where is the river :: a poetry experiment

Ethan Vilu :: Four poems Kharys Ateh Laue:: Heirloom Yukti Agarwal :: Two poems Janelle Cordero :: Three poems Matthew Andrews :: Hetrombiopen: I

‘What gets me is, how man refuses to acknowledge the consequences of his disposing of himself at his own entrance — as though a kiss were a cheap thing, as though he were.’                            — Charles Olson, The Human Universe This like everything and everything else starts elsewhere than about itself but not necessarily at the heart of it all or indeed anywhere which, for now, we can give a name (or at least I could if, and if only, you were something able to be reduced/aligned/forced into such a space other than the event of your own eventual whatever) — a poetry of deliberate indelicacy will do none avoiding the impulse, a Derek Bailey sort of distance   with a ‘photographic memory’ masking the sort of resentment only a P.E. teacher could love, day in day out , within and without, grotesque and glorious exterior lasting long after the...

disaster barely 40 degrees but / the sun is out and the skies are blue so / i sit on my back porch in jeans and / a long sleeve shirt i / wrap my arms around myself when the wind comes on i / listen to the birds sing of what lies ahead / disaster for all i know but / these birds make everything sound so sweet / birds outside not silence but stillness not / stillness but the quiet rise and fall of / your chest in another room here are / the sounds your breath / somewhere my breath somewhere and the refrigerator with / its slow mechanical hum what does it mean to be / alone but not alone i close my eyes and / hear birds outside have they / been here all along / once the fear is settled the fear of death comes on less and less and / when it does i know what / to do i say honey / you’re here now and / that’s enough i / speak to myself this way / determined to be kind the kindness / soothes the panic and i find   myself nodding i am / here now i am...

आम का पेड़ | mango tree the blisters of green that emerge from the wrest pin branches of the mango tree that grows outside my window: some years just one or two that are developed and visible, other years that tree is an overwhelming Manhattan-crowded with grass green mangoes | the anger I would feel with each bite taken off these perfectly contoured ovaries of nature by the red-beaked parrots that sang outside my window as their seaweed green camouflaged with the mangoes growing on the tree outside my window | फल वाले भईया | fruit vendor the sounds of the wooden wheels squelch each time they dip into one of the eighty-three manholes present on napeansea road, while the fruit vendor parades his array of fruits | the weighing balance tips over, measuring the kilos of fruits | blue plastic bags bulging and blistering with chickoos, anar and tarbooj Yukti Agarwal is an emerging artist from Mumbai, where she was born, and Providence, where she studied at Brown...

Bow Valley Vignettes Porcelain perfume and plastic parking garage toys on the main street - An unsurprised standoff between glass doors and unshoveled deck, too much snow, weather watching Orioles, no, Ross’ Geese, shimmering Lake Minnewanka - Ornate tea leaves I meant to send you so long ago, but you’re here now, it’s all such a grateful and grandiose thing - the tap water is cold as I breathe in and think of the future. Another Dream About Parksville In three years now I’ve moved to scenic blue Parksville for a matchless summer aura and cornucopia of grains spilling out into the ocean – reaping and sowing giving, and taking all things into the trench I have a diary of luminous, such luminous, sad, dull, nothing over six packs of Stanley Park such an earnest conversation on such horrible things - “Damn, I get it –“ you see why I did what I did as I slick back another small auburn and all of this so amazing ...

1 She is made up of however many bones there are in a human skeleton & a badly crushed waxpaper mouth & skin as thin and baggy as an old T-shirt. She has two blue eyes. One is flesh&blood, the other handblown glass. 2 Names mean nothing to her anymore. She keeps her hands in her lap like two bald veinous animals. She is knackered through&through to her bone marrow from all the godawful hours of waiting. 3 I take her right hand and hold it. Your hands are cold, she says. I have bad circulation , I say. Her smile droops between its pegs. Cold hands, warm heart , she says. She peers at me with her live eye. Who are you? she says. 4 I am your granddaughter , I say. Hah , she says. What are you doing here? She waits. Her skin drags from her bones. I’ve come to visit you , I say. I’ve come all the way from South Africa to see you here. She frowns. She bloats her cheeks, blows. If you’ve come from South Afr...