"It's not like
She's never tasted fire

It has engulfed her, forcing her skin to blister
Flames whipped up in the folds in her skirt
Smoke smothered her face
Flames chewed her eyelashes to the root
Her tonsils singed she couldn't always
Talk

(Scream)

She has stood in a burning storm that turned her sky to ash

It wasn't that she couldn't take the heat
(She has a metal box for her vital rogans)
It was simply time
To stop burning

She makes graves for cinders
She'll never write her stories in charcoal
Again..."


Emily Jean Habermehl was born in Philadelphia and has called Austin home since 2001. She has been budy writing porety since she was 12 years old and currently works as a licensed Social Worker for a large non-profit agency. She received her Master's degree in Social Work from the University of Texas at Austin in 2007.

May 2009: Guest Editor Mick Parsons, featuring Matthew Vetter & Jose Zarate
There are a few things in life that give me real pleasure: spending time with my wife, going to the track, watching the Bengals win. Another opportunity, even more rare than a Bengals victory, is when I can help introduce new or unheard of writers to a wider audience. Such is the case with Matt Vetter and Jose Zarate.

When I first met Matthew Vetter, I was impressed with the depth and voice in his poetry. His dedication to the word is profound, and it has been a pleasure to see that time and experience have fermented and taken shape in his new work.  He draws from everyday life and from the internal and external landscapes that make up a poet’s world – and, in the process, draws us all into a world in which even the smallest detail becomes earth shaking.

Jose Zarate’s work is rooted in an unrelenting, unforgiving desert that’s (also) home to poisonous scorpions, carnivorous wild pigs, and a largely unacknowledged border war.  The one act play, The Smugglers, is about one aspect of this border war, and gives us a clear picture of who is doing the fighting, who is probably winning, and who always loses. Jose’s ear for dialogue and his eye for drama that is too real to really be called drama make him one of those writers, like Matt, that I expect to hear and read more of in the future.

From Rhythm:
"...3 a.m.

From the living room,
light from one lamp.
Vincent is reading
the poem over and over.

Aching to pulverize his father’s bones,
Vincent once, in his twenties,
began to dig up the grave.

When Vincent’s eyes close,
he is eight and his hands are tied
to the back of a kitchen chair.
His father’s gin face
in his face calling him trash
like his mother, saying that he’s
only good as a practice drum.
The sticks beat to a rhythm
that the band will no longer
let his father play...."

Excerpt from Secrets:

"...Your secret of how you smuggled sixteen thousand heavily
           sedated virgins
across the Mexican border into Texas.
Your secret of where you hire pack elephants in Cleveland,
           Ohio,
and of what their mysterious cargo will be.
The secret of your continuous pajamas,
your frostbite secret, your exploding handkerchief secret.
No one will find out from me what is behind
the enormous painting of Charles Dickens on your dinning room
           wall.
Nor will I tell the secret of how much you paid for the
           mink-lined false teeth you carry everywhere,
or the secret of the bright pink locomotive in your garden..."

Excerpt from Field Guide to Otherkin: Personal Mythology, Imagination and Metaphor

"...With the advent of science as the primary tool for explaining the whys and hows of the physical world, mythology became mere stories, removed from the 'real' world by the veil of the five senses in ordinary consciousness. Once we found out that the sun was a huge burning ball of gas millions of miles away, we supposedly no longer needed the myths of Apollo, Amaterasu, and other solar deities to explain anything beyond ancient cultural storytelling. The moon, as well, was no longer a huntress, or a rabbit, or an incestuous lover with his sister's fingerprints on his back..."

"We were tripping in the backseat
of a car heading for Chicago,
holding hands
under a secret, blue blanket
because we were already obligated
to others;
     ---From, Trip by Stephen Foster


"Each member of the execution committee stared at me in disbelief. As I dashed around the room seeking an escape route, the baffled beholders gazed at me, gazed at each other, gazed at the doctor who performed this execution, stunned about what they were witnessing.."

   ---From The Waning Hours Of Headless Sensation
      by Tony Neal

There was a time
the stars that were your eyes led us on,
casting certain light like in childhood stories.
We could be sure of it,
then.

(The Faith was strong,
omniscient. Undefeated. The
forecast of the generals was optimistic.)

Since nightfall forty days ago, we are stumbling blind.
Bourbon and prayers are no help against the coming winter.

(The saints no longer listen.)

                  ---From Expedition Notes by Mick Parsons

Pre-Emptivity Ruleth ! With all that well-hidden 3rd World weaponry
of mustered pay-back backed up squarely ’gainst levied Major
Applications of Amerishan Milit’ry Get-Down you Betcha ! Fuse #2 . .

