Jamie Kazay
kazay23@hotmail.com Bio (auto) | Jamie Kazay is a California native living and writing in Chicago She holds a BA in English from California State University, Northridge and an MFA in Poetry from Columbia College Jamie began teaching in the First-Year Writing Program at Columbia College during Spring 2006 She has picked-up subsequent teaching positions with Harold Washington College and Open Books HQ Her poems have appeared in Mount Voices, Northridge Review, Wicked Alice, and Columbia Poetry Review. | | |
The following work is Copyright © 2008, and owned by Jamie Kazay and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
Gathering Like Concentric Rings Today waves jangle mama’s digits,
my digits infantile communion or holy war
In her shadow
time be not master
as common as maybe next times
I am older than known
A circle, unsided, unless anything be fewer
Bent Beside I hold slacked mound: my knee
Lay where moss is rudimentary, growing
downward, spiked, tethered
Count paintstrokes on wooden bench,
scented of walnut, lime, fuzz
* I wear burgundy cowboy boots
when feeling self-destructive
I makebelieve
I’m seven playing near surf at Malibu Beach
with a Chumash boy and girl We kick coral in water used for fishing,
gather kipper, sanguine appetites eased
Later, full bellies kick water as old
as gods as old as we want it to be
, as old as we want to be
so that I may be as old as I want to be. The Grunion Runs When all thoughts are I’m fickle fiction, I remember girls who, at 16, craved sex
The ones Sr Mary Sean referenced as she told stories about sand and blood, when she said: Red inched from their ears,
each scarlet letter sprinkled
the sand waves came in and washed away
I am saying waves took bodies as far as the yellow markers allowed
The context of my story changes as girls walk back to shore, watching the grunion runs: 2,000 small fish spawning on Zuma Beach Each white egg a contrast to the wet sand
I say it’s important to dice the sand with your toes These fissures are necessary
I have lost sight and am unsure of doing
I stay away from waves and sand smelling of piss, knotted in bellybuttons
I stay away, trying not to disturb.
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Graham Fulton
hfulton32@btinternet.com Bio (auto) My name is Graham Fulton I Live in Paisley, Scotland, UK I’ve been published in many major magazines, online journals, newspapers and anthologies, in both the UK and USA, including Word Riot, Ambit, Chapman, The North, Illya’s Honey, California Quarterly, The Silt Reader, Edinburgh Review, Orbis, Envoi, Staple, Stride, The Potomac, Brittle Star, Scotland on Sunday, The Glasgow Herald, Poetry Book Society Anthology, Poetry Super Highway, Children, Churches and Daddies My published collections include Humouring the Iron Bar Man (Polygon), This (Rebel Inc), Knights of the Lower Floors (Polygon), Ritual Soup and other liquids (Mariscat Press) My most recent publications are Inner Circle (Controlled Explosion Press), a sequence of poems set on the Glasgow subway, and Found Objects (Controlled Explosion Press), a CD of photographs
Visit Graham on the web here: www.grahamfulton-poetry.com | | |
The following work is Copyright © 2008, and owned by Graham Fulton and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author. Star The smokers go We tip out the ashtrays
into the swingbin, open the windows,
aerosol spray and shoo the reluctant
nicotine nebulas into the night We can’t see what’s there We’ll turn out the lights
Before we do you bring me a box,
open the lid and show me your prize:
a clutch of terrible meteorites,
culled from nowhere, gall bladder rocks They’re worth a packet You almost died
Six big stones, you turned to yourself Magicked from air, you opened to see
nurses and doctors, those who love you,
circling your cot, unsure of death Smoke and bone You caught your breath.
Sea of Love
I wake and tell you I dreamt I was on
a seabed covered in glowing vulvas
stretching beyond the limit of sight
A clitoris Atlantis Anemone caves A Davy Jones’s locker of joy
I flippered about in a Cousteau suit
like something out of a Jules Verne book,
my Nemo harpoon, primed, in my hand
You say you’ll explain what it meant to me,
but not right now, you need some sleep
I try not to go, but dive in to die
in deep, cold leagues, a watery grave
of Venus flytraps: 20,000, at least.
Desired Effect I buy you the perfect
pair of knickers
House of Fraser Designer price
They highlight
the bombshell curve
of your rear
I cannot wait
to tear them off
Transparently obvious Black and sheer.
Biological
You dream on the left I dream on the right We make love somewhere in between
I tug the sheets from our shagged-out bed
and stuff them into the Hotpoint machine.
Split Infinitive We boldly go, we’re sexonauts
exploring the final dark frontiers
To gently split the atoms of doubt,
to faithfully feel there’s nowhere to fear
A holy worm of K-Y Jelly
clings to my cosmic engagement ring. State of Grace We watch The Incredible Shrinking Man
I taped in Nineteen eighty-five Spiritual comfort, universe, huge It’s good to be so small The End
A monochrome post-Hiroshima script,
a hatpin the length of a Samurai sword The losing of fear, acceptance, rebirth An allegorical spider’s jaws
To God there is no zero the hero
tries to convince as he shrinks in the grass Size doesn’t matter; life doesn’t stop My cock’s a miraculous match for your snatch
Mind Meld Your mind is mine A Spock-style skill,
without the ears My circuits are yours
It’s not an illusion implanted by love It’s not a pretension Together,
apart I’m crossing the street
and something tells me
turn around, and there you are
arriving where you shouldn’t be,
synapses sparking, telepath arcs
I call on the landline to answer the question
you spookily call at the same time to ask You whisper the words heat my scone
the moment they’re forming within my skull
It’s not a lust-daze, here is the way
the world turns around We’re Vulcanised. |
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