Issue # 1

Three Poems by Felino Soriano


Painters’ Exhalations 216
—after Dao Hai Phong’s Fishing Season

Glossy
glass, visual tools
appear parallel to
and never move beyond
their scaly, softened sockets.
Unaware
of the metal Js’ perpetual purpose
connected to persuasion,
nudges, appearing from dried layers
above and by hands
who will later let go if size
cannot contain high degrees of
weighted matter,
or feast upon the fleshy
swimmers sans bones, unobstructed
dialogue of tongue
and whitened meat,
salt and pepper
resurrected.


Painters’ Exhalations 217
—after Ho Huu Thu’s Scent of a Flower

Needn’t overwhelm
but beckons, still. A woman,
a soft call shape appears, invisible.
Her voice a blatant whisper; language
not far from the center of a universal
want.


Painters’ Exhalations 218
—after Helen Frankenthaler’s Snow Pines

Their arms, sleeveless, leafless.
Wind will not stop talking,
further facilitating weight
into forced, uneasy understanding.
Their heads donning crowns,
whose gild promote a royal height
but promises a tilted wear
in attempted, unsuccessful
avoidance.

The assurance, though perhaps
unwelcomed, a yearly occurrence
of dampened blankets
will rest in a full-body mold,
suffocating ambulation of self
and the shadow-body seemingly
sleeping where ripened cones
lay edge-first into the skin of
a sodden ground.


Biography Note:

Felino Soriano (California) is a case manager working with developmentally and physically disabled adults. He is the editor of the online journal, Counterexample Poetics, http://www.counterexamplepoetics.com/, which focuses on International interpretations of experimental, philosophical, esoteric, post-postmodern, and avant-garde poetry, art, and photography. He is the author of five chapbooks and e-books, including Among the Interrogated (BlazeVOX [books], 2008) Feeling Through Mirages (Shadow Archer Press, 2008) and Calling Toward Clarity (Chippens Press, 2009), and also has a mini-chapbook forthcoming from Wheelhouse Magazine. The internal collocation of philosophical studies with classic and avant-garde jazz explains his poetic stimulation.
Website: http://www.felinosoriano.com/


Fear of Success
Tony B Adza

A resonance of sound
a vibration from a force deep underground,
Retrospect through a phase of life a deep consciousness grasped
through the essence of shadows by the candlelight,
Which one has done or will become,
A hesitation . . . fear of success, images repressed by a mist of negativity,
that’s consumed by the fog of one’s society,
Clouded the mind and reigned on the pasture of time as we know it,
forth comes the seed of greed for which the average man cultivates and sows it,
The night has fallen on individuality
a condescending image of darkness in the reality,
Take notice to what has begun, the countdown . . .
Three, Two, Increments of One

Gazing through a prism it’s 12:01 pitch black
analyzing her life in a distortion or real fact,
Sixteen years of learning down and wasted
the dreams of comfort that she almost tasted,
Life’s hard but her job is set loading sixteen tons and what does she get,
A life . . . spinning in reverse,
a poet in college who never published a verse,
A would-be leader follows by the wayside
wondering if she should stand-up and take sides,
The situation moves to the past tense
the knowledge is great but the courage doesn’t make sense,
She letting leaders lead who shouldn't be in the front row
scared of confrontations as older the shadows grow
A respect . . . that should be flowing like fluid
the problem is she never had it, to hold it, to do it,
Afraid of the dark when the lights go out
afraid of the others as an inner voice shouts,
“Here’s to it, here’s from it, here’s to it again and
if I ever get the chance to do it and don’t
I might never get the chance to do it again!”
A dreamscape of what she could have done
flipping through memories,
Age 61



Biography Note:

