Bourge-wise Cat

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BOURGE-WISE CAT 

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ISSUE 39: Dedicated to the 

spirit of Louise Bourgeois 

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EDITOR’S SCRATCHING POST: CATATONICALLY SPEAKING 

This issue's cover features several artworks by the late great artist Louise Bourgeois. 

Those artworks speak to me for obvious reasons, but also, her surname just happens to 

echo a theme that Clockwise Cat so vociferously rebels against - the bourgeoisie. 

Interestingly enough, over time the word bourgeois has come to signify something rather 

different than what it used to indicate. It used to refer to the middle class, but has 

inexplicably evolved toward encompassing allusions to affluence. 

Clockwise Cat, of course, is a champion not just of the middle class, but of the poor and 

indigent. We rail rowdily against the wretched economic oppressors that would stratify 

society into a class crass system, leaving some so destitute they must slumber in the 

sewage-strewn streets, stewing in their own urine and feces. 

The editor may partake in bourgeois activities from time to time - gourmet dining, 

anyone? - but we find this modern-day tilt toward luxury everything (from condos to 

dental spas - I mean, what in the FUCK is that?) abhorrent in the face of so much misery. 

So we dedicate this issue to a wonderful stalwart woman whose art covered the gamut 

from sculpture and painting to printmaking, and whose themes emanated a feisty feminist 

flavor. But we also dedicate it to those, who, like antifa, fight against the forces of 

fascism that, like giant arachnids, terrorize us all, culturally, mentally, and financially 

bankrupting us.

VIVID 

VISUALS

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TWO VISUALS BY SHEILA MURPHY 

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Red Riding Hood by Erica Olson 

Artist bio: In addition to creating photo manipulation art, Erica 

Olson writes poetry and prose. Her work has been featured in 

Failed Haiku: A Journal of English Senryu, haikuniverse, and The 

Voices Project (forthcoming). Erica lives in rural Montana.

TWO VISUALS BY DAVID RODRIGUEZ 

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MEMORY 

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MEMORY 

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Artist bio: David writes: “My name is David Rodríguez. I am 39 years 

old and I am from Spain. From an early age, I have always been 

attracted to the art world, but my love for photography didn´t start until 

2013, the year I bought my first reflex camera, and I began to explore 

my attraction to art. Shortly afterwards, I began to train myself 

through several courses, and also in a self-taught way.” 

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ART by Alexei Kalinchuk 

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Artist bio: AK is a personal friend of Pasquino and Marforio, 

although he's never been invited to Rome. He is also attracted to the 

combustible quality of the scrawled image sitting next to certain 

words. 

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"#$%&#'(!! 

)*!+,-#.!/0!123$4536! 

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SATIRICAL SCREEDS 

AND TOTEMIC POLEMIX 

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An Oral History of Game Show 

Dystopias 

by Alexei Kalinchuk 

A new competitive cooking show funded by the government and a 

plastic food container manufacturer started after the last crisis. 

This crisis, at least, didn’t involve mortgage-based debt instruments. 

Nonetheless this one also devastated the economy and the whole culture 

went into freefall thereafter. Not just consumer spending, but whole 

bodies of ethics and theology suspended operations. Certain taboos 

lifted as well. 

I’m getting sidetracked already. 

The game show. Right. Cannibalism-based cooking shows lacked 

glamour when they first started. I thought that was a mistake. If 

you’re going to do this kind of show at all, don’t be coy. Can’t play 

virgin while punching time clocks in a brothel. Be upfront, upfront 

but classy. 

When these shows started, they all had so much do-goodery it 

turned the stomach. All this talk of nutrition and technique- 

Coloradans’ firm flesh had a velvety flavor full of vitamins while 

Minnesotans had to be filleted just so-but all anyone thinks is: get to 

it. And the hosts! No makeup up on these women with plain hairstyles, 

unthreatening potbellied men. 

They all looked like public radio personalities. 

All this feel-good jabber, but no one was talking about the real 

problem: depopulation. We were running out of defensible and delicious 

humans to eat. Prisoners and the mentally ill didn’t top anyone’s list 

of edibles, meanwhile, state constitutional amendments against 

cannibalism were gathering momentum at the ballot box while pro bono

litigators fought to outlaw the practice. Bless their pointed little 

heads. 

If the government would’ve put me on retainer from the start, we 

could’ve rolled back the Pro-People Movement in weeks. Instead, it 

took a year. But what a year! First we had to fire those awful public 

access style hosts! Then we’d feed the people so much glamour they’d 

shit rhinestones! 

What times they were... 

Right now you’re sitting where that government man did when he 

came to hire me. After we discussed the job and negotiated a fee, he 

asks, “Well, where do we go from here?” 

I remember that I leaned back and allowed myself a smile. Things 

were about to change. Rightly or wrongly, an era was about to begin 

and I would be in the thick of it. If and when the pendulum swung the 

other way, my reputation would suffer. And it did. I accept my fall. 

But don’t ever say I didn’t have progressive ideas. 

Author bio: Alexei Kalinchuk writes literary novels, has had fiction 

published in Amoskeag Journal, The Bitter Oleander, Foliate Oak. He 

smells like fennel, sleeps on a mattress stuffed with cilantro, and 

eats pomegranates alone.

Charter School Lobby Panics 

as NAACP Rejects For-Profit 

School by Steven Singer 

White America has a history of freaking out at perfectly 

reasonable suggestions by the black community. 

Hey, maybe black people shouldn’t be slaves. 

SOUTHERN STATES SECEDE! THE CIVIL WAR BEGINS! 

Hey, maybe black lives should matter as much as white ones. 

BLUE LIVES MATTER! MAGA! TRUMP! 

Hey, maybe we shouldn’t be making money off of children’s 

educations? 

PANIC! 

That’s what seems to be happening at think tanks and school 

privatization lobbying firms across the country after a new report by 

the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) 

this week. 

Some news sources are characterizing the report as “radical” or 

“controversial.”

However, the report, titled “Quality Education for All: One 

School at a Time,” basically says nothing more revolutionary than that 

all public schools should be transparent and accountable. That includes 

charter schools. 

“Public schools must be public,” the report states. “They must 

serve all children equitably and well. To the extent that they are part 

of our public education system, charter schools must be designed to 

serve these ends.” 

And why shouldn’t they? 

More than 3 million students attend charter schools across the 

country. Approximately 837,000 of them are black. Don’t they deserve 

the same kinds of democratically controlled schools and fiscal 

responsibility as their counterparts in traditional public schools? 

Somehow your local public school is able to teach kids while 

still keeping a record of how it’s spending its money – your money. And 

if you don’t like what’s being done, you can go to a school board 

meeting and speak up or even run for a leadership position. 

How does getting rid of that help kids learn? How does operating 

in secret in the shadows benefit children? 

The report also recommends that local communities should have 

more control over whether to open charter schools in their districts 

and calls for an end to for-profit charter schools, altogether. 

Not exactly the musings of anarchist provocateurs. 

Charter school cheerleaders like Education Secretary Betsy DeVos 

call their movement School Choice. Shouldn’t communities get to choose 

whether they want them there in the first place? If the program is 

based on the free market, let them make their case to the community 

before setting up shop. They shouldn’t get to make a backroom deal with

your congressman and then start peddling their wares wherever they 

want. 

Moreover, if charter schools are, indeed, public schools, why 

should they be allowed to operate at a profit? They are supported by 

tax dollars. That money should go to educating children, not lining the 

pockets of venture capitalists and hedge fund managers. 

The authors were very specific on this point: 

“No federal, state, or local taxpayer dollars should be used to 

fund for-profit charter schools, nor should public funding be sent from 

nonprofit charters to for-profit charter management companies.” 

But that’s not all. 

The author’s also call out charters infamous enrollment and 

hiring practices. Specifically, these kinds of privatized schools are 

known to cherry pick the best and brightest students during admissions, 

and to kick out those who are difficult to teach or with learning 

disabilities before standardized testing season. The report called for 

charters to admit all students who apply and to work harder to keep 

difficult students – both hallmarks of traditional public schools. 

In addition, the report suggests charters no longer try to save 

money by hiring uncertified teachers. If charters are going to accept 

public money, they should provide the same kind of qualified educators 

as their traditional public school counterparts. 

However, even if such reforms are made, the report is doubtful 

that privatized education could ever be as effective and equitable as 

traditional public schools. In perhaps the most damning statement: 

“While high-quality, accountable, and accessible charters can 

contribute to educational opportunity, by themselves, even the best 

charters are not a substitute for more stable, adequate and equitable 

investments in public education.”

The report was written by the 12-member NAACP Task Force on 

Quality Education after a set of intensive hearings or “listening 

sessions” across the country in cities such as New Haven, Memphis, 

Orlando, Los Angeles, Detroit, New Orleans and New York. The final 

product is the result of the input they received during these meetings. 

This is only the latest in a growing movement of skepticism 

toward privatized education of all sorts – especially in relation to 

its impact on students of color. 

Less than a year ago, the NAACP, the oldest civil rights 

organization in the country, called for a moratorium on any new charter 

schools. This week’s report takes that caution to the next level. 

Despite a truly controversial record, over the past decade, the 

number of students in charter schools has nearly tripled. In terms of 

pure numbers, black students only make up more than a quarter of 

charter school enrollment. However, that’s a disproportionately high 

number since they make up only 15 percent of total public school 

enrollment. To put it another way, one in eight black students in the 

United States today attends a charter school. 

