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 Ray Brown

round midnight

"despise a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy"
       relaxin on something, telling indecisive distinctive modal and teaming with hard blows
         to the body and chest, killing you softly with burnt looks at the bandstand, in car doors
         trying to tell me about blowjobs and reality sandwiches, wide eyed freeloaders trying to get
         at him in the moonlight, fission
ancient rivers, nefertiti pyramids rising out of desert
         playing a zither, cold throttled sounds rippling across the flatlands - out past low down
         clubs, sequence moods and trifling played hardcore thoughts - bubbling
"sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself"
       past all else fells, cannonball to the west coming for our deviant sacrosanct soles and giving
       us andalusia in the netherworld
         underneath the past forgotten quiet bossanovas, st. louis looking over threshold and
         seething brown
         water tables out in the crowd, can't see faces but tries getting out and about to watch the
         self free
         baron samonei tipping his hat: what time is it
         time to throttle sickle cell phobia and dressed purple suits hittin town, pimps players beaten
         by police
         in front of mariote plantation
         gasping for air, stone scribes giving it away, liquor lips
"a musuem locked in glass like all other dead things"
       things for the passage of green words on blank parks in the midst of extinct neighborhoods
         phase two - gothic futurism harmonics coming back, short fatalistic
         go home speeches, bam bo bahhh, get out clap to bop, agharta morocco hashish
         bum
         begging
         for applause
         and acceptance of speed seed dirty withdrawal
"don't play what's there, play what's not there"
       play what's twisted in between - with your belly out - cosmic flattered
         tough petals, siesta, dark shopping mall tunnels, plastic maple leaves
         on ground of puke and orion rolling shores, crossroads, woodlawn
         bronx cement blind sweeping gambling on crucifixion, withered
         elbows against the brown stool bathroom, lethargic notions
         dreg theatrics, assembly line decay
         flooded syncopation
         bloated
         wide eyed
         kind of blue




christmas day

irag irab aaaarab get out of my head
eraq
al sadr i want to curl up with you and
kiss the palms
of your hands and paint a clown mask on your
forehead – complete with a red foam nose
and ask forgiveness to your decayed god
of destruction                   harmless intercourse
harmless collateral damage in the tears
of shock and awe inspiring glee
get the fuck out of my way, i need space to tear up shit and collect
rain drops
or salt water dreams
cowboys and their salt water dreams watch out!

death to the infidel
death to women and their kiss
death to armies and navels and the fundamental narcissism
complex
death to long drunken nights with red wine
and the hand of a fucked up
gimp
hard on

death to whiskey and a rose
sometimes i just drive around long curves watching the moon
sometimes i'm nostalgic for a feeling
of how my knuckle feels in another motherfuckers mouth
how about you
it could be you
  scumbag bard wino bum, crinkled face leaning on a metal bench
under a southern wide oak tree
wearing a turban
   alone in the mountains
spitting gospel bullshit by the cuff

diddly death to that moment when i met you and you corralled
me into thinking that i believed in love
and that somehow i had been wrong that
it is different
sometimes

you want me to hit you
get the fuck out of my face

i'll hit the notion that i am dust
and im collecting myself in that ashtray
by the door

i didn't hear what you said, i was
watching the wall and drinking southpaw
and that beats the hell out of listening to you
talkin about i'm not a man      any day




mystic infernal embrace - dark seamless nights stretching across flood soaked city lights
corpses, burnt new stakes in torn brightly colored moving walls, whole cities of worn shoes and
prophecy, lipstick cures on stop signs
laughing squirrels eating nuts with smiley face tattoos, i'm cleaning out the closet of indecisions and replacing thoughts with bombed out
crack houses and imperial libraries of insightful learning disabilities, african diasporas - collapsing saints, catatonic vaticans, atomic war
hackers of the heartache painful memories and illusions battled back and forth in dreamless seascapes, i'm cleanin out the closet of physical freedom
ten o'clock stabbed in back authority on the scene, dancing in ritual transcendent pleasure, pouncing cats clown in streams sanctified out across
wolves eating babies in heat, broken images impaled at the stage, a nasty forethought as spray paint blasted holes in hotel room parties at
the holiday inn, mc till three in the morning and my mom a'int home and lights have moved away into the distance, and i can't see my reflection anymore
and it has washed, tattered, been invigorated by back alley brawlers and mangled predisposed cement blocks covered in the excrement of autumn,
and a mushroom cloud of snow covered hills and corner liquor stores with neon lights, chrome rimmed el doradoes on intersections in brilliant suicides,
people on street living in trailer parks of motion and the moon thrown in jail for chump change and a bottle of smack


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Ray currently resides in the suburban shithole known as Atlanta. It's not that bad, if you get into the city and away from the traffic. Check out his blog at http://mexicoblues.livejournal.com/.