Dear Reader,

First off, apologies for the huge delay in the publication of this issue - for those waiting to see their work

published, and those who have waited patiently to read this issue. Technology cannot be trusted, not even in

2012. Computers are capable of dying at any moment it seems. I now have new technology, and thus Issue 4

finally makes it to your screens.

Now then, good news and bad news has filled the past few months here at the SP Headquarters. First, let me

tell you the good news. Rodney Nelson and Symmetry Pebbles have received a Poetry Kit Award 2012 for my

selection of Rodney's poem One Winter which you can read, if you haven't already, in Issue 1 which is available

for download in the 'Archive' at www.symmetrypebbles.com. This was a pleasant surprise, having submitted

my selection back in late 2011, I had completey forgotten about the competition, and with Symmetry Pebbles

being a left-of-centre publication, though I personally believe in the strength of the poems I submitted, I kind

of dismissed the idea of winning – that showed me! Rodney's poem will be in an anthology e-book to be pub-

lished by Poetry Kit. This news also came just as I was reviewing Rodney's new collection 'Metacowboy'

which you can read in this issue, how conveinient!

Now, the bad news I received recently. Symmetry Pebbles featured poet of issue 3, Victor Church, passed

away on Monday 19th March 2012. Victor was in hospital at the time I was putting together issue 3. I was ini-

tially intending to do an interview with him, but due to his ill health he was unable to partake in this so I wrote

up a feature instead. When I last spoke to Victor he wasn't going to be in hospital too much longer and I was

sure, that though is health might not have been what it was, he would be able to get back to his writing. It was

a complete shock then to find an email from his agent waiting for me in my inbox telling me of Victor's passing.

In remembrance of Victor and his work I have dug up a few poems of his from the SP archive and republished

them here along with a few other notes and links to further work.

With that I intend to keep this letter brief, and I dedicate this issue to Victor Church.

Sincerely,

Richard Thomas - Editor

3

By Richard Thomas

Back in November last year (2011), I collaborated with artist Fiona Graham in a poetry and photography ex-

hibition called Inspired. The exhibition took place at Birdwood House in Totnes, UK and we kicked it off with

an opening night poetry reading by myself and fellow Totnes poet Jade Moon.

The exhibition was based around the ongoing cycle of inspiration that can be made from one person to another.

Fiona selected ten of my poems and responded to them through the medium of photography how she saw fit –

the result was a wide array of portraiture of people she knew and didn't know, expressing their reactions.

On another wall we displayed ten abstract photographs and next to them put up a blackboard for people to

write their personal responses to those photos on first seeing them. Over the course of the week, using a camera,

we kept a record of all these responses from the public.

My part in this exercise was to -without taking further looks at the abstract photos that started the process –

take what was recorded on the blackboard over the week and use these responses as inspiration to write a brand

new poem. I began by jotting down each single response in my notebook. Amongst these individual responses

there seemed to be a handful of reoccurring themes: isolation, solitude, distance, time and space. I did some

freewriting using the responses directly to begin with, constructing new phrases from the words I was given

and also making new word combinations. This helped form new ideas for the direction of the poem. I started

to draft some first verses in an automatic manner just to see what came up, but after a handful of different

drafts going in different directions I felt that I was relying too much on the blackboard word for word and

wanted to find a way to distance myself a bit, so that rather than using the responses directly I was just literally

using them as inspiration to form something fresh.

I started to let the responses on the blackboard, their words and images, just flow through my mind, a bit

like music playing in the background. This is when I came up with what would be the first line in the final

draft of the poem: 'In an all white sun I sleep'. I think this came because three words from the blackboard kept

coming to the forefront of my mind, as if they felt they were the most important. Egotistical words I call them.

Those words were 'Sunray', 'Sleepy world' and 'All white', and they seemed to just melt into the phrase above.

From here I let my imagination go wild and used that opening line to trigger an automatic narrative. What I

ended up with was a whimsical tale of a Star Man who longs to die and come back and grace the world with

the soothing quality of his snow. A love poem of sorts. It was very interesting, when I reached my final draft,

to look back through my notebook and see how my ideas developed, and to see how the final product had come

from that first set of photos. Creativity can take journeys of all shapes and sizes it seems. If you asked me on

the first night of the exhibition what I thought I would be writing about in response to the cycle of inspiration

we had started, probably my last thought would have been the poem I am about to present to you.

I am encouraging readers to continue this cycle of inspiration by responding to my poem, whether it be via

a submission of a poem, essay, article, photograph or piece of art. The best pieces will be published in a future

issue of Symmetry Pebbles. Remember, only go from the poem I have written, the idea is to ignore anything

that has gone before that, in order to keep the cycle constantly going to fresh places. The theme of the next

issue is ‘Descent’, I think that bodes well with the cycle of inspiration.

4

5

The poem:

G O O D R E A S O NT O D I EIn an all white sun I sleep

figureless, moving closer to myself

to which the Star Sisters hit me up with:

'Wake from that in which you lie!'

and so I wake and groggily reply:

'But the sun is going to die,

so I shall sleep on and go out with it,

a loyal ember, a promise I'll keep,

and then I can come back as snow

and be divine in my all white flow.'

To which the Star Sisters reply

as quick as a comet: 'Fair enough.'

The sun fades like a mouldering orange,

I sweat my juice, I melt my mind

and become the purest snow, divine,

and the Star Sisters whiten their shine

and the seas and soil are that of sheepskin -

in such aesthetic the world is peaceful,

a candescent calm hushes through the universe

and all people everywhere make love to this verse.

