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The Re-Invention of Papier Collé
It all started with simultaneous perspective. Braque and Picasso retreating to the Pyrenees. The Spaniard told how he had learned to paint ugly, even if it was young lady prostitutes and the Frenchman said that he could now paint beastly, turning an entire village into squares. They shared a villa, but faced different sunsets. They shared their work, but kept separate studios. Then one summer morning at the breakfast table Pablo put on an African Mask. Georges puffed his pipe. Pablo danced around as Georges blew smoke at the chipped fruit dish and both rushed back to work. They cut up the wallpaper, gathered some scrap wood. They mounted an easel in the center of the kitchen. Braque scrawled and shaded a bunch of grapes and a lemon, a pear, and Picasso paced around the still near-blank canvas and then charcoaled “BAR” then “ALE” in block letters in two of the corners. When they finished, the fragments were bizarre. Gluey radicals pasting together in the Pyrenees. Austin Sanchez-Moran Austin Sanchez-Moran received his MFA in Poetry from George Mason University, where he was a Laanan Fellow and then an Honors Fellow. His poems and short fiction have been published or are forthcoming in Catamaran Literary Journal, Denver Quarterly, Laurel Review, and Salamander Magazine, among many others. Also, he had a poem chosen for the anthology, Best New Poets of the Midwest (2017). Dear Faithful Readers,
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The man in the portrait, birthed by the sea, presumed his existence a fait accompli in spite of the howlerwind's ominous song and thunderbolts hurling through break of dawn. But the sea level rose as the tempest rolled-in, and soon the earth's tears flowed up to his chin, creating a stir. As swim bladders hummed and tiny claws clicked amid pops and thumps, a chatter of chirps joined burbles and yaps while amphibians croaked and pincer-tips snapped. Whisker-like barbels and tentacles twitched as the torrent unleashed and floodwater drenched. The man in the portrait, birthed by the sea, reconsidered presumptions of fait accompli. As arms of the octopus loosed their grip, the eel and the lionfish started to slip. Inspiring a mutinous seaside revolt, the Dungeness crab decided to bolt. And all in due time, yet before very long, with the turn of the tide, man's profile was gone. dl mattila This poem was first published in Blast Furnace. dl mattila is the author of Quietus, a collection of poems. Her work publishes nationally and internationally. She holds an MA in Writing (poetry) from The Johns Hopkins University. Lascaux
nineteen millennia ago Behind the great hall of the bulls hidden in a small recess a woman used moss, colored ochre, sticks of charcoal to send a herd of spotted horses galloping across a wall. Working in a flicker of light, the artist traced a curve with a shaved, chalky twig, filled in with a paste of charcoal and two kinds of hard, dark earth. She ground red ochre to a powder with mortar and pestle, picked up a hollow bone, spit then blew, mouth filled with bitter taste, using her hand so thick lines of colour could meet without blurring, horses dappled by stenciled dots and fingerprints dipped in paint. Always in motion these ponies thunder across the rock face, fresh as if just drawn. I think I hear them snort and gnar, feel their grassy breath, or someone blowing pigment in the dark. Was the painter surprised by what emerged? Would she be amazed to know they are still here, cantering in the dark, in the dawn? Mary Kay Rummel Mary Kay Rummel was Poet Laureate of Ventura County, California from 2014-16. Her seventh book of poetry, The Lifeline Trembles, won the Blue Light Poetry Prize. A new collection, Cypher Garden, has just been published by Blue Light Press. Her poems recently appear in Nimrod, Askew, The Ekphrastic Review, Miramar, Pirene’s Fountain, and AMORE: A Collection of Love Poems. She teaches at California State University, Channel Islands and lives in Ventura and Minneapolis. Studio in the Asylum Dear Theo: I am surrounded here by the painter’s commonplace, the half- filled canvases that dot the ochre walls and those ornaments of still-lifes-- the vases and jars standing to attention on the sill, empty of colour and purpose. I feel a tension, as if a single dazzling orange would shatter the calm forever. I have