News: published in Minus 9 Online - Minus 9 Squared's cousin

The editor of the monthly online zine Minus 9 Squared has set up a new blog called Minus 9 Online. The aim of the new blog is to provide a continuous stream of work by writers and artists during the gap between publication of the monthly zines proper.

The blog is split into two categories - Words on a Page, for poetry, prose and short stories; and Pictures on a Screen, for all work of a visual nature.

Three of my poems currently feature in the Words on a Page category of the blog - Fantasies, All the Old Friends and Rankle; though, once the blog receives more submissions they'll disappear from the home page quite quickly!

Submitting work to the blog is a good way of getting exposed and could lead to being published in Minus 9 Squared itself, or even in other magazines as anybody could be reading/viewing the content. At the time of writing, the blog remains relatively bare, so help fill it up with a catalogue of work by getting the submissions in!

Fantasies

All my fantasies are filled with people
who are not me, controlling my heartbeat
as if it was their own with actions I
could never even dream of achieving
by myself because I am simply not
able nor worthy. They carry hopes of
nations upon shoulders incredibly
broad, and they do so with the freedom
and movement of children gracing us with
the presence of their imagination.
And it makes me sad that some are younger
than I, and so much more gifted too, with
a grand stage to exhibit their talents
on; and it only serves to remind me
of my own inadequacy and my
own failings in my own life, here, in the
real world, where real things happen or do not
happen, depending on whether one can
speak up or sit down when the time is right
or wrong or never to be; and it soon
becomes apparent that my fantasies
are actually living nightmares that haunt
me night and day, and morning and evening,
tearing me to pieces to put me back
together, just to pull me apart once
more, just to piece me back together again,
like some sort of sick jigsaw puzzle which
has a jagged part that does not quite fit
because it is never allowed to end.

All the Old Friends

Oh, there’s my old friend Karma,
A broken scene as the interest soared.
Cutting through pretension to grant an extension
To a time and place without record.

Oh, there’s my old friend Hope,
Temptation is truly the fabled sin.
Appeasing forever those with endeavour
So they always have reason to begin.

Oh, there’s my old friend Love,
Intervention of the well-worn friend.
Inhaling to choke on those flames you stoke
With shortened breath to comprehend.

Oh, there’s my old friend Silence,
Thickened walls offer no reprieve.
Yelling to pray while I watch as you sway
In a drunken attempt to deceive.

Oh, there’s my old friend Lies,
Trickling stream of an age-old river.
Sitting on your throne while the film is shown
As you wait for me to deliver.

Oh, there’s my old friend Logic,
Calculating prowess a point of assault.
Though you control parts of my soul
In you I can see no fault.

Oh, and there’s a new friend, Being,
Realisation cracks the white mask.
I open my eyes to reveal our guise
And find you already took me to task.

Rankle

Agitation of my wringing hands haunts
Those around me as my voice shrills higher.

Thickened glass drowns yells they wish to ignore
As the situation becomes dire.

Simplicities of intimacies lost
Still rankle as the world holds out on me.

Gaping mouths and tear-stained cheeks plead in vain
To deaf ears as I refuse to wait and see.

Taken flights and clouds of ash restrict my
Breath as my friends’ pleas begin to cower.

Cigarette stubs and empty cans litter
Life like indifference without power.

The long walk back to the start goes awry
As the path vanishes before my eyes.

Keep them open, keep on walking because
It is all so short, are their anguished cries.

Pleasantries and patience, all I extolled
As I dreamed of reaping returned rewards.

Yet here I sit empty-handed as I
Realise that we all fall on our own swords.

News: published in Minus 9 Squared

Minus 9 Squared is a literary zine that contains poetry, prose, photographs, artwork, and many other products of the arts by various contributors. It has only been recently set up and the first issue can be viewed here.

I was fortunate enough to have my poem Chaos to Silence published in this issue, and my friend Michael Fogarty also had a poem published (and, by random chance, the poems feature beside each other in the online magazine on pages ten and eleven, which is always nice).

All the work, both written and visual, is excellent, and hopefully there will be more to come from Minus 9 Squared and its contributors in the future.

Chaos to Silence

I

Strobe-light chaos splits time with black spaces,
Seconds divided, just like stop motion
Animation without any purpose.
Bodies come together and sway as one,
Shaking the floor in time to the rhythm.
Elbows crack ribs as sweat rains down from those
Perched on the upper levels, surveying
The alcohol fuelled ecstasy below.
Alone I stand in sobriety, lost
In thought while moving thoughtlessly to the
Beat that goes ever on and on for no
Reason but to inspire the masses,
Granting courage to those lives without it.
Now they hang from each other, boy and girl,
Boy and boy, girl and girl, all playing the
Tease with the desires of the drunkard,
And when they drop their glasses, yelling in
Uncalled for anger and futile despair
As all their aspirations fall apart
In their man-made spiralling abyss, it
Is clear I shall forever be alone.

II

And that is the way I left the city,
On my own, expecting the chaos to
Pervade the streets as society lets
Itself fall into the trap of being
Too comfortable in uncomforting
Times, with the sly men and whorish women
Screaming and vomiting under street lights,
While the innocent night workers curse their
Prayers that were prayed in vain to the deafest;
But instead of finding bodies crisscrossed
Along the paths of deceit and sin so
Frequented by the ever ossified,
My eyes fell upon nothing at all, save
A solitary cab and its driver,
With only three jobs in thirteen hours.
Then he told me stories of a recluse,
And how the night sky mirrored the events here,
So empty, not a soul nor star in sight.
And as deafening silence drowns my
Ears while we race the night’s casting shadows,
Solitude becomes random, not certain.

(another night out, another poem about that night out).