CONTENTS
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# 'On Eating an Orange' & 'Tasting Eternity' by Nolo Segundo
# 'Birds Fly Out' by Cordelia Hanemann
# 'Sick in the Spring' & 'Black Dog Jumps' by Eugene Stevenson
# 'That Was Before' by Daren Schuettpelz
# 'Storm Calm' by Mark Antony Rossi
# 'Seasonal Affective disorder', 'Lamentations' & 'Selvege' by Michele Mekel
# 'Distant Cry' & 'Comment' by Frederick Pollack
# 'Rage Sparkles' by Robyn Braun
# 'Switching Station' Hum by Clem Flowers
# 'The unbearable weight of the moon' by Laura Cooney
# 'Litany: Future Corpse' by Emma Conlon
# 'Pinprick' by Mckenna Ashlyn
# 'Plant a lighthouse at my grave' & 'singularity' by Allen Seward
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# ART/ificial Volume 2 Download your free copy of Spare Parts Literary's supplementary mini-mag!
# The Desk - Read our latest Novel Excerpt from Authors Wes Payton and Lawrence Climo.
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Dear Readers,
a
As we enter our third year of publication Spare Parts Literary has undergone a stage of very exciting expansion. In the last few months we have welcomed to our staff two new Editors; Poetry Editor Oladejo Abdullah Feranmi & Flash Fiction + Art Editor Jonathan Darren Garcia, both in permanent residence, as well as a fledgling team of enthusicastic readers.
One of our chief concerns at Spare Parts Literary has always been that the works which we publish never eclipse the artists themselves, and we take our commitment to supporting our network of contributors and Editorial Team seriously, after all art in whatever context is and will always be a vehicle for communication. So we encourage you to explore our masthead to get to know the Spare Parts Team better, and to explore the links provided in our creator bios to discover more of these incredible creatives' portfolios.
I cannot overstate how edifying it has been to witness this magazine growing from strength to strength, not only behind the scenes but in our readership, our submissions count and our budding, broadening branches The Desk & ART/ificial. Both of which will be releasing new material alongside this Volume.
True to form, Volume 8 writhes with mesmirising works of art, fiction and poetry, each new voice a current, an undertowe, an engulfing wave. This collection is fully immersive, intoxicating and inspired, and arguably one of our most potent publications to date.
It is humbling and affirming to Edit for this magazine and daily encounter and collaborate with a global community with such unlimited talents, thus it is, as always, with profound gratitude and pleasure that I present, Spare Parts Literary Volume 8.
OakAyling
Oak Ayling
(Editor in Chief)
VOL 8.
ON EATING AN ORANGE AND SEEING GOD
by Nolo Segundo
I miss the big navels when they are not in season,
but almost any orange will do when I really want to see God.
But it must be done right, this seeing, this apprehension of the
Lord of the Universe, Lord of All the Worlds, both seen and
unseen….
First I feel how firm the orange is, rolling it in my hands,
the hands of an artist, the hands of a poet, and now the stiff
and cracked hands of an old man--
then I slice it in half and look at its flesh, its brightness,
its moistness, its color--
if the insides beckon, urging my mouth to bite,
I first cut each half into half and then slowly, carefully--
as all rituals demand-- I put one of the cut pieces between
my longing lips and gradually, with a sort of grace, bite
into the flesh of the sacrificial fruit.
I feel the juice flow down my throat and recall the taste of
every orange I ever had, even in my childhood—or so it
seems, with this little miracle of eating an orange.
As I finish absorbing, still slowly and gracefully, its flesh,
the last bit of what had been one of the myriad wonders
of the world, I look at the ragged pieces of orange peel
and I see poetry-- or God-- it’s really the same thing,
isn’t it?
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TASTING ETERNITY
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My old friend and I went to a restaurant for lunch,
a ramshackle little place, but my friend told me
the food was great—and it was! Three different
chicken curries, a lovely lamb curry, and a half-
dozen veggies, and mango drinks to wash it down.
I suppose we visited the buffet more times than we
should have but we were talking philosophy as we
always did when we got together and speaking of
God and the soul and the meaning of life really
can make you hungry--then my friend said he
believed in God but had trouble with Eternity--
it seemed scary, terrifying even to think of time
going on forever, endlessly, a road never ending.
I laughed a little, then smiled at my old friend--
‘THIS is eternity! ‘ I told him, ‘Right now, this
moment as we eat this delicious curry and try
to figure out the meaning of our existence’.
