Claire Heywood is a longtime creative writer and short-time songwriter who got her start playing sets to small listening audiences in Denver’s literary/arts community. After her debut release “The Wind, It Howls” garnered attention from local critics this March, Claire stepped more fully into the Denver music scene with a set at Underground Music Showcase 303 Magazine called “one of the best of the weekend.”
All These Open Fields
He sits legs under
a curl of the known
up against
the unknown.
She is wandering
away again
as she speaks
as she finds
the strand
which allows itself
to tangle between
his toes. And he is
bouncing his foot
to her story because
he imagines her
in the story
as she tells it
tries to come
to terms. What
terms he does not
know. And she can tell
it makes him
uncomfortable—
all these open fields
where she is running
but still. She flexes
her wings as though
they had been folded
too long in the cold.
But now that the heat
is upon them both his leg
moves rapidly and her
shoulder blades hold
the beat and she is still
speaking and he refuses
to speak. And the unknown
sits up between them and
relaxes itself as a lazy cat
would across a table
in the heat of the sun
middle of winter when
there is no chance
of kicking him off
simply to set down
a fresh cup of coffee
put your feet up and
enjoy a goddamn
cigarette.
Fall Through
If you were to let your eyes fall
upon black panes of a night window—
to stay—resting there where air swells
soundless. You would be lost.
.
And so she turns from the window
makes her face open to me now—
Says—I no longer hope for this ache
to end.
I turned my body to him
without expectation. Spoke as though
I’d come from the woods—
A single afternoon.
Long between the banks of a river
whose name I’ve never known.
He rose to greet me without rush—no never
a rush in the world for his breath at my neck.
Solid hands each side of my face. She says.
She tells me about the day she lay her body
across his lap and let herself be held close.
Close-pulled-in by a mouth by arms a body
to bring her into herself.
She looks up to my eyes resting openly
upon her mouth mouthing the words—
I have no idea how to have mercy for my own life.
.
How the fathomless black
remains flat against the glass
is of no consequence
save for our wonder of it.
I gave myself—inexplicably to him.
That winter and all those to follow never mind the risk.
Though I would not set fire to the home I’d built
no matter the torments. Would you? She asks.
Her sweetly softened eyes widen as the deer’s.
Head lifted ears cocked in observance.
A gentle shift of hooves in the undergrowth.
The decades have made her careful—
clever—so very beautiful.
If you were handed your life
loosed of its bridle suddenly
and without remorse?
.
How long before you could.
Name it.
Green Leaves Dropped
Out the window from a small
Room where we are all breathing
Willows sway but do not want
More than a willingness to sway.
In the space of a gathered wish we are
All wishing not to suffer. Yet if we knew
What it would mean to move through
We would. We would ask for a firefly’s
Last light. We would ask the growing world
To make its chance for meaning. We would ask
For agony. We would ask for endurance.
You walk the street of your childhood
And say the trees have not greened
As they should. And those that did dropped
Their leaves ‘neath an early frost and did not
Have a chance. And is this what we have now
To look forward to? Is this what is meant
You ask, by changing weather?
There is a world we do not know yet.
There is a world without and we have not
Yet known it. There is a world with everything
And that too we have not known.
you gonna hafta drown
build that house high
build that house high on the mountain
build that house on stilts high on the mountain
raise it up far as you can architect
reach for the stars and praise hallelujah
fill that house with helium
keep it up keep it up keep it up
you still gonna shit your soul
down that porcelain bowl
down that bowl into the septic tank
into the septic tank with the crack in it
the crack that drains all your refuse
all your void
all you excrement
into your very own back yard
keep it up keep it up keep it up
you gonna hafta shit yourself
break your head eat your shit for brains
clog the anatomy of a toilet
break your head open on the toilet
flushflushflushflush you are flush
with overflow, the john is flooding
break your head open and leave it
shattered on the flood
keep it up keep it up keep it up
build your house so high no one can see
havarti on wonder bread and falling out teeth
caviar on saltines served with instant coffee
glugglugglug your vodkaprayerwinespritzer
glug the exhaust pipe of your 6 ton 6 door V-10 F150
you’re good to go, John Wayne, breathe deep, General Lee
drive that truck to the roof of your house
and sit so high, sit so high God sits next to you
keep it up keep it up keep it up
you gonna hafta drown
because a flood is coming
you told me all about it in your little black book
cumslut dumbfuck shit your brains into your hands
you’re leaking deep into the mountain and it’s crack
crack cracking underneath you, your stilts will fall
your truck runs empty after you ate all the oil
that mountain gonna fall
that mountain gonna shake
you gonna fall
the flood will rise to meet you
you can’t hide
it’s prophesized
I learned that from you
keep it up keep it up keep it up
Jesus says the meek will inherit the earth
and mountain man
that’s the opposite of you
keep it up
art: “warrior” by shannon elizabeth
We have at least one, a procession
of balloons, whose bony strings
clutch our wrists like lost children.
