Laszlo Aranyi's Homunculus Mask, Halo Gallery, Puppet's Wax, Gilles de Rais Chants, Gas-Masked Fenris, And Broken Reeds

Aquarius: The Revolution of Predators

Hieroglyphs:

thousands of mysterious drawings made of drops of salty sweat

on a creased tin-plate-like homunculus-mask

Gelded , the good Abélard,

(A pair of spiders weaving webs from Héloise's brittle bark-hole

to the varicous crust of the moon...)

Mourns the galleys that sunk in the depths of the sea

"This is not our world," she whispers gently,

and like guilt incarnate, she is embraced by a God

trembling with pagan intoxication

A hideous, degenerate witch's night,

The age of Aquarius is coming. He gives names to hitherto nameless rivers,

rowing on a halo galley.

Gorgon-cluster: a multitude of coagulated, dried-up serpent -

whips snap,

he’s submerged, the incessant siren calls

summoned him to ancient realms.

(Translated by Gabor Gyukics)

Eon

(Tarot, Major Arcana XX.)

Initially, the beginning seemed closed,

the serpent bit its own tail... Now, opportunity

drifting fateless.
Close to certainty, the answer is no longer clear.
Amorphous drops of wax on the wrinkled, pink
crepe-paper: the puppet's wax flows...
A balancing plunge on the edge a peeling message
Dirty green parasite-coating,

Emperor Domitian poking caught insects,
sticky abdomen substance on the quill.
Gilles de Rais chanting dirty rhymes
in the ears of fat brats, writhing and whimpering.

Only the acceptable
work where the structure explodes (the supports and other handholds
are just sneaky traps of interpretation).
The artist is a Dual God: the manifesting Ra-Hoor-Khuit,
and the hiding Hoor-Pa-Krat.

The wind’s yanking a ragged "Jolly Roger"
(elongated, artificially distorted skull,
a cauldron’s foaming from below, the marks are
self-sufficient and indecipherable,).
The slimy wreck of a ship is grinning on the beach. The islanders(a sophisticated, degenerated species, close to extinction) are
watching all the arrivals from the steaming marshes.
Midgard is dead, so is the gas-masked Fenris... the broken reeds

would love to smile, "ashen jasmine leaves..."
- the poet sings again wildly.

(Translated by Gabor Gyukics)

Laszlo Aranyi (Frater Azmon) poet, anarchist, occultist from Hungary. Earlier books: (szellem)válaszok, A Nap és Holderők egyensúlya . New: Kiterített rókabőr. English poems published: Quail Bell Magazine, Lumin Journal, Moonchild Magazine, Scum Gentry Magazine, Pussy Magic, The Zen Space, Crêpe & Penn, Briars Lit, Acclamation Point, Truly U, Sage Cigarettes Magazine, Lots of Light Literary Foundation, Honey Mag, Theta Wave, Re-side, Cape Magazine, Neuro Logical, The Daily Drunk Mag, Unpublishable Zine, Melbourne Culture Corner, Beir Bua Journal, Crown & Pen, Dead Fern Press, Coven Poetry Journal, Journal of Erato, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Spillover Magazine, Punk Noir, Nymphs Literary Journal,  Synchronized Chaos, Impspired Magazine, Fugitives & Futurists, The Dope Fiend Daily, Mausoleum Press, Nine Magazines, Thanks Hun, Downtown Archive, Hearth & Coffin Literary Journal, Our Poetry Archive (OPA), All Ears (India), Utsanga (Italy), Postscript Magazine (United Arab Emirates), The International Zine Project (France), Swala Tribe Magazine (Rwanda), The QuillS Journal (Nigeria). Known spiritualist mediums, art and explores the relationship between magic.

Michael Lee Rattigan and a Fridge-Door to Heaven, A Tree's Seamless Hem, And A Cross Lit From Behind

Lines in Search of…   

foreign welcome       a switch on language never learned   

prayer for those who sleep in strips of cloth       a sought-for question 

a tear-polished image       a picture scribbled on a fridge-door to heaven.  