I swallowed a mouthful of lamb korma and
laughed again-- ‘wherever we exist is eternity,
and we always exist somewhere, and time is
an illusion, time does not exist, except as a
moment’-- And the next moment, I asked him
if he had room for the rice pudding….
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Nolo Segundo, pen name of L.j. Carber, 76, became a published poet in his 8th decade in over 150 literary journals in 12 countries on 4 continents. A trade publisher has released 3 book-length collections: The Enormity of Existence [2020]; Of Ether and Earth [2021]; and Soul Songs [2022]. These titles and much of his work reflect the awareness he’s had for over 50 years since having an NDE whilst almost drowning in the Winooski River in Vermont: That he has—IS—a consciousness that predates birth and survives death, what poets for millennia have called the soul.
BIRDS FLY OUT
Homage to Derek Walcott
By Cordelia Hanemann
birds fly out as the wheel turns
on its axle grinds out change
in waves of heat the slow burn
undoing fixity
floods proliferate deserts expand
lands shaken by earthquakes
engulfed by lava cinder and ash
air poisoned waters choked
with the detritus of a careless people
hear the howl of cries
across days and nights
pages of human history
torn birds and shredded butterflies
blown off-course fall into the gulf
the impartial Arctic defeated
melts compelled at last to release
all it has held in tireless marble solitude
preoccupied minds cannot grasp
the significance of each mosquito's wing-beat
dragonfly's whir flocks driven
into the sky but having no harbor
black wings darken the clear eye
a world which we have made
our pages writ in the Book,
our memoir a lethal legacy
pages of torn birds
strewn across our
vanishing tundras
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Cordelia Hanemann, writer and artist, currently co-hosts Summer Poets, a poetry critique group in Raleigh, NC. Professor emerita retired English professor, she conducts occasional poetry workshops and is active with youth poetry in the North Carolina Poetry Society. She is also a botanical illustrator and lover of all things botanical. She has published in numerous journals including, Atlanta Review, Laurel Review, and California Quarterly and numerous others; in several anthologies including best-selling Poems for the Ukraine and her chapbook. Her poems have been performed by the Strand Project, featured in select journals, won awards and been nominated for Pushcarts. She is now working on a novel about her Cajun roots.
SICK IN THE SPRING
By Eugene Stevenson
Just when the Cattaraugus
filled its banks with the last of
winter, & the winds from
Lake Erie no longer could
knock a man down, you would
call with listless, distracted voice,
recount a visit of the humors,
announce their hold on
your limbs & your psyche.
Exorcism of these life threats,
these mysteries, sometimes
came at night: the paring knife
traced a line from temple to
jaw; or in the afternoon:
fingers flying over the
guitar strings in a fury until
blood from raw tips spattered
shirt & rug & wall.
Recuperation, months at least,
the summer at most, came
slowly as you nursed your body
& your brain to health with
a plan, a regimen: a dozen
bottles of pills aligned on
the countertop for breakfast,
hours in the sun, more hours with
barbells, bench, still more
reading esoterica & your work.
Just the need to rest after
the mayhem of winter: readings,
a long poem, broken love affair.
By the time the Cattaraugus
could be crossed with one stride,
you would find your health again,
then wear it like a uniform. You
would remind us of all that we
had not accomplished, were
not likely to, futile laborers, us.
We, thankful for playing in
this drama, looking for grace,
would listen to you for hours.
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BLACK DOG JUMPS FROM THE SHADOW
Play. Feet crackle on grass & weeds,
turned to hay, across fields where piles of
pruned branches & dried blossoms stand,
a hedge against efficiency & the neighbors.
Earth so sun-steamed, the lungs heave as if
thick wool blankets were draped over
treetops despite the heat of early afternoon.
Work. Hawsers bind legs, arms, mind to
the window, rain falls from the wires, pours
from the gutters. Face so riveted to the glass,
the eyes wonder what they are looking for.
Breath quickens, fingers tap incessantly,
expectant, no particular tune or rhythm,
as the sun sinks too quickly in early evening.
Black dog jumps from the shadow of
a back yard a block away, hurls bold threats,
through a register of growls pitched low,
through the muted megaphone of approach.
Black dog’s voice grows distinct, present,
though not here yet, but on the move over
hedges, fences, walls, on the move, this way.