They appear, those balloons, whenever
we remember them, their eager pull
to a time when everything seemed fine:
when sunny water shimmered
even on cloudy afternoons,
when moonlit clouds opened
our bedroom windows to let the breeze
breathe in beside us as we slept.
They’re with us on our saddest nights:
their strings squeeze our wrists like
tiny tourniquets, our blood seeming
to drain out of us like cool pools of sweat.
Sometimes when we look at the rubbery
heads of the balloons, we see instead
their detached heads, our loved ones’ heads,
their eyes focused on the tears rolling
down our cheeks like stones.
They say nothing, the dead.
They let us sob, they let us laugh.
They must float for our sakes,
to make us feel that we’re not alone,
to lift us up like gales so that we may
dare to live while we’re still alive.
Some of us can cut their strings
with the dull scissors of time. Regardless,
our loved ones appear whenever
we remember them, their strings swinging
up from our stiff wrists like the stems
of roses that cling with love and rot.
Jacob Butlett is an award-winning gay author with an A.A. in General Studies and a B.A. in Creative Writing. In 2017 he won the Bauerly-Roseliep Scholarship for literary excellence, and in 2018 he received a Pushcart Prize nomination for his poetry. Some of his work has been published in The MacGuffin, Panoply, Rat’s Ass Review, COUNTERCLOCK, Cacti Fur, Gone Lawn, Rabid Oak, Ghost City Review, Lunch Ticket, Fterota Logia, Into the Void, and plain china. He was selected as a finalist in the 2019 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards residency competition. Learn more about Jacob at https://jacobbutlettacademicreflection.weebly.com/.
featured image: Liana Mikah
You would be wrong
Thinking I have fled you
Thinking you have fled me
It is the unpressed nucleus
The unuttered understanding
The auguries that spell perditions
And deliverances.
You would be wrong
When my present is multitudes
Knotting with your pasts
You would be wrong
And that is not all.
I’ve lived in small spaces all my life
Lifetimes and avenues
Walked with you
My existence splintered where it meets yours
We have lived the grandest of lives
Been people, and then been others
Had others
We have gone and come again
Existences poked and prodded through the Needles
Of time
Dying when the other pulls through
Living together, sometimes apart
Sometimes never meeting.
Nine lives to match the cats
We always wished we could be.
In one lifetime,
My heart is sixteen years old
And yours is ancient, callous, cold
I give you everything
And you don’t trust me
This is the story of how I write books to make you forgive
And you, you look for lines so you can read between them.
There is another one, where I am graceless
But you are unconcerned about it
We bond over music and green tea
And exchange fervent recommendations
That border on the aggressive
So that it makes me smile
That passion of yours suffusing every title
And the rich tartness in the tea
And you cannot wait, and I can’t contain it
And sometimes, I even think I may
I may
I might
Love you.
That is not all, that is not it.
In another, I break your heart so many times you
Come to expect it, like the end of a calamitous song
We see each other this way and that
Cocking our expectations
Slanting our heads
Angling our gazes
Clinging onto the airless center like it’s a ball of light
Which we will never figure out
And it is probably for the best.
Here I peer another tangent
Ever so slight, ever so parallel
But it makes all the difference
Because where you once loved me
Now it is the other way around
And I am unmoved by it.
I feel old.
That is not all, that is not all.
I spy another
But this one is dim, dull, bleak
We are grieving for bygones, lovers lost
Superimposing their souls onto each other
Disappointed when the likeness does not assuage
The shattered heart
And what could have been never is
Which does not matter because I am but a drop of ink in your water
And you are a thumb of graphite, streaked on the side of my page
I do not, cannot care
And it soothes me when you likewise don’t.
This one should have been left alone.
Here a version, where
Nothing is funny, and everything’s a joke
My sense of humor sours and you take to appraising
and assassinating
My character with hilarious, devastating takedowns
I will drive off with the last word,
Dashing away at your fragile ego
With a witty, well placed observation on your tragic upbringing
And it will make you smile even as you excoriate
My name.
And that is not all, not all.
Life number sixteen:
You leave me
But I keep your books
And every now and then
I smell them to remind me of
You.
