Unlikely 2.0


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Editors' Notes

Maria Damon and Michelle Greenblatt
Jim Leftwich and Michelle Greenblatt
Sheila E. Murphy and Michelle Greenblatt

A Visual Conversation on Michelle Greenblatt's ASHES AND SEEDS with Stephen Harrison, Monika Mori | MOO, Jonathan Penton and Michelle Greenblatt

Letters for Michelle: with work by Jukka-Pekka Kervinen, Jeffrey Side, Larry Goodell, mark hartenbach, Charles J. Butler, Alexandria Bryan and Brian Kovich

Visual Poetry by Reed Altemus
Poetry by Glen Armstrong
Poetry by Lana Bella
A Eulogic Poem by John M. Bennett
Elegic Poetry by John M. Bennett
Poetry by Wendy Taylor Carlisle
A Eulogy by Vincent A. Cellucci
Poetry by Vincent A. Cellucci
Poetry by Joel Chace
A Spoken Word Poem and Visual Art by K.R. Copeland
A Eulogy by Alan Fyfe
Poetry by Win Harms
Poetry by Carolyn Hembree
Poetry by Cindy Hochman
A Eulogy by Steffen Horstmann
A Eulogic Poem by Dylan Krieger
An Elegic Poem by Dylan Krieger
Visual Art by Donna Kuhn
Poetry by Louise Landes Levi
Poetry by Jim Lineberger
Poetry by Dennis Mahagin
Poetry by Peter Marra
A Eulogy by Frankie Metro
A Song by Alexis Moon and Jonathan Penton
Poetry by Jay Passer
A Eulogy by Jonathan Penton
Visual Poetry by Anne Elezabeth Pluto and Bryson Dean-Gauthier
Visual Art by Marthe Reed
A Eulogy by Gabriel Ricard
Poetry by Alison Ross
A Short Movie by Bernd Sauermann
Poetry by Christopher Shipman
A Spoken Word Poem by Larissa Shmailo
A Eulogic Poem by Jay Sizemore
Elegic Poetry by Jay Sizemore
Poetry by Felino A. Soriano
Visual Art by Jamie Stoneman
Poetry by Ray Succre
Poetry by Yuriy Tarnawsky
A Song by Marc Vincenz


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Three Poems by David McLean

stains

today is stained again.
maculate money cuts through me
like a scythe through grass
or children's puny arms

when wielded by a woman
or a madman. the first thing
i understood was first
forgotten. no god

or woman wields time's axe
but i age myself 'til
i lay my unresisting shaft
in your hands

nothing ages worse
than man




night

night is operationally
defined. it is this chain
of dead days recursively
presented, and presentifies
nothing in our laps, like her
twisted tits that god
scarred herself
with her tiny knife.

it is futile objection against
fatuous life, a cosmos that
cuddles its own growing
cold, it is time's tidy
skeleton optimistic as
oblivion, it is star-showered
devils and nothingness
known.

night is a bandage and
murderous mirror, the nothing that
loves us and the mother
that fucks us, the ticking
of time that lies as it
passes, the wine and the
drinking and death's empty
glasses.

its scarified skin is
our futile reprisal, its
temporary meaning but a
whore's resurrection, blind christ
whose rape's failure is impotent
god. we bite off our own nipples
and spit them over heaven
for another days' passive

action, torment
and breakfast at seven
on seven empty sins, though
several are better sins
whose rigorous stringency
just now escapes me,
the only known duty is holy
lonely sodomy

and the oracle we believe in
the cretinous penis, gender
that bends and the crass obligation
to murder sex qua the smelly
salvation that laves us
in the sheets' sensuous
leavings, like memories
or meanings,

shopping lists of things to believe
or dream




stasis

some sit and watch, but most walk
purposefully as if a leader
followed them and seemed
to speak and direct

as memories do. i just lie
motionless here tied
to stately beds won by cold
psychosis. memories weigh

like tiny tomorrows rolled in a ball
in my flimsy stomach stapled
together from love
and feathers. the lizards there

have eaten all the butterflies
and tonight they sing to me
rather beautifully, say that they
are life.


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David McLean has been submitting for the past year and has had around 300 poems accepted by 125 magazines. A chapbook, a hunger for mourning with 53 of his poems has just been released by Erbacce Press.