‘Good Reason to Die’ is now published in my debut colelction of poetry ‘The Strangest

Thankyou’, available from Cultured Llama Press - www.culturedllama.co.uk

6

C O N N I E A . L O P E Z – H O O D

S I G N SOnce upon a time a street sign turned into an elephant. He sold it at the local farmer’s market and came

home with two baby kittens that had no tails. She was allergic and smashed their skulls against the wall to

stop her sneezing. She was allergic to their leukemia. No one cared that she cried and everyone was

shocked when she didn’t.

Upon this other time a street sign turned into a giraffe. She fed it gumdrops and stroked its neck. It hatched

two quails, which revolted against her—pecking, then gobbling at her toes. Her ballet slippers were now too

large. Finger-snapping did not make up for toe-tapping. Before long, she forgot how to dance. No one

wants to dance if your shoes don’t fit.

Once upon a sign, a swan flew out of her tub while she was bathing. Its neck was contorted and patches of

feathers were missing. She recognized it as a power animal and lifted her mouth to kiss it. Its feathers were

sharpened quills and they stabbed her eyes, macheted her skull. When she died, the bathwater turned to

mustard gas, her skin to shit. The swan did not.

Connie A. Lopez-Hood has served as a Poetry Editor for two years for the Ghost Town literary

journal. She spearheaded and edited the 2011 chapbook anthology "Blankets & Other

Poems: Poetry for the People of Japan", in which proceeds were donated to Red Cross

Japan Relief. Her work has appeared in Gaga Stigmata, Our Stories Literary Journal and Po-

lari Journal. She is currently working on a collaborative chapbook entitled "Operation: Lifted

Flowers".

7

L . E . S U L L I V A N

T H E H A R P I S T C I R C A 1 9 7 8I was tortured on a subway

by a man who carried a harp

the strings could slice bodies

like egg yolks, watery bodies

He poked eyes into me—eyes

that were naked tree branches

and my skin gave way with ease

I bled water alive with leaves

of lightning and sand

in narrow space, cracked dimness,

I saw those leaves become glass.

L.E Sullivan is a musician who lives in Nacogdoches, TX. Her work has appeared or is forth-

coming in The Southern Poetry Anthology: Louisiana, Sphere Literary Magazine, and North-

wind Magazine.

8

M I C H A E L R A T C L I F F E

W A L K I N G A L O N GT H E R I V E R F U J I ,T H E P O E T B A S H OF I N D S A C H I L D A B A N D O N E D B YI T S P A R E N T SA child by the road,

crying in the autumn wind—

great Basho leaves food

and takes away an image

from which he forms a poem.

If he had taken

the child with him, would he have

mastered poetry?

Or, would he be known only

as a man who saved a child?

P A T U X E N T R I V E R S T O R Y

They flow, county to county,

pushed by tides of indignation,

slowed by pools of indifference,

unseen, unnoticed, unknown by most

(and they would be appalled if they knew),

but they are there,

at the bars near the track,

on the corners near the cheap motels,

in the parking lot behind the diner.

They flow, county to county,

in a jurisdictional eddy,

Anne Arundel, Howard, Prince George’s,

pushed by the police from one to the other,

one to the other, one to the other,

9

in a slow, continual cycle.

Do we care to know who they are?

Or what they want in life?

They flow in a different channel,

dead ended,

caught like so much debris behind a strainer,

eddied, swirling, stopped,

watching as the Patuxent flows freely to the Bay.

Michael Ratcliffe is a geographer, working and writing in the suburbs of Baltimore and Wash-

ington. His poems have appeared in The Copperfield Review, Three Line Poetry, Do Not

Look At The Sun, The Little Patuxent Review, and You Are Here: the Journal of Creative Ge-

ography. He can be found on-line at http://skiminocycle.blogspot.com and on Facebook

at Michael Ratcliffe's Poetry.

T A T J A N A D E B E L J A C K I

T O O L A T E F O R

T H E S O U T H

It seems that we're late.

There was no need to hurry.

The branch was thin and it shook all down to the trunk.

The cars rushed down under. The snow covered everything.

All of a sudden, a turtle-dove moved as if about to fly,

and then it fell down under the wheels of a limo.

The frozen male swayed on the branch.

Tatjana Debeljacki, was born on 23.04.1967 in Užice. Writes poetry, short stories, stories and

haiku. Member of Association of Writers of Serbia -UKS since 2004 and Haiku Society of Serbia

- HDS Serbia, HUSCG – Montenegro and HDPR, Croatia.

10

S T U A R T B A R N E S

T H E W O R L DM A P I face it daily, a blue eyed heliotrope,

never sleeping, terrified of complacency,

this mid-twentieth-century world map,

fifty something crimson lines catapulting

imaginary aircraft over oceans.

I face it daily, a blue eyed heliotrope,

lines a reminder of busy motherly

hands: string art: signs of the zodiac.

This mid-twentieth-century world map

– the cartographers anonymous yet loving –

has nothing to do, I’ve realised, with geometry –

I face it daily, a blue eyed heliotrope,

I should know – but everything to do with fractals:

there’s divine imperfection – e.g. coastlines – in

this mid-twentieth-century world map.

A whore for nothing less than a miracle

(‘O Magdalene, restore me to nineties Russia!’),

I face it daily, a blue eyed heliotrope,

this mid-twentieth-century world map.

Stuart Barnes is slowly arranging the manuscript for his first book of poetry, and writing his first

novel. He lives in Melbourne, Australia.

11

A S H L E Y C A P E S

S O O T H I N G T H I N G Sshe lifts a lady-of-the-lake arm

to rub at smudges on the sky

until it is clean again

and the business of rain is finished

and all the ponds are full

and frogs can be happy

and I become jealous of them

for just a short time,

until she tells me soothing things

and I sleep on the couch before sunset

and wake to the stars

tapping silver fingers on my window

and then she is gone of a sudden

and the house seems to sag

with her absence.

Ashley teaches Media and English in Victoria. He moderates online renku site 'Issa's Snail'

and his haiku chapbook, Orion Tips the Saucepan was released by Picaro Press in 2010. He

occasionally dabbles in film and is slowly learning piano. He also loves Studio Ghibli films.

12

M I C H A E L E S T A B RO O K

B L O N D E S I N B L A C K D R E S S E SBlondes in black dresses in front

of the theater, smoking, giggling, sashaying

in their swollen bodices, proud,

flicking their heads back

into the night - modern blondes.

Blondes in black dresses resplendent

in the purity and surety and vivacity

of their eternal, irrepressible womanhood,

the folds of thin, velvety cloth,

clinging like bat wings to their forms,

subtle, darkly alluring - placid cool-headed blondes.

Blondes in black dresses their perfumed essences

wafting on cool breezes, floating

out over the sea, their voices, murmurous

and whispery, rising and falling occasionally

in outbursts of confused chatter - melodious blondes.

Blondes in black dresses blondes in black dresses

calling out to me like the Sirens

called to Ulysses.

Michael Estabrook is a baby boomer who began getting his poetry published in the late

1980s. Over the years he has published 15 poetry chapbooks, his most recent entitled “When

the Muse Speaks.” Other interests include art, music, theatre, opera, and his wife who just

happens to be the most beautiful woman he has ever known.

13

L U I S C U A U H T E M O CB E R R I O Z A B A L

A B S U R D R A M B L I N G SHe heard the songs of crows

all day. He heard absurd

ramblings in his dreams.

He could not live like this

and sought to get all sounds

out of his ears. He went to

the ear doctor. He told him

he wanted the sounds in his

ears to stop. He could not

get the doctor’s help. A great

sorrow filled his heart. He told

the doctor to go to hell.

He beat his ears until they bled.

His doctor hospitalized him.

At night shadows spoke to him.

In full delirium he could see

an eagle eating a crow.

He found this liberating and

imagined a world without crows.

To his horror this was just a dream.

Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal was born in Mexico, lives in California, and works in the mental

health field in Los Angeles, CA. His poetry books and chapbooks were published by Pygmy

Forest Press (Raw Materials), Deadbeat Press (Before & Well After Midnight), New Polish Beat

(The Book of Absurd Dreams), and Poet's Democracy (Peering into the Sun). Kendra Steiner

Editions published his latest chapbook Digging a Grave. Alternating Current Press will publish

his poetry book Songs for Oblivion in 2012.

14

J O S É L U I S G U T I É R R E Z

S W E E T I N Q U I S I T I O N SWhen with velvet tongue and honeyed eyes,

with skilled Ursuline hands she unsheathes

you and invites you to burn shame on her milk sea

of skin and after in the equatorial climes of release she

coaxes you into confessing your heart’s filthiest secret

hold it tight under your tongue like a salt pellet

perforating the slug into contorted dance

like a caged bird who once let loose

will sing down plagues upon the denizens.

Instead make some gnomic pronouncement

about the virtues of residual heat in cooking

or the latest status of a public option—

if this goes unheeded the improbable vectors

will find you and with pinpoint precision strike

down your latest conquest or worse turn

your modest life inside out like a sock

the wind soughs its brutal narrative through:

for once your hollowed anatomy

tuned and calibrated to the dissonant

menace of locusts as they swarm the field

stretching out like seas or eternity, their urgent

measures punctuating the firmament’s great fires.

José Luis Gutiérrez is a San Francisco poet. He is also the host of the BookShop West Portal

Poetry Series. His work has appeared in Spillway, Eratio, 99 Poems for the 99 Percent, San

Francisco Poets 11, Sparring with Beatnik Ghosts, Margie, Letterbox, DMQ, Apropos Literary

Journal and is forthcoming in Scythe Literary Journal, Reunion: The Dallas Review, Thrush Po-

etry Journal and the Mutanabbi Street Anthology due out 2012 through PM Press.

15

C A R L K A V A L D O

T H E B A N A N Ai’d noticed the banana

for the first time,

though i’d been in

that room now

for an hour and twenty minutes.

then the banana

came there

into my vision,

sitting with some apples and oranges in

a round, porcelain fruit bowl,

tan colored with

indian design.

it’s good.

i had been absorbed

in kitchen-table

early morning self-preoccupation,

daydreaming, musing

that much

not to notice

the banana with

the color of the gold

of the sun.

Carl Kavadlo is a poet and short story writer. He lives in Brooklyn, NY, with his wife.

16

How long have you been writing poetry?

I’ve been writing poetry since I was around thirteen

– nothing to be proud of. I was mostly writing out

my frustrations, with no focus on either word or

form…just images. My first poem was written by

force, after I attempted to plagiarize a school assign-

ment – I was caught and told to write right then and

there. It has been the past few years where I’ve re-

ally focused on my work, inspired by the English

classes I took at CUNY.

Who are your literary influences and inspira-

tions?

Always a damn hard question to answer. I could

'What do you mean by a poet?

A person who writes, without being a writer.'

- Orpheus by Charlie Guzman

list specific names like Sylvia Plath, John Berryman,

Thomas James, Octavio Paz, Dylan Thomas, Comte

de Lautreamont, Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rim-

baud, Federico Garcia Lorca, Dean Kostos (my men-

tor), William Blake, and the list goes on. I think the

thing that has inspired me the most in any literary

piece is how an image is created: “A hornet tests my

sculptured skin” (Room 101, Thomas James.)

Is your poetry influenced by other artforms?

Most definitely. Paintings have also took my interest,

even more so in the past few years. Artists like Van

Gogh, Bacon, Klimt, Blake’s engravings, Warhol,

Lachaise’s sculptures, and a few random pieces here

and there from different movements (Romanticism,

C H A R L I E G U Z M A N

Interview by Richard Thomas

17

Surrealism). Music has also been a definite influ-

ence, specifically No-Wave, Futurism, Blues,

Jazz…wild stuff.

How did 'The Epistles' poems that are published

here come into being and what do they mean to

you?

The Epistles is my first real project in poetry. I hope

to make a long-length book of them in the future,

similar to The Dream Songs by John Berryman. I

had been reading up on epistolary works and saw it

as an effective tool to get out a message, but also an

effective way to understand the person writing the

letter (and those they are writing to). Then I asked

myself the question, a simple question: Who am I?

During the same time I had also been researching

my heritage…my identity as a Puerto Rican...my

connection to the Island. From there the idea

flowed. I would write about a character (a fictional

I), who becomes stuck on the island and is writing

back to his family and friends. I use the word

“stuck” because I think it perfectly describes the po-

sition I feel, being stuck between cultures. I am

Puerto Rican, but for a long time I denied that part

of myself; yet nothing really replaced it – I was just

a weird kid living in Brooklyn. For me The Epistles

have become something of an exploration into the

many facets of my identity, as an artist and a person.

I’m also trying to write to those who are also in my

position – from friends to strangers.

“...I WAS JUST

A WEIRD KID

LIVING IN

BROOKLYN.” I can see that surrealism is a big part of your

work. I understand that you are very interested

in using the surrealist games and Oulipo exercise

to help create your poetry. Could you tell us

more about those techniques and your interest in

Surrealism in general?

Yes, surrealism is definitely a big part of my work.

I’ve been inspired by each and every one of the sur-

realists, from their writing to their art work to even

their movies. I think one of the main exercises that I

do, which I believe many of us writers do at one

point or another, is automatism – that is to put your-

self in an almost trance state and write away until

you are writing automatically. The usual result is a

mess of words, but meanings and/or images tend to

slowly ooze out of the chaos. There is also another

form of automatism that I use with friends, which has

one person writing and the other person saying ran-

dom words throughout the automatic process. It is

hard to explain the results, but I’ll try to anyway. In

the process of automatism, I place myself in a state in

which my subconscious has fuller control. By using

random words, I attempt to put my subconscious in a

trance – to essentially delve deeper than it (if it ex-

ists). Some other techniques I use are The Exquisite

Corpse and the cut-up technique (as described by

Tristan Tzara, though I have tried the technique pop-

ularized by William Burroughs). I use the techniques

to develop the ideas that I’m writing, be it an image

or an emotion. My interest in Surrealism is also polit-

ical, in much of the same passion as the original sur-

realists. I believe the movement has much to do with

understanding who we are as people and trying to

break those boundaries (the status quo) to develop a

new state of consciousness.

Can you see the surrealist movement coming into

fashion again and perhaps finding a bigger and

more influential place in contemporary poetry?

Or do you think it will always be a bit specialist

and slightly under the radar since the original

movement has passed?

I’ll be a little critical here. I can’t see a surrealist

movement coming into fashion again, not in the seri-

ous way the original surrealists took it. If people at-

tempt to bring it back, it will likely be a watered

down version that simply focuses on the artistic side

of Surrealism – similar to what Dali did to surrealism

when he brought it to the US. Though I strongly be-

lieve that literature (in the last fifty years) has been

profoundly influenced by Surrealism in subtle ways.

William Burroughs and his cut-ups, Plath/James in

their images, and the widespread use of the games –

to list some examples. I do wish that the movement

would start up again though. These tense political

times really call for it…the Occupy movement…re-

ally call for artists getting together, experimenting on

their works, collaborating, criticizing the status quo

(and all systems supporting it), creating a bigger

18

(even terrifying) voice, and to fully push the idea

that “Poetry should be made by all.” (Lautreamont).

What's the poetry scene like where you are?

In my experience and opinion, it’s been really

mixed. I’d claim that poetry just isn’t important to

the public anymore and has become a hobby for

many in “the scene”. For the people my age and

younger (I’m twenty-three), it has become hard to

understand poetry and relate to it. I think it’s mostly

because poetry has been relegated to academia. My

first interaction with poetry was in an academic set-

ting. I think most people would say the same thing,

and it wasn’t taught properly. Then over the years

the same work and authors are taught again and

again, until there is simply no passion in it. And the

scene shows it. Most people my age and younger

tend to go for slam poetry, because it provides some-

thing new, something more in tune with our cul-

ture/heritage or just our lives in general. Yet

something is definitely lost with slam, and that is the

rich history of literature. Some may not agree with

this assessment, but I look at it from the audience’s

standpoint. People simply don’t get excited by a

sonnet, a sestina, a pantoum – unless it has some

drab humour or cultural references. I’ve seen people

barely clap to brilliant pieces, with rich words and

images, and then I see people hoot and holler over a

slam where the person describes how everyone

wants to fuck them! I do have one positive note to

state about the scene: there are brilliant ideas, im-

ages, words, and rhythms flowing through it. There

is a passion there that I wish would be more sup-

ported, widespread, and publicized.

You run the publication Burro Char, could you

tell me a bit more about that?

Unfortunately, it has barely been running. I am very

passionate about the project, which is why it hasn’t

folded yet. The main idea of Burro Char was to de-

velop a group/publication that would have artists

and writers (and anyone really) to collaborate and

hopefully develop something new. The idea stems

from several influences: The Surrealists, the Oulipo,

and the artistic scene of the 70s/80s (particularly

with artists like Jean Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring,

and Andy Warhol). We wanted to develop something

free, yet structured. In my opinion, the Surrealists

and Oulipo stand on two sides of a scale of expres-

sion. While Surrealism offers a freedom, especially

with automatism, the Oulipo demanded absolute

structure to develop true creativity. As a group, we

wanted to experiment with combining the two, fold-

ing the scale onto itself. One of the first experiments

that we did, which will be in the first issue (if/when

it is published), was combining the freedom of cut

ups by using prose pieces we wrote on a specific

subject – gentrification. I believe the results are bril-

liant. As for the current state, I am unfortunately the

only one working on it. I wanted a team, a group,

but it has been very hard to form a steady one. To

top things off, this is my first experience trying to

create a publication…it has been a hard ride. Still, as

I said, I’m very passionate about it – so I’ll work on

it until I feel it’s just right for publishing.

“...POETRY

JUST ISN’T IM-

PORTANT TO

THE PUBLIC...”What are your plans for the future as a poet?

I’m currently out of college, though I do plan to go

back at some point. Right now I’m just focusing on

my work and trying to write out the first book. I plan

on trying to put myself out there more publically,

and hell, try my by best to make a career out of it. I

truly believe in the strength of poetry, of literature,

and how it can influence society as a whole. It may

not be practical, some would even say “sane”, to

base a living on it, but it’s my life. I’m just hoping

for the best.

Is there anywhere online that people can find out

more about you?

My blog, which I will soon be updating regularly

again, is called Shattering the Mirror that Birthed

Juan Mirador (http://beelzelfallen.wordpress.com/).

It is a blog where I talk about my currentl literary

goals/frustration and where I have an ongoing proj-

ect where I am creating personas (similar to what

Fernando Pessoa did in his work). I also give some

updates on Burro Char and any other projects I want

to put out there.

19

C H A R L I E G U Z M A N – T H E E P I S T L E S

D E A R F A T H E R ,I’m here.

I’m among the smudging palm trees of

my airplane window,

among my translucent reflection.

I’m among the people speaking in tongues:

“Que bien, que bien.”

I walk in tile cracks;

through security and

Bacardi bottles.

I get lost in labyrinthine corridors,

meeting my luggage

at the middle of

baggage claim.

A man offers me a taxi, speaks English.

I smile, say

si.

The sky is cloudless.

Airplanes become mosquitoes,

their engines leaking

blood.

I ride the taxi “home.”

Thirty bucks, with

tip.

Cubist house: Our home.

Paint peels in tears,

exposing the bony concrete.

I see the blocks and their arthritic

joints.

I see a staircase

guarded by crested anoles.

They attach themselves to the slanted

corners of the

walls.

They even sunbathe on the slats

of the jalousies

that leaks me into your empty

room.

I see the ants huddle in the corner.

A mirror reflects

the cinereous web poised

above their heads.

20

I take to exploring

the cracked panapen

leaking white blood

into the drain

of vertigo road.

I explore with feral dogs,

who claw and chew

at my sides.

We hunt the pieces of past –

broken watch gears

guarded by iguanas.

I explore in silence.

I speak my own tongue.

I speak the null.

Sincerely,

Tu Hiyo.

13 July

D E A R H E R M A N O ,I pick watch gears

from iguana nests.

I stumble upon mangos

comprised of

hypodermic needles.

You stalk me from a piece of

broken mirror

clutched in the skeletal hand

of a ruby conquistador.

I follow the shadows

of hanged men,

nooses still around their

necks.

They slither across

the walls

painting stripes with duck

blood.

I run the very boundaries

of our barrio

chasing the sun!

I swallow the horizon!

Sincerely,

Isa Isa.

13 July

21

D E A R M O T H E R ,I’m here, at the old

house.

The old walls

have kept their cubist shape,

except for some holes.

They were gored by

the ivory bulls of Spain.

Ants hide in the corner

of your room.

A lone spider – a hand above them.

They live together in a framed picture

of constant

war.

I walk through the vein roads.

Asphalt bleeds down

the hills.

Dogs maraud.

Kittens hide in tropical shrubs

eating mangos.

I watch you from the eyes of a child.

She sang, like a finch, and

flew away.

Love,

Tu Hiyo, Isabalino.

13 July

22

M E G AN K E L L E R M A N

T H E C I T YThin grass grows over

the tops of the city.

Rooftop gardens are planted

on every building’s flat head

to fill any possible bare patch

that might suggest some weakness.

Birds screech around their crowns

and dip down to dust the windows.

The buildings lean into the little ones

and their flight paths,

flatten them with complete transparency.

Jealousy drives them; grief stops them.

The buildings bow too late

to catch the guts and clumps of feathers.

They sigh reverently, vents

exhaling dust, and tell

the murdered spots of life

that at least they had lived

with their bodies, straight through—

they didn’t need life planted

into their heads, made to dream

as a thing they never could be.

Life was a clumsy implant

in an unnatural thing.

Megan is a recent graduate of Fairleigh Dickinson’s undergraduate Creative Writing pro-

gram. Her poems have been published in Scribblers and Catfish Creek, and she received

the Andonis Decavalles Poetry Scholarship twice, as well as an MFA Award for Excellence

in her major at FDU.

23

A L L I E M A R I N I B A T T S

T H E M Y T H O L O G YO F T H E N I G H T S K I E Syou were once a man

square but bright

incense in the dark

your story, told by Greeks

naïve, the way we

lit sticks of incense and prayed

wantonly to false hopes and square gods

and stars, naïve offerings

and devotions meant to keep us safe

protections and punishments

remembered in the

rotations of the planet

naïve, how we thought

you loved us

and would keep us safe

I M P R E S S I O N I S T P A I N T I N G SPre-Raphaelite, she is painted in perfect strokes

if not in your memory,

in the jealous aesthetics of my Decadent heart.

Allie Marini Batts is a New College of Florida alumna, meaning she can explain deconstruc-

tionism, but cannot perform simple math. Her work has appeared in over forty literary mag-

azines her family hasn't heard of. Allie calls Tallahassee home because it has great trees to

climb. She’s a research writer by day and is pursuing her MFA degree in Creative Writing

through Antioch University Los Angeles and oh no! it's getting away! To read more, visit

http://kiddeternity.wordpress.com

24

W I L L I A M D O R E S K I

Y O U R C A S U A L P R I V A T E P A N T H E O N You’ve crowded your house with cots

for the many guests you expect.

You’ve only one bathroom yet

claim you can house fifty people.

Night falls in shades of brown

the Old Masters would appreciate.

I’d rather sleep in the street

than number myself among others

in your casual private pantheon.

Don’t tell me to console myself

with five minutes of your precious time.

You expect your other guests before

midnight, panting with luggage

and groaning after flights from Spain,

Italy, Argentina, China,

and Guam. Shuffling among the cots,

I find the bathroom and wash up,

wasting as much hot water

as I can. Thanks for the drink

you press into my hand. Maybe

I can smile and greet your friends

if I’m slightly drunk. The cots fume

with years of night-sweat. Borrowed

from the Salvation Army, they gloom

like open graves. The blankets,

bought for almost nothing at Goodwill,

fume with unrequited disease.

Are you sure those guests are coming?

Midnight has passed in a drizzle

of freezing rain. The streets gleam

and the silence comes between us.

I choose a cot and lie as flat

and small as possible. The night

leans over me propped on its elbows

and sighs the way old mothers do

when their sons plod off to war.

25

F R O M A F O R E N S I C T E X T B O O KFrom a forensic textbook I learn

that to determine if one’s girlfriend

is a hermaphrodite one sets

a house on fire with her inside

and with a spectrometer checks

the tonal value of her screams.

You doubt whether Marcy is human—

her sex life pantomimed in shadows,

her body constructed of layers

of silt and mud, like a Golem.

Fire can’t harm but might scare her

into revealing her dual selves.

Bring her to the abandoned house

in Seltzer Lane. I’ll pour kerosene

down the chimney and ignite it.

With a spectrometer borrowed

from Harvard’s optic science lab

we’ll measure the wave length and hue

of all available screams.

You say you don’t want to violate

her sexual-mythic privacy?

You believe her technical data

shouldn’t frighten or interest you?

Her blonde gaze makes me shudder.

When I see you arm in arm with her

I fear that your nether regions

will flash-freeze and detach. But why

should I worry that your organs

won’t be suitable for transplant

when you don’t seem anxious? Doubt

could scar like acne if you don’t act.

What if she’s from Neptune instead

of Venus? Her pastel aura

may conceal sexual gadgetry

that you’d better discover before

one night it discovers you.

26

Q U E E N O F T H E I S L A N DThe lake sports three hundred islands.

Searching requires weeks or months

of coast guard boats dropping clusters

of uniformed people toting food,

stretchers, radios, and blankets.

You could be anywhere. Eloping

with the ghost of your first husband,

leaving a note proclaiming yourself

Queen of the Island, sparked this search.

I expect to find you neither

dead nor alive. The winter islands

offer cottages ripe with canned goods

and easily burgled. You and the ghost

should find shelter and food enough

to keep your mutual body going,

but the star-spangled sex crime

of your dreams will never occur.

The cold lake laps gravel beaches.

When it freezes over, the search

will continue with snowmobiles

and even dogsleds. Roaring, barking,

the mob will scour every island

to find and punish you for tracing

yourself backward into vacuums

where the spirit disgorges itself

in fits of primary colors.

The lake shivers in its skin.

Under weak winter sun the water

looks black enough to swallow

the flaccid bulk of the cosmos.

Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that—

your crazy expression glowering

in a dark cottage, your ghost lover

trying to calm you as the creak

of the planet’s axis amplifies

the very flaws you detected

two or three lifetimes ago.

William's work has appeared in various e and print journals and in several collections, most

recently Waiting for the Angel (Pygmy Forest Press, 2009).

27

N I C O L E T A Y L O R

T H E B O D YFour officers and five hours

in apartment 8.

Less than six months

she resided there.

Weeks later she was drinking again and inviting

strange men in who she had to kick out of the apt.

Then her pancreas and

other organs started failing and

she went to the local hospital.

She invited me to eat Easter

dinner there but no call and missing

calls for her until a week later an officer

asked neighbors "When did you last see her?"

The pancreas and the liver were proven the killers.

She has many hopeful projects, no MFA's and is an artist, a hiker, a volunteer, and a dancer,

formerly in DanceAbility. She blogs at www.apoetessanthology.blogspot.com, www.face-

book.com/Pushk1n, and www.oregonpoeticvoices.org/312.

28

E M I L Y H A I G H T

L A U R A ' S P O E MJ'ai besoin de sortir de cette maison!

There are ants everywhere--

On the floor, climbing on the walls

like tiny Russian soldiers (picking up corpses as they go; it‘s horrid),

In the tea kettle, in the coffee press, in the sugar!

And apathetic, dusky worms

In the tub. Inching along the perimeter,

Multiplying by hundreds daily.

J'ai besoin de sortir de cette maison!

If the ants and worms cannot manage

To eat my bleeding soul alive,

The walls, with their ever-changing temperament, will surely

Swallow me whole.

J'ai besoin de sortir de cette maison!

A friend of mine had a lady

Living inside of her yellow wallpaper. I couldn’t imagine

That being less aggravating than this,

Although that lady really did drive my friend mad.

Emily Haight was born in Whitefish Bay, WI. She received a degree in Creative Writing from

the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and is currently living in the Republic of Georgia where

she serves as a Peace Corps volunteer.

29

B R Y N N M C N A B

H | IHere my knee is:

Apart from him, out of bed

In the same blue light that has portrayed Parisian mornings

I am a rectangle among rectangles, perched atop a golden ratio, in the simplicity Piet

sought.

Why did he never

Draw the dirty city,

Why always

The pier, the tree.

You wake in these places, you cannot sleep.

It is scraped, my own doing, but so is this wood

And not by me.

There is a dried envelope pasted to the air conditioner.

“Reference Guide” it rattles, empty, and yellowing to dust.

Behind our ears, Clark Gable makes his moustache known, over attempts, competitions,

The sounds of violins and telephones.

He speaks,

“The road?”

“Our road.”

“To you.”

“You never knew a crooked road could look so straight.”

“No rick, no…”

“You ought to be out dancing in the streets, kicking the hats off citizens.”

“Guilty or innocent – didn’t make a difference.”

“You outsmarted yourself baby, now I can do my job.”

“I couldn’t … I couldn’t… so I killed everything for us instead.”

“You couldn’t feel so bad if you had to.”

And here he sleeps, snoring irregularly – like I used to do to you – smooth, speckled,

shut-eyed.

The skin stretches tight on his hips, curling into laugh lines when kneeling.

Is here. Is now.

Wicker painted black and a blanket with roots of Gothic and Aztec architecture

But it encloses his body like a stained sea:

Blue and green with blotched red,

As if some shark had killed.

“Anyone you can count on?”

“No one.”

“That guy is in no position to comfort you.”

As the pus wells up where my shoes used to be.

And a mucous film sticks to his throat

30

Making the sound of

Bubble gum film stretched out between teeth

And inhaled,

What a trick:

On the CRT screen

Our shootout peters out within crowds and fireworks.

I have self-published poetry, short stories, and essays in an art gallery setting, and have

worked with numerous emerging artists contributing written elements to larger projects.

S T E L L A V I N I T C H I R A D U L E S C U

P A R I S I N S E P I AIt's like a beat in my head

cold weather and soupe gratinée

once in a while a poet throws

himself into eternal

life

the Seine takes his body

Stella Vinitchi Radulescu, Ph.D. in French Language & Literature, is the author of several col-

lections of poetry published in the United States, Romania and France, including Last Call

(2005), Diving With the Whales (2008), Insomnia in Flowers (2008), All Seeds & Blues (2011), I

Was Afraid of Vowels (bilingual, Luke Hankins translator, 2011).

31

L U C A S W E B S T E R

M A Y T H E W I N E T A K E A C H A I RHe thinks the answer is in a bottle,

but we wait for the message to come,

floating over telegraph poles

and descending wires with soluble grief

like the tears on our cheeks

We had a chance to re-enact world war one,

running through lanes of coiled teeth,

dressed up like angry dogs,

sharp like the despondent pain

of losing a reverence

He will fall off the cart like a bubonic victim,

sodden in guilt at his corked worms

that will seep through his flesh

consuming layers of anaesthetic osseous,

like the weight of our situation

Perplexed we both stand in reminiscence of regret

the affairs we never confronted,

the desperate sound of mother’s voice

reminding me of my desperate cry

when that lost girl left me

We find ourselves tearfully pouring

sepia onto the photographs

assimilating memories without need for colour

draining morality through lack of moderation

like the wills of our abating minds

Romancing the French Revolution, keeping a level head, rolling landscapes from the

tongue, but is yet unable to whistle.

32

M O H S E N J A B B A R I

F O GIt rolled down the hillside—

an avalanche in slow motion

minus the weight of tons of snow

swallowing mossy tree trunks

in one slow, erotic gulp.

We parked the car by the road

skirting the valley, now filled with

fog flowing into further fog

like a flock of flying white serpents

furling, unfurling out of a myth.

Born and raised in Zanjan, Iran, Mohsen Jabbari is arguably the only Iranian poet composing

solely in English in his country. Besides doing a master’s degree in English literature at the

University of Tehran, he is currently putting together his first chapbook. His poems have ap-

peared in The London Magazine, Pomegranate, Symmetry Pebbles, Rangoli, Esque, The Pif

Magazine, etc.