finished “Studio in the Asylum.” It is a soothing depiction, like a setting for a prayer. Yet, I might well have named the piece “The window in the wall”-- that brightness that separates the therapeutic room from the glory of the garden and the grounds. Soon, now I shall make my way outside. to paint the olive landscapes and pasteled huts and to colour the stars of the night sky. Yours: Vincent Steve Deutsch Steve Deutsch, a semi-retired practitioner of the fluid mechanics of mechanical hearts and heart valves, lives with his wife Karen--a visual artist, in State College, PA. Steve writes poetry, short fiction and the blog: stevieslaw@wordpress.com. His most recent publications have been in Eclectica Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, New Verse News, Silver Birch Press, Misfit Magazine and One-sentence poems. As an adult, Steve had the good fortune to sit in on two poetry classes taught by first class poets and teachers. He has been writing poetry ever since. Reflections on the New Parts of Old York
Like most things from the late 20th century, ugly and unforgiving as spirits mangled by the outrageous and the not outraged enough, in a growingly undisciplined frenzy these ad hoc collections, buildings and art, were also born of self and selfishness, subscribing and promoting so-called ‘freedom,’ the expressive lack of principle of the age. But what else, after the bomb, could humanity bear? We live like Catholics post-King Henry’s purge, and like the Dissolution, dissolute, regaling in such aftermaths. What now but modern paucities abutting ruins? I perch beneath the fallen Abbey stone: one wall, two rows of ogives, low and high, the grand flaps of two others, west and east, tracing the audacious nave, now all but air. Around the lawn, imperious pillar stones start their ascent, now stumps and sittable. Then a flock of bright blue-capped children, pads poised, come gallivanting, gleefully. ‘Are those initials your school?’ I ask an intrepid Aramis, indicating his brow’s insignia. ‘Yes!’ he replies, to which D’Artagnan scolds, ‘College!’ ‘Ah, college.’ ‘Yes that’s right.’ A female Colleague’s voice from yonder hails (they must be twelve, the girls are two hands taller), ‘Sir, are those arches?’ Munching scone, I nod to part the air, so she can see, and know. ‘Brilliant!’ And off the schoolgirls scurry, sigh, and in their ardor scratch, pubescent, glorious, reminding us the future’s on its way. James B. Nicola This poem will appear in James B. Nicola's upcoming poetry book, Out of Nothing: Poems of Art and Artists, from ShantiArts. James B. Nicola's poems have appeared recently in The Ekphrastic Review, the Antioch, Southwest and Atlanta Reviews, Rattle, and Poetry East. His nonfiction book Playing the Audience won a Choice award. His two poetry collections, published by Word Poetry, are Manhattan Plaza (2014) and Stage to Page: Poems from the Theater (2016). sites.google.com/site/jamesbnicola Canon at the marriage supper A choral progression Pachelbel’s Canon in D polyphony of angelic voices singing the same psalm-- Holy, Holy, Holy —each entering in sequence with the Lord God Almighty Who’s singing too in basso continuo, His Holy Spirit repeating the same two-bar line-- Worthy is the Lamb Who was slain. And the everlasting trees by the riverbank sway to His aeolian wind, Ruach, waving the branches to the Canon—to the written word to the canon—to the music in D, the beautiful sound of creation. Adam must have heard somethng like that symphony in his heart when God formed his wife. And the man said, Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. He was so empty, so incomplete before then, but he didn’t need a reason to believe or to feel lonely, yet he did, even when God walked with him in the cool of the garden. But there’s always a snake in the grass to uncoil that perfect union. It tried to constrict the innocent lamb, swallow him as well. But the serpent didn’t see the mother’s hooves, the father’s teeth. The Lamb of God wouldn’t lie down except for us. For us: the man, the woman, all of us—the church. No church is complete without a lamb on its altar. It used to be by the blood of bulls and goats filling the cisterns and chalices, but now, it’s the Lamb who will marry to the Church. And the bridegroom said, Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. So what about my sack of bones, my pound of flesh? Why am I so special? Afterall, I