Problematique Volume Two

This volume is dedicated to the memory of
Dr. Aaron Richard O. Green

July 4, 1951 - January 8, 2021
“Triptych of Experimental Polaroids for Dr. Green”

Kristopher Biernat, 2021
Table of Problematique Vol 2:
Contents FEBRUARY 2021
Artist Name Submitted Work Title
Sacha Archer Study of X
Stephen Bett Two poems from “Broken Glossa: an

alphabet of post-avant glossa”
Rus Khomutoff One poem
Kaleigh Maeby Untitled Collection of 22 Poems
Charles March III Uppers & Bummers
David Piersol 16 Poems
Joanna Mariak 25 Photographs
Shea O’Connor 15 Poems
Kristopher Biernat Reimagining of Shea O’Connor Poems
C.H. Gorrie
A Kind of Reprisal
“Study of X #2”
Sacha Archer, 2020
01
“Study of X #4”
Sacha Archer, 2020
02
“Study of X #1”
Sacha Archer, 2020
03
“Study of X #3”
Sacha Archer, 2020
04
“John Cage Dreams He’s
Composed of Spliced Tape”
Sacha Archer, 2020
05
Stephen Bett derek beaulieu: a ’pataphysics of imaginary solutions
Poetry is the last refuge of the unimaginative.

Poetry has little to offer outside of poetry itself. Poets chose to
be poets because they do not have the drive to become something
better. / Please, no more poetry.
Please, No More Poetry - derek beaulieu (with nods to glosa’d Dworkin Jones, Thensen, & Bernstein)
Poetry is the last refuge of the unimaginative

Novel deaths rotate in public / dime a dozen / on the axis
poetry should mine big gaps with art’s hearsay praxis 1
Poetry has little to offer outside of poetry itself. Poets chose to

sit on the shelf, 2 spite their fece, pat their physic
bash heads with imaginary solutions, un-ripple every pond
dis guy can boilerplate Concrete to VisPo, ConceptPo, & beyond
be poets because they do not have the drive to become something

veered south, one arm steer-wheelers road testing the LangPo
yr duty (an era / any time / of year 3) maintain plant, westward haut
better. / Please, no more poetry.

flat on its back...
Raw is an aversion to the conservative dogmas of worry.
Rrose Sélavy is never having to say you’re sorry.
1
The three derek beaulieu concrete lines that follow are from Kern (p.87) & Xerolage (p.3)
2
Peter Ackroyd, in one of his novels, makes passing reference to an annual 500 unread books of
poetry collecting dust on the National Library’s shelves. (♪ 500 miles, 500 miles ♪…)
3
Fiddling with Zukofsky, of course: “A”-22
07
Stephen Bett Philip Lamantia: Violent Ekstasis
This world of serpents and weeping women

is crushed in the violence
of a swamp large enough to contain
this enormous razorblade of the night
The Enormous Window - Philip Lamantia (with nodes to PL, Breton, Buñuel & co, & Blaser tales)
This world of serpents and weeping women

mein vassalage of fee-sis 1 fetus & feces
revolvers and nuns feud on a fulcrum serfing
ekstasis, who’s back in the day on this?
is crushed in the violence

touched by the marvelous (savage fruit
of lunacy) alchemical blood of the air
pure psychic automatism lifts up its skirt
of a swamp large enough to contain

randy laddies, oh g-a-w-d he spilt this
where they woke, cum stains on teeth
such chatter driven mad by desire
the enormous razorblade of the night

slices dices Andalusian girl glazzball this
new way of seeing- incidentally Pip, you
never unzipped my appendicized letter
1
Incidentally Philip Lamantia: A Study of the Poetics of Surrealism (MA thesis, 1976: super. Blaser,
Bowering, Maud, Quartermain)
08
RUS KHOMUTOFF UNTITLED
CALENDAR OF MARBLE REINCARNATION METALLIC TASTE OF