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Eugene Stevenson, son of immigrants, father of expatriates, is author of Heart’s Code (Kelsay Books, 2024) & The Population of Dreams (Finishing Line Press, 2022). His poems appear in Atlanta Review, Burningword, Delta Poetry Review, Door is a Jar, Red Ogre Review, San Antonio Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, among others, & have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. More at eugenestevenson.com
THAT WAS BEFORE
By Daren Schuettpelz
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That was before he glanced outside and shielded his eyes silently mouthing, “What is that?” and then turned around to see his daughter, dessert spoons in hand, vanish.
Routines are the glue that keep Neil together like some kind of Humpty Dumpty come to life. It has been that way since his wife, Estelle, gave birth to their daughter Elyse and everything changed. His child became the spotlight of his attention. The parenting books made it clear a father should be involved, not merely a disciplinarian or an absent workaholic bread winner. No. He would attend all the sports and arts performances. He would never enter a doctor’s office without knowing his daughter’s weight, height, and the names of her doctors, dentists, and emergency contacts. His social life, previously quite robust, dried up and his friendships shriveled on the vine, but his daughter thrived. She smiled. She laughed. She learned.
That was before he glanced outside and shielded his eyes silently mouthing, “What is that?” and then turned around.
Nothing summed up Neil’s love of routines and structure more than household chores. His favorite was any he could complete with his daughter. She didn’t share the love of chores, but the least offensive of these was setting the table. Neil saw meals as his family's version of communion. Holy and intimate, but in their case, not at all quiet with an effervescent child.
Neil would hand Elyse the plates with a flourish as if he was a Victorian butler and Elyse would somberly carry them to the table while Estelle brought the glasses. Neil laid out the knives, Estelle the forks, and Elyse would complete the settings with small dessert spoons.
That was before he glanced outside and shielded his eyes.
Today, and every day since all the children on Earth vanished, Neil pedantically continues the tradition. He doesn’t’ deviate from the ritual, except for the small dessert spoons. As he sets the table, he allows his hand to graze the imperfections on the table’s surface. The indents from writing too hard on homework assignments or pock marks from craft projects they completed together. Each piece gets placed just as it was when he had her to help him.
That was before he glanced outside.
The spoons were her responsibility. She held a certain ownership over those diminutive tools. While recounting the day’s events, Elyse guided those spoons like a renaissance festival puppeteer as they danced and soared through the air, acting out her apocryphal and fanciful stories.
He sometimes opens the silverware drawer and runs his fingers across the slot where the spoons used to rest. The spoons vanished with her and yet Neil continues to set the table as if this act of place setting will bring the spoons back. That this will bring Elyse back to him.
That was before.
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Daren Schuettpelz works as a teacher for US military connected children stationed overseas and enjoys reading and writing short stories in his free time. His work has found homes in several literary magazines and he was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. @darenisjustateacher (Twitter/X and Instagram)
STORM CALM
By Mark Antony Rossi
Mark Antony Rossi is a poet and playwright with work published in Another Chicago Magazine, Ariel Chart, Bombfire, Big Window Review, Yellow Chair Review.
SEASONAL AFFECTIVE DISORDER
By Michele Mekel
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It was the summer of cucumber mosaic virus—
// summer of fuzzy-edged insomnia //
// summer of creeping suicidal ideation //
Blistering temperatures, tears, treatments
were followed by the fall of misaligned incentives—
// fall of restless legs and unrepentant souls //
// fall of cremation without burial //
Brutal, these times, temperaments, trajectories,
all led endlessly to yet one more—
// another season of despair //
So, I simply stopped—
// keeping calendars //
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LAMENTATIONS
Lupine mother
to a den of squalling regrets
lopes off
: bereft :
No prey
can sate such
: hungry sorrow :
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[SELVEDGE]
Knit together
with leftover lines,
second-hand stanzas,
this poem—a fragmentary map
of the road to the Sun
stolen from gods
and golems.
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Living in Happy Valley, Michele Mekel wears many hats of her choosing: educator, bioethicist, poetess, cat herder, witch, and woman. Mekel has more than 150 poems published, as well as a recently-released chapbook (Under a Quiet Moon). Her work has appeared in various academic and creative publications, including being featured on Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac and nominated for Best of the Net. Her poetry has also been translated into Cherokee. She served as co-principal investigator for the Viral Imaginations: COVID-19 project (viralimaginations).
