and we both know
if it wasn’t for the vodka
and that extra shot of rum
you wouldn’t have walked
me home, and you wouldn’t
be here still
if we weren’t both lonely
as hell and boozing again.
If we had real friends
here in Montreal, or loved
ones, or just someone else
to fondle.

We aren’t lovers. Urgency
pressed us into this, pressed
us into each other through some
shared flaw of character
and cheap reasoning, imagined
indifferently. But we
were never lovers. We’re only
naked and guilty
of the practical dreams
and theoretical desires
that dragged us here, lasting
long after the quick sins
and denial.

We were never lovers. There’s relief
when you come
and more relief again
when you leave. We spill
into each other, then
drain away like water
with the first thirst slaked
and forgotten. We were never
really lovers.

"PhotonQ-Femme Feline" (photo by Flickr user PhOtOnQuAnTiQuE)

Search Intensifies for Missing Montreal Woman

It’s the dead of a deadly winter. In that long hour
before dawn, she hotwires the beat-up Pontiac Sunfire
and drives off, hellbent. And suddenly she’s on the run.

All she brings are two pears and the jar of instant café,
a can of tomato soup, and the few creased 20s found
in the pocket of his jeans. Also cigarettes, socks,
and the carving knife. He took the keys last night

and there wasn’t much time, but it doesn’t matter, really,
the shit she left behind. Travel lightly, as they say. Live
simply, and choose your words wisely (those little wounds!).
Joni Mitchell’s on the radio, or the CBC, and she’s heading East.
Right into the sun. She might have family out there,
or a good friend, but probably it’s just nowhere

in particular to here, and that’s the real appeal. All directions
look the same, and she just wants to get away. Yes,
after burning the whole place down, she thinks
she can start all over again. By resurrection

or by deception, this time she’s determined. Deliberate,
keen as the edge of the carving knife she keeps
on the passenger’s seat: this last disappearing act
won’t end in retreat, or returning. Sometimes,
she knows, it just takes not waiting to be found.

–

Born and raised in the ravines of Etobicoke and the wilder areas just north of Toronto, Emily Paskevics is currently a graduate student at McGill University. She divides her time between Toronto and Montréal, and she can’t decide which concrete jungle to settle in. Her most recent publications include Young Voices, Ascent, The Claremont Review, Shorthand (via Toronto’s Diaspora Dialogues); with poetry forthcoming in Voices (through the University of Toronto), McGill’s Read This!, and carte blanche (via the Quebec Writers’ Federation). She has also collaborated with McGill’s “Poetry in Performance” project, and she is a recent fellowship recipient for the Summer Literary Seminars International 2012.

"Pity the poor Moxx of Balhoon" (photo by Flickr user squacco)

Feel like doing some weirdo time warp mash-up? That’s cool. There would be a dial for that. You’d just select some combo like a Charles Dickens and Mary Pickford sandwich, and blammo—you got it. Want a Hulk Hogan golden shower while Betty White spits peach pits at your face? That’s totally sick, but now insanely possible. You dig?

Are you imagining it? Good. Because here’s my theory: we get these magic time machine sex machines out there on the market and price them like whatever gaming console is currently popular. That’s step one. Step two: inundate the market with ads, testimonials, and soft core porn—all declaring the awesomeness of the product. Step one and step two ought to culminate in step three: everyone with half a genital buys one—maybe even two, just so that they have a back-up in case the first one breaks. Step four: everyone is getting laid in extremely satisfying and creative ways, then bragging to all of their friends. (Hey Alex, did you know that I totally did Martha Stewart in one of her weirdo Halloween get-ups that she wears on her magazine covers while Shakespeare and Ross Perot took turns spanking me? Dude, it was awesome.) All of this leads to glorious step five: total world peace.

What about cruel dictators whose genocidal tendencies threaten the very existence of whole races/ethnicities/etc? Not to worry! There is no way that they will be able to find time to address such grim matters now that they find themselves scampering about in enormous diapers, holding oversized lollipops, and crying to be changed by Cindy Crawford, Julia Roberts, and Julia Child.
What about the moral majority? Please. The morals will go straight out the window once they can actually convince someone to sleep with them. Praise-a-thons will be on permanent hiatus while they drunkenly cavort with Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. Talk about a “baked Alaska.”

Ok, I don’t know what that last part meant—some sort of Palin sex reference? Whatever. Let’s keep this thing moving.