ASHES BURNING FEATHER THIS SECOND HE….THE
UNMISTAKABLE EROTIC LANGUAGE MUST NOT DECEIVE
US/AUTUMN CRY OPULENCE LIKE A TRIANGLE & A DUEL/NEW
ARCADES BECAUSE OF BECAUSE WINDOWSPEAK PLUM
NUDITY & NULLITY/STORYINSOIL EXPRESS OF SEMITONAL
DOORS OPEN SOMEWHERE IN MY HEART/BEHOLD THE
MATERIALITY OF THE CLOUD/CHAOS CROP BASS NECTAR
SCARECROW NAMELESS DAY/PEAK RING PROXIMITY WHO
WILL REMAIN/MELANCHOLY OF TRIBE SAD CAFE IMMORTAL
PALOMA STEAM DEEPFEEL LAVENDER KITE SENSEFALL
CAMARADERIE/SIMPLE MIND RELIIC MASS EPONYMOUS
NIGHT DISCRETIONS/SERVANT OF THE SECRET FLAME
CATHEDRAL LABYRINTH EXOTIC PULSE/SOUL OF SERENE
PRAXIS UNDERNEATH MANIC SEAS/CANAL BREATH
SUPERSCENE/CONTENT MERE OASIS SINISTER MYTH
FOREKNOW/EXPERIENTIAL MODE MODERNE HOUNDS OF
LOVE/SOLASTALGIA REMAIN/OCEAN MACHINE SCREAM OF
SWIFTS/BY REWARD ACCENT ROAM TECHNICS & TIME THE
FORCE OF THE INTOXIC/CYCLE AFTER CYCLE/YEAR AFTER
YEAR/WORD AFTER WORD/CREAM TERMINAL SYSTEM OF
SYSTEMS RHAPSODY PINPOINT/TIME’S FLOW
STEMMED/TALISMANIC IDENTIFICATIONS & GHOSTLY
DEMARCATIONS/VERMILLION DEEPCHORD GLOW THERE IS
NO END
09
K. Maeby Untitled Collection of 22 Poems
ritual daze, grazed, and gripped

between schoolyard smokestack
and aubergine sky
there is no reward for
itching survivor
only hope,
fire,
and the aching will to
give
born of invisible ink and

aching throat
this is the first-aid
heart-thing
this is the habitual drowning
- don’t ask for the name,
it does not live
here
10
take beating heart from

open frame and bless
the gutter-mouthed mother
the stomach can’t help
but chase ghost-body
whole
think of sonata freshly stripped

of baptised grief and
sattelite adoration
this life is dream is river is
decay
there is a sober kind of love
that touches the hand,
softly
11
ceramic virgin, cursed to mourn,

to keep the hands clasped,
the tear falling
the son, bloodied
and whole.
- perhaps he thinks she is still
blessed
magnolia tongue craves thorn,

craves bloodless glass
piece
only night knows withdrawal
only dawn knows regret
12
half hour reality begs

container- hangman mouths corruption prayer
bite pomegranate,
bite bloody knuckle,
bite empty tongue ‘til
drunk consumes
drunk
righteous religion formed in

bathhouse
between the lips of the
holy, under fingernail of the forgiven
you are the sacred
upon which
Mother cries
i am temple
i am heathen
i am prayer before limit-
defined
13
thoughtless but moving

amethyst trust reigns raging river
repose begs for nothing
asks for everything
and swallows forever
whole
i am crawling skeleton and

roaring mind
there is no room for
ghost town whine, no room for
dirtied mirror
we are dream,
reflected,
infinitely
14
eaten by moth and flayed by

time
there is no escape, only crooked
crutch and
silent waterfall
in sleep, we will thrive
death comes in rogue
vain
and covered in angel’s
poppyseed eye
there’s that deep gut sick

the kind you swallow,
remember,
and swallow again
the body shakes but the nerves kick
back
it will pass, as it does
as it does
15
open hotel, window,

bar, body
there is desire in the bone and
the gums and the want
want want
- do you know who ate your
tomorrow?
static rain and sun beam silence

the television stays
silent
but the fingers burn burn
burn
that pain is worth the
tickle
16
absurdist drowning in fast

ghost october haunts survival
dream
that bed has already mourned
rapture came in a winter train
- you can stop holding your
breath,
now
death has the stomach of

a saint and all
the priests
and
the guts of an ant
no one can carry you
all the way over
no one really needs to
17
i am dead to carbon soul

and itching dirt
hole
i grew the highest bloom,
dug the deepest
rot
- we’ll keep the soil from
the veins,
eventually
raw perfume of lips and