When you ask for them, the lie skates smoothly down my tongue
I tell you I’ve already given them
Away, sold them
Palming coins to illustrate my point.
My favorite cycle is also my worst
Kindling my masochism because it’s the only thing I cherish more than you
In it, you struggle with some secret pain
But you leave me out of it
And so I begin to do the same.
But years later you will say that I was the one, pushed you out
The way I pushed out snow, caked up on the sills of our apartment window.
There will be another time,
When Chance, munificent Chance will
Chance a glance on us again.
Your mother will try to hate me, but I am a paragon
Your careless father will pretend he doesn’t care, but I am Beguilement Itself
Your brother will wish that I had chosen him instead.
I end up bowed over you
And we make deathbed promises
Sated with the fruits of our rapture.
But that is not it.
It’s not yet the one I think of
Not the one I’ll think of years later
When I cross paths with you, a stranger one summer morning
Caught between two errands
You will stun me
Then and there
And I will not know your name
But I will never forget you
Forget the children I imagine for me and you
Forget the tangles we could make together
Forget the potential that fades as soon as you exit my periphery
Taking the clarity with me
You will break my heart, you whose name I will never learn (though I will certainly speculate)
But you will also save my life
Because I will look to the future as the softest place to fall
As long as it holds the promise that another summer morning may come
Where you and I will meet again.
In some separate continuance, your insecurities bend with my callowness
You, a seasoned cynic
I: have never been kissed
This is what you know: that I would endure it all for anyone
This is what I don’t: that your kindness, dangled under your contempt, will break me.
(And I don’t think some of you boys understand
The power that you have
How you can undo a girl with a barbed wire of a word
Dragged gently across her heart
It is casual
And all the more punishing for it
Casual and clever
In a clueless, guileless way
A guileless sort of way
— but I was saying. That is not yet the point.)
In the semantics of our lives, one sliver of me
Will meet your wholeness
And you will try to complement me
And I go mad thinking you will save me
When I should know better by now
Being a liver of life
And an inveterate reader of ghastly fairy tales
Whose morbid true versions
Hold nothing to their shiny counterparts
A lie
I’m eager to believe in, because
You do.
Here, a pitiful glimpse
You are the white noise I let whisper in the background
The simmering television screen I leave on for comfort
The tuneless music I dial up for company
The brouhaha that steels my loneliness
And why do I keep thinking we’re Saturday?
And why am I watching this again?
There, a sweeter one
Take a breath, I’ll take one too
I’ll make you like bowling again, might even tolerate mini golf
Peel off those tepid, tarnished memories you have of pointless sports
And we’ll sate ourselves on promises
We don’t dare yet speak aloud
For fear of what, of what.
And that is not all, not yet.
This one stream runs completely separate
And ever more troubling for it
We end up together
Accidentally
Sit on bar tables in crowded restaurants
Footnotes in each other’s lives
Scattered for the sake of others
If we both looked up, we could read eternity in each other
But you don’t like eye contact, and besides
I only wear shades.
Another one finds me the victim
Of your rancor, long fingers reaching from past experiences
Caressing warnings for you, that
Only you can sense.
They echo: she is dangerous
And you will treat me as such
Realizations, barred and nettled
Tightrope dancing
Over imagined foreboding.
In one story, you get comfortable too quickly
You call me “baby”, which chafes, but also somehow doesn’t
You speak low over the music, so that I have to get closer to hear you
And it works.
You would be wrong
Thinking I have fled you as you are
When we are fleeing everything we could be
And that is not all:
Like clockwork, our treads hammering the face
Our needles chase after one another
Chiming about regrets, about lifetimes and avenues
Of treachery and reverence
I dance away your mangled heart with glee
Because I can
And you will hate me (there are too many versions where you hate me)
Even as you double back
Six times you will lose, in order:
Your essence
Your poise
Your hopefulness
Your idealism
Your will, that vital urgency to live
Your — I might stop there.
And you will call me Bluebeard
A thief and murderer after your own lapidated heart
And of all there is, that might be all.
A. Martine is a trilingual writer, musician and artist who goes where the waves take her. She might have been a kraken in a past life. She’s an Assistant Editor at Reckoning Press and a Managing Editor of The Nasiona. In addition to her own website, some of her fiction, nonfiction and poetry can be found or is forthcoming in: Berfrois, The Rumpus, Bright Wall/Dark Room, Metaphorosis, Medium, RIC Journal, Lamplight, the Score! anthology, TERSE. Journal, Gone Lawn, Truancy Mag, Confessionalist Zine, Ghost City Review. Follow her @Maelllstrom/www.maelllstrom.com.
