killer whale journal vol. 3
DESCRIPTION
The third Vol. of fine contemporary poetry, presented by Killer Whale Journal. Edited by Alessandro Powell and Samuel RoweTRANSCRIPT
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KWJ VOL. 3
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Contents
From The Editors2
Contributors3
Puke Rimbaud4
i hurt trees5
At The Museo de Antioqua7
Front Doors8
Life9
Some Good Excuses10
Chapter 1611
The Apocalypse Cha-Cha12
Buddha & Co13
Beach In Winter14
The View From The Crack In The Alley15
Inanimate Seduction16
there you go again17
a beaver wrote me18
dnt yu b givin up19
& when they let us b20
At The Bus Stop21
Fibbing Sun22
Sharp Countys First Machine House23
Whale Fall25
Intendemnify26
Bios27
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From The Editors Its the magic number(ed Vol.) The solstice has passed but the nights arent drawing in. Read this Vol. on your rooftops, balconies, in your gardens, yards; read it always outside. The poetry contained moves across dams and excuses and museos and branches and ends at the bottom of the ocean. And thanks to Will Preston-George for the art direction and cover layout, and Titus Groan for the cover illustration, and Jeff Dahlgren and John Lowther for the art youll find dotted through the Vol. I will admit this Vol. was long in gestation lots of things surfacing simultaneously. No excuses next time. Its a finer vintage for it. To all the poets featured: You complete us. To the state of California: Close Seaworld already.
Samuel Rowe I often say Sam and I compile our Killer Whale Journal because we can, which has become a motto of ours. But I am not so selfless. We open new submissions three or four times per year because we enjoy it. What a great excuse to look at the superb work our peers create through words and images year after year. I want to thank everyone who submitted, even if we could not find room for your art or poetry. We kept this one short and sweet, unlike volume two, because KWJ is meant for online consumption. Reading through your submissions was a distinct pleasure. We hope you enjoy volume three as much as we enjoyed putting it together. Yes, the future is bright for killer whales everywhere. Except Sea World. Maybe next year well work with audio files to boot. And sorry for the wait--the killer whale is a master of suspense, as well as self-insulation and waiting for sea lions to leave their puny icebergs.
Alessandro Mario Powell
https://killerwhalejournal.wordpress.com
https://facebook.com/killerwhalejournal
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Contributors
Marissa Lucchesi
Leo Temple
Daniel de Cull
Joseph Bradshaw
Marie-Claire Serou
Howie Good
Michael H. Brownstein
Christine Lyons
Vanessa Saunders
Strider Marcus Jones
Connor Crawford
Johnnie Bicket
Titus Groan
Jeff Dahlgren & John Lowther
William & Thats On My Mom Preston-George
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Marissa Lucchesi
i hurt trees 1 it's easter sixteen springs ago and my mother tugs my hair, pressed thin with coconut oil and eucalyptus drops. we have a book of braids (only white girls are pictured) & we pick the fishtail to fin down my pink satin church dress. at Mass i press plucked magnolia buds into my palms, inhale the premature green dissect the furry hearts, the tucked underbellies of unopened petals almost a sin
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2 on repeat, the 2000 enya album and my mothers warm thigh pressed to the noncurve of my waist. her hair curlier, thick & smells like wild flowers, lychee the sweetness of pre- cigarettes. when i am older i remember the tightening. i braid it into the new synapses
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Leo Temple
At The Museo de Antioqua I have laughed constantly, grieved of myself, like rain both being and puddling. BOTERO! feeds me evening on memory emollient sleep; butter spread on nightmare; BOTERO! casts time in endless sexual position, sleeps me well the paunch of Medellin. She, the Mona Lisa, is so fat inside Colombia, BOTERO! says. Time is a belly that grows like nails. I have puddled, like time, in words like morning, contained time in language like cysts in the air; I have heard myself laughing far off uncontrollably the rain laughs constantly grieves of itself. Outside, a large man skirts his wet shirt around his belly; the paunch of Medellin grows in the rain.
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Daniel de Cull
Front Doors
Baby O dynamite mistress of the Star fish
swimming in my ears where often a Wo/Man
remains alone long to listen
Doors singing my business daily dead as a door nail into all this Channel O.O. % Ecstasy. No showing me a door opening by itself
at the End of lives forgotten when Sun is a dog cart botted with gay dogs
of the dooms day sit and dreaming of the floor of our
Nothingness sentencing: "Bakers dozen talk 19 to the dozen".
