Three Poems by Jeremy Hoevenaar
I lose myself, maybe borrow / you if that’s a right I can / manifest by speaking–– / speaking here meaning / writing in the sense / that writing even in relative / silence feels loud / and resonant with a duration / metaphor wants me / to call breathing... Read More
The Washing and the Clothes Line by Serge Pey, translated from French by Donald Nicholson-Smith
I learned my letters as I ate my alphabet soup. Tiny letters, without much meaning. For her part, my mother read the earth, because marks on the ground were the writing of the night. From those signs, outside the house, she knew that a fox had passed by along the road... Read More
Editor’s Note: Vestiges_04: Aphasia
A Dada ad leaves an analysand uncooperative, speechless; a situationist détournement… propels words beyond the pleasure principle… Because there is so much toil and injustice in the use of language… two images begin to take shape. One of the rich mystic unscrolling their parchment; and… one of the police officer turning the pages of a... Read More
Six Prose Poems by Alistair McCartney
When I die, my memory—or do I mean your memory of me?—will dissolve like the Platonic (abstract) form of a cube of sugar in a cup of tea, like the post-abstract expressionist (Neoplatonic) form of the corpse of a boy in a hot pink ceramic tub of hydrochloric acid, correction: sodium hydroxide... Read More
Five Poems by Anna Gurton-Wachter
I get to re-experience / a fly bouncing / off the walls / equivalency began / each time I swell / a cloud or angel / evoked off-hand / I don’t think I would / separate myself / accept love sad art / unanswered / how it is... Read More
Episodes from OMAR by Sam Truitt
0. / Prison / — / the pervasiveness of penology / — / to be inside a thing and unable/unwilling to leave / — / some involuntary but most to varying degrees riding it / — / or climbing its walls / — / the glass mountain and relation to the practice of the open... Read More
Two Poems by Sawako Nakayasu
Girl F’s the getting, and tiredness is the reference, and the other is girled by their initials. There’s the decisive finding, that is, the name-outer, the girl-eacher, the come what may, but there are also some extremely marching shes, which makes Girl J say very well why there was so much Hi, name, fuck, of... Read More
Excerpt from Situ by Steven Seidenberg
He imagines the frustration of his having to rise up—to lift himself up—as though it were an insult, an offense against the effort he’s embodied by this strain. His frustration at the endless repetition of the exploit of attaining such a meager state is considerably greater than the same plight first approached from the perspective... Read More
Editor’s Note: Vestiges_03: Mimesis
Reflect upon the frond and in so doing neglect the fern. Write its veins, the stains, its gloss; ponder with inaccuracy its divisive parts. Writing is autumn’s discoloration, the experience and expression of wilting. Only stems are left. Imitate and discover what’s not there any longer... Read More
Excerpt from Coil by Lou Pam Dick
If to start one step ahead, wrong step, the nix is a beginning. I wore my stairs around my neck, therefore I choke. Please be legible. What time is it? The door keeps opening. My protector gets all wet. I shout, I am my bodyguard! I whisper it inside me. Bare the neck of the... Read More