What I do know is that suicides will most likely also cease. Feel like you’re a big ol’ sack of crap? Probably won’t once all the stars of Twilight reveal that they are warm for your form. “Team Jacob” or “Team Edward?” Bitch, please. Can you say double team? That’s what I’m talking about. Bam! Making this thing happen.

Pretty much the only group that is still going to be annoying is little kids. They will still suck. I know that that is a bummer. We’re working on that. We’re thinking about some kind of aging machine that could just grow them up super fast, something like genetically modifying them the way we do vegetables. Get them big fast. That would minimize the unpleasant years of parenting and the burdens of their endless pointless inquiries about the world. Blah, blah, blah, why is that lady pooping? Whose ugly dog is that? Why am I such a boring kid with no friends? Blah, blah, blah. Something about the moon and a puddle and reasons why you don’t swallow gum. No one really has the patience for that stuff.

Failing all else, we could probably pump them full of tranquilizers, hook them up to feeding bags and just set them aside until they are eighteen and legal. Supermarket tantrums and late night bedwettings? Not likely.

Emily Brontë, sex goddess

When the world is good, I’m going to kick back in my skankiest tube top and order me up some Johnette Napolitano (that’s the chick from Concrete Blonde, for those of you who are not as cool and indie and retro as me), some Rachel Maddow, some fucking Brangelina Jolie Pitt. I’m going to order Marilyn Monroe in a corset, Chloë Sevigny in her big crazy boho 70s sunglasses, and Winona Ryder is going to steal the clothes right off of me. Oh man, and then there is that little minx Judy Holliday, and that tarantula of a woman Joan Jett. God, and Emily Brontë was probably a good time—way better than preppy Miss Austen and her polite little tea set. And hey, let’s throw in the big pervs and see what they’ve got? A little dalliance with Henry Miller, Charles Bukowski, or Howard Stern? Howard, I’m going to narrate the way I fuck you on your radio show and you’re going to like it. You will reward my high school listenership with mind-blowing oral and a stunningly tender buttocks massage.

Ok, you get the picture. I know that you are ready for a better world—a world free of bad economies, bad debts, bad cheap food, bad clothes you bought before realizing they were ugly as hell, bad dates with bad losers in which you go to see bad movies starring bad actors behaving badly toward bad others. I know you want the change. I know you want the magic time machine sex machine. I know that you need it. I know you want to finally buy heart-pounding, aneurysm inducing, sextastic sex! Not “ok I’m a hooker and you paid, so go ahead” sex. Not “fine, we’re married so I guess I owe it to you” sex. Not awkward or shy sex. No—liver popping, ovary stomping, kick you in the back of the neck, reckless feckless totally amped up to the max SEX. Glowing, shining, glossy like a prize-winning pony SEX. Say it with me! Preach it to me! Glory be to the sexy! All hail my sweaty lusty sisterhood and brotherhood and transhood!

And don’t forget to pay shipping and handling.

–

Sarah Sorensen’s work has most recently been published online or in print at Identity Theory, Apt, The Battered Suitcase, Knee-Jerk, The Ear Hustler, Metazen, Staccato, and Bastards and Whores. She likes cats, tats, and coffee.

Guido Mattioni

The action of the book follows an Italian man, Alberto Landi, who at fifty has lost his way. Like Dante (of Divine Comedy fame), Alberto is having an existential crisis after the sudden death of his beloved wife, Nina. He leaves Milan, where he has always lived and worked, and escapes across the ocean to Savannah, a city both he and his wife had loved. There, in a natural paradise governed by the breath of the tides and with the help of many dear friends, he starts to rebuild his life.

Guido describes his novel as a declaration of love to the women of the world, as well as to the city of Savannah. We were intrigued by this premise, and took the opportunity to ask him a few questions about his writing and life via email.

Who are some of your favorite authors?

I have no doubt: Dante Alighieri, because his Divine Comedy is the summa of everything can be written about human beings. You’ll find an answer to every question in it. For the same reason, I love Marcel Proust. His ability to distill universal lessons, even from the most apparently simple fact or behavior, is impressive. From a writing style point of view, I do love many American writers, even if they are very different from each other. Authors like John Steinbeck, John Fante, Tom Wolfe, Mark Twain, Truman Capote, Saul Bellow, William Faulkner and many others, and I always keep a special corner of my soul for my beloved Flannery O’Connor.

