Contents
Michael Fontana...........................The Beloved of the Universe
Anton Frost.................................Accord
Anton Frost.................................Living Together
James Babbs...............................Late One Night
Joop Bersee................................Left?right
George Freek..............................Poem on a Theme by Coleridge
Craig Kurtz.................................Contents Evanescent
Joan Mazza.................................Forbidden Zone
Hillary Lyon.................................The Inadequate Elixir
Team Shopper............................FANTASTIC P0SIT10N 2013
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The Beloved of the Universe
Michael Fontana
The Beloved of the Universe sat on the bed in his underpants, eating a ham and cheese sandwich, when the phone rang.
“God here,”
“What’s up?” The Beloved responded.
“I love you,” God said.
“I’m fully aware of that.”
“But you’re not putting on a good front, if you know what I mean.”
“So God now cares about appearances? Body as temple, and all of that?”
“You are not only Beloved of the Universe, but you are a portion of me and me a portion of you.”
“Meaning?”
“I don’t sit around in my underpants.”
“I didn’t know God wore underpants. Didn’t even know God held flesh or was gendered in any way, shape or form.”
“God holds all flesh and all flesh holds God. God is gendered in all ways and all genders are God. God holds all shapes and forms and all shapes and forms hold God.”
“Hence the creation of underpants. When was that, on the eighth day?”
“You’re mocking me,” God said.
“My conception of God contains a sense of humor. A little sacrilege to offset the sacred and the religious. Otherwise, what’s the fun?”
“No one said this is all fun. Sometimes it’s a vale of tears.”
“My sandwich is getting cold,” the Beloved said, licking the cheese off his fingertips.
“Your heart is getting cold,” God said. “I poured such love into you.”
“And I appreciate that. But I’m human. You know, fatally flawed. One minute I’m here in my underpants and the next you’ve snapped me like a matchstick for cosmic designs to which I’m not the least bit privy.”
“You must trust the design,” God said in a most reassuring voice.
“Sorry but I’m quite materialistic,” the Beloved said. “I trust only in this ham sandwich, the bed that holds me up, my underpants and that which they hold up.”
“And profane as well,” God said.
“I am as you created me.”
“I still love you,” God said.
“I love you too. Now I must go heat up my sandwich.”
With that the Beloved of the Universe hopped off his bed, ran to his microwave, and restlessly drummed his fingers on the countertop, as if ticking off the instants remaining in his life.
___________________________________________________
accord
anton frost
on a week old carcass
the leg of one wasp in the swarm
touches the leg of another
and neither
in their hunger
notices.
___________________________________________________
living together
anton frost
Through all the slits of light in the blinds,
the sound of rain buzzes.
For me it's like a radio tuned between stations
while I think about outer space
and the vibrations of my throat
when I speak.
For you it's like the jingling of our neighbor's keys,
not the old woman to the north
who never turns her lights on
and walks around inside like a ghost,
but the southern one,
the cardboard factory foreman
who always gets home from work at dusk,
and whether by accident or ritual
drops his keys over and over
just as he reaches his door.
___________________________________________________
Late One Night
James Babbs
I remember
walking through the yard
late one night
falling over the garbage cans
I’d left there
earlier in the day
forgetting where they were and
I laid on the cool grass
looking up
at all of the stars
I said Fuck
a couple of times
because
it seemed like
the right thing for me to do
if I was hurt
I wasn’t feeling any pain and
I started laughing
I couldn’t stop
I laughed like
some kind of lunatic
instead of getting up
___________________________________________________
Left?right
Joop Bersee
On the left vengeance.
On the right someone goes away.
To the moon or to flames.
Brains blessed.
A machine looks like a man.
An arch at the bottom.
What happened to our longings
and expectations?
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Poem on a Theme by Coleridge
George Freek
A fat cloud stumbles
over the last light. The moon
comes into sight.
Where is the peace
it should bring?
But I have made peace
with the room in which I live,
where shadows sit
like old men,
sipping cold tea,
watching the leaves
fall from the dying trees.
I have a garden. It lies
under the winter’s snow.
But I still see it
in my mind’s eye.
I see daffodils, straining
towards the sky,
and I see bees,
rushing to gather nectar
before the last flowers die.
___________________________________________________
Contents Evanescent
Craig Kurtz
I started off life
hopeful;
I didn't notice
the infinitesimal
was so small.
Description
was a rhythm;
congruence,
a guess.
I started off life
exceptional;
I hadn't surmised
assurances
were negotiable.
Appearances were
italicized;
sentience,
defenseless.
I started off life
provisional;
then I suspected
consensus
wasn't rational.
Correlation was
dichotomous;
certitude,
mercurial.
I started off life
a genius,
reasoned with each season
& ended up
nocturnal.
Existence is
conjectural;
the conclusion measured
in decimals.
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Forbidden Zone
Joan Mazza
She’s his last session of the day; he scheduled
it that way, has thought about her all these months
as she blossomed and grew confident.
He listens to her intimate voice,
the one she must use only for him, aches
to be closer, to touch her long legs shining
in the light of a room that seems gauzy, sepia,
as outside everything darkens and turns cold.
Inside, enveloped in a warm circle of secrets,
they are drawn to each other to heal and be healed,
to sink into desires without shame.
Finally, she trusts, feels safe with him.
He inhales her scent— shampoo or powder,
something that reminds him of Mother.
Later, he will admit a secret too: I can’t
get it up for my wife. But he stays present in this
moment. He knows she wants what he wants,
won’t refuse him, can’t deny him.
___________________________________________________
The Inadequate Elixir
Hillary Lyon
mistaking the inadequate
elixir of mortality
for truth we swallow
an overdose of confidence
because an ugly suspicion
is turning the wheel
and we climb
into questions armed
with a staple gun
and a red folder full
of accusatory flyers
anonymous and intolerant
it's the confluence of such
fragments -- the belief
in contagious memes
that leaves us shackled
by chains of coincidence
___________________________________________________
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___________________________________________________
Joop Bersee was born in 1958 in the Netherlands. He hasn't finished school (too difficult). He lived in South Africa from 1989 to 1996. Currently he works at a library in Amsterdam.
James Babbs has published hundreds of poems over the last several years in print journals and online. He lives in the same small town where he grew up. He works for the government but doesn't like to talk about it. He is the author of Dictionary of Chaos(2002), Another Beautiful Night(2010), Disturbing The Light(2013) & The Weight of Invisible Things(2013).
Michael Fontana!!
George Freek!!!
Anton Frost has appeared in Verdad, ditch, Parcel, and Otoliths. He lives in Michigan.
Craig Kurtz lives at Twin Oaks Intentional Community where he writes poetry while simultaneously handcrafting hammocks. Recent work appears in Out of Our, Randomly Accessed Poetics, Penny Ante Feud, The Bitchin' Kitsch and others. His first record, The Philosophic Collage, 1981, was reissued by BDR in 2012. He has been a staff writer for Perfect Sound Forever since 2003.
Hillary Lyon is founder of and editor for the small press poetry publisher, Subsynchronous Press. For more info visit: https://hillarylyon.wordpress.com/
Joan Mazza has about 176 poems published in literary magazines.
Team Shopper is a hiring manager who can be reached Monday through Friday during normal business hours at master.shopper@mail.com.