DISTANT CRY
By Frederick Pollack
When the disaster happens, nothing matters
in moral terms for a moment.
Bright light and/or dark, pain, then
the unwanted universal brotherhood.
But if you’re out of the blast zone or reach high ground,
the goddamn questions start even while you’re running:
Should I drop him? Could I have saved her?
Should I run into that building
where there are screams but no (never again any)
firemen? Did I mean anything?
Let’s say that beneath a sky which has cleared
of rain or ash and whose indifference grates,
you find yourself in one of those spaces
(a gym) our civilization
still more or less provides. The light in here
is still too great, not to mention
the noise and your internal noise,
so you walk on hills, among trees. Encounter
people, who weep, tend your wounds
and feed you. Still adrenaline-wracked
and troubled by those questions, you wander
farther. There’s a barn, a mill?
and an old man sitting in shadow.
You explain what happened, run on too long,
ask who he is. That doesn’t matter,
he says. It is, however, true that
what matters occurs in shadow.
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COMMENT
It wasn’t true that he paid for a seat
in a lifeboat, though there were rumors later.
More likely that, despite impeccable dress,
unnecessary cane, and cigarettes he
looked younger than his years;
his dissipations on the Continent
had left no trace. An officer
apportioning seats may have thought that
at least the best of the race
would be saved. In the lifeboat,
in the last light of the foundering ship,
he huddled, cold and damp, clutching the cane.
People who had jumped, or were at last
washed from the bow floundered near
the full boat and – as many
survivors have described – uttered
a last, faint, surprised
gasp as hypothermia killed them and
they sank. Aboard the belated
Carpathia he was silent.
In New York he had no trouble
establishing himself; his father
died the same year, on a hunting trip in
the Highlands. He traveled,
always inland. Enjoyed the mountains,
deserts, badlands and cities of
the New World, never again went home.
Nor did he renew his excesses. Ignored
completely the hysteria
of the last years of the decade; was seen
with many women at many clubs, then
speakeasies, but seldom drank
to excess. Attended shows, museums;
dabbled; is mentioned in several
forgotten memoirs; his path crossed van Vechten’s,
Fitzgerald’s. But the sound stayed with him.
He began to talk too loudly, less
amusingly, with a generalized contempt;
adopted fashionable hatreds. Most
of his fortune was lost
in the great wave of the Crash.
He clung to his cane, was placed in
an asylum where, eventually,
he welcomed, laughing, the war.
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Author of two book-length narrative poems, THE ADVENTURE and HAPPINESS (Story Line Press; the former reissued 2022 by Red Hen Press), and three collections, A POVERTY OF WORDS (Prolific Press, 2015), LANDSCAPE WITH MUTANT (Smokestack Books, UK, 2018), and THE BEAUTIFUL LOSSES (Better Than Starbucks Books, September 2023). Many other poems in print and online journals. www.frederickpollack.com
RAGE SPARKLES
By Robyn Braun
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Like
Pop rocks
Under
My
Skin
Shallow
Breaths
Signal
Go
Race
Run
Away
Whisper,
Leave this skin,
With the collar bones.
On the sidewalk
For someone else
To find
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I am an artist and writer living at the northern edge of Canada's Treaty 6 territory with a kick-ass 12-year-old and a cat named Fuzzy. I earned an MFA from UBC's School of Creative Writing in 2022. My poetry, prose and art have appeared in Literary Mamas, Ink in Thirds, samfiftyfour, Coin Operated Press Zines, Wrongdoing Magazine, Nightingale&Sparrow Lit Mag, Backwards Trajectory, Parakeet Magazine, little somethings press, Academy of the Heart and Mind, and my essay, "The Stutter of Emmett's Stutter" won subTerrain's 2021 Lush Triumphant Prize for CNF. My science writing has appeared in Today’s Parent, Scientific American, Discover and New Scientist.