The NAACP isn’t the only civil rights organization critical of 

charter schools. Groups such as the Journey for Justice Alliance, a 

coalition of grassroots community, youth, and parent-led organizations, 

and the Movement for Black Lives, a conglomeration of the nation’s 

youngest national civil rights organizations, have also expressed 

concern over the uses and abuses of students of color in charter 

schools. 

However, this week’s report wasn’t focused solely on 

privatization. It also addressed the central issue at traditional 

public schools – funding disparities.

The report identifies severe inequalities between rich vs. poor 

communities as the cause of so-called failing schools. The report 

argues that “to solve the quality education problems that are at the 

root of many of the issues, school finance reform is essential to 

ensure that resources are allocated according to student needs.” 

Closing the achievement gap requires specific investment in lowperforming 

schools, not punitive measures. There should be more 

federal, state, and local policies to attract and retain fully 

qualified educators, improve instructional quality, and provide 

wraparound services for young people. 

The report suggests states model their funding formulas on those 

of Massachusetts and California and that the federal government should 

fully enforce the funding-equity provisions in the Every Student 

Succeeds Act (ESSA). 

It would be difficult to find more rational and reasonable 

solutions to the education problems in today’s schools. 

But pay attention to the response it’s getting. 

Corporate reformers are running scared with their hair on fire as 

someone finally has the guts to point out that the emperor is walking 

around stark naked! 

Editor’s Note: This article first appeared at the blog, Gadfly on 

the Wall, and is used with the author’s permission. Be sure to check 

out Steven Singer’s book, Gadfly on the Wall: A Public School Teacher 

Speaks Out on Racism and Reform

How Viral Vids Challenge Reviewers 

By Matt 

Kolbet 

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AN URGENT REMEDY 

FOR THE D.T.’s By Fred White 

Setting: A doctor’s Office. PATIENT is sitting on the examining table, shaking. DOCTOR, 

wearing a surgical mask and cap, enters. 

PATIENT: Please help me. I keep getting the D.T’s, and I don’t even drink—okay, maybe a few 

measly ounces of gin to get me through the evening news. 

DOCTOR: That’s horrible. But first things first: Are you an immigrant? 

PATIENT: Aren’t we all? 

DOCTOR: Don’t change the subject. Are you il-lee-gal? 

PATIENT: I was born out of wedlock; does that count? 

DOCTOR: It might; we’ll see. 

PATIENT: About my D.T.’s— 

DOCTOR: Here, swallow this; it will help you stop worrying. Did you know that NASA is 

spending billions to send a probe to Saturn’s moon Triton? That money could pay for a wall! 

PATIENT: You’re thinking of Titan. Triton is one of Neptune’s moons. 

DOCTOR: Whatever. Don’t believe what you read in almanacs and encyclopedias. Just so you 

know, the National Rifle Association is going to clean up this horrible mess, believe me. 

PATIENT: What mess? 

DOCTOR: Haven’t you been listening to me? The ill-ee-gals! 

PATIENT: All I want to know is how to get rid of my DT’s. It’s not like I can switch off the 

news, not when a new national crisis unfolds every day. 

DOCTOR: You should put more trust in your President. Can’t you see that the fake media wants 

to scare the bejeezus out of us? 

PATIENT: I’m afraid it’s happening to me right this minute, Doc—pink elephants are circling 

around me, trumpeting, dancing. The elephants are dancing!

DOCTOR: Hey, they’re my mascot. You can’t blame them for celebrating our President’s many 

huge victories. 

PATIENT: I’m not only seeing elephants, doc—I’m also seeing strange things on your wall . . . 

DOCTOR: What things? 

PATIENT: Gaudy diplomas . . . Are they all yours? What’s that red, white and blue one with a 

dollar sign for the S’s in USA! USA! USA! 

DOCTOR: Look, why don’t you lie back on the examining table and close your eyes . . . 

PATIENT (reluctantly complying): If I may ask, where did you do your residency? 

DOCTOR: My what? 

PATIENT: The hospital where you—Wait, let me back up: what medical school did you graduate 

from? 

DOCTOR: From the best! 

PATIENT: I’m . . . starting . . . to feel . . . groggy. 

DOCTOR: Ah, good. By the way, I’m putting you on notice. 

PATIENT (opening his eyes): What does that mean? 

DOCTOR: It means that your anxieties and your fake-news triggered D.T.’s soon will soon be 

like they never happened, take my word for it. 

(He removes his surgical cap, runs a hand through his mane of blond hair.) 

PATIENT: Oh no—give me another sedative, quick! 

Author bio: Fred White's humorous fiction and satires have appeared in Clockwise Cat 

#s 29 and 38; also in Praxis, Every Day Fiction, Satire and More, and Pidgeonholes. He 

lives near Sacramento, CA.

GUN OPPONENTS Find 

Themselves Up In 

Arms By Gilbert Prowler 

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By Steven Singer 

Teaching Is Hard Enough 

Without the Imminent Threat of Death 

I am so sick of coming to school and having an impromptu meeting to discuss 

why my students and I might die today. Really. 

Every time thereʼs a major school shooting somewhere in the nation it seems a 

copycat makes a threat in my own backyard, and we react. The police tell us itʼs 

not a credible threat so school stays open. However, be vigilant. Be aware that 

our students know about the threat and will be talking about it. Weʼll bring in 

bomb-sniffing dogs…But try to maintain calm and order. 

There will be a lock down drill in a few days…But try to make the kids feel safe 

and secure. An older student violently attacked a classmate last week after 

threatening to go on a spree…But attempt to establish an atmosphere conducive 

to learning. 

To which, I say: are you freaking kidding me? I know Maslowʼs Hierarchy of 

Needs. There are certain basic necessities anyone must have in order to become 

a fully actualized person. After physiological necessities like food and water, 

safety is absolutely fundamental. 

Without it, you canʼt get people to focus much on anything else.You canʼt get 

children to pay attention to nouns and verbs, for instance, if theyʼre afraid theyʼre 

going to be shot and killed. You canʼt get them to care about writing a complete 

sentence, if they feel like they may have to duck and cover at any moment.

You canʼt get them to bother with abstract reading comprehension if theyʼre afraid 

of imminent death! Oh, and by the way, Iʼm not exactly at my best either! My 

lesson plans arenʼt going to win any awards when the best solution our 

legislators can come up with is giving me a loaded pistol to keep in my desk 

drawer! 

Well, Yippee Ki Yay! Iʼm a teacher! Pew! Pew! 

My 7 th grade students are literally frightened that going to school on any given 

day may lead to the end of their lives. Every couple of weeks on the news itʼs 

another school shooting and another body count, while lawmakers do nothing to 

ensure it wonʼt happen again tomorrow. Every few days, itʼs a rumor about this or 

that troubled kid we all know snapping and throwing a gun in his backpack. Or itʼs 

an anonymous threat scrawled on a wall or a social media page. 

Today it was teaching classes where half the kids were missing because their 

parents held them out of school afraid a vague rumor of imminent violence was 

true. And as I tried to assure those who did show up that everything was okay, 

law enforcement checked the lockers with K-9 police dogs looking for weapons or 

drugs. 

What the heck are we coming to? 

I work in a police state and my students are being asked to learn in a 

penitentiary. And the teachers should get guns. And the principals should get 

guns. And the parents should get guns.And the guns should get little tinier guns 

to protect themselves from even more guns! 

This is madness. 

Weʼre begging for a political solution but our political system is a shambles. 

Nothing puts that in starker contrast than the gun debate.The overwhelming 

majority of Americans want sensible gun laws – an assault weapons ban, closing 

the gun show loophole, mental health screenings, etc.If we lived in an authentic 

Democratic Republic, weʼd have them. But we donʼt, because we live in a 

plutocracy. One industry has enough power and influence that the only solution 

our policymakers can safely suggest is one that increases that same industryʼs 

bottom line.

Itʼs like Tony the Tiger suggesting the only cure for obesity is to eat more 

Frosted Flakes! Theyʼre Ggggrrrreeeaaaattt! 

A teacherʼs job is hard enough without society crumbling all around us. But that 

doesnʼt mean the children arenʼt learning.Theyʼre watching the world burn with 

wide eyes. Theyʼre taking in every flame, every bullet hole, every cowardly 

senator, representative and chief executive. 

Theyʼre watching and taking names.At the end of the year, policymakers will wag 

their fingers at the nationʼs teachers about failing standardized test scores. 

Theyʼll bemoan sinking academic standards, powerful labor unions and a lack of 

moral fiber as the cause of a generation of children who lost out on an education 

while cowering under bulletproof backpacks. But this generation refuses to be 

lost. Despite everything, theyʼve left a trail of breadcrumbs back to sanity. 

They are emotionally damaged by a country that no longer functions, but they 

know the truth.They know whoʼs responsible. And they know what to do about it. 

When they reject our society, weʼll know why. Because the next generation will 

be nothing like us. 

And on a day like today, thatʼs the most hopeful thought I can offer. 