agony
suffocates lover by mid-
morning
a god bound
by shadow
a shadow bound
by stomach
your drug has already forgotten your
name
- carried into collarbone and
echoed until
dawn
18
proof infect
bone
infect finger, toe,
static bed -
let’s put some bad
in that great
big
empty
i am sleep
talker,
face toucher,
midnight patient and
virgin mother-
there is no
throat
without metallic
burning
lung
19
god coughed terrible

confession and held
pulse to private
rain
- a mother painted
it, once
child found in
gutter
worship lives in the stomach

hunger cries
foul
under breast
missing charcoal skeleton and

eraser skull
we are not who we
were
- corpse to the future
diety to the
passed
and so on,
and so on
20
“Da Amphetamine Plane”
Charles J. March III, 2020
21
“Raw Dog Nervousness”
22
“Extensive Preparation H”
23
“Exacerbated Bedtime”
24
“Angel Dust Doctor”
25
David Piersol gamboler v.
something breaks in your head
some permanent delirium picks you
adrenobozia is the chicken noodle soup of the wirebent soul

as the moonlit hypoxic, obviously
as the silence after your disaster
as nothing nothing nothing nothing
nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing
exhibit A. withhold affection because she
is a living bug skittering across your floor
exhibit B. for all the good sectionalizing
27
David Piersol gamboler vi.
you, repulsive as you really are,

wading into shit and burn and moan
delight with no desire to attain to
beatific vision now or later.
burned again by born collaborators,

gripped in a tight bundle of honey-sick morals
so said rumi: I am the candle
swimming heads that you know

even mine was but little more than
a tool for our use: the only reason
to be is that it predates the fact.
I need roads to
grow a forest?
I need a new road
to go back home
I got the final lines in:
"We are a heavy burden
"We are already beyond
"We are already bound; even in this respect, we have no recourse."
smooth and oily with the

capacity for rational use,
apparently not in any illicit
form your own tastes may
require, but the love is hard
dirty and dirty and all runny
disgusting, although in a manner
to which you might not object
28
David Piersol gamboler vii-viii (to my rapists, fuck forgiveness)
you, it’s always you

you are with me every day
when i sleep, you
every morning, you
you feel like a kick in the chest
you make me fucking sick
you told me how i was wrong

how i was born wrong
thank you for showing me that.
i wanted to say this in person, but

i'm so sorry, the way i acted was horrible
i'm writing this too late, you're a good friend
i treated you very badly.
can we talk now, how have you been?
you shattered the sky

made red bent fuck all
can’t catch my breath here
i want to KILL YOU
you shattered the sky and
MY HATE WILL BLOT OUT THE FUCKING SUN
29
David Piersol gamboler x.
drowning in good garbage juice

that good fucking yellowandred
the hands, all crooked today
ribs, that come up and out
lungs a-rotting, rattling hole, baby
heart suck out the sunlight, baby
SPLIT SKIN LIFTING AND LILTING
CUT OUT ALL THE SHAME, BABY
HEAD A WHORL EYES TANGLED
i am a body horror
(reading note: repeat until hoarse)
30
David Piersol gamboler xiii.
take early rhythmic inquiries and laugh

staring at an empty box: no false things
especially one singular elephant
i am an expert inmate bricoleur
some of us are still marxists kind of mood
Laura Dern too busy kind of mood
a stopping sci-fi nightmare with meansy voice
31
David Piersol gamboler xiv.
bright up your eyes for the dark of night

cat walk communism with a heavy wooden bat
heidegger being translated back to german
keep lightning bugs under my bronchioles
and hegel ate pussy behind my pericardium
an ant colony grows day by day in my frontal lobe
and jacques derrida films us as we make our porn`
living my dream life my very best of all lives
32
David Piersol Q1
a retroadditive pantomime, tangled together

with a cyclical iridescence, a prolonged cycle
with nothing left to stand on, in, with, or thru
the clerk’s death came too suddenly;
the clerk’s melancholy had begun early that morning
and festered under the white hot glow of the moon
33
David Piersol Q4
i have an irrational fear of submarines bobbing in the water

how precise the musicians must be to float it just like that
parliamentarian astronazis strain the question and
cut the turf into parole and flexed out moonlight
mass execution of simmmering astronazis held in derelict vessel
decedent actuarial welcomes a setback to his long demesne
lightning quick ridges shatter and step under the feet
i was born in the thick abscesses of an adrenochrome pool
a wealth of snakes birthed me into their delicate coils
that’s just what these lungs do: fill so slowly with fluid
34
David Piersol Q5
anglopragmatic hyenas sniff at my corpse for amphetamines