I got so drunk
I thought the
the manager
of the Chinese
takeout was
my psychiatrist
and I told him my
recent symptoms
and he increased
the dosage of my
fortune cookies,
but I was not
compliant and
barely even gave
General Tsao
a chance to kick
in and my bags
of unused ancient
medicine left an
oil stain on that
that nicotine yellow
hotel carpet with
my other unopened
prescriptions for
sushi and many
other potions from
far reaches of the
world colliding
several stories
beneath us on
the metropolitan
island streets
that breathe dirty
steam we are too
weak to breathe
in as we overdose
on over the counter
bullet proof glass
medicine with very
unpredictable side
effects that make
us hide here in
search of the
healing energy of
an uncharted sky.
Kevin Ridgeway is the author of Too Young to Know (Stubborn Mule Press). Recent work has appeared in Slipstream, Chiron Review, Nerve Cowboy, Main Street Rag, Cultural Weekly, Gasconade Review, The American Journal of Poetry and So it Goes: The Literary Journal of the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library, among others. A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, he lives and writes in Long Beach, CA.
Top Photo: Khachik Simonian
Shannon Elizabeth Gardner is a graduate from the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point with a Bachelors in Studio Art and a Minor in Art History. Her interest in horror and the macabre came about while exploring nature and the paranormal. The work explores the natural and organic process of death, evoking empathy for decay. She believes life is beautiful when left to fate, leaving art to chance assists the viewer to witness beauty hidden within imperfections. Her process appreciates nature’s process and discovers the earth’s imperfect beauty. The ethereal mood of her work reaches the extreme and address the taboo.
Decay
Watercolor and Ink on Paper
4×4
Decay is an evident part of life. The use of stippling accurately renders the appearance of a technical dental drawing. The illusion the dots creates a unique texture that imitates the look of nature.
Forgotten Daisy
Ink on Paper
4×6
The daisy is a sacred flower representing the Norse goddess of love and fertility, Freya. In Norse mythology Freya, while symbolizing birth, also symbolizes death. Daisies are often gifted to new mothers in blessings of new beginnings. In this piece the perky and happy appearance of the flower is contrasted with the black ink and white voids creating an ethereal mood. While the daisy represents purity and positive perspectives, the viewer gets an uncanny feeling as if something has gone awry.
Time Hurts
Ink on Paper
8×6
In this piece the use of dots creates an impression of a technical drawing. Stippling creates clusters of value implying crisp texture and depth. The use of stippling imitates the changes in life through time.
Let’s Circulate
Ink and Colored Pencil on Paper
8×10
Can you feel every system operating through your body? Many complex components running simultaneously in conjunction with each other. Isn’t it miraculous how we work?
Solstice
Watercolor and Ink on Paper
4×6
The daisy in this piece symbolizes strength through death. Often gifted to mothers of newborns, this flower was captured during its last days. With the blessings of new beginnings this piece replaces the usual perky and happy appearance of the flower. A shadow of black ink drips from the top poisoning positive perspectives.
Warrior
Watercolor and Ink on Paper
8×8
Life drawing is a beautiful exercise. The intimate relationship between model and artist is an enthralling experience that continues to inspire throughout one’s lifetime.
Two are Better
Watercolor and Ink on Paper
20×30
In my work I practice the Asian technique of Wabi Sabi; the aesthetic within imperfections. I strive to explore the unearthed beauty and imitate the natural imperfections. The use of watercolor and India Ink creates beauty within imperfections while creating an earthy grunge aesthetic. The use of India Ink and Watercolor creates an ominous burnt feeling that attributes to the beauty of the worn aesthetic.
Tormented
Ink on Paper
4×6
With my admiration of nature, death, and decay my work strives to explore the aesthetic within imperfections and unearthed beauty of line work and stippling. These techniques imply and imitate natural imperfections. The depth of this piece created with lines illustrates the depth of trauma.
Grave Nap
On the nights
with no degrees left
I tremble when
I think of you
cold and alone lying
on the dark earth where
her bones lay to rest
beside the bones of
her first son
I know you went there
as soon as you were
old enough to drive,
16 and your license was your
ticket to the graveyard.
Finally free
to be alone
in your obsession
Finally free
to grieve
Dear child, and you were
a child.
When your brother
was this age
he was your parent,
died a child.