Editorʼs Note: This article first appeared at the blog, Gadfly on the Wall, and is 

used with the authorʼs permission. Be sure to check out Steven Singerʼs book, 

Gadfly on the Wall: A Public School Teacher Speaks Out on Racism and Reform

POTENT 

POESIE

Two POEMS 

By James Mirarchi 

freud 

the emotion BRAN 

releases ZABZA 

thru the dimples 

of the squiggly font ambassador 

fucky wit 

rains mercifully 

on the flirtatious graveyards 

dehydrated from winking 

all the lube psychos 

undress in 

the wind of bees 

(shaving their heads 

with tito jackson’s jagged microphone) 

the wind of bees 

stings their scalps 

(honey pustules 

turning them into psychology incarnate) 

an underground excavation of blips 

beeps with electro murder 

now mined 

by jesus’ non-fat vanilla yogurt 

ancient 

orphan planet 

sleeps on your chest 

TONIGHT

puberty trees 

ooze a sentient beer 

TONIGHT 

your private hearse 

is a shiny romeo 

TONIGHT 

monochromatic sun 

colorizes just for you 

TONIGHT 

raw nerves win awards 

TONIGHT 

obese arteries squeeze into satin 

TONIGHT 

snap a selfie 

of God’s heart 

OPENING its pit 

tongue kiss 

its juicy roses 

TONIGHT 

surf your hands 

over nature’s erection 

navigate 

THE eggy avalanche 

TONIGHT 

earth and sand 

cake 

under your fingernails 

you can never wash THEM away 

Author bio: James Mirarchi grew up in Queens, New York. In addition to his poetry 

collections, Venison, Dervish, and Shards, he has written and directed short films which 

have played festivals. His poems have appeared in several independent literary journals.

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Author bio: Tyler Sherwood Pruett is a writer and artist with a special interest in short 

forms of poetry, as well as creative nonfiction. His work has appeared in many 

prestigious journals such as Modern Haiku and Frogpond, as well as important 

anthologies including Haiku 21 by Modern Haiku Press, and a fear of dancing by Red 

Moon Press. He is the author of Blue Wolves Are Howling Grapefruit Orange, a 

collection of poems selected from over a decade of published work in poetry journals, 

and A Refutation of Exile with Red Moon Press, a themed collection of Threshold Art 

poems. Tyler is currently working as a professional writer, and as a graduate student at 

Johns Hopkins University.

TWO POEMS 

By Charlotte Ozment 

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The Paradise Coffin By Aekta 

Khubchandani 

I will put into the paradise coffin, 

The relief of the first drag 

And the darkness of the velvet night sky. 


The coat of disguise 

With the magic coffee potion of afterlife. 


The acceptance of human dominant society 

And will not lure in material fantasy. 

If not hopes and prayers, 

Then maybe genies and angels 

Could work along 

And bring me closer 

To the grim reaper 

Where I belong. 

Together, though not hand in hand 

But side by side

We’ll escape the jailhouse of inferiority 

And the school of sarcasm. 

Set on a journey to explore Moonland, 

With tools of trash and teeth 

We’ll reach this land 

Where we belong. 


Caws of crows and ravens 

And black roses to crown my bed. 


Not just a little 

But all of my broken self. 

Author bio: The author writes: “This is Aekta Khubchandani here. I eat and breathe art 

and consume volumes of caffeine, every day. I wear the colour red over my head but I 

work in black and white. I've been in love with the world of words since old school days 

and I write poetry, performance poetry, short fiction and life articles. I also illustrate my 

words in ink on paper and digitally.”

animals: a h(a)unting! 

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big city strife get yrself a life yearn for 

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flood your sights with headlights afternoon delights 

on the corner on the floor more on the stairwell 

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plse 

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ALT GREEN SWIMMING POOL WATER 

AND A LARGE STRUGGLING LAWN 

[a party postscript] 

by Wilna Panagos 

Wait until you find a man with a round head so dark and smooth that it is absolution blue 

where the light strikes it. This is the man you want to talk to about the two rivers of 

entropy, archipelic thinking and geophagy. We are the ant gods, he says, to them we are 

all the same, all one immensity. We bring death or food and pray as they may, it makes 

no difference. We are too large for them to see entirely – scale is everything. To them we 

are inexplicable. He says: Light operates on all hierarchies of reality and when you sleep 

at night, all your sorrows are obliterated. Every time you wake, you have to remember 

everything anew. Weep as a warning to others. And he grins at his betel box with his red 

teeth and receives five hundred strikes of the slipper to the head. While all this is going 

on, Gatsby leans back and closes his eyes and says into the lethargic air, air as moist and 

warm as breath, air the colour of Vegas gold and old paper: The question of where is not 

answered on a map. Earth eating overturns the whole enchilada and every grain of dust 

has a marvelous soul. If you close your eyes you are alone in the world... I'm building a 

spite house in Ottoman Cyprus, says Aloysius-Eloise, in a landscape full of desire lines 

and a flea in the ear, full of hopscotch hoodoos in the dead dust. Ritualized bathing is 

against the law and the objectifying gaze of the colonizer a pestilence, but the trail has 

gone cold, it was so very long ago. The heard is hunted. Creolization as a Poetics of 

Culture. The ghost pretending to be a crop circle says nothing. Win a sheep! blurts Legba 

the translator and: I like Nascar! and he sighs. Kiradmand mutters: Victory, however, 

came too late, an actual infinity is impossible, one day the tiger in the woods will carry us 

off, and her worn deckchair creaks as she puts her hands behind her neck. I'm living on a 

map, thinks the ghost. Ispahan is half the world, it thinks, Ispahan, a city in Persia, 

macarons with raspberries in the middle or a strain of pink rose named after the city. 

There's a storm coming, it whispers. Gatsby lifts his glass without opening his eyes and 

shakes the mostly molten ice cubes and watery whiskey dregs. Can I have another one? 

he says to the man rinsing his raw round head in the lukewarm swimming pool. 

words they could have used but didn't: torpid bazar khaki ad 

hoc tacit bistre inertia 

And no one asked them, the ones with their brows wreathed in wilted poplar leaves: How 

many teeth have you in your mouth? or: Where are you going? What do you want? 

We have a winner! shouted Legba in his sleep. Jam and pepper he mumbles. The prince, 

according to custom, disappears. 

Author bio: Wilna Panagos' work has appeared in Otoliths, Museum Life, Prick of the 

Spindle, The Undertow Review, Ditch Poetry Altpoetics, Hobo Camp Review, and others. 

Long ago she wrote and illustrated a few children's books and more recently something 

which may be described as a nouvelle vague transmogrification of The Divine Comedy, a 

postmodern experimental polyphonic florilegious pastiche, a chaotic and irreverent remix 

of Dante’s afterlife with the gravity hidden beneath. It is still unpublished.

Pleasantly Saying Terrible Things 

By Alyssa Trivett 

I apologize for not picking you up from the airport. 

Flying squirrels raided my house, 

toilet-papering the trees, 

pissing on the garage door. 


My hand was stuck in the Pringles can 

unable to dab soap around, 

my Mrs. Robocop driving hand. 

I am not the Chuck E. Cheese animatronic puppet 

chucking tokens in soul-less machines, for lifeless tickets 

redeemed for a deflated mini glow-in-the-dark basketball. 

At three thousand, it can be yours! 

I am the coffee cup. 

Quiet enough not to be noticed 

misunderstanding pointless math problems; 

Springfield train, chugging along 

fifty-three miles-per-hour, meeting in Dallas 

ten hours later, Star Wars Stormtrooper Snuggies 

being delivered. Due to popular demand. 

I am the kind friend 

rapid-fire texting memes 

to make you laugh. 

I am the oddly-named subdivision; 

Feather Creek, chicken-poxed retention pond. 

Mildew Villages. Snug Harbor; 

for the win. Not. 


My left shoe and right shoe 

were on the wrong foot. 

Forgive me anyways. 

Pleasantly saying terrible things. 

Author bio: Alyssa Trivett is a wandering soul from the Midwest. When not 

working two jobs, she listens to music and scrawls lines on the back of gas 

station receipts. Her work has appeared in Scapegoat Review, Peeking Cat, 

VerseWrights, In Between Hangovers, Tuck Magazine, Communicators League, 

and Duane's PoeTree site.

CAT GOT YOUR 

EYEBALLS? 

By B. Diehl 

Well, I moved into the apartment. 

The one you picked out for us. 

The one I said I hated 

because the old man 

with dementia across the hall 

makes me too sad. 

Because the bathroom is straight out 

of a Charles Bukowski book –– 

rust on the sink, toilet, and tub. 

Because of the tiny ants in the kitchen. 

Because the Phillipsburg shit plant is so close by –– 

and on really hot days, the entire complex 

will definitely smell of sewage. 

Because the view from the balcony can’t possibly 

go well with morning coffee. All you can see 

is a junkyard and some abandoned building 

that used to be a daycare before it got shut down 

on account of the owner being a pedophile. 

I’m not sure why I moved into this place. 

Maybe I’m living out a fantasy. 

I look at the nicotine-stained rug 

next to the bed, and I can almost see 

your tiny size-5 sneakers 

waiting for your feet. I can almost see 

your scattered hair ties –– 

and your glasses on the nightstand, 

next to your Lorrie Moore books. 

But delusions are not healthy.

2 days ago, the old man with dementia 

pounded on my door and accused me 

of having an affair with his 87-year-old wife. 

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About Now By Bruce McRae 

Meanwhile, in the airy labyrinth, 

in a bathtub full of corn liquor, 

in the red barn on a hillside. 

While you were squinting intomorrow’s sun. 

When the lion purred deeply. 