the primary doctrine of anglopragmatism is that the surface
must be perforated, that is to say, must be interpellated
by a total determinant factor. the secondary doctrine
of anglopragmatism is that the perforated surface always
bleeds as a sign of respect for one’s betters. the tertiary
doctrine of anglopragmatism is that the blood from under
the surface is suitable for examination according to the
strictest possible regimen. the anglopragmatics know what
is in your spine and thirst for it day by day and nightly.
they cannot sleep without a fresh dose of adrenochrome.
the anglopragmatic wears a second skin to appear friendly.
every anglopragmatic redefines the meat in your body,
sorting the meat into opposing boxes marked ACP and 0VF.
35
David Piersol Q9
the anglopragmatics, of course, posed the central question of our time:

a question asked in copper bristles, delineated under wheels within wheels
and crossed with the red mark of fiery leviathan automated vast as well as
abjective/pervertive/advertive/surfeitive/viscid and hanging with algaes
anglopragmatics orchestrate budding brute kidnappings at the local library
anglopragmatics are, of course, intruders into hamlets, raggedy overfolk
the anglopragmatic slops thick at my feet, muttering by electric originals
a badly fungal network that speaks the anglopragmatic plumwise short
36
David Piersol orpheus i.
the universe is the emanation of an ejaculating penis

the katabasis is, then, merely a retrograde ejaculation
what is the crossing of the river styx but all to all, the
cessation of illusion, juxtaposition of living/unliving
a necrological debate to last the centuries, in fact
i am becoming an idiot hostage neuroassumptive
my graftings strip nuts, bolts/discharge from the friction ridges
of my spiralized skeletal structure, heterological atticisms
with excremental properties and sublime metaphysical traps
my skull is an adroit letter bomb with mystery and function
according to a dying doctrine of wheeling and dealing with imperious perverts
a doctrine of transcendental disobedience, we might guess
against this judge who declares the substrata well-oiled
honeyed and ghoulish with lapsed surfaces, evidentiary benefit
a preconceived notion/reformed examination/massed froth
a guaranteed hinge opens low and slow out onto the veranda
37
David Piersol orpheus iii.
of flora and still-steadfast thrashings

winking from dewy minutes buried all
in placid generative pains. here,
seven art-grown rots blooded and breathing
the moment was blameless and several
art-grown rots bowing and in spite.
there is a saltwood where the principal faults devolve rootwise ordinally,
wherein coronation marbles machinic lodge.
38
David Piersol good tidings
this is the witch of the disaster, of the opposite life

there are several important rules: not to be wished,
nor to be dreaded. to die: to sleep to sleep to say.
the current pulls away the pale cast of the great
humming granite-spine machine. a constant force
on the ant in the work. the witch, nighted of pale
misfeature, and winnowing there she will follow.
the mindfulness of tomorrow assaults?
39
David Piersol electric (not a joke, but funny nonetheless)
an Edwardian-era hotspot, the bones of it shivering slightly,

given over to a delirious head, irrupting in depth of laughter.
40
David Piersol monday
the anglologorrhetic was primed for the cut, a bit dull but
but there's no doubt: this was prompted by cracked shells
by summer salads tossed by ruddy-faced truck drivers
middlegrounding rutters with intricate sculpted auteurs.
auxiliary blown engines drip with honey-thick jellies run
to get away from the song: an abortive subject, no insides,
an alien patient built from scraps on a far-off dreaming sanctuary.
the fluid expression of life and living means that i am
dualistically entangled without the use of a metronome or
transparency as an insect i would only deign to escape
41
David Piersol degree
hole autonomous, an absence from which there is no patient visage

dreaming of pleasant minutes whiled away in some gloomy wave.
42
“White on White”
Joanna Mariak, 2020
43
“White on White 2”
Joanna Mariak, 2020
44
“Quarantine”
Joanna Mariak, 2020
45
“Quarantine 2”
Joanna Mariak, 2020
46
“Quarantine 3”
Joanna Mariak, 2020
47
“Quarantine 4”
Joanna Mariak, 2020
48
“Aurora, Goddess Sparkle 1”
Joanna Mariak, 2020
49
“Aurora, Goddess Sparkle 2”
Joanna Mariak, 2020
50
“Balance”
Joanna Mariak, 2020
51
“Three People Building a Space”
Joanna Mariak, 2020
52
“Light in the City”
Joanna Mariak, 2020
53
“Light in the City 2”
Joanna Mariak, 2020
54
Shea O’Connor Libertas
Let the Tiber freely flow