am nothing but dust… And before I could finish the sentence, a voice lifted out of the music, growing louder in my soul, until it shook my heart with these words that He said to me, they—Elohim-- said to me in sequential harmony, But you, my love, are my very breath. John C. Mannone John C. Mannone has work in Blue Fifth Review, NEJM, Intima, Amsterdam Quarterly, Peacock Journal, Gyroscope Review, Inscape Literary Journal, Baltimore Review, Pedestal, and Pirene's Fountain. He’s been awarded Weymouth writing residencies (2016, 2017) and has three poetry collections: Apocalypse (Alban Lake Publishing, July 2015), nominated for the 2017 Elgin Book Award; Disabled Monsters (The Linnet’s Wings Press, December 2015) featured at the 2016 Southern Festival of Books; and Flux Lines (Celtic Cat Publishing, Spring 2017). He’s been nominated for several Pushcart and Rhysling awards. He edits poetry for Abyss & Apex and other venues. He teaches college physics near Knoxville, TN. Visit http://jcmannone.wordpress.com Running Girl
(for shosana) after it all becomes too much, the girl begins to run. she is running away from her past life, running away from her future life, her death. she is running away from those that ruined her brothers, her fathers and mothers, running away from the those that would ruin her. she is running away from everything she knows to be good and right and true, toward the great unknown with no one beside her. she is running away and she does not know where she is going – she does not want to know – it does not matter. they begin to follow, give chase, but then they stop, smile, laugh, smile all the more. they do not need to shoot her, do not need to do anything. they have done their job. the world will take care of her, they think, and they are right, of course. the girl is running away, and maybe she is even making good speed, making progress, but she is running toward nothing, and she has nothing, and she is nothing. they know this. they forget, however, the running girl is not just one thing. running girl can write. running girl can sing. Jordan Makant This poem was inspired by the film, Inglorious Bastards. Jordan Makant is a senior at Lenoir-Rhyne University in Hickory, NC. He is an Assistant Editor for Scott Owens' Wild Goose Poetry Review and a co-founder for the Hickory, NC based theatre arts charity, the Hickory Playground. Previous publications include Rat's Ass Review, The Main Street Rag, and Winston-Salem Writers' Poetry in Plain Sight project. Francesco de Mura as Seen by His Goddess
Minerva: What a proud bird he is, with his preen gland working. In this portrait my Francesco is no longer bronze, but has given himself the pearly silk cheeks of an aristocrat. Bourbon kings smoothed that dusk-dark velvet over his shoulders, a laundress put her dreams of butterfat and lily buds in the angel white of his neckcloth. Another woman went blind embroidering garlands of red flowers on his waistcoat, and a tailor eased it over his elegant paunch, the very best gut one could have, refined plenitude of fat wild boar and prized stinking goat cheese. To look this good, he needs them all: tailors, shepherds, farmers and kings, and they need him. But I’m the goddess in his hand, his woman in the pink landscape he gave me. He dreamed me, birthed me, set me on the young trees of my legs, planted my foot with its tender pink veins, he wove every thread in my goddess clothes. He gave me a shield and the arm to bear it. Because of him, flesh and muscle red as his chalk stick stride up and down from my powerful neck to my heel. He placed my war helmet with its plumes, made my curls rise like hackle feathers. All of me, crown to toe, is the same soft burn of red he gave to his own drapery and his mouth. He signs our portrait with his seal, not his name. We don’t need to speak in human. But I know his hand, so when he presses down with his red seal, we’re palm to palm. Then he puts his mouth to the nape of my neck and breathes: All you ever needed to live was me. Margaret Benbow Margaret Benbow's award-winning poems and stories have appeared in many magazines and anthologies. She recently won the Many Voices Project Award in Fiction, and her story collection Boy Into Panther will be published this fall by New Rivers Press. Her poems may be seen in the book Stalking Joy, which won the Walt McDonald First Book award. |
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