While you were paring your nails 

and twiddling with the radio, 

incident brushing against incident, 

willpower crooking a finger, 

intention taking a short vacation, 

‘in the meantime’ on your breath, 

time an old fire in an older world, 

time a sniper, a deer in its crosshairs, 

an arrow coursing from one moment to the next. 

And meanwhile, by the river’s edge. 

Beside a splash of accumulated brilliance. 

Behind a page or leaf or pillar. 

Where everything is or it isn’t. 

Just when the robin came down 

from its village of mad branches. 

The same moment an ambulance passed.

About the time a voice explained, 

“Right about now.” 

During the storm of what and when. 

During the rise and fall of the executives. 

During a long ride into theoutlands, 

the race between hour and minute, 

a word leading, an action following along behind. 

Everything happening all of the time. 

When there is no then to go back to, 

lost among the smudged lettering 

and fudged illustrations, 

this now before all other nows. 

Here is the beginning, where it ends. 

The same sun as before, but a different planet. 

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Under the Duvet 

By Rehan Qayoom' 

! 

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IT HAS BEGUN by James Kowalczyk 

America is already great thank you president Tru…sorry, I just threw up in my mouth… 

When I hear “again” I think of a time when chinks build the railroad, niggers build the 

Whitehouse, and the queers knew their place, a time when foreigners were wops, 

polocks, micks, kikes, spics, and wetbacks that were not quite human and political 

cartoons had illustrations to match the terms… 

When I hear “again”, I think of a time when women knew their place and children knew 

their role- in the kitchen and seen but not heard…. herd mentality, that’s what I think of 

when I hear “again”, a time when if you said that right thing or pointed a finger maybe, 

just maybe, you’d be invited into the flock…led by Jesus, not some pack of animals led 

by a fucking sand-nigger… 

When I hear “again” I think of some cops doing whatever the hell they want behind 

closed doors…but then again, today they do whatever the hell they want in the streets… 

When I hear “again” I think of hominid animals preying on the other, blood dripping 

from a castle window where heroes of horror with twisted smirks and jaundiced eyes 

chew on the poor…their mouths open with carnage pate riding on galloping tongues 

greased with bullshit… 

while miss highly manipulative prances to the beat of the goose stepping alternative boys 

who under a dark sky spew turds of venom... but all strike out when they face Sandy 

Koufax, a Brooklyn Jew, known as the Left Arm of God…and 

they all run from Jimmy Cagney and Angels with Dirty Faces who scream in horror as 

Liberty levels her torch as a flamethrower aimed at the other…who, to paraphrase 

Shakespeare, have 

eyes, hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions like us…is not the “other” 

subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same 

winter and summer as everyone else? If they are cut, do they not bleed? If they are 

tickled, do they not laugh?

at the perverse circus of drooling monkeys surfing the minds of misbegotten mental 

midgets, who, like wretched worms slither through the stifling stench of slime at the 

bottom of the political porta potty 

Author bio: James Kowalczyk was born and raised in Brooklyn and now lives in 

Northern California with his wife, two daughters, and four cats. He teaches English at 

both the high school and college level. His work has been published both online and in 

print.

Oz 

By Thomas Locicero 

No angst from Langston Hughes, 

Just the blues, just the blues. 

Trust the blues like no one has, 

incorporate a little jazz, 

think highly of your pain, 

and trust your dream 

like John Coltrane and a love supreme. 

Be your gamble and let it ride, 

find your reason and then abide 

and love to the extreme. 

Choose storm or road, but don’t explain, 

just don’t stand frozen like a cowardly 

Tin Man without a brain. 

A poet frigid? 

How insane! 

See your world in black and white, 

then find your colors and love tonight 

and love tonight 

and love tonight 

and 

love 

tonight 

and! 

Fade. 

Author bio: Thomas Locicero’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming 

in Roanoke Review, Boston Literary Magazine, Long Island Quarterly, The Good 

Men Project, Adelaide Literary Magazine, Jazz Cigarette, Quail Bell Magazine, 

Rat’s Ass Review, Antarctica Journal, Scarlet Leaf Review, Tipton Poetry 

Journal, Hobart, Ponder Review, vox poetica, Poetry Pacific, Brushfire Literature 

& Arts Journal, Indigo Lit, Saw Palm, Fine Lines, and New Thoreau Quarterly, 

among other journals0!He resides in Broken Arrow, OK.

STREET MUSICIAN 

By John Grey 

He plays some kind of 

distorted jazz 

on a saxophone 

dressed in a greasy gray t-shirt 

and baggy pants tied with string. 

A battered upturned cap 

sits on the sidewalk 

begging for coins. 

He fills the air 

with whatever notes 

his breath can blow 

and fingers corral 

as they clamp down on the buttons. 

Few stop to listen 

though an occasional passerby 

tosses loose change his way. 

On a busy shopping street, 

he’s the only one making art. 

He’s not the whole story. 

But he’s the only one telling it. 

Author bio: John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in 

Homestead Review, Cape Rock and Columbia Review with work upcoming in 

Louisiana Review, Poem and Spoon River Poetry Review.

Single Fantasy 

(If I Was in N.Y.C. When I Was Pushing 

Five) 

By John Doyle 

Uncles and aunts in hopscotch pants 

emerge like sunflowers - from groaning narrow staircases 

in New York City apartments - (and I mean apartments, not "condos"). 

Outside are water hydrants where belly buttoned girls do the dance of the 

seven veils, 

and other little boys' uncles play mouth organs with dogs who look up in 

their faces 

like they're Saint Francis with all the animals gathered round him on that 

parchment 

in the church with the Irish priest called Fr. O'Malley, (I think), on the block 

where aunts 

carry groceries to their ballooning breasts in large paper bags normally 

only seen 

in cop shows late at night. And girls who dance the seven veils politely 

stop 

to pick-up fallen apples and run after aunts carrying large paper bags. 

In a cafe John and Yoko are watching and talk about using this scene for 

the cover of the album 

they will release as their follow-up to Double Fantasy 

Author bio: John Doyle, 42, is based in County Kildare, Ireland (when he's not 

travelling the cosmos in a stereotypical Volkswagen camper van), and has 

released two poetry collections so far A Stirring at Dusk in 2017 and Songs for 

Boys Called Wendell Gomez in 2018. Among his loves are the Irish language, his 

girlfriend, Mod culture, and obscure Corsican hideaways in June; among his 

hates are people who cannot go 3 seconds without using the phrase "lol", and 

men who don't earn their right to have a beard. There's a strong chance he will 

be seen tonight near Ursa Minor, chewing on a bagel and talking gibberish.

[Future Words] 

By Mark Cunningham 

Author bio: Mark Cunningham has a new chapbook, Alphabetical Basho, out on the 

Beard of Bees site. 71 Leaves, an e-book from BlazeVOX, is free to anyone curious 

enough to Google it. 

[future word] 

__________.1. a possible inconsistency in the renormalization procedure that appears at 

very high energies in quantum electrodynamics and other quantum field theories 

in which there is not asymptotic freedom. 2. to be alone while wearing an “I’m 

with Stupid” t-shirt. 

[future word] 

__________. 1. the second of three wishes. 2. to forget the middle name of a former 

boyfriend or girlfriend. 3. a gear-shifting mechanism on a bicycle that shifts the 

drive chain from one sprocket wheel to another. 4. Wednesday afternoon after 4 

p.m.

Mr. Moon By Christie-Luke Jones 

Mr. Moon spewed codeine over the crowds below 

I am God! 

He mocked through yellowed teeth. 

Come and touch me if you dare 

Breathe my breathless air. 

And the ozone layer parted 

And the rockets took flight. 

And the moon waited. 

And behind inky craters plotted. 

Author bio: Christie-Luke Jones is a UK-based poet and short fiction 

writer of French-Italian extraction. His writing swings violently 

between exaltation and despair, and has been published on three 

continents.

Baptism By Fire 

By Adam Scharf! 

!! 

!! 

Year is 1892,! 

I fantasize burning alive. ! 

Mostly at gatherings when others talk about business being good,! 

and how their children are smarter than others. I've had enough. ! 

Tonight I slam the table yelling, “I’m a witch!”! 

Everyone stares blankly,“We hardly burn witches anymore.”! 

I straighten my tie adjusting my posture, “Alright, well I’m a Jew too.”! 

Now they’re pleased, “That we burn.”! 

Heading home I pack a suitcase because it felt right,! 

and throw away old Christmas cards just in case.! 

When I hear the knock I open it boasting, “Hello boys, was just lighting a few 

menorahs.”! 

They pile me into a wagon tying me up, “I’m filthy boys. I can’t be trusted.”! 

Nodding they tighten the ropes.! 

Before I know it they’re talking to themselves about sports, and everything their wives 

make.! 

To speed things along I tell them I drink blood, and the horses move faster than ever.! 

I’m dragged to the stake. ! 

A priest says prayers while throwing water at me. ! 

Once again I hear the crowd discussing plans, opinions, and inside jokes. ! 

These people are a riot. ! 

This crowd will always be a crowd. Even after they’ve split becoming individuals, ! 

crowded wherever they walk discussing appliances, and how they’ve aged as their 

mother had. ! 

I wiggle my lighter from back pocket, ! 

it drops setting aflame wood gathered at my feet. ! 

They protest loudly, “We aren’t ready yet!”! 