You can fall
asleep with your family
every night
if you want to
think of them
before you dream
You do not have
to remember where
their flesh was buried
so long as you
let yourself melt
into their ghostly embrace
You can fall
asleep alone
if you want to
give yourself rest
from the memories
squeezing themselves
into your head
You can carry
yourself as you
wake in this world
if you want to
regulate yourself
help yourself
hold yourself
But you will never be
held by your mother again.
Your truth is in death
where your mind
will never go.
Let that be true for
just tonight.
Dream softly of
all that is left
on this earth
waiting
to decay
Funeral
At my funeral
there will be
only cut lilies
as decoration
so that everyone
will spend their time wondering
almost entirely
about the cut lilies.
How something so beautiful
could smell so bad;
how something
still living, can be dying,
or how something already dead
can still be living.
How long the liminal space
will last for them as humans,
how long it must feel for a lilly,
and if their perspective of
time even matters if
the process of death
is eternal
for every living one.
If we are all just living things dying
or dying things still living
sped up by life
sped up by work
sped up by stress
sped up by fear
and fear
and fear
and fear.
Their hands will touch
my face and they will
swallow the idea of me
Soak in the void
between the present
and imaginary daydreams
that could have happened
between us
if I had only
stayed alive
Trapped in the space
between reality
and dreams
And they will wonder
if it matters
or if it’s all about their perspective
afterall.
If it’s all about what they desire.
And they will wonder
why they ever fed
anything but desire
and pleasure
and love
and hope
Why they did anything
but move towards justice,
demand another world,
smell flowers
uncut,
and pray.
Kiss my forehead
and leave again
and begin again.
Hayden Dansky is a transgender nonbinary rural queer kid trying their best to not to be smothered by capitalism. Their poetry is a process of letting their flesh breathe, of finding oneself and sharing a body that is always in process. Their writing explores the depths of shame, darkness, queerness, addiction and grief. They create and collaborate with local experimental musicians and dancers to create performances that encompass multiple disciplines. They are also a food justice organizer and work to create more participatory and accessible food systems in Boulder, CO.
Photo: Zane Lee
Trash Bags
Piled on the curb
bloated with
semi used
tennis shoes,
unwashed socks,
And flannel shirts
with buttons missing.
Slouched against the sky
in the afternoon heat.
Becoming a new world sun dial
tolling to the neighbors
a new marking of time-
John is dead
Nostalgia
I wish I could bring you back to life
just to watch you kill yourself again
instead of being around
your loitering ghost
as stacks of unworn clothes
and bric-a-brac for me to trip over
because if you were alive
we’d just practice twisting the knife
in each others back and not pick up
the phone when it rang
like normal families
but we can’t
so there’s no point reminiscing
I guess I’ll start cleaning up
your mess
as you just lay around
Impotent
My brother kill himself today
blew his head off
well not off but close
and when I found him
his body reminded me
of a vase I tipped and let
shatter to the ground
and no matter how much
I screamed he just looked
at me with that same vacant stare
I buried my brother today
and the fresh mound of dirt
reminded me of a beach on Cape Cod
me and my brother building a sand
castle and our father told us
we had built it to close to the shore
we knew he was right
but fuck him
Brian Matta writes poetry and plays. He is published in Newtown Literary Review, No, Dear Magazine, and Brine Literary.
The moments I feel most lonely
are when I remember
I am not a coffee can full of gasoline
I am not a race car
in a black and white photograph
seemingly ripping a ditch into the universe
with a number etched into the side of my soul
I am not a prospector
chewing canary bones and digging for danger,
nor am I a coal miner
painting my skin daily
with the dankest of doom
I am not a boxer,
I am a punching bag
hanging in a sweat lodge
nailed to the blocks
forever waiting for the blank bullet
of a starter pistol
I have given into comforts
I have lost the panic of motivation
the friction of chattering teeth
no longer keeps me warm
my heart is glued back together
But where does that leave me?
This is not my first grave
This is not the first time I’m lamenting
a status that I never really had
I’m spinning off in every wrong direction
keeping my eyes peeled for the next
road of gold
The next masterpiece to dream
and steal
and squander
Until then, here I am
with another man’s lapels
in my clenched fists
in the middle of some house party
embarrassing myself to death
Jesse Lee Pacheco is a performance artist from Denver, CO. He’s a founding member of the Atlantic City arts collective, a group dedicated to exploring new artistic spaces and forms. Although he considers himself a multidisciplinary artist, poetry has a special place in his heart. He uses poetry to turn himself inside out, bringing his deepest parts to the surface. He would like to dedicate this piece to his brother Noah, for always believing in him.
Photo: Daniel van den Berg
South Broadway Ghost Society 