Issue I

Tale

No one heard this tale even in the cave

I warn you

Don't ever let it out of your lips 

this tale has a jail sentence for seven generations

I have a tale to tell

that I'll let out of the lips of a girl in the after world

Except don't rush it

we don't have enough ammunition

Don't scare the horses

Dear readers we'll set up camp here!

I haven't lifted the tale

It's just lifted its head out

I won't drag it out

If you're interested

you can open my upcoming books

and reread the tale

Ali Abdolrezaei

(translated from the Persian by Abol Froushan)

Last Line

 

A forehead is popping up and down behind the window

and doesn't take eyes off the girl returning home

The wind blows off a corner of her scarf

and wraps it round her shoulders look!

The bunch of flowers sticking out of her hand is pretty can you see?

Mind she doesn't see you from this angle

She's spiralling up the staircase, can you hear it?

On the stairs one two three and ringingnggg

Damn this stairway

if only it were longer

it wouldn't spoil the last line of this poem

Ali Abdolrezaei

(translated from the Persian by Abol Froushan)

Like Milk

You researched early hair-loss

on the internet and told me

what you’d learnt and showed

me some stuff you’d printed off

about a special shampoo on sale

in Boots in a brown bottle & we

said we’d go to Boots next day

to get some of that shampoo if

they had any left as it sounded

almost like some sort of miracle

cure for premature baldness and

something else that might help

you suggested could be to eat

more fruit & we could both use

an improvement to our diet over

all and maybe as well spending

more time outdoors &c might be

of benefit and I agreed although

to be honest I wasn’t sure about

your last point as I liked sitting in.

Richard Barrett

Embossed

First night, we both fell asleep,
half-dressed, half juiced,
in a corner of my bedsit;
a youthful focus kept a clean sheet.

Night Two: a blood-letting role-play;
gammy efforts at him and her.
An exam marked by monosyllables.
A pattern on the wall.

Ashley Bovan

Fido

Loyalty
    like a dog always
    hungry
    unbrushed
    damp
pulling at the neck-chain
    straight-tailed
    patch-eyed
    fucking rubbish

You face into the mud
    bundle on top

dodge
    alert for the first sign
        of a moving hand

prop up your spirit
    with laughter
scan the trees for pictures of missing persons

remember
    tunnels hacked out years ago
        feel them start
            to subside

It doesn’t matter
It doesn’t matter now

Ashley Bovan

The Part in My Hair

The part in my hair is so sharp
you cry aloud and a bitter trace
of blood tracks down your cheek.
Yet you haven’t touched or approached me,
your famous sense of distance
maintained, your boiled-wool affect
untainted by my surly bulk.

Today I was going to offer
a tour of abandoned landscapes,
including our local Stonehenge,
a garage that burned decades ago,
the plot of a house that also
burned, killing a young couple,
and a campsite in the White Mountains
where my blonde wife disappeared
into the peat bog of her psyche.

But with that blood on your check
you probably imagine me
capable of writing, directing,
and starring in slasher movies
of supernatural predilection:
the part in my hair detaching
and soaring over cringing suburbs
to select those nubile victims
every pervert wants to bleed.

But this was an accident. See,
I’ve mussed my hair to prevent
further damage to your façade.
The hemorrhage has ceased. Maybe
if I make tea you’ll smile and agree
that mussed hair is sexier anyway,
then laugh and note that in some worlds
sharply parted hair seems foolish
when there’s no incentive to groom.

William Doreski

 

Lost in America

Women in those days carried tear-gas pens in their pocketbooks. There wasn’t much work around for a person with two advanced degrees. The bus departed from underneath the Port Authority building at eight that night. If you asked, I couldn’t have told you the difference between a casket and a coffin. The homeless lived in the corners of the cavernous waiting room. I should have taken something for pain. When I woke up, it was snowing in Ohio.

Howie Good

About the contributors

  

Ali Abdolrezaei was born on 10 April 1969 in Northern Iran. He graduated with a Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering from Tehran Technical and Engineering University. He has become become one of the most serious and contentious poets of the new generation of Persian poetry.

In September 2002 he was banned from teaching and public speaking. He left Iran and after staying a few months in Germany, followed by two years in France, he moved to London, where he has been living for the last 6 years.

Richard Barrett lives and works in Salford. His most recent publication is A Big Apple (Knives, Forks and Spoons Press). He co-edits the innovative poetry magazine Department and co-organizes Writers Forum Workshop (North).

Ashley Bovan is a poet and photographer currently working on his MA thesis. He lives in Cardiff, Wales.

William Doreski lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire. His most recent collection of poetry is Waiting for the Angel (2009). He has published three critical studies, including Robert Lowell’s Shifting Colors.  His essays, poetry, fiction, and reviews have appeared in many journals, including Massachusetts Review, Notre Dame Review, The Alembic, New England Quarterly, Harvard Review, Modern Philology, Antioch Review, Natural Bridge.  He won the 2010 Aesthetica poetry prize.

Abol Froushan has lived in London since 1975. He has published five books, including three books of translations into English. His career in literature and performance has encompassed poetry, video, audio recordings and literary criticism.

Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of the full-length poetry collections Lovesick (Press Americana, 2009), Heart With a Dirty Windshield (BeWrite Books, 2010), and Everything Reminds Me of Me (Desperanto, 2011), as well as numerous chapbooks.

All copyright remains with the individual contributors and may not be reproduced in any form without their written permission.