Letting out a sympathetic exhale, they’re all my children.! 

“That's alright boys, I’ll take it from here.”! 

! 

!"#$%&'()%*!This is Adam’s second publication with Clockwise Cat. Born 

in Utica NY, he now lives in Orlando writing short fiction and recently 

completed his first novel. His creative partner is a palomino named Karen.

Poem Generating Machine 

By Andrew Nye 

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Keepsake 

By Gale Acuff 

I'm ten years old and I'm going to die 

one day so I'd better get ready now 

because it could happen at any time, 

even if I don't die by accident 

--run over catching the school bus or shot 

by a burglar or pushed out a window 

or choked by a hamburger pickle or 

struck by lightning or brained by a baseball. 

You never know. And then gone, I'll come to, 

and look back on my life and what happened 

in it to end it, and shake my head 

if I still have one, one that's blood and meat 

and bone, and think what a shame I lost it, 

my life. I'll be a ghost or an angel, 

maybe, done with doom for keeps. And then I'll 

pick myself up and dust myself off and 

get on with it, my life of being dead 

forever. Which is what forever is. 

Author bio: Gale writes: “I have had poetry published 

in Ascent, Ohio Journal, Descant, Poem, Adirondack Review, Coe 

Review, Worcester Review, Maryland Poetry Review, Arkansas 

Review, Florida Review, South Carolina Review, Carolina Quarterly, South 

Dakota Review, Sequential Art Narrative in Education, and many other 

journals. I have authored three books of poetry: Buffalo Nickel (BrickHouse 

Press, 2004), The Weight of the World (BrickHouse, 2006), and The Story of 

My Lives (BrickHouse, 2008). I have taught university English in the 

US, China, and the Palestinian West Bank. 

! 

! 

!

Time was 

By Richard Weaver 

there was a time when hour glasses drank pure sunlight like ouzo 

before there was a happy hour, and grandfather clocks could remember 

how to tie their shoes using both hands, (grandmother, being shorter, 

had no need to bend as low, and preferred house shoes anyway), 

when pocket watches absorbed the body’s radiant heat and kept pace 

as if waltzing with or without Matilda. And water-based escarpments 

emptied or filled the seconds each day, each tick one drop, each tock one drip. 

Together a drop drip. Now days a strontium lattice clock surpasses 

the cesium standard by 50%, give or take a %, a blue laser accurate 

for give or take the next 15 billion years (14 billion years after the sun 

dances its last fandango) and the earth, a preadolescent 

planet, a mere 5.5 ± 0.05 billion years young, dies. So does it matter, 

Father Time, that this new timepiece can detect the dead Einstein in action 

and Stephen Hawkings’s next sneeze? Reality in action has no relevance 

in such time. Blue lasers. Reds lasers. Ultramarine. Set our waves free. 

Author bio: Richard Weaver resides in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor where he 

volunteers with the Maryland Book Bank, acts as the Archivist-at-large for a 

Jesuit college, and is a seasonal snowflake counter (unofficially). Recent poems 

have appeared in OxMag, Red Eft Review, Crack the Spine, Juxtaprose, Misfit, 

and Conjunctions. Forthcoming work will appear in Clade Song, Dead Mule, & 

Magnolia Review.

Making the beast sing to 

the birds BY PAUL GRANT 

Deep blue 

Night 

Of girl eyed 

Sadness, 

A sweet little 

End of the world 

But its not fondness 

That I find her with, 

The angels of my better nature 

Lay long dead in the corners 

A bottle 

Could untangle 

The fist from my heart, 

Bust the prowling night open 

Like a lovers lip 

So 

I will let 

The blue deepen 

Through all its cool shades 

Let the smoke 

Crawl low 

Along the ceiling 

Let the bruise 

Swell into view 

Until somebody 

Notices 

Kisses the colour 

Of my distance 

Says 

It's alright now 

I am here 

With you. 

Author bio: Paul writes: “My name is Paul Grant, and I live and work in Milton 

Keynes, England. I have a new book out with Writing Knights called A Feast of 

Salt."

TWO Poems 

By Michelle Nickol 

Author bio: By Michelle Nickol is currently self-employed and lovin’ it. Her nonfiction and 

poetry has been published in Clockwise Cat, Pilgrimage, Bacon Review, Prairie Schooner, 

Black Warrior Review, Alligator Juniper, Lilliput Review, several anthologies, etc. A threeyear-old 

feral cat named Hillary has recently muscled in on her hard-earned solitude and 

appears to have adopted her. 

Anted Infernos 

Ant I 

fleshed 

into lotus root 

Our forest lost, 

the deb-loon struts and slurs 

now refuels 

honoring tots 

who fettle 

Ant II 

How hard to say this 

Awash doth history hoard 

its shitty ways, its 

shadowy hit stories 

Ant III 

I cannot repeat the true mountain 

…the moan unit 

…the tin om 

…the main omit 

Ant IV 

That point pierced my heart 

Sea-trope echo: cede, oh coed, cede 

pic reed 

pic deer 

heart/earth equals greater than heart/break 

Ant V 

Lies toyed up 

Yelp is out 

Every little lake passed 

Yelp

My Urban Knot Breaks Your Pattern 

Night makes an illegal left in this 

petroleum-based dream. Whose idea 

was it to opt for an open-air market? 

When did you lose the remote control? 

Boston’s the last time you’ll set my hair on fire. 

Night flaming Lucifer, my opposite times 7, 

your heartless sciences and useless sacrificial 

parades leave me nothing but an emptyshelled 

Brazil nut. Give me back my credit 

cards or I’ll sue you this time—I swear it. 


My animal heart hums in its sky cup. The stars 

siphon glitter into the cup. Planets fill the cup with 

planets. Tambourine shaker on this karmic goaround, 

I’ll stalk you crazy until I get my juicer back. 


My floating junkie in outer space is now 

my former floating junkie from a constellation 

I’ll tear into seven irregular pieces. Strange 

chamber of memories now, I’ll never dust 

that chamber of horrors you call an apartment 

again. Ever. 


Now my days are drunk in the kernel of the twelve 

dreams. My night’s a free-falling wand, a basin of 

velvet, a kleptomaniac’s dream flavor. The 

scar over my left eye is healing nicely, but 

you still owe me for the emergency room. 


#

TWO POEMS 

By WILLIAM DORESKI 

Battery Acid 

Battery acid comes in a box. Weak sulfuric solution, bitter on the tongue but 

otherwise palatable enough. I titer a quart into the punch. The wedding guests 

smile when they taste it. Mixes well with the liquor, lemons, grapefruit, and lime. I 

learned to swim in an acidic little pond on the Canadian border. Water so clear it 

made air look like porridge. Sizzling as I swam, I lost most of my flesh and 

learned to take pride in my bones. Exposed to the air after a mile or two in the 

harsh clean atmosphere, I re-fleshed myself as if donning ordinary clothes. That 

was the life. Now having slightly poisoned a hundred cheerful guests, I speechify 

and confess. Their applause seems more sincere than ever. For anyone who 

doubts, first aid remains an option. The bride kisses me in rainbow hues. The 

groom also kisses me, his lips as tough as condoms. The ugly smell of acid 

hovers, but like a bird of prey disdains to alight. I’ll take the rest of the punch 

home and use it to activate a battery left unused in a cupboard for many years. 

When it’s charged, I’ll shock myself as frankly as I dare, and that will be adequate 

apology. 

An Opera About Orpheus 

The creep and crawl of whispers on the breezeway. Opera on the radio. 

Something about “crown and charcoal burner,” but perhaps that’s a bad 

translation of the Italian. Or is it German? As I attempt to make out the words, 

the propane heater utters gusts of carbon dioxide. Time for my volunteer work at 

the hospital. Every evening I wheel patients up to the roof to enjoy the stars. 

Soon I have a dozen stargazers chatting about their favorite surgeries. They 

know all the medical terms, and relish pronouncing them with edged consonants 

and greasy vowels. From here the snow atop neighboring mountains seems 

illuminated or even illuminating. When you arrive at the hospital to help with 

these astronomically inclined patients you wheel them off the roof to crash in the 

parking lot three floors below. The bent and broken wheelchairs glitter in the 

lamplight. No one hurt, at least not hurt as much as our local surgical team has 

hurt them. Let’s go home and listen to more opera. I hope there’s one about 

Orpheus. I feel like a detached head still singing. I don’t miss my body at all.

Author bio: William Doreski lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire, in a small 

house in the woods. He taught at Keene State College for many years, but has 

now retired to feed the deer and wild turkeys. He has published three critical 

studies, including Robert Lowell’s Shifting Colors. His essays, poetry, fiction, and 

reviews have appeared in many journals and several small-press books. His 

forthcoming book of poetry is The Last Concert (Salmon Press).

Deceased: TTZARA 4 14 1896 12 

25 1963 

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!"#$%&'()%*!TA Young is. Their work has appeared in American 

Chordata.!! 

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APOCALYPTIC MAN 

By Dr. Mel Waldman 

(on reading Henri Cole’s poem-The Paranoid Forest) 

Apocalyptic Man 

anointed with metaphysical mist 

& 

shrouded in bestial silence & isolation, 

sweat 

pouring from his brow, 

remains 

in the vastness the desolation the death that surrounds swallows & engulfs him. 