Tony Adza is originally from the San Francisco bay area and now lives in Chandler, Arizona with his wife Jessica. Tony started to write poetry in his late teens and continued into his early thirties. His desire for poetry went dormant until his 39th birthday and that was when he rediscovered poems that he wrote when he was 19. Tony revived the inspiration and realized his potential in many aspects of life, including the love of written word. He has committed to refining a completed 300 page rough draft he finished over 8 years ago and is creating new works as an integral part of who he is and will become.
Website: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/group.php?gid=796021


Two Poems by Gemma Mathewson


Sleep Enough

Though I urged him to get some rest
I was the one who dozed off first
hypocritically sleeping

I woke the night before, the nightmare
still chasing its own tail, my heart
hypertensively shrieking

Now I paint between two realms
as the borderland blends and bleeds
hypnogocially streaking

To become a hothouse flower,
that absorbs pure liquid energy and light
hydroponically seeping

Now every star grows a comet’s tail
as I accelerate through space
hypersonically squeaking

I drift again, imagining all
I may do if I get sleep enough
hypothetically speaking


Ambition

If I wanted to measure the insignificant
sequential regularity of time in identical units
I would buy a watch, the old windup kind,
and I would wear it ostentatiously
and press it to my ear to confirm
the whispered sneering “snicker-snicks”,
then surreptitiously sneak glances
at the fat and skinny arrows
by swiveling my wrist
at irregular intervals.

If I wanted to know how much
of the earth’s pull
is required to fasten my feet
firmly to the planet
I would buy a scale,
the old analog kind
and watch the dial twitch between
density and levity
teeter between giddy optimism
and caloric indulgence.
I’d weigh the anchor against the consequences
and then strap on a jet-pack
and triumph over gravity once and for all.

If I cared to navigate my course
reliably I’d map-quest
some ultimate programmable destination
like Heaven or Disney World
or Emotional Self-fulfillment
but I haven’t quite worked out
how to designate my departure point
from this plane without
connotatively implying self-pity.
At least I’d have to come up with something
better than “Connecticut”.

If I were going to throw a party
first I would need to get rid of
all the chairs I already have
because they look like
they don’t want anybody
to sit on them.
Then I would have to make a list of all
the expiration dates on my food
to have the party in time.

If I wanted to erect my own pyramid
I would buy some naughty lingerie
so that all my slaves
would be willing love slaves
but when they abandoned me,
realizing the photo was digitally enhanced,
I would be forced to haul
all those giant stone blocks
to whatever island is next to Easter Island
and carve a bunch of female heads
so that they and their counterparts
could scowl, enigmatically and dourly
at each other across the channel
through all eternity
or at least until they eroded so badly
it wouldn’t matter.


Biography Note:

For 18 years Gemma was director and teacher at an early childhood development program called Nursery On Notch Hill. Recently she has coordinated special projects for I-Park, a 450 acre multidiscipline artist retreat in East Haddam, CT and illustrated a German fantasy novel, "Sargon's Schatz". Her enthusiasms include open mic poetry, hiking, and world music. Her work has been published in USA and India, and was used in collaboration with "Plays and Poetry" by the East Haddam Players and in contemporary composition with Nihan Yessil. She is a lifetime insomniac and omnivorous reader. Her website is http://gemop.wordpress.com/ and is called "The Museum of Rain".


Perfect Imperfection
by Craig van Niekerk

I stand before you naked, in flesh.
This is me in all my glory;
imperfections, flaws all visible to see

A soul riddled with insecurities, fears,
pain and sorrow.
A sense of longing consumes me,
in a fiery haste and subtle greed.

This is me in all my glory.
A mind that can never be fixed,
but a soul longing for hope.
A mind grasping at a dream, which
Forever appears just beyond the sky.

We are shaped by those around us;
by the society we breed in.
A society with a lust to devour the
goodness in us all.
Devouring our very existence.

This is me in all my glory.
We must never be accepted.


Biography Note:

Craig Gardner van Niekerk is currently working and living in George, South Africa. While attending Rhodes University, he obtained a Bachelor degree in Economics. Perfect Imperfection is his first published work.