 ---From FUSING the ORDER Consorting with Alpha Males
thru the Bars of Oakley & Norwood by Ralph LaCharity

"...Secret government emails suggest that the sun is actually holed up in a large hay barn outside Ashland, Kentucky,self barricaded with semi-automatic weapons, moonshine,
along with 625 concubines and their daughters.

All the snipers are in place. Negotiators are bored, hungry, and needing to fuck their underling’s wives.
Navy Seals in space suits are prepared to haul the carcass back and staple gun it to the sky. They understand instinctively
that no one will know the difference.

We watch the 24 hour news channel
in case they interrupt regularly scheduled executions
to report the imminent return..."

           ---From Equinox by Mick Parsons, 1 of 7 new works

Add crap coffee to remains of Starbucks Venti, double shot, skim milk latte. Check voice mail. Seven messages. Hang up. Decide to deal with that later.

Google hot guy from weekend party. Two “Brad Barnett’s” in Cincinnati. One is accountant the other dead in 1974. As seem to remember guy from party is in advertising or something like that, think maybe his name was “Brad Bartlett” – hard to know as was over served Old Fashioned’s. What the hell is in Old Fashioned anyhow?

Google “Old Fashioned” cocktail. Hmm. Interesting. 2 oz. Whiskey or Bourbon, Splash of Simple Syrup, Bitters & Soda. Fill rocks glass with ice. Add simple syrup, bitters, liquor & soda, Garnish with an orange slice and cherry..."

           ---From e-story Productivity, 1 of 4 works by
              Stacy Sims

is only
a necessary Art
after one no longer fears
being let go of
first.

it is a strength
that cannot be manufactured

it is a strength
no one, not even I,
can teach....
          yet you must learn.

it is forged through
desperation

still, it is a strength

one
stronger than yours

 ---From The Art of Letting Go by Mark Flanigan,
     1 of 6 new  works

moon beams on frozen white schoolyard
an ocean with its own light, the dreams of grass long surrendered to the future
driven to press their tongues on the transparent underside
ululating a cacophonous blues celebration I feel in several body zones

ice whiter than the moon can know, flailing like a bucket on a string,
driven through the buckets bottom to a lineless moist horizon
that prays against gravity, prays against evaporative sun-flash:
how some clouds are misers, some clouds simply incontinent,
no place to put a name, no structure to navigate with more than mass and memories—
sometimes the more I let go, the more room I have for repetition--

---From Some Say the Year begins with Ice by Dan Raphael
    1 of 6 new works

oh, no one must've told you/ you're supposed to/ bear the weight/ write the poems/ cook/ do the dishes/ clean the house/ read to the baby/ play with the baby/ clean up the baby/ clean up after the baby/ scrub the baby's sticky handprints off the wall/ scold the baby when he does it/ if you do it later/ he won't understand why/ remember that/ you must remember this/ be omnipresent/ you can't take your eyes off of him for one minute

your man/ you can't take your eyes off of him for one minute/ no one must've told you/ you have to stroke him/ ego/ dick/ whatever the moment calls for/ cremate your losses/ place their ashes in the urn/ which was once your heart/ or release them/ disperse them over the wind/ of your children's laughter/ these may be your only choices/ get used to isolation/ be strong/ there is nobility in strength/ this should comfort you/ strength in isolation

      ---From Superwoman by Krista Franklin 1 of
         6 new works

  It’s one of those nights I’m drinking alone in my basement studio; snapping polaroids of my hemorrhoids, bending over backwards to allow time all the time in the world to kill itself.
     For the moment I’ve convinced the functionaries I’m disabled – unfit to work. Even the therapist has become at my hard head so pissed he last week told me to beat it; leave him alone; go home; subsist off my check.
     I’m faking it. I’m a spy. Insane Welfare recipient my cover. In reality, I’m hip-deep in top secret doo-doo. If I told you, you’d hafta put down this book and steal something else. Suffice it to say it has everything to do with those behind the lines reading between the lines.
    I miss the days of bulb release. Today you gotta set the timer. Get X amount of secs to get into position. Oh, you can program the secs. Once you create a password, override the default, study the tutorial in what to update – but who’s got the time?

           ---From Willie Smith's novella, Submachinegun
              Conciousness an exclusive semantikon e-book
   

"...here’s to us
moundless grimey tribe
our speech simple minded
our history unwrit
our lives expendable

and here’s to them
who better remember the pendulum swings both ways
all our days numbered on a big clock tick tocking every
one by one."

       ---From Dr. Pain's Main Street Ramble Bone


say you hanging out on Gabriel’s Corner
say you waiting for the horn to blow
say you waiting for the bus to come
say you wait a long time
and your mind is fried
and your feet hurt
and it’s early
and you’re late
and you got another 12 hour day to do in 8
on no sleep because a beat to shit chevrolet
parked down on the street won’t won’t won’t
start every morning at day break

       ---From Dr. Pain's Main Street Remedy