Do you have a favorite quote about writing or the writing process?

I do not have a quote, but I do believe that good writing has to be much more similar to the job of a cabinetmaker. I mean, a writer has to start from a raw piece of wood—the words—and then going on outlining, roughing off, refining, smoothing until the curves look like velvet and sound perfect. Maybe I will be not a bestseller, but I hate this modern and very popular syncopated writing. To me, it’s the language of a generation who grew up reading and writing short cell phone text messages. Literature is something else altogether.

Where are you from, and how does your geographic location influence your writing?

I’ve lived most of my life in Milano, a business-oriented big city in northern Italy. It’s full of history, like any other big Italian city (or small village), but it’s unfortunately always running, and it’s money-minded and polluted. It’s very different from Udine, in northeast Italy, where I was born and where I grew up. Udine is a cozy and elegant small town not far from Venice, on the border of Austria and Yugoslavia. Fortunately I can write anywhere, probably because of my former job as a professional journalist always travelling. I have a vast stock of knowledge, faces, characters, sites and places, and my memory is still good.

What’s your favorite writing fuel?

I must say I don’t need a specific “fuel” to write. Except for a good cup of coffee in the morning, what I do need is just silence. That’s why I’ve spent a hell of a lot of money on doors and windows and special glass to keep Milano’s traffic noises out of my downtown apartment!

Do you have any superstitions or writing exercises you like to use when starting a new project?

No, I have no superstitions at all—not in writing, nor in the rest of my life. I love all cats, even black ones! I’m definitely much more afraid of politicians.

What are your hobbies or interests, outside of writing?

I don’t love sports, of any kind, but I have to admit I am a definitely strange kind of Italian because on top of that, what I really hate is soccer. Don’t ask me why, I don’t know. I just hate it! But I would have loved to play golf, because I enjoy walking on the grass and under the trees. After a dozen useless lessons, years ago, I realized I was unable to coordinate my movements, and it was frustrating, so I quit. But I love cooking, and I’m an excellent chef for my wife and friends. It’s the only hobby I have. I spend a lot of money on new pots, ceramic knives, small appliances. My wife calls them my “toys.” And she’s right, they are!

If you weren’t a writer, what would you be?

No question: I would have been a chef! That’s probably because cooking is a creative job, just like writing.

What’s next for you? Are you working on anything right now?

I’m already working on another novel, also set in the United States, but it’s more of an action/adventure story. It’s an old idea that goes back to the 80s, a fiction story that has slept for decades in my handwritten reporter notebooks. I’m just updating the plot. It will not be a poetic setting, like Savannah with its idyllic sunsets on the marshes, but instead it will be set on the dusty and dangerous border between Texas and Mexico. It will be definitely a tough story, even if it’s a human one, because feelings and good sentiments can grow up even in the sand, even in the middle of the desert, just like saguaros and cactus do.

Whispering Tides is available at Amazon in English and Italian (as Ascoltavo le maree), Barnes & Noble, Smashwords and Apple’s iBookstore. You can also buy the Italian hardcover version at Lulu or read an excerpt here. Connect with Guido on Facebook, Twitter or GoodReads.

There’s a very poetic moment to which many of us want to return as often as possible. You’re sitting at a bar, waxing poetically about the end of the world. Outside, the night is full of promise, so you order another drink and nod when the right song comes pouring out of the speakers. Maybe you touch or get touched by someone. In a nutshell, even if nothing remarkable is happening, the moment feels just right. Out of that place and time comes the poetry contained in Liz Worth’s Amphetamine Heart. However, her words are not static and tend to visit the places and times that precede and follow that just-right moment, the second in which you realize none of it was that great and sadness sets in.

The book, published as part of Guernica’s First Poets series, is divided into four distinctive sections. Part one, entitled White Hunger, works as an intro by establishing the atmosphere. Worth uses spilled beer and cigarette smoke as the cohesive elements that bring her poetry together and give it a sense of location. The second section, Lowered Inhibitions, takes the reader deeper into the night and even beyond it, to a place of damp mattresses, ideas, regret and even a dose of quiet anger at the passage of time.

It’s the swamp rot of this
gin and tonic mouth
that signals my becoming an
asymmetrical diagram made to
mark the overload of insomnia.

Before the Thaw, the third portion of the text, begins to explore the body and consciousness inside the dark spaces of anger, insomnia and over thinking the words inhabit.