That we may bestow
O’er ecstatic tears
A cap, that by nature, peers
Both above and below
Let the Seine carry further west

Alluring robes of Rome’s behest
Reason’s temple surely spoke
Yet the walls refused to soak
Poor Marianne; unwelcomed guest!
And thus Potomac waters bled

What Europa’s eyes had said
The robes were welcomed and embraced
By the owner of the cap, who chased
A light that many years ago was dead
55
Shea O’Connor L’Assomption
Assumed into Heavenly glory

Our Virgin Queen of Purgatory
Who on this day has recommended
Souls to the Triune jury
The gown of evening, Marian blue

Calming hearts among the few
That gather in the pasture, tended
By falling omnipresent dew
56
Shea O’Connor Carry On
Wand’ring well
through my downtrodden trench
Grasping for life on this old garden bench
My lover, departed, has whispered away
What reasoning I had constructed today
Couldn’t I rest for awhile?

What could I trade for a smile?
My garments, exhausted, excepting the sleeve

Our dream passed me by and I beg you to leave
Contrition is offered perpetually
If only Confession came easy to me
Couldn’t I rest for awhile?

What could I trade for a smile?
An account of depleting vanity

I’ll be broke soon enough
57
Shea O’Connor By the Lake
How lovely light reveals

A mallard’s iridescence
Glimmer happily as
Waterford’s newborn presence
Ordained by reflection
Of two different orders
The keys to the citadels

Of which I’m the porter
58
Shea O’Connor Colorado
To the mountaintops beholden

The river charts a course
By their nature, they embolden
She who loves them as her source
Down the line, a prominent scar

Awe-struck are the captive souls
Through times and towns, you’ve travelled far
To swiftly drown by your own force
The river rarely finds the sea

And nowadays we want for foals
Perhaps our kindred tale must be
A Western ruse of man and horse
59
Shea O’Connor Adirondack
Although to Chance we were betrothed

Within her slumbering wonderland
Carried forth we had
Through frigid Adirondack majesty
For beyond the dominion

We were beckoned
Urgently and precisely
Into the cool embrace
Of Departure’s stately wings
O, golden heart
Reward us one more moment
You fell with the sun
And briefly illumined the roads
Of your family’s navigators
I hope now for your sister’s smile

I love you both
Yet, the feather floating is more akin
To gracious welcoming
Eagerly awaiting Arrival’s presence
I therefore seek annulment

But sometimes wish
To reconcile my siblings
60
Shea O’Connor Myth
By boreal path he delighted

In our compelling stream, invited
With agile ptarmigan
To explore again
The weathered truths we sighted
Sought, for mother, sacred soil

Wrought, by father, envy loyal
Hidden in the forest
Known mostly by the Florists
Who (fabled tradesmen) guard their toil
Bathed in prism-blessed cascade

The monolith who keeps the glade
Has cause to worry
As keen to hurry
Were bayou legions, seeking to invade
61
Shea O’Connor Atlantic Avenue
And Erin’s son was brought ashore

Our laborer on infant moor
Led by plight and holy gale
Disciple of the Golden Vale
Step-by-step on iron beams

The past was present in our dreams
Loved and prayed within our towns
Among our snowy northern downs
Work and play were always friends

Within our blood that never ends
Full of pride and humble thought
What bedlam had ol’ Eire brought?
Our name and life throughout the ages

Thus remains of steel and pages
But years from now, I’ll say
That both these things have not sufficed
For words and structures fade away
Unlike our faith in Jesus Christ
62
Shea O’Connor Six-Year Brooklyn Shoes
Downtown’ll put a warm and

Unfamiliar coat on ya’
Harsh to those
Jaded by life alone
Bench composers
And wealthy down-and-outs
In a pre-bohemian wonderland
63
Shea O’Connor Caput Mundi
Welcome to the Domus Aurea

