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� �
..:: CONTENTS ::..

�� Volume VII, Issue II

..:: POETRY ::..

  • Ed Steck
  • Iain Britton
  • J.D. Nelson
  • Adam Strauss
  • John M. Bennett

  • ..:: PROSE ::..
    ..:: OTHER ::..

    ..:: ETC ::..
    �� Contributor's Notes

    ..:: ARCHIVES ::..
    �� Volume I, Issue I
    �� Volume I, Issue II
    �� Volume II, Issue I
    �� Volume II, Issue II
    �� Volume III, Issue I
    �� Volume III, Issue II
    �� Volume IV, Issue I

    �� Volume IV, Issue II
    �� Volume V, Issue I
    �� Volume V, Issue II
    �� Volume VI, Issue I
    �� Volume VI, Issue II
    �� Volume VII, Issue I

    Poetry


    from Blank City
    Jane Joritz-Nakagawa

    * ����* ����*

    it's about time. �spoiled citizens reject presidential attack ads in favor of terrorist fighting
    money. the milky way is composed of profit margins. little motifs proliferate until we kill
    them. �with what i ask. ���what we were to the world. ���so i tried hiding in the deficit
    touching me inappropriately. �my arms race. �leaving my feet at the door. i kept staring at
    embossed paper floating through the night tho i try to cease and desist. spring is more
    absent than usual. �i look at the plate with my mouth closed. �invisible enemies in
    imaginary wars keep me from going. �to work. ��love became increasingly porous. ��to
    screw up politics

    * ����* ����*

    no time to learn what my mobile fone can do tho i sense its relative importance. �ask not
    what your computer can do for you ask what you can do for your internet provider. �i'm not
    sure if i retired or was fired. ��losing the needle of the conversation & �suspecting i was a
    spam filter in an earlier more lackluster life. �i would balance on a sheet of paper except my
    lawyer advised against it. we will rename the campaign operation poophole. �the doctor's
    scalpel is nice and points to future climate change denial

    * ����* ����*

    even tho i wear my surgical mask twenty four seven. suffused with the rhetoric. ���a desire
    to be in love without there being anyone to be in love with. �an online vigilante group
    posing a national security risk may just be a hobby. �passive-aggressive disorder may stem
    from a specific childhood stimulus in an environment where it was not safe to express
    frustration or anger. �mutual respect between me and the government became increasingly
    unlikely. ��why god doesn't love you back

    * ����* ����*

    somewhere between centripetal and centrifugal. if you deliberately court madness you
    could end up sane. ��please close my eyes and rub my feet. �if i were dead i would still eat.
    it's not my fault the directions were wrong. �in front of dancing stars. ���reduce reuse recycle
    runaway reject. �invisible radiation as much as superhumanly possible and according to an
    unnamed source in the bull's eye the market slumped and alternative views became. ��i'd
    like to attend the electoral college. �there is more than one way to default. inflate your
    currency for example

    * ����* ����*

    since it was the only thing that could console me. underwear shredded into a pitiful shape.
    vessels of shame for the entire society. �thrown into a disillusioning world. �i hug the book.
    i go away from the horrible city. blankness of a wall on which paintings are hung. �self
    already disintegrating. vaporized for thought crimes. �ultimately god escapes during the
    season finale. ��fueled by paranoia and celebrity mysticism

    * ����* ����*

    wanting to purchase a secular democracy but forgetting to read the fine print and ending up
    head of a tobacco company. �later buried at sea showered with old money. �in the shadow of
    big banks. �busy lawyering up. ��collective scams leveraged to the hilt hammer the poor.
    fake profits put desperation in the air clouded by large bonuses. �we hoped for a religious
    apocalypse not an economic one but secret millionaires brought restless leg syndrome to
    the skies creating wage slaves and brand loyalty

    * ����* ����*

    afraid it would disorganize my brain. �played to the melody of tyranny. �probably just a
    nervous system overreacting to mild stimuli. �events without resolution create a residue
    which is difficult to remove. �chapter line and verse. �i don't walk around outside in my
    bathrobe claiming to be sane or anything but. �often. �in the language of tomorrow the
    chronically ill will never feel better soon or ever. in the extraordinary powers of attorneys.
    please do me a favor

    * ����* ����*

    hoping to make a positive ID. �new austerity measures for sweat shops pose no immediate
    threat to human health. �compulsive disorders may be a new form of bonded labor. �because
    offshore bankers simulate the economy and humans are miswired at birth by a bitter god

    * ����* ����*

    repulsive silence in a replica scenario. �so i collapse on the pavement. �once i learn to isolate
    myself and the linguistic isotope. �i may become extinct. �a continuing deferral of
    consciousness from itself

    * ����* ����*

    to ensure my existence i refer to myself in the third person. �and hope it will extend the
    limits of treatability. �while the rich avert their eyes. �to manage the unmanageable. in arid
    dreams of toxicologists no crops grow. �an unsafe dose of language was released when i
    accidentally damaged a safety valve. ��i got a physical when i finished my tour. �evil twin
    theory is a sucker punch

    * ����* ����*

    though i was in full compliance of federal law. �since all languages have unknown side
    effects. doomed to fail the reality test again and again. �death by misadventure. given
    random privately funded trials. pending further investigation. �the way the wor(l)d works

    * ����* ����*

    the unknown etiology. g minor is the saddest key. so i turned into a touch panel for all the
    men in the office. �a flow of sentiments suddenly stopped. �i don't care what. critics say
    eternity is not an option

    * ����* ����*

    the forest wasn't the only thing petrified. how you could mistake a forest for a field of
    stones. �i wore the food chain round my neck. �i was very justified. �i remember the day my
    head broke. �cold tho i was wrapped in a blanket of ignorance. �we invent limits every day.
    to be swollen and disfigured. people cannot occupy the space of an other. at the bottom of a
    deep gravity well on a gas-covered planet

    * ����* ����*

    this world with no one in it. �ambush a conspiracy theory to achieve a certain dissipation of
    money even if too big to fail. �if i could hang it on a gallery wall somebody would pay a lot
    of money for it. �i could always touch myself. words may be simple yet frighten me. �so i
    mingled with houses. what happened to the once full world

    * ����* ����*

    as part of a silent minority which is actually dead. i wanted to analyze language not reality.
    but in the court of opinion i become unresponsive. on whom we tested the vaccine. �which
    medicines cannot cure. in revised versions of decolletage. at the cellular level. �as if the
    names were proper. when the world becomes rational i'll stop writing about it. more or
    less. toward overflowing cemeteries on the slippery slopes of justice. with their debt
    downgraded. very ordinary prison sentences. �a reason for early riot intervention. and
    heroin overdoses in rehab facilities

    * ����* ����*

    unsure if my house looked empty or full i asked passersby. �tho i know home is an
    antiquated gesture. �thus i am always ready for combat. �can you endure borders without
    paranoia. while spitting myself out trying to not explicitly privilege women in my research.
    made into a mantra i chant whenever i am upside down. splitting myself in two enables me
    to inhabit both halves of the universe. �tho i don't like either half. in places where i have no
    business. �in which wor(l)d parasites frolic

    * ����* ����*

    to exhume the linguistic body. we wish for the poem's safe return. �into the arms of
    goddesses. tho i suspect the trees are really stencils. lurking in my private eye. enemies
    which can't be seen. �crowds aren't enough. words and the sky empty themselves. i could
    have been a contender or a key witness. some things cannot be translated

    //�� Advance�� //