SWITCHING STATION HUM
By Clem Flowers
thin, calloused fingers
that used to play
piano in the boomtimes
traced a river
in the red
towns bloomed
alongside it
like the way
the apple orchard
used to
the road is an
endless, faceless
pit of tar & quicksand
that pulls the tired eyes
along eternal
never once
getting to
lay eyes on
what they
accomplished
but that's ok
you're never supposed
to see your legacy
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Clem Flowers (They/ Them) is a poet, low rent aesthete, gorgeous monstrosity, pizza man lover, and generally queer as hell cryptid, living in a cozy apartment with their wonderful spouse & sweet calico kitty. Found on Twitter @clem_flowers & on Bluesky at clemflowers.bsky.social
FRAGILE
By Jacelyn Yap
Jacelyn (she/her) recently started focusing on her art proper, having persevered through an engineering major and a short stint as a civil servant. Her artworks have appeared in adda, Chestnut Review, The Lumiere Review, and more. She can be found at jacelyn.myportfolio.com and on Instagram at @jacelyn.makes.stuff
THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF THE MOON
By Laura Cooney
It all started with a Harvest Moon. Delusions of Love on an Autumn Evening, that’s what you’d call it, if it was a novel. I basked in the glow that emanated from every corner of the room, not from the moon, but from you. We sat across, you smiled, lazily strumming the strings. We sat across, I breathed. Our fingers met briefly in the mending of a note and I then was lost in that warm yellow light for a while. When the moon gets that big, it vanishes. It has to, that is astronomy. But, sure, love is like that too. Where it once shone in splendour and magnificence there is only black, inky darkness.
And empty space.
I stand now, waiting, at the crossroads where skinny black dog carelessly pisses on a lamp-post. The ground has been so dry lately that the yellow trickle begins to form a small steamy stream in the dirt. It edges near to where I am standing and although there’s no way it’ll touch my shoes, I move to a spot further away from the path than I’d like.
Today it is not the moon, but the sun that mercilessly shines. Fervid, intense heat. Is this what it feels like to be corrugated iron? It’s that tense. Maybe the nerves are getting more of me than I thought?
I await you.
More than a few moons have passed and I’m sure I’m not the same. You’re, surely, not the same. We’re not going to be the same. I’ve missed you, but I’m not going to say it.
My stomach! Is this what it feels like to be candy floss?
I want to float up, but not like Icarus melting wings on the scorching sun. I want to be the frog, who fishes gently from the moon, while eating soft cream cheese and watching the Owl and the Pussycat sail away to their hill.
I want to be happy again.
But what I’ve got is a river of dogs piss and a headache from waiting.
In the shade, it’s still 30 degrees, but it’s quite dark under the Elms. You’d be forgiven for getting sleepy. But I’m standing so there’s no chance. Strangely, if I sit - I may leave. But, I’m rooted to the spot and I’m resolved not to move. Does that man knows that lamp-post he’s leaning on has just been blighted by canine?
Focus.
I remember the day he told me that he owed me nothing. He owed me, not a lot, but something. The cloak of selfishness, which doesn’t suit, by the way, had better be gone. It’s too warm for it anyway. I wonder how this will go. Will we slip into the homely coat of friendship, the soft embrace of lovers or stand behind the lines of an invisible wall that we’ve created?
I see him. We stand across.
He waves.
I see him. We stand across.
Closer.
I breathe.
And then, with the last of my skittering strength, I do an extraordinary thing… and step back.
I’m as shocked as he is.
He’s clearly lost the cloak, but it would appear, that I am now wearing it. Perhaps that is why it’s been so warm and the waiting so heavy. And while I am happy to see him. It would appear that I’m finally free. Free. Though it is hardly possible with foliage this dense, a ray of warm yellow sun shines though the trees, at the very spot where we’re standing. And, suddenly, we are drenched in light once more.
And as we walk side by side and I float to the sky on that warm summer's day a busker by the bandstand plays three familiar notes and I can’t help but laugh.
It ended there too.
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Laura Cooney is from Edinburgh. Her first collection Motherbunnet is out courtesy of Backroom Poetry. Find her on Twitter: @lozzawriting and @lozzakidwriting. When she's not writing she'll be with her daughters, close to the sea. There will be ice-cream!
LITANY: FUTURE CORPSE
By Emma Conlon
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this body is
a temple, a worship space
to toast the nectar of the divine
this body is
a battleground grown over
with bloodshed-fed grass
this body is
a motel, a neon sign flickering in
dust, smudge in a rearview mirror
this body is
a duffel bag of flesh and bones
rotting in late august’s heat
this body is
an ancient tomb stripped
of all its burial finery
this body is
a temporary home,
rest stop for the world-weary
this body is
a traitor, an enemy,
occasional fickle friend
this body is
a baptismal font
reborn with the dawn
this body is
a graveyard of old lovers
and cigarette and bullet casings
this body is
a cage, and I’m gnawing
at the bars, baby!