Reparation

the eyes’ warmth

or heart’s milk pouring

down the neck

a tree’s seamless hem

spanning

to replace or repair

Eucharist

sky-cornered blossom’s comprehensive dazzle

bridging the way to will

the base of a cross lit from behind

wishing to be raised

golden-silver-white script’s

conquering sign

Michael Lee Rattigan (Caterham, UK) is a poet and translator who has lived and taught in Mexico and Spain. He translated the first complete collection of Fernando Pessoa's Alberto Caeiro poems (Rufus Books, 2007) and contributed to the Selected Writings of César Vallejo (Wesleyan Press, 2015). He is the author of two poetry collections, Liminal (Rufus Books, 2012) and Hiraeth (Black Herald Press, 2016).

Miguel Escobar Guides Us Through The Familiar Trappings Of An Apocalypse, A Gold Rush Chaos Flash, And The Aftermath Of A Pleasure Cruise

EXERCISE TO INVOKE AN UNTESTED FORM OF ACTUAL COGNITION

the movement between truth and     no longer 

the not exactly     a grey spectacle what unfolds 

a question     of     consciousness’ presence as

 narrator     affixed like     appendage     the new 

as it breaks         one more        rigamarole 

could this be it     what         others proclaim

 an apocalypse     with such     familiar trappings 

leave it to the beavers     to build dams     bask 

in sunlight     with their         accomplishment 

because     where are we     purveyors     of failed 

condos     when from         a concurrent     sidebar 

clarity presents     and it is mommy dearest     you 

not quitting your     day job                     guarding 

a semblance     of     destiny     writ black     and inky 

yet even as     everything around you         twirls 

in the air     balanced             behind the scenes 

you know   the drill   don’t you s      staying alive 

the clatter     of dishes     being         cleared by 

a busgirl     the crystal  with residue   of tomato

 and spent lemon wedge                to   scent air 

itself     already                 colored by     sea salt

 this is where consciousness chose to         arrest

 you   lead you through a maze     to     a     cell 

proclaim   all  your   needs   met             except 

                                          just possibly the one

SUMMONING A PRINCESS OR TWO

don’t ask was voiced but in the head    calling 

the meal Porridge       quaint micro       morph 

to the macro meta                 walk a thing back

 into childhood                                from grains 

& oats the safe familiar     enter               Funge 

it is not like     UFOs   or anything        meaning 

believing in them     says       we might   dare go 

ignite  some other  form of cognition     Thomas

the Bahamian does not go in VIP         or even 

in Focused for that matter     for the paradox of 

a ban on iconoclast art      segue          to when

irony is dubbed a thing verboten           witness 

my relationship     to mail     sent     from     this 

Blackberry       insert woman fishing thru purse 

insert beer so good it amazes     the city as We 

the city as We!     going through the roof     on 

every metric       here is what you need to know 

    except you don’t     gold rush     chaos  flash 

everything dead                        a true princess 

                           awe  this  one  lifetime knew 

                                                                   her 

a voice demanding     clarification     but only

 of sorts in all honesty     the whole of history

is a paraphrase     a repetition of only  France 

between untimely deaths                 an actress 

and her role     one of a lifetime         consider 

parallel wisps of clouds rise         from statues 

upended                                        death given 

meaning         a thing       outside         oneself 

incense             in veins               & tea leaves 

the city as We!                             the city as We 

                                       who find      cognition

                                                       transparent

 the question of outliers                         scores to 

settle rampant speculation     as to            a thing 

                                                     beyond grasp

                                    a missing metaphor 

                               that makes you         ache

A NARRATIVE WANTING TO PASS FOR A THING CALLED LIVING

inside a whirr of constant creation spinning black lace

what the daring system attempts outside

spreads 

across the map     no longer paper    no longer dark ink 

gauge         from horrid aftermath of a pleasure cruise

the true meaning of pleasure 

everywhere you look 

nakedness is    voluptuous   alive     using     the wind 

choose a context even a cover-up or         a hoped for 

conceit     resurrect into     a lifetime              arrive at 

the soon to be preordained

stripped        of        what

 incessant everything lobbies hard to be 

something mattering 

a shade-less lightbulb to the stars gawking 

curious anti-shadow   to the spy     the cold    the bleak

 

