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 Wendy Taylor Carlisle

This Way to Paradise

In cool complicated linen, a skeptic succumbs to a church supper: hymns, rhinestones, rich potluck pickings, where the delicious embraces the louche. When such an unbeliever slips into the long, hot Sundays of Pentecost, her purpose can only be thievery, a wish to catch the train of believing, to make the ride for free, as easy as blowing her nose in someone else's starched cotton handkerchief.

We are on the border of a weather disaster, the cashier at Dillard's tells the skeptic then adds, Don't worry. The Lord is on the way.

The skeptic is comforted by this considering how she will whoosh up with the crowd, lifted on the backwash of the Holy. It cheers her to talk about her old wicked days as if they were done. But if that's so, where did her foolishness come from, tricky as a tennis elbow, with all the same turbulence, the same anxious gifts as at the beginning?

There is no answer to this and nothing to do but to swallow the offerings of ambrosia and angel food cake and remind herself that all wishes are valid although not all fulfillments are just. Fifty-fifty. More likely ninety-ten.

Still, a person must try everything. Stop at nothing. Even knowing, finally, deliverance is all about grace.




Rent to Own

Parked behind the Rent to Own: Furniture and Jewelry     his head goes straight for her breast     his hands tangle in her first-job Sonic apron     his hair burns black above her lap     beyond the windshield     traffic insists on its own way     jays clamor     everybody else's daughters play at tissue paper dolls

in the end     he has to let her go to make her own way among the azaleas     to bloom in the woods where tongues of lily leaf and fern rustle     he has to rip himself from her ribs     her pubic bone and all the rest     on the street the girls screech and Double-Dutch

For weeks after women stand     half-hidden behind wrought iron rails     peer down at the street where a late sun scabs the sidewalk     stains a white towel scarlet on the line     on nearby balconies     wicker chairs creak into concave submission under the weight of someone like him

the women tell themselves there is no sin in not saying her name     no sin in fumbling through the sad contents of a mortuary footlocker     they don't ask how did it happen     they gossip over yellowed clippings     they scrub     and explain in a survivor's whisper     how dust becomes more dust     immaculate in breathing bodies     they outlast yesterday and yesterday's blood     and the mystery of how utterly     they clean things up




The Ozarks

Trains, passengers on trains, Wal-Marts, broke unions, naked children, little falls, Hog Scald, home gardens, hand quilters, wood turners, button crafters, water witchers, marine recruiters, bread bakers, road graders, handshake contracts, land taxes, brood mares, corn liquor, pulled taffy, kerosene, cranked ice cream, Woodpeckers, town deer, mountain lions, peckerwoods, water wars, no insurance, Payless, weight more, the steamroller future coming at you, dark as the inside of a mule.



Wendy Taylor CarlisleWendy Taylor Carlisle lives on the edge of Texas with one foot in Arkansas. She is the author of two books, Reading Berryman to the Dog (2000) and Discount Fireworks (2008). She has two published chapbooks: After Happily Ever After (2River Chapbook Series) and The Storage of Angels (Slow Water Press). Her work is included in several anthologies: The Poets Grimm, (2003), Is This Forever, Or What?: Poems and Paintings from Texas, ed. Naomi Shihab Nye, (2004) and Letters to the World, eds. Moira Richards, Rosemary Starace, and Lesley Wheeler, (2007) and others. Her poems have appeared in 2River View, Salt River Review, Cider Press Review, Aquila, Bent Pin Quarterly and elsewhere. Further notes about her poems on line and in print appear on her website WendyTaylorCarlisle.com.