11. Featuring: Ashley Welch

+ Yu-Han Chao + Bill Drennan + Gordon Scapens + Stephen C Middleton +

  Arun Gaur + Misti Rainwater-Lites + Graham Burchell + Mathias Nelson +

  Geoff Stevens + Paul Tristram + Helen Kitson

Flush

I am

obsessed with

evens he

said I

won’t even

put toothpaste

on the

brush without

flattening it

smooth with

the thick

of my

thumb or

eat toast

with clumps

of butter

hanging at

the top

left corner

un- melted

I said

  But

  we

  are

  all at

  odds

Currents

Glinting in my eye

The cold river ripples gold

We ebb and vanish

Into

All our words from loose using have lost their edge

-Ernest Hemingway

Edge Edge Edge Edge into into Edge Edge

Edge Edge Edge e d g e into Edge e d g e

  of the abyss

we slip slope

stumble slant

into

recession

deformation nation

on the

Edge Edge Edge Edge into into Edge Edge Edge

E d g e e d g e into e d g e

Remember

Memories are brutal. Sometimes you don’t

remember what you want to, sometimes a memory

you wish you had forgotten creeps up on you. Snapshots

are what I have kept from my childhood, but even now

I’m unsure if some memories are real or just

pictures I saw somewhere. Instead I remember colours,

smells, texture. The outside of our house was made of

plastic that looked like wood, the grain carved in. It was

yellow. The grass in our backyard was stiff, unkind to the

feet, always prickly and dried into a knife point. My mother

had large pink roses that she used to pick and sugar. Dipped

in egg whites and crystallised with granules. Sometimes

she used sweet violets. Delicious. I picked the

pansies that grew in the front yard and pressed them between

the pages of books, turning them paper thin. There was a

board in her closet floor that lifted up on a hinge, it was

where we would go if a tornado came.

It only came once but she couldn’t face going down

there, it was dark and full of dirt, the raw earth underneath

her closet only separated by a thin plastic sheet. Instead we took

pillows and sat in the bathtub holding flashlights

and a radio.

The tornado passed over our yellow house, but ate a few a couple

of streets over.

I don’t remember my mother’s face.

Erie Basin

We sat and watched as

the thick rusted chains lay

against the moss that

we had carefully tread to the

place

where we once watched

an old man with a gnarled smile

fish under a green umbrella by the

water that was suggestively low

and glassy, peddling

against

the concrete that had greyed all

too quickly.

The rain

misted at my ears as you

told me it was gone.

To Take Home

On the way home from the Lake House there was a Caravan

on the side of the road. An old woman lived there. She made

Tamales all day and sold them to the passing traffic. Authentic Tamales, wrapped in

corn husks, $2 each. My mother usually bought 20 and would freeze half.

We sat on the plastic chairs laid out as a road-side

restaurant and ate a Tamale each. The masa that held the shredded

meat was soft and warm. The best bit was peeling the corn

husk from the dough. After, we would drink a glass of lemonade

and the old woman would give us each a fat pickle wrapped in

a paper towel to eat on the drive home.

Lake Fork

 a memory

3 pronged coves

and Texas BBQ

sauce and

a hacked-up

catfish coated and

fried / Fire

ants nipping

at ankles

and the murky

push of mud under

the water / Smores

of sticky mallow

and Graham

crackers

on a rotting

log where the

smoke

fogs your eyes.

First

Where do you belong? I was born in Texas...but

I moved to...always leaving Texas. I don’t admit it

readily now, Texas has too much bad press. It invites

more questions from people I don’t really want to

talk to. I have more memories of Colorado so

sometimes I think that’s where I belong.

Thats where I met my best friend,

had my first kiss, got drunk for the first time. But

there are other firsts in my life that can’t escape the

Texan heat. My first shoes were pink cowgirl

boots, decorated with glitter. I caught my

first firefly, met my two brothers and ate

the Mexican food I still love for the first time in

Texas. I’m told the first colour I could name was

turquoise, not blue or green or red. I picked

my first bunch of Indian Paint Brushes in my

first back yard. In Texas.

But I won’t go back there.

Descend

We fade with each day

The indigo sky still burns

On shadows that fall

Modern Charity

He sits under

a soiled cloth in

the thick rain that

daily coats the

streets reminding

him to appreciate

the sun

when it

peeks out and the

bare legs will tread

his drier home. One

copper coin and a

jam sandwich from

Martha who visits

before catching the

42 back

to the place

she hates, the one with

square desks,

paper stacks and boxes

of bics. She taped a

copy of Larkin’s Toads

to her fading

computer screen,

and reads it again,

thinking of herself

and him and the

difference between

hoping someone

will buy

him a cup of tea.

Chemical Ali

Anfal genocide

and a cartoon

name to take

the sting out

of the war

crime smell

being the

2nd best for

Them will do

when the

rope is craving

and we

stand impassive

and announce

the toll

Paranoid on 31st Street

The man that

stared at

me before

we left for

the place that

you were

taking me told

me to beware

of fences and

my mind

turned upside

down counting

the planks and

the spokes

through the

condensed

window and

the gaps and

awful ticking

eyes were

following and

you were

yawning that

horrible gaping

yawn of yours

that spreads

like bleach

on a

fluent tile,

rancid.

Instant

Split /So

it comes/

under the

murmur of faint

machete cries

and

the blistering

Second /So

it goes/ with

the flesh

eaten in dry

crackers with

a china white

smile