back alleys             the side deemed wrong

a narrative

 wanting to pass for a thing called living         departed 

notion      of a theme           for the statuesque to bridge 

perception of the wide gulf                as any number of 

distant scenarios appearing     to     dissipate        rather 

than crumbling                 doubts surface      once more 

morphed from a time      years ago               when father

turned out to be                                                     mortal 

                                                                 and then again 

                                                    mother the same 

                                                                            the both 

deducing   the moral   of any      random               parable 

plays tricks                        might you       be fully destined 

to always         barely just                               discern them 

you may think                            you’re still about this thing 

only         break lapse  to find                                     newly 

prescient                                     one   actual   gulf   omitted

Miguel Escobar’s poems have appeared on-line at Vext Magazine, Diaphanous Press Fall 2017, Diaphanous Micro 2.5, Luciole Press, in the Wordpress blog community, as well as in smallish literary/art circles on social media both since late 2015 as well as circa 2007-2008. He resides in the northern California city of Sacramento, at the storied confluence of the American and Sacramento rivers.

John Tustin Ponders The Squeak In Your Bedroom Door, Being Fourteen Forever, And The Running Clockwork Keys Of The Sun

PUDDLES AND GUTTERS

I reside in the puddle beyond your back door

Where the daylight stinks

And mosquitos spawn.

I am in your roof gutters

Strangled between the rotting leaves

And the bird dung.

I am trapped in the spider web

Spun on your windowsill, strangling

While the spider is away.

I am in your keyhole;

The squeak in your bedroom door;

The dust upon your books.

I live in the knot in your hair

You comb out again and again

After you bathe.

I am stuck in the grease

In the clog of your kitchen drain,

The cockroaches clambering over me for freedom.

I am in the drool stain on your pillowcase.

I am just where your lips

Meet the flesh of your sleep.

 I am everywhere you are.

I stalk you from the dirt and the mud

And the static on your radio.

I reside in the puddle beyond your back door

Where the daylight stinks

And mosquitos spawn,

 Rising out to dine

On the blood of the living,

Bringing pestilence and nothing more.

I am the small insignificant thing

That holds on to the mosquito’s leg,

Swatted down with it or escaping, depending.

SEVENTEEN

Three A.M. and thinking about

How pretty some of those girls were

Standing on the subway platform,

Bending to adjust their socks

Or reading a book, back up against a column,

Wearing their best denim,

The trains going by and blowing their hair into their unclouded faces,

Oblivious to my glances

Or my hunger.

Thinking about the friends I had

(I thought I had)

Who flung their daggers

All along my back

As I felt not a thing at the time.

I am forty five now

But I will hear a song

Or smell a smell out of place

Yet familiar,

Or hear a coin falling to the ground and spinning

And I am reminded I will always be fourteen

Or sixteen or seventeen,

My heart a slimy frightened thing,

Beating in the shadows of the rest.

I am thinking about the woman I wanted to love

And how I was a fool and she a charlatan,

Whipping me with her duality

And her nonchalance.

I am thinking about my friend who, it turns out

Was anything but best.

 I remember names and faces

And I remember moments.

Moments when I thought I had found my tribe

And how little by little

Those affirming moments eroded with each truth

That they were not like me at all

And I was glad I was not like them

Although I wished so to belong.

Gradually I just came around less and less

And no one called me, asking me where I was.

It was right I should not be there.

One of them one day

As we were traveling by train told me,

“I don’t like you.

I don’t think we should take the train together anymore.”

Out of the blue, there it was.

The rest of them just said things about me

When I was not present.

He is the only one I respect.

He is still a fucker.

Just thinking about meeting one of them

Purely by chance on the street

Brings back my stutter

And a desire to duck into the next store,

Waiting for them to pass.

Coming close to half a century old,

I am still a little boy

Alone in his room

Crying over nothing

In the near dark

While outside

The rains falls

And falls,

Creasing the windows

From the outside.

UNEARTHED SILVER

I have not and will not forget

The blood that formed in my mouth

Like unearthed silver

The birds that swooped and glided

Before the trees that stopped their swaying

In a wind that carried you to me

For what turned out to be mere moments.

My heart, my lungs swelled with a love

That lasted longer than we

But are now shriveled and crumpled foils

 That rot on the surface of what was falsely believed

To be

A strong and fertile soil.

 I have not and will not forget

The blood that formed in my mouth

Like unearthed silver

And the perceived love in eyes

That seemed to be the turning of the world,

The running clockwork keys of the sun

 But I try

I try

I try.

John Tustin’s poetry has appeared in many disparate literary journals since 2009. fritzware.com/johntustinpoetry contains links to his published poetry online.