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 Christopher Shipman

Weathering

                               grief has always felt dumb inside me

dumb as drinking egg nog      no
dumb as slurping sky                         no
dumb as gulping the river that walks me home         no

all of this        swirling
                                    and now I see I must have been
                                    mistaken

here             in southern Illinois
under the unlikeliest of skies—
                                           Xmas: 60 degrees and rainy—

like ice clinking inside Santa's busted skull

I sit clinking against the weather
of your absence

while the weather in my voice—
swath of your eye shadow                           black streak
a mystery asleep in the overgrown pine grove

(sleeping a sleep old as hills)—
                                                              half-moon howls:

Michelle!                                                            —report?

I am on very low sleep
                     so if I've already asked tonight I apologize

(it seems like everything is so everything

but I don't quite fit where you are
and it's a bit maddening)—
                                                                          Michelle!
I must also apologize
for November
                         —it has taken me so long to start again

I deeply regret but I am glad I feel                     this way:
                               because I try to pry open your eyes
                               failing so tirelessly you feel at home
                               here in my life




Sharing a Smoke

Now when I'm smoking my last
Christmas cigarette in my mother's
garage messy with broken-down
boxes and empty paint cans before
heading north to Illinois I imagine you
sitting in that dark three-car garage
you often told me about in your long-
fingered letters the archive of emails
I've been excavating in short trips
between short trips to the coffee shop
the liquor store on the county line
the graveyard all the light we cannot
see the new mall where most folks
in this small Arkansas town carry home
something like god in shopping bags
to pile beneath the twinkling tree
but when there is no atonement for how
small everything inevitably becomes
it drives me to smoke another cigarette
to get in just one more smoke before
attempting again to leave behind what
will always travel with me but when
I light another cigarette I'm reminded
again of the pile of ashes it seems
we somehow both knew needed sifting
for seeds to keep going even though
I never gave it a name but when
I imagine you alone in that garage that
dark garage with its massive fan
saving you from the mean Florida heat
even though you are gone you are
growing larger behind the screen I see
you behind the light of your laptop
aglow with every flick of your cigarette
the used butts piling up beside you
an unlikely totem a song for giving up
everything else you said but I wish
we could share a smoke instead of this




Bereavement Myth

though we've never touched
I pledge allegiance to the image
of the hand holding yours
as you run from the movie theater
through pouring rain

I have faith in a philosophy of blood
late evening brings

here your backyard angel
braids her blonde hair by the pond
at the bottom of the hill
paints her nails with blue eyes
wings and fur

I name the story of this noise nightly
until there are no more

lit with windows white as bone
the moments of your life I long for
float out on the pond
behind your ghost like ghosts
that have become my pets

I believe in the history of this dream
that never happens



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