He 

carries the harrowing secret in a crimson bag of sorcery, 

caresses 

it with prestidigitation 

& 

staggers into the kaleidoscopic desert of irreality, 

rushing slowly 

into eerie evanescence-otherworldly vanishing 

& 

eats the swirling sand a fantastic dessert in Kafka’s opalescent hallucination 

& 

vomits a monstrous creation-the Chimera-in the kingdom of the damned 

& 

the fire-breathing beast ferocious vision of grotesquerie burns his olive flesh 

& 

vanishes in the sprawling prison of The Apocalypse, 

sinking 

in the faraway glitter of preternatural quicksand

& 

Apocalyptic Man holds the haunting secret in a sacred place 

& 

drinks the flood of anguish overflowing & shooting out of the sultry sun 

& 

bites the obscenity of obliteration 

as 

he plummets into the chasm of chaos 

colliding 

with nonbeing where unholy atavism devours him 

& 

the beast awakens, rises, & emerges 

leaps 

out of a crimson bag of sorcery 

lands 

on the seething sand, boiling illusion, 

bares 

its teeth & screams eerily at Apocalyptic Man. 

Looking up 

at its Master & Slave, the Tasmanian devil, demonic alter ego, 

sees 

the possessed & possessor of a terrible secret of grotesquerie, 

observes 

a veil of evil swirling in the Shadows- 

ominous shroud 

concealing a glimmer of unbearable light- 

a vanishing sphere of celestial beauty-unfathomable divinity 

sailing out 

of 

the beast

as 

it lunges at the otherworldly stranger, 

Apocalyptic Man, 

keeper 

of 

the secret

I Married a Sling Blade 

J*!+,6#%9!R&3'(%&! 

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!"#$$%&'$()% 

By Felino Soriano 

from This is How My Speaking Moves 

Conjuring Rain 

Of when heat is 

the penetrating hybrid of hate and humid 

alterations 

my dispositional qualities lessen into breath-on glare 

until 

angular 

syllables 

rearrange focus into deluge or fractioned melodies of developed 

moisture, unobstructed need for me to bookmark this moment 

return to it 

return to scan each paragraph of elated change to the physiological 

components of these hours’ mistreated mobilities 

Softened this Flute Interprets Me 

What comes through the 

home in me, seen through 

windowed orphans 

left 

to divide existence with 

breathing mutated exhalations 

and 

autonomy within freed forays 

found amid the eyes 

loaded with intent and articulated curiosity--

_________ 

numerals limit age to agree with time’s fascination 

with mirage-- 

during my needed rest I’ve a 

desire to sing and sit into a leaning approval 

of architectural clarity-- 

__________ 

everything placed in its softened state 

all plurals gathering cymbal mimesis! wave ornaments softened 

against untouched sand 

near what resembles divided 

marbles separated theories of 

prayers 

gathering found symbols and undated miracles 

Within your Language I Cultivate my Listening 

Bridge of where our meeting 

met us of how the bodies 

bend and skeletons endured 

a wind stronger than the bridge 

could coordinate outlasting. 

Somewhere, or precise 

in the here rendition of place and rhythm 

--for Gabriela

we’ve a homemade handmade 

direction toward 

family and the sway of unexpected 

additions. Amid devoted sound 

you’ve heard my healing ache 

into plurals of allegorical friction. 

Within 

the voice you’ve had since 

inception my hearing of it 

renames each moment 

many times in momentum: 

how this life continues will resemble an aggregate of seasonal 

surprise, a flourish of piano 

and soloing into a specific language of deliberate articulation 

Author bio: Felino A. Soriano was awarded the 2017 erbacce-prize 

for poetry. His writings appear in CHURN, BlazeVOX, 3:AM 

Magazine, The National Poetry Review, Small Po[r]tions, and 

elsewhere. His books of poetry include A Searching for Full Body 

Syllables: fragmented olio (2017), Aging within these 

syllables (2017), Acclimated Recollections (2017), and Vocal 

Apparitions: New & Selected Poems: 2012 – 2016 (2016). Visit Of the 

poetry this jazz portends for more information.

COLLABORATION #42 

D1#Q%3E1#A-2'O+3#+3E#!-D#A&O+3!! 

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0.#*%11!%20-'+(%)3!! 

! 

Bob writes, "Cindy and I have been close friends for years. 

We are familiar with each other's writing, and have 

published each other in our respective publications. It was 

Cindy who first suggested that we try our hand at some 

collaborations. We decided that each piece would be 14 

lines, and that we would alternate first lines, as well as the 

subsequent lines in each piece. And that's what we did, 

except for a few prose poems in which we instead 

alternated sentences. All the pieces were written by e-mail. 

We started our first piece in late June 2017, and completed 

75 pieces during the next eight months. While our 

approaches were a bit different, we ended up working quite 

well together. We are currently taking a break from the 

collaborations to work on our own creative projects. This 

was not my first experience with collaborations, having 

previously worked in 2008 with R. Nemo Hill, Jane 

Ormerod, and Thomas Fucaloro (and later, several 

others) in a series of intense collaborative writing sessions 

which used a very different process." 

Cindy adds, "The 75 poems I wrote with Bob represent my 

first foray into collaboration. The most satisfying and 

gratifying part for me was that, as a rather non-prolific poet 

who struggles with writer's block, it jump-started me into 

poetic mode every day and forced me to take risks in an 

attempt to reach a new level of creativity. And I was 

delighted with all the little surprises that materialized along 

the way."

The Jazzman’s Magnanimous 

Words 

(for Felino A. 

Soriano4! 

By Heath Brougher 

! 

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FEATURED 

FEMME: 

SUSAN COSSETTE 

AUTHOR STATEMENT: 

“Dark and dangerous content wrapped in pink taffeta and topped with a 

tiara…” 

Susan Cossette’s sparse, wry poetry examines the struggle to preserve 

personal identity and integrity under the constraints of suburbia and massproduced 

culture. Her work also explores the contemporary political 

landscape while striving to give voice to those who have been victimized. 

She earned her B.A. and M.A. in English from the University of

Connecticut, where she studied with poets James Scully and Marilyn Nelson 

and was a two-time recipient of the Wallace Stevens Poetry Prize. The 

author of Peggy Sue Messed Up, her work has appeared in Rust and Moth, 

Anti-Heroin Chic, Clockwise Cat, The Scarecrow Journal, and the Adelaide 

Literary Magazine (short-listed for Pushcart nomination), among others. A 

2017 transplant to the Twin Cities, Susan’s readings include Barnes and 

Noble (Stamford, CT), The Hudson Valley Writers’ Center (NY), Curley’s 

Poets (Stamford, CT) Writers Resist (Norwalk Community College), 

Confluencia (Palace Theater, Danbury CT), and most recently The Day of 

the Dead Poets Slam in Rochester, MN. To pay the bills, Susan is Annual 

Fund and Communications Manager for Way to Grow in Minneapolis, a 

nonprofit organization committed to closing the educational gap among the 

Twin Cities’ most isolated families. More of her work may be found at 

www.musepalace.wordpress.com. Her video readings may be seen at: 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDZupms9agckaMAUGe5B7yA?view 

_as=subscriber! 

Enola Gay 

Put the dark goggles on. 

If we fail, there is a pill to take. 

Six minutes, and you will be gone. 

You won’t know anything. 

You won’t talk to the enemy. 

The sun’s red hull invades the horizon. 

It is time to deliver the physicist’s nightmare— 

The brightest and hottest thing since creation. 

Do not look at the source of fierce light. 

Cold math is our new co-pilot. 

Then, a lead taste in the mouth, 

A crackling of the jaw— 

Quantum artifacts embed in my fillings, 

Pass through flesh. 

They could be seen, felt, tasted. 

Micro-clots of seared blood in my veins. 

My god, look at that son of a bitch go.

A thousand suns bleaching the sky, the earth white, 

The sun coming from the earth to explode. 

Our legacy is history, but we never learn from our mistakes. 

Do we regret the taking of life, or the change we brought 

From that fierce atomic beauty in the warm August sun? 

An American Poem 

A nuclear pompadour 

Releases 

Buried collective anger. 

Integrity and humanity cease. 

The world becomes much stranger. 

Incandescent lies, 

Breach of the fragile peace, 

Fear the money changer. 

What his billions buy, 

The mouthpiece, 

Of the clear and present danger. 

AMERICA FIRST 

Dismembered, one stroke of the pen, 

One dollar at a time— 

The arsonists are in charge of the fire station. 

Destruction plumes, forcing fumes 

To an indifferent, hazy sky. 

Books and art in the sulphur flames 

Crackle and snap alongside 

Food scraps for the aged and 

Melting plastic eyes of children’s puppets— 

The radio hisses its last static, 

Then silence.

The water leeches its lead, 

Flowing down the strip mine scar. 

A fiery freight car carries the lost 

To the pyre on the River of the Dead. 

In this deconstruction of the administrative state, 

We’re all going to be deconstructed, destructed and 

Tossed into the mass grave of alternative facts. 

What did you expect? 

THIS WEEK IN HISTORY 

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed on the internet. 

Branded crazy, dumb as stumps, goaded, extorted. 

Bullied and sullied in an abject abuse of power, 

Fruit flies, dissected on a slide. 

I heard your lies— 

You, insatiate demon, 

You will not take my voice, 

Your tiny talons may claw my eyes 

But I will not sign your parchment. 