Roam freely within these
Palatial expanses
Forget the past
And live for the future
Take it easy
After all, the safest road to hell

Is the gradual one
For in the end
All roads lead to Rome
How funny it is, though

This supreme, ironic twist
That the end is actually our salvation
64
Shea O’Connor Elegy for a Soul
And the cirrus clouds

Upon the western heartland wept
A pensive frost descending;

Now wond’ring if we’d kept
Our simple vows:

To love and stay in touch with you
Pray forgive the hours

That we’ve slept
65
Shea O’Connor Star of the Sea
Our fair maiden town

And blue inlet waters
The pearl of the crown
And of the Crown’s daughters
Alongside autumn avenues

Sings Glimmerglass
With waves and hues
Cared for by our chapel’s name
Our heart and soul She thus imbues
66
Shea O’Connor Beneath the Bells
Surely wrought
With archangelic purpose
Our soul and song
Exhumed for service
Although He knows man’s lower depths

He heals acknowledged debts
So, ring for us, O sacramental!

Forged by holy hands so gentle
Humbly we’ll wait
For the peal ‘fore the gate
Ring once for us, O sacramental
67
Shea O’Connor Couriers
Should a sharp winter wind

Grace her plains of solitude
Remember me
Standing in the field
Among soft wheat
Of distant mountains
And azure skies
Listen – to the only sound
Of the flourish kissing deafened ears
Should you travel north

And further north
Remember me
Walking up the road
O’er bridge and other trodden path
In search of quiet streams
Current cold and pure
Should a glance be cast

Toward the rear-most pews
Remember me
Kneeling with weary smile
And if you’re thus inclined
To requite sweet memories
Perhaps you’ll stay awhile
68
Shea O’Connor Florida
How delicate and fun

Our shared paths become
One is demure
And painted with youth
The other is burdened
By humor and cross
How radiant you are

In windswept veils
Colored with a gardener’s
Springtime array
A nourished bloom
Above sparse desert
Home of the other
So fascinated by your petals
69
“Ghosts”
Joanna Mariak, 2020
71
“Ghosts 2”
Joanna Mariak, 2020
72
take her glimmer

and I’ll pray.
we’ve got the light of

jesus’ vanity, a
river past a circus
pearl. two newborns
are constructed by
omnipresent dreams
as evening depicts
again, depleting
a collection of gasps; love and exhumed this is
a hypnosis of perception cathedrals, acknowledged weather analysis
by a christ, stately, for the
a happy fabled son blind
washed ashore near horsemen
the burdened road,
end pages in funeral

disguise, our
daughters embrace
a wild clown tradition,
a garden wears a
ring like a leaf
73
we bathe together in twelve infant stars at 8:15, whispered

malnutrition sunrise- wealthy cars, truths and a
we weep with marbled unwelcomed. pressured source,
intensity and glow worm mostly homes,
fascination -- smile delighted snow sounds, mostly grasping steel
with me as we find azure and the roads’ within descending
a wall for you to currents, compelling ironic bridges where
adopt and paint: the leaves to weep the youth slept,
here, orange peel for heavenly a life streaming,
megaphone circus ordained exhaustion the soul’s holy fun,
dime light and fortune birthed by the past guarding siblings
rising -- treetops and six illuminated
and musical awake, only beyond, only rome, hearts, the benches
our life will become vows eagerly down of golden composer
jigsaw tomorrows and for precise hurry, hearts, becoming
broken flower smiles- only beyond. pews, imbuing light
heaven knowing and painted now by
speaking our names pensive petals invade sacramented glory
with warm absinthe the harsh wind, because nature was
evenings, the lights shallow sounds kept blue
of palm-tree gorgeous and my time waiting
and did you cry for god to find we are radiant
when the worlds himself on and we are
kept coming? a florida beach insect trials.
74
delicate salvation a ten-bloom her ego kiss and

and confession, mountain, the calming through travel, a,
mountaintops and skin. sky’s reflection in and by legions;
course solityude struck feather memory there is an ecstatic search
the sound of for the blood within love,
windswept bells, wings -- anelegy and throughout
and out. nourished colored for archangelic myth.
dream captive by navigators and the
brief smile. bath curse, tears recommended mother what father.
sweet and sparse for the mountain, pergatory becoming agