet Lore,* and *The Nation.* She lives in rural central Virginia and writes every day.

Ghost Stories

I used to sleep with the lights on, afraid
to glimpse shadows of dead men on the wall.
My mind used to populate my childhood
bedroom with staring eyes, hunched figures,
the quiet shuffle of uncertain feet.

My father told me that ghosts were just
demons in disguise, while my mother
collected stories of the unexplained
like stamps. When he was out of town,
I’d sleep in her bed beside her, hushed
and warm, as she told me of the spirits
she’d glimpsed—faceless men and gray
figures cutting through the room. The smell
of smoke when her sister died two hundred
miles away. Her father coming to her mother’s
bedroom window years after he’d been gone.

We lived two lives—one when he was home
and one when he was away, different shows
and dinners, given over to our restless, eager
hearts. And behind every word, every look
on my mother’s face was that other self,
the one she kept hidden. A ghost story
all its own.

 

Savannah Cooper (she/her) is a leftist bisexual agnostic and a slow-ripening disappointment to her Baptist parents. You can almost always find her at home, reading a novel or cuddling with her dogs and cat. A Pushcart Prize nominated poet, her work has been previously published in Parentheses Journal, Midwestern Gothic, Mud Season Review, and multiple other publications.

Alive, Today, Again!

We walk across a field of fallen peaches, breaking their soft flesh. We know decay sweetens the soil. Years ago we gutted all our Midwestern gods, and now we wear their husks as party clothes. We go dancing in the catacombs under churches, and afterwards, we guzzle honeysuckle, shake hands with wasps and houseflies. They hum in quiet appreciation, ask us about the kids, the dogs, the green beans. I’m sutured down to the soul and so are you, stitched together by mothers who did the best they could, fathers who were a raspy echo in the woods. What I’m saying is, we never stopped aching, but the peach juice running down our arms enthralls us every afternoon. What was left of a titan said, Gaze into the pit of me. Together, we fell down its throat. At the bottom was a lake. Crickets kept the time. The stars beat down their light. We lassoed the crescent moon, sent it swimming in the water like a canoe. Not having oars, we floated aimlessly. I kissed your temple, and you licked my wounds clean. All this to say, I have been continuing despite everything, and I know you have, too.

 

Kimberly Ramos is a queer Filipina writer from Missouri. They dream of becoming a cryptid and haunting the Midwest. You can read more of their work at kimramoswrites.carrd.co.