I heard the river Lethe— 

Its black murmur grows to a rush, 

Ferrying me on foam rapids 

To some crazed misogynistic alternative reality. 

The tabloids become real news— 

That reveal all, 

While the rest is fake. 

Narcissistic hypocrisy blackens the sky. 

Go on, grab my pussy. 

I can take it. 

Rant on my bloody facelift, 

My menstrual cycle. 

The moon, the moon holds my power. 

We are more than body parts and functions.

The sea, it will rise into truth— 

Churning black, around the water spout, 

Sucking words, images, half-truths, hatred 

Into a vast explosion of indignation and rebellion. 

Which way do the stone-faced blue blazers point us tonight? 

Where have you brought us, America? 

BRAVE ENOUGH TO BE ANGRY 

“Women, you have to treat ’em like shit.” 

—Donald Trump, New York magazine, November 9, 1992 

I don’t have a tidy soundbite for you. 

I wish I did, 

But I am not a hero. 

I am not a child. 

I have learned to regret words spoken in anger. 

But we are seething, 

Beneath the surface. 

How long we’ve been ignored, 

Seething for those brave enough to tell the truth— 

Seething for those punished for doing so. 

Seething for being told we have no right to seethe at all. 

You too? 

Me too. 

Centuries of indifference, 

Tacit (and sometimes open) sanctioning of sexual harassment, abuse, assault, 

We are suddenly in the midst of a cock conflagration. 

Powerful men swallowed in the bonfire, 

Banned from the primordial, privileged Garden of Dicks. 

In the Garden of Dicks, it’s always about the dick.

You are a man, you have urges. 

Oh yeah, you? 

Well, me too. 

In the Garden of Dicks, 

Women come and go, working, serving, servicing— 

Trying to earn a living wage, 

Searching for a husband, a job, 

Looking for venture capital or just a good time, 

Seeking an advanced degree, a part in a movie. 

Don’t you know who I am? 

Often, we have no choice. 

We enter a room and instantly know. 

Oh, it’s that place. 

There’s always something sweaty and unnerving in the air, 

Like the men there 

Have just laughed at a joke we aren’t supposed to hear. 

And, eyes averted, we carry on. 

In the Garden of Dicks, 

There is one peculiar fear— 

Loss of power, castration by other means. 

Take my humiliation, please. 

In the room, the women come and go, 

Talking of sexual harassment. 

It took me four decades, 

Wandering alone and muted 

To finally be brave enough to be angry. 

You too? 

Me too. 

We arise en masse, our words jagged glass.

About Leaving Darien 

I was anonymous and ignored in the supermarket— 

Until now. 

Socially, economically insignificant, 

Until I messed up. 

In that perfect town— 

Its stiff plasticity, 

Among the smiling dowagers 

And self-absorbed hedge fund wives. 

Oh yes, they have something to talk about now. 

Whisper to one, and tell all. 

Good God, everyone gnashes on a good scandal, 

Something to clench their bleached white teeth on. 

I am suddenly choice conversation at the club Sunday brunch, 

Chewed up and spit out, 

Sinewy flesh on the steak, rejected. 

I no longer care. 

My good ladies, remember. 

It could be you, if you dared. 

You didn’t dare, 

But you wanted to. 

Oh, you want to. 

Admit it. 

Dancing with my Mutant Genes 

and the Voodoo Priestess 

This blonde baseball bat, 

It crashed a hole in the glass wall— 

Smashed the plaster.

I surprised myself. 

It is the truth you don’t want— 

When I finally crawl 

Out through the shatters and splinters, 

Onto the steep and thorny path. 

I am a curious specimen, 

Pinned and stuck, fruit fly on a glass slide. 

I have been called crazy, or otherwise. 

The guilty chromosome shows itself, 

Peeking from the protein threads 

A stranger among the ordered helix, 

Revealing herself, at last. 

I am what makes you yourself. 

I wish I could tell you it will be easy. 

It won’t. 

The weird birthmark I tried to hide— 

To wash away with pink soap bubbles, 

Cover with cosmetics. 

She is my talisman, my voodoo priestess 

I hand her yarn, and a candle, 

We chant and dance, 

Spin wild in ecstasy, then she tells me— 

Climb out. 

You’ve been asleep too long. 

Voodoo princess, curious genome, wide-eyed strange child . . . 

Pack the past and curl it in thread, 

Tuck it under your pink pillow. 

Chant and dance. 

Burn it, 

Burn it. 

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WIPING THE FLOOR WITH 

MAGAZINE (MUSIC MINI-REVIEWS) 

By Alison Ross 

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Ursula E. Smith: 

Lamenting Legends 

(Book and Music Review) ! 

Within one day of each other, two legendarily unorthodox voices met their demise. Neither are household 

names, though one probably has more renown than the other, and yet her name - Ursula K. LeGuin - is 

more exotic than the rather pedestrian name of Mark E. Smith. Mark E. Smith's demeanor, of course, was 

anything but pedestrian, and both artists were known for their approaches that daringly defied convention. 

Their subject matter, of course, was different - author LeGuin speculatively explored anarchic alternaverses 

(mingling utopian and dystopian elements in seemingly equal measure), inspired by her mystical 

surroundings in Oregon, while The Fall's singer Mark E. Smith delved into topics related to working class 

England. 

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But where they intersected was with their voices. While Mark E. Smith's persona inhabited a perfect 

paradox of unhinged stoicism, his voice was delectably deadpan. LeGuin narrated her tales in a matter-offact 

way, preferring not to draw attention to the flamboyantly fantastical elements of the tales she was 

spinning, but rather intending to proffer them as practical alternatives to our mundane mundo. Too, Mark E 

Smith presented his sometimes absurd worldview in a way that normalized such an approach, with his 

aforementioned deadpan delivery bolstered by the Fall's pristine art punk. Both were ultimately anarchists, 

following their own internal dictates, urging us to consider a world far beyond our own conformist cosmos 

with its straitjacket ideologies and deadend dogmas. 

It may seem out of left field to link these two artists, but the world is more impoverished without their vital 

voices. Thankfully, both Ursula K. LeGuin and Mark E. Smith made an indelible impact on our cultures 

and in society, so we will always have their words - both sung and written - to cherish.

Linklater Rarely Does Lackluster (Movie 

Review) by Alison Ross 

Richard Linklater's movies are first and foremost in-depth character studies. Each 

of his flicks - from his foray into film, Slacker, through his lesser-known narratives like 

Tape or more celebrated film fare like the Before series and Boyhood, to his latter-day 

cinematic features like Everybody Wants Some and Last Flag Flying - all flaunt fleshedout 

characterization as the driving force. A film with narrowly-drawn characters does not 

exist in the Linklater movie-verse. Too, the characters in the Linklater cosmos are usually 

fraught with maddening ambiguities in the director's divine quest to achieve as much 

verisimilitude as possible. Linklater revels in tracing the soaring highs and plumbing the 

dark depths of his film personae as a way, perhaps, to explore his own polarized persona, 

and as a way to comment on the ubiquitous dichotomy of human nature. 

What sets Last Flag Flying apart, perhaps, is how the characters go on a literal trip 

to self-actualization as opposed to the metaphorical ones in most of his other movies. 

Sure, there is traveling in the Before series movies, but it exists almost as a backdrop to 

the showcased story, whereas in Last Flag Flying, the excursion is the point, the raison 

d'etre, of the narrative. The trio of protagonists, just as they were transformed by trauma 

in their shared Vietnam experience, are once again metamorphosed during their joint 

journey up the east coast to bury one of the men's soldier sons who died in Iraq. 

Each character is a study of archetypes whose complexities run deep: Carrell's 

character, a shy solemn wallflower with bursts of soulful vigor; Cranston's paragon of 

frat-boy bravado whose rebel streak betrays a golden heart, and Laurence's preacher, 

a former ne'er do well who over-corrected his wayward past by becoming a holy man. 

Add to that endearing mix of men a heavy dose of anti-war sentiment that nonetheless 

refuses to disrespect the actual men forced into battle, and you have a concoction of pure 

conviction. Linklater rarely does lackluster, after all.

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I suppose it's redundant to reiterate how ingenious it was for director Peele to select the 

vehicle of a horror/thriller to transport racially existential themes. In hindsight, it's an 

obvious, intuitive genre to use. But it turns out that Peele had the foresight to pinpoint the 

horrors of white supremacy and elaborate on them in a stylized cinematic way. 

Genre gimmicks abound in “Get Out” - zombified characters, caricatured archetypes, 

suspenseful plot points, carefully calculated missteps, violent crescendo, trick ending. 

There is a Hitchcockian sense of suspense and tension throughout the movie, but also 

nods and allusions to B movies, slasher films, 80s teen horror flicks – and yet the movie 

never seems cheap or derivative. Rather, it’s an elevated and cerebral psychological 

horror on par with Poe. It takes the thriller genre to a new zenith by infusing a plausible 

plot and refusing to showcase gratuitous gore. Rather, aggressive actions arise 

organically and are legitimized by context. All elements germane to the genre work in 

service to propel the plot of “Get Out” in an imaginative, if terrifying way. 

For what we are dealing with in "Get Out" is an evocation of modern-day slavery via 

hypnosis and a vicious eugenics. Peele is urging us to see how all we are all subtly but 

forcefully mesmerized by white supremacy and its myriad connotations and 

reverberations. He is laying bare all of our preposterous "post-racial" claims and turning 

them inside out to reveal a seedy, sleazy underside. 