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Joseph Bradshaw
Life How many Bart Simpson dolls have I seen in the trash, lying in piles of trash on the street, the heads of Bart Simpson dolls? Only beautiful trash lies in the street as I walk past a split open condom, a few Bart Simpson heads poke blankly out. I love creating beauty in life. What makes Bart Simpsons head appear so big? One Bart Simpson head is at least the size of two of mine. Or one Bart Simpson heads the size of one of my heads plus three, no, two of my penises.
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Some Good Excuses Ive been apartment hunting Ive had mono I had a bad childhood Im not that gay/straight I dont believe in self Im trying to be honest I assumed you hated me I dont wish for anything This body is all I have left Eventually it will be gone Eventually my name will be gone And then I will not have existed Its a dress perfect for any occasion
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Marie-Claire Serou
Chapter 16 When the gradient of f is equal to F it is said to be independent of path. This is
useful in fluid dynamics. Supposedly. Physics works out beautifully whether or not
there is a God. However, when you get into applications of math none of the
variables are purely independent. Where x intersects the y-axis, it can only intersect
z where y and z both equal 0. There are practical applications. When Mary kisses ----
and ----- in the same day, she thinks only she matters. Nihilism is a self-fulfilling
prophecy, you too can be too cool forToday, I decided to make a friend less
arrogant than myself. I saw a girl so skinny and washed she looked nothing like an
animal. She was wearing only true black. I wanted to tell her, but I had bangs and a
math joke written on my wrist: A vector field that is independent of path is called a
conservative vector field. I address a Bible to God. Dear Lord, I dont know if youve
seen this. Signed, MC. PS. Are you a wool sweater or Superman? I receive no reply.
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Howie Good
The Apocalypse Cha-Cha
Often eyes become red, and all because four-hundred bullets per minute go roaring
off on joyrides. Thats when I start thinking, Whatever happened to the right to be
lazy? The world has developed a taste for the miserable, the beheaded Christian
prisoners who cant quite get things together. Theres actually a kid in full goalie
pads outside the Stop & Shop collecting money for a pantheon dedicated to them.
He might be better off if hed been shot in a fracas and instantly killed. My life also
seems kind of Laurel and Hardy, a kiss of fire accelerant, the whole jamboree
vulnerable to the odd stick of dynamite. Souvenir hunters wont even bother to wait
until the ashes cool before they begin searching through the wreckage.
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Buddha & Co. Exposure to long winters has erased the face of the garden Buddha. I shouldnt compare, but Van Gogh also had most of his teeth pulled. In the dark subzero hours of early morning, I have been woken up by yips & squeaks, coyote pups trying to keep warm. I lie there and listen, & then I am no longer the color of tears.
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Beach in Winter Nothing here, and no one, only seashells and pebbles and pretty ferry lights casting shadows that form a sentence.
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Michael H. Brownstein
The View From The Crack In The Alley A wild moon over the timber wolf trees, the injury of silt within their branches, plastic sawdust forced into block and stone: Here is the arithmetic for everything mammal, the vagina curl in waves hitting scorpion sand, ancient trees carved out of mud and brick: One boulder leans against pebbles for support.
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Christine Lyons
there you go again chewing through the forest like you own the place snapping trees
the way id snap your neck
i couldve used that lumber filed it into a toothpick picked flesh between pearly whites
& i could use you too beaver wear you like a hat serve you on a spit sell you for a buck twenty
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a beaver wrote me a song once when our bellies were full & the moon was full
coyotes howling at the bone eye
her fingers plucked the grass tail slapped the water
she sang about last thursday hiding her mouth underwater
to keep herself quiet when trappers trapped her momma
sheared her mommas fur off & left her naked
floatin round somewhere now this beavers pluckin grass like a guitar & im the only human who hears her song the others just dont listen: bievers r jus aenimels
they say tht wil nvr chanj
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dnt yu b givin up on me now beaver
i kno it gets cold up here nd water drops freezin
be low but yu jus keep swimmin even wen yur feet get tired nd the hair on yur back
freezes yu jus
dive d o w n
cause we all need a little break
but keep on workin beaver chomp down on wood build yur dam tuck yourself into yur lodge
nd when yu sleep yuk no ill wake yu up S M A C K my tail gainst the water when sumthin floats by
h old yur breath nd hide underwater
lil beaver lets hope this is the day they let us b
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& when they let us b lets meet in the forest somewhere in northern ntario wher thers only
w i d e green space
d e e p
blu waters listen to cars / crickets watch satellites / stars remove the distance between
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Vanessa Saunders
AT A BUS STOP, a blind man puts his head into his hands. Why has this
happened? I don't know. A tree is truncated in the storm, but there is no great
surprise. Do you prefer function over form? The body collapses in the street. I
prefer form, he said. I'll take my dinner in the dry Pacific.