33

V I C T O R C H U R C H

A E U L O G YSymmetry Pebbles championed poet and featured poet of Issue 3 sadly passed away on Monday 19th March

2012. His talent was that of pure poetry, bold and charismatic. I feel it is important to keep this level of talent

alive, which is why I am re-publishing three of Victor's poems from Symmetry Pebbles archive. You can also

read more of Victor's work in Issue 1 and Issue 3 which are available to download from wwww.symemtrypeb-

bles.com and further information can be found at www.victorchurch.com. Now, over to Victor...

B E T R A C H T U N GSo there! Some

Say wunderkind,

Some

Say perfect fool,

But most don’t give a damn, of course.

I laugh, for I’m

Both

Genius and

Lunatic.

I cannot

Tell what’s true or

False,

Whether any

Of my work’s worth anything at

All, or if it’s

Just

Wasting time, and

Laughable.

But I know

Not if my mind

Has

Gone, or if the

Longest distance is from Mother

To Goodbye. All

Ends

With me pissing

Gainst the Wall

34

I ' M T A L K I N GT O T H E C E D A R T R E E SI’m talking to the cedar trees:

They always seem to understand

Whatever grief I spill on them,

Whatever blood I shed.

And as I speak,

So eagles snap the topmost shoots,

Fly off unto a distant rock, drop seed

To grow in gravel, morphing to

Stone forests on the mountainside,

Flint clusters to bear witness to my pain.

I’m talking to the cedar stones:

They do not seem to understand;

They spit back words in secret fonts

From long-dysfunctioned worlds;

Gaunt souls from long-forgotten dreams

Still haunt me with their ruptured chords;

Fast-forward through once verdant limbs,

Now fractured gangrene claws.

I’m talking to the cedar trees:

They tell me that the words I write

And all the whisperings I hear,

The eagles understand.

W E I H N A C H T S B A U MI’m

As I used

To be: erect and vibrant, hardcore

Branches reaching out for

You to take, unfold, unwrap, to

Share

Your soil, and

Decorate the needles of my limbs.

Be silent whilst His hymns

Help shed the guilt that smothers me,

That

Hammers nails

Into his innocence. His bloodstained

Flesh whose shattering pain

Infests the tree from which he hangs.

35

Metacowboy: poems by Rodney NelsonReview by Richard Thomas

METACOWBOY: poems. By Rodney Nelson. (2011. The Moon Publishing and Printing The Moon) 34 pp. $14

In Metacowboy, the latest collection of poetry from Rodney Nelson, the reader is placed carefully in the

lonely and longing mind of a pseudo-cowboy who finds escape in his Northern Great Plains. Amongst the

mountains, the bushes, the range and the buffalo our narrator debates his identity arguing that though 'I am not

seen in rodeo/ shitkicker/ or/ stetson' (“OUT”) he's '...a rhinestone saddlebum like you' (“NOTE TO MIAMI

BEACH”).

These poems are as delicate as they are bold and strong, beautifully surging and dancing across the page,

words often offset giving emotional emphasis and a sense of desperation and eagerness to the poems. This

plays well with the range of personal subjects Rodney touches upon throughout the collection – there is a def-

inite feeling of yearning here, a yearning to reach a point of fulfilment and ease with the life he has lived and

is living. This ease starts to be collected as Rodney recalls his childhood with romantic effect remembering

himself as '...the boy of them to end/ July with an arm out the window' and observing what he's learnt of himself

and his surroundings since: '...but I had a nose of the world now/ and knew witch hazel when I smelled it'

(“EAST OF WALLA WALLA”), and can 'admit to being frayed and too late for/ money- or woman-making

ambition', and though later on in the collection he remembers and feels the aching of the mistakes and misun-

derstandings of youth in lust as shown in the later poem “METACOWBOY LETS ON TO CATTLE KATE”,

he knows he can find resolution in letting '...the prairie be acedia...' and find a state of not caring for his personal

position anymore, much like the worry-free, young bull snake who '...rather/ wait in morning sun-warm trail

than hide...' (“JULY IN WYOMING”). Metacowboy is very much about finding that sun-warm trail that can

only be obtained in accepting yourself.

36

In Metacowboy, Rodney displays great technical ability in mainly freeverse that literally lassos you from

one page to the next. Though unpunctuated and often wild freeverse appears to be the main technical contender

in this collection, Rodney does give a slight nod to formal verse occasionally, most notably in “CHANTS

FROM NO ONE OTHER” (an excerpt from his long poem “NO ONE OTHER”, which can be found else-

where), and though he doesn't conform completely to formal poetic tradition here he does show an acknowl-

edgement and understanding of it:

they needed not call you Ishmael

unblest unburdened with fame or money

no one on way with no one other

you slipped the country drunk at night

and you can see it ever now

this very moment

they needed not call you Henry David

who had not built a chicken coop in

San Francisco Flagstaff Fargo

if I went eighty-five would die

you thought but did so anyway

y no volveráááás

The poem continues with further stanzas of the same length and repetitions.

I'd recommend this collection particularly to reader's who enjoy the works of Diane di Prima, Gary Snyder

and other poets who give an edge to being amongst nature. This collection of poems comes from The Wild

West and is quite the dangerous pastoral, and quite the insight into Rodney's life as a North American – once

you're in you're in.

You can purchase this book here - http://moonpublishprint.com/catalog/index.php?route=product/product&fil-

ter_name=metacowboy&product_id=112

37