Anticipate destruction
before the tongue penetrates marked territory.

Between vaginal secretions, dimples, perspiration, swollen lids and even more lowered inhibitions, Before the Thaw is a warning of what comes next: Oral Fixations. While all parts flow together, the last segment of the book is what pushes it into must-read territory. Tattooed skin, fingers, legs, tendons, foreskin, metabolic rate, collarbones, thighs, mouths, blood, bile, shoulders, eyes, nasal passages, urine, lips, and underarms slowly add heat to the small tome and help Amphetamine Heart truly conflagrate in its last section.

Decadence and beauty come together in Worth’s work. The poetry in Amphetamine Heart is a celebration of the good, bad, and ugly things that come with late nights and drinking. Definitely worth a read (no pun intended).

–

Liz Worth is the author of Treat Me Like Dirt: An Oral History of Punk in Toronto and Beyond. Her work has appeared in the Toronto Star, Exclaim!, Toronto Life, Punk Planet, This Magazine, and Broken Pencil as well as literary journals such as Chiron Review and The Toronto Quarterly. Worth is also a writer of avant-garde poetry and Amphetamine Heart is her first full-length poetry collection.

Gabino Iglesias is a writer and journalist currently living in Austin, TX. His work has appeared in The New York Times, the Austin Post, Business Today magazine, San Antonio magazine, Bizarro Central, MicroHorror, El Nuevo Dia and a few anthologies. He’s also a book reviewer for HorrorTalk, Horrorphilia, the Lovecraft eZine and most recently joined Black Heart Magazine as the Poetry Editor. He can be reached at gabinoiglesias@gmail.com.

Wet face, tired arms, sore throat.
Look at you carrying on,
carrying the dead weight
that Zora said you would.
Put him down,
he’s too heavy for you
You need melody on the wind

What happened to those days of
thumbing though vinyl until
modernity pulled us by our collars?
Only our bags weighed us down,
full of books and spoon-fed
knowledge we put on hold, put on
the floor, near the doorway of reality
while we spoke in a language of
tracks, tempo and rhythm.

What did you find?
You pulled his smiling face from the
stack and we admire,
thinking the same thing.
He would lighten the load.
He would make us feel wanted.

"Soul'n'Shoes" (photo by Flickr user Mista.Boos)

Lunch With My Parents

How are you so good at keeping
one hand on my knee,
the other on the wheel
and your mind on my breasts?

He laughs and calls me tactless.
We won’t wreck, he says.
I don’t know that.
I do know that we smell faintly
of rushed unwed sex.
The only kind that will do for now.
I hope my parents are too old
to remember what that smells like.
I don’t want to explain the birds
and the bees to grown-folk.

His fingers dance a jig on my thigh,
nervousness or giddiness causes them
to chorus-line. It tickles and reminds me
of where his head rested hours before.
Red in the face, eyes closed
and chest heaving, he chose my thigh
for a pillow and asked me:
Aren’t we meeting your parents for lunch today?

But he’s incredibly deft.
He works the wheel with
an accuracy that assures me
we won’t wreck.

Maya Angelou reading at Robsham Theater (image via John J. Burns Library)

Should Maya Angelou Go Senile

Try not to be offended when she claims,
“I adore the sound of dandelion fluff
blackness dancing like a dervish
against the backdrop of a rainbow
that is my imagination.”

She will tell you that W.E.B. Dubois
would agree, adding,
“The conglomerate of blackness is
richly dichotomized.” She will repeat
herself often.

Nod and smile when she tells you tales
of her nights with James Baldwin.
How she and “that black queen” threw
Molotov cocktails at Puerto Rican
tiendas.

“Did you know I once danced the can-can?”
Just say yes. Because this might be true.
“When my belly was flat and my arms
strong, I lifted the lid of my own coffin,
climbing right out of the ghetto.”
This might be true too.

Some night she will sit alone
and murmur quietly how she never
knew about caged birds until now.
She’ll shake her head and tear up a bit.
Hold her hand.
Ask her to tell you, again,
what blackness means.

–

Charish Halliburton is a twenty-something poet, living in Toledo, Ohio with her husband and rabbit. When she’s not writing poetry she’s writing for her blog. When she’s not writing at all, she’s chasing the rabbit. You can find Charish’s work at Gloom Cupboard, Tidal Basin Review, South Jersey Underground, and Compass Rose Literary Magazine.