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Strider Marcus Jones
Fibbing Sun when this fibbing sun, dips below this planted plate of fields- and waits to bob back up tomorrow: solitude, sucks the colour out of crimson clouds, and stars begin their movements over night's black curtain. thinks. this dance of being born- to live and die in sacred elements swirling in dust and gas, in beauty and folly that repeats itself to what purpose- does this engine and design make civilisations form then fade with gods and demons. there must be more to Michelangelo's ceiling- than creating orphans and leaving them, to grow old in fostered orbits.
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Connor Crawford
Sharp Countys First Machine House they bought the new house at Sears, the morning it got delivered down Campbell road, Ravenden, Portia and Williford all watched tip-toed from behind the tin fences, little ones atop the cattle straining to see the tractor tugging the machine-made home its floors drooping over the trailers edge, bowed plywood scraping unbranched red leaves and side mud when the road narrowed so the neighbors took bets on which corner it would crumble, but no one made a cent these farmers and their families also watched from the front row the night the old house burnt down their faces lit up like sunset Rapa Nui, flames in their pupils no seaworthy buckets around to fetch, to douse that night, the chimney got the only life raft, reached land charred and gasping for air in his black brick lungs the post office girl gave him water and a bath, and boiled his clothes out back
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the burns cooled quickly, he got back to work for his meals hayed the field with his pops tilled in imperfect circles until there was just a mattress- sized patch dead center of the field where all the bunnies slowly relocated, but he spared them he yielded buckets of bear oil into the tree trunk trough by the Spring river preparing for cold, dipped his raw hands in the frigid current to wash up for that nights Spamburger supper on the patch of rubble where his grandfathers old kitchen and stove had been an Ozark winter with a new house picked out from a catalog: not ready cut Honor Bilt Natoma, Modern Home No. C034, $191.00 she cleaned him up and ragged him down one last time, built a fire in his guts the night before the Sears house came.
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Johnnie Bicket
Whale Fall The boughs of ribs, a sculpted skull, vertebrae dissembled, a column toppled to sections: imprint of hugeness. When living, it saw through the glum aphotic with music it made through organs, thundering across centuries, sounding out the murky globe. It sang through internal chambers with air stolen away from the breathing world. When swimming the ring of the southern ocean, whales chant ballads about the sometimes sun, the moon silvering the shallow waters, songs that outlast the chug of ships. But, this whale recanted descends through miles, through currents, before nudging the sea-bed with a slack jaw, the body falling in behind. Quiet in abyssal squeeze, its bones are quarried by worms burrowing for food, no darker plan. Smell water and gather; they say out over the bed, well build a city out of this.
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Bios
Marissa Lucchesi
is an economics graduate student at Tulane University, 22. She is just
beginning to self-identify as a poet. She hopes to publish a book of poems
someday.
Leo Temple
grew up outside Bridgwater, Somerset in the Quantock hills. In Liverpool he
broke a budding football star's ankle. The boy now plays for England. This
incident threatens to be Leo's most notable act. He writes poems.
Daniel de Cull
is a Castilian and Aragon poet. He is highly involved with natural life and
love. He is popular and often quoted. He is editor of the cultural reviews
Gallo Tricolor and Robespierre.
Joseph Bradshaw
is a caca Jesu
Marie-Claire Serou
is a forth generation New Orleans native. She likes poetry, f(r)iction, boiling
summer days and civil disobedience.
Howie Good
s poetry collections include The Complete Absence of Twilight from MadHat
Press, and Fugitive Pieces from Right Hand Pointing Press.
Michael H. Brownstein
has been widely published throughout the small and literary presses. In
addition, he has nine poetry chapbooks. Brownstein currently is the English
Specialist at Lincoln University.
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Christine Lyons
is Canadian first. Writer second.
Vanessa Saunders
is a graduate from the University of East Anglia. She enjoys green tea and
Paul Celan.
Strider Marcus Jones
is a poet, law graduate, ex civil servant and Salford born and bred. His five
published books of poetry are modern, traditional, mythical, sometimes
erotic, surreal and metaphysical.
Connor Crawford
is AWOL.
Johnnie Bicket
is unemployed and lives with his mother. He dislikes contemporary jazz, fish
from rivers, and moral objectivism. He likes Tony Gash, dumb-phones, and
defecating in open country.