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Emma Conlon (she/her) is an emerging poet and a recent graduate of the University of Virginia. Her work is published or forthcoming in Eunoia Review, Pen & Pendulum, Merak Magazine, Red Noise Collective, Sweet Lit, and elsewhere. Her debut poetry collection, Changing of the Tides & Other Poems, was self-published in 2022. Find more of her work at emmaconlon.com
PINPRICK
By McKenna Ashlyn
tear the weathered nametag off daughter won’t stick to anything nomore
mushed limp under shoes i tie together stained-black shoelaces stand
atop the toilet seat scream ever try sticking pearls in your gums
and pretend you have a name wish those dandelion seeds
away birthday candles care to crumble childhood’s misremembering
mother said eat your veggies or not at all maybe i’ll stuff myself
small and believe in something too what if it's you?
today isn’t the first existing with these clattering
pasts all warped bloated skeletal but still i am inching forward.
making eye contact with whatever moves i am one
with rattlesnakes and tarantulas evolutionary fear trickles
small to parasite of people now unknown tunnel
underneath the ocean your breath is my echochamber
old enough now all these bodies come with disclaimers
scars laid face up to the sun and i am resentful for it see me
and all the ways i am trying to remember? be remembered?
if i am a statue cold to the touch i plagiarize her smile his nose
all eroded i think there is somewhere better unapologetic
candy-coated ours full as hair on knuckles chest press for a life away from
here i will prophet every religion if we’re together
in a million afterlives you hold my head in your lap hands
in my hair and everything else is a pinprick
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McKenna Ashlyn received her BFA in Creative Writing at Boise State University. She gravitates toward queerness and girlhood in her poetry. Their work has been featured in Progenitor Art and Literary Magazine and Sage Cigarettes Magazine.
PLANT A LIGHTHOUSE AT MY GRAVE
By Allen Seward
when I look at my hands
and they are still on my wrists, I think
to myself, I am lucky.
there’s no need to be here, or
not be here, so here we are.
I’m gone with the hot air
and the mineral-taste
of
water
and I am glad to be here
for this day, for the last, for the next.
this flesh houses
soul, and soul is white-heat,
and the gut grows
butterflies, the butterflies
never leave.
we contain multitudes
and we are doomed
but the feeling is not so bad
when we can sit back,
you and I, sip wine
and watch it come for us.
I’m glad
I’m an idiot. I’m glad
I don’t know anything.
this magic is not to be taken
lightly.
these brains of ours have moved these temples
so close together, against
impossible odds, so if anything
is to come from my place
in this encroaching time
then let me be a light
for your darkness
as you have been the light for mine.
let me be fireflies or bonfires
or cigarette tips so that
the dark
can only ever be so dark.
in this garden of words
I have picked what few
I could bear you seeing, the clink
of our glasses is much prettier,
but given enough time more will sprout,
poking up their heads to be
plucked,
trimmed,
or cut down.
these words don’t grow as fast
as the butterflies. maybe
it’s the soil.
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SINGULARITY
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there was something here
but it has moved on
the crows know it
the buzzards stopped circling
a hush fell
frogs hopped into the brain
and music began to sound
like
soiled rags
slapping the floor.
there was something here
but it was not recorded
so we have no idea
if it was beautiful or not
a lily frond maybe
or a drooping rose,
a stained chopping block
a pile of fish heads
a necklace of teeth,
or cursive messages or
newborn eyes open afirst, maybe.
an eagle pulled the skull up
to drop it on the rocks
spurts of color became dreams
and dreams tasted of
browning lettuce,
it has gone
and the foxes have left
back to their holes under sinking
vineyards
the elephants have all but forgotten it
a giraffe has eaten a lion
and we have been left shaking,
our mouths dripping,
our skin cracking,
the world smelling of bad meat
left out in the sun
but oh
the sun still rises and shines
and the moon
still twirls its mustache.
god has built a new home
somewhere in Hoag’s Object
where the flies are conversant
in French
mice and rats wear tuxedos
and top hats
and penguins can fly.
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Allen Seward is a poet from the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. His work has appeared in Scapegoat Review, Skyway Journal, Backwards Trajectory, Big Windows Review, Apocalypse-Confidential, and the Charleston Anvil, among others. He currently resides in WV with his partner and four cats. @AllenSeward1 on Twitter, @allenseward0 on Instagram