I have long wrangled with the dilemma of how American society can disentangle itself 

from the dastardly web it's spun itself into regarding racial relations. And Jordan Peele's 

movie seems to reinforce my fears - that we are so deeply enmeshed in the maze of racial 

dysfunctions that we're better off just cutting loose from the labyrinth and starting over 

completely. 

But how do we dismantle white supremacy? By eradicating Caucasians? Obviously that's 

not possible or desirable. By further segregating the races? That’s already happening. 

We’ve been regressing for quite some time, as neighborhoods and schools self-segregate 

along racial lines. It would almost be justifiable if the situation did not always result in 

further suffering by people of color. 

The situation is urgent. Jordan Peele's movie is a clarion call (a cacophonous clarion call) 

to action. His movie suggests that we should be more aware of our own deep-seeded 

prejudices and the actions we and others take that might be loaded with sinister intention, 

even if superficially we think we are acting from an impetus of self-awareness and 

benevolence. 

For example, we might think that the justice system will ultimately "rehabilitate" the 

staggering number of black men caught up in it, without realizing that it's the system 

itself that caters to a white supremacist philosophy that deliberately thwarts black 

ascendancy. 

Lynching is no longer necessary when you have prison cages that will stifle the soul. The 

KKK’s fashion apparel is rendered anachronistic because the enforcers of Anglo

authoritarianism now wear plain clothes and operate in the light of day. Burning crosses 

in lawns, setting fire to churches, devising nooses, using whips and chains - these tools of 

repression have been replaced by laws that perpetuate poverty and injustice. A society 

hypnotized by the system that stymies are the unwitting servants of such putrid policies. 

American society needs to "get out" of its lethal Euro-centric ideology and fight the 

zombies of hateful hegemony. 

Editor’s Note: This review first appeared in a previous issue of Clockwise 

Cat; we are reprinting it because the movie should have won the Oscar - but 

Oscar be DUMB. 

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REVIEW) 

By Alison Ross 

(BOOK 

I first discovered the genius of Sheila Murphy when I was 

perusing tomes at an excellent indie bookstore in Austin called 

Malvern Books. The title of her book, "Letters to an Unfinished J" 

leaped out at me. I read her verse on the plane back to Atlanta, and 

became entranced with Murphy's ability to forge a sinuous syntax. 

She manipulates language to further stretch its malleability, but 

also personalizes it, creating an introverted world whirling with 

intricate imagery and intense emotion, that also manages to be 

accessible to an audience attuned to literary innovation and yet 

wary of the alienating pretension that plagues certain poetry 

scenes. 

I first discovered the late and much-bereaved Michelle 

Greenblatt when she submitted poetry to Clockwise Cat. However, 

unlike with Sheila Murphy, her work did not immediately and 

urgently snag my attention. Her impact on me was more slowgrowing; 

her words simmered in the subterranean corners of my

mind for a very long time until they exploded to the forefront of 

my consciousness upon reading her book, Ashes and Seeds, and I 

became beatifically aware that her linguistic gifts were in the 

lineage of Rimbaud and Borges. Her poetry jolts the imagination 

for its deployment of complex symbols infused with cryptic 

personal references. 

So it makes sense that these two titans of talent collaborated 

on a tome of verse. Their approaches diverge and converge in 

fascinating ways. 

The poems that inaugurate the collection are not ghazals - 

they are the "other" referred to in the title. These first few poems, 

in a word, are stunning, and a nice way to ease into the intensity of 

the ghazals. These poems are their own version of intense, 

however, as they create startling sensory and synaesthetic 

impressions and the words and images veer toward unexpected 

intersections, where there are collisions and clashes that become 

glorious idiomatic idiosyncrasies. 

The ability to commandeer language for their own linguistic 

agendas is where Murphy and Greenblatt excel. 

From “A Tone Endures”: 

"One washes young trees 

as though a blossom would be truer 

than root structures, thinking 

how not to admire the violent craft 

of spiderwebs 

thinking, work is a series of self 

interruptions and perverse 

tunings, yet here is another new year, earth tipsy with 

the pointblank light of the raw sun.” 

These lines almost read as aphorisms, through which we can 

glimpse a world harbored in the shadows, or one that has been

otated in a way that reflects the authors' distinct perception of 

things. 

Elsewhere, from “Tracery”: 

“The clockwork/train runs/on a circular track, between/nowhere 

and nowhere else,” and "Doors with no apparent 

connection/between rooms dominate/the homes in the city 

perched/on a cliff/overlooking the sea” invite us into a desolate 

cosmos where nature can be either a friend or foe - or even an 

indifferent force: "rain, no rain, it's all the same" 

Now onto the ghazals. Ghazals originated in Arabic poetry, and 

can be thought of as akin to sonnets in the sense that the form 

dictates a certain structure, and even meter. In the case of the 

ghazal, usually the structure consists of couplets, around five or 

seven, but sometimes as many as fifteen. A repeated word or 

phrase appears and the end of both lines of the first couplet and at 

the end of the second line in each subsequent couplet. Rhymes or 

near-rhymes are also present. 

Michelle and Sheila took a more elastic approach to ghazals, 

however - they took a stringent, some would even say stifling, 

structure and broke it apart to mold a new form, one that breathes a 

bit more but maintains the integrity of the original form. 

We will start with Ghazal Four, which was the first one I 

earmarked in the book when I initially read it. The poem itself is a 

dense thicket of abstract imagery alternating with tangible 

impressions, layered with fevered philosophizing akin to a 

Nietschze or Hiedegger. In this poem, I get a sense of weariness 

and wariness about one's own identity, and accumulating 

sensations of self-doubt ("To all my half selves below the deck/Are 

mirrors of inadmissible distance."). This is further reflected in the 

"pulsating mirror" that "sputtered questions to oneself." That said,

"parity co-exists with butterflies," possibly pointing to identity 

feeling assured by doubt, paradoxically. 

With Ghazal Sixteen, the identity crisis persists, but with a twist. It 

seems now that the poetic persona is almost becoming aggressive 

toward the emptiness imposed by existence: "Master of thorns and 

inscrutable enigmas/Pounce on psyche's own distorted 

cinemascope." After all, the authors insistently intone, "We're 

running toward extinction with scissors clenched/In a death grip 

leveraging the high points." This is not to say that existence is 

entirely meaningless: "The austere stars spread across the 

skylight./Majesty can never quite be contained," signaling that 

identity is subsumed by something more boundless than ourselves. 

Again, though, the looking glass motif features: "My appetite 

appears in the hungry mirror/Streaked with pretense, texture, 

overthought, and informal grace." Now identity seems to have 

veered toward an overconfidence, or self-loathing, even. 

In a departure from the identity musings, Ghazal Forty-two is a 

tense meditation on nature's sometimes tenuous relationship to 

humans and the surroundings constructed by humans: 

"As the furniture collapsed, we made bowlfuls of 

Summer in a retrofit, just right for pinlight." (lines 5-6) 

"Coins wrinkle water when interrupting the smooth face 

Of laketop burning at the parting of waters scarce." (lines 15-16) 

And yet, as always, nature subverts human ego: 

"Caresses occur when souls leave keening to 

The crowns of the trees, nestling atop leaves" (lines 23-24) 

"Amended sacrifice litters the daylight; 

Nighttime stages her name in front of a crowd." (lines 27-28) 

And then there is reconciliation, with a humorous bite:

"Transatlantic puffs known as clouds 

Hold moisture before letting go to rinse us clean." (lines 31-32) 

Greenblatt's and Murphy's processes, as Murphy explains in 

her forward, naturally dovetailed. Both have a highly intuitive, 

free-flowing approach that filters out only what is most 

superfluous. And yet it's their styles that while markedly different 

on their own, somehow interlock in an organic way that is not 

jarring as one would expect. 

I'm familiar enough with both poets' work to be able to 

discern who likely 

wrote which lines or phrases. Greenblatt infuses fantastical 

elements into her work and smashes together aspects of nature to 

create a new diction. Murphy, conversely, has a more rigid logical 

lexicon that manages to evoke a sense of warmth and wonder. Both 

poets impose invigorating innovation in syntax, imagery, and 

vocabulary in order to deepen the dimensions of our understanding 

of how language shapes our world. With these ghazals, they further 

their linguistic mission in dizzying ways, contorting our way of 

seeing and being: "Skinfuls of spine spin the vertebrae/Mindward 

in the hope of reaching home." 

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CAST OF CATS 

ALI CAT/ALISON ROSS 

FELINO SORIANO 

CINDY HOCHMAN 

SUSAN COSSETTE 

PHIL NELSON 

SOLEIL 

QUETZAL 

PUBLISHER/EDITOR 

RESIDENT POET 

RAD-ASS REVIEWER 

FEATURED FEMME 

CARTOONIST* 

KLOCKWIZE KAT 

KATWIZE KLOCK 

*PHIL NELSON is a 55 year old amateur cartoonist who began 

drawing a comic strip called Coconuts around 50 years ago. It went 

nowhere until he made it onto Madhattersreview where he 

collaborated with Carol Novack on several cartoon projects and 

shared cartoon editor duties with fellow cartoonist and flasher Marja 

Hagborg. He currently resides with his wife, daughter, and a feral 

kitten named Michonne in Havertown, Pennsylvania.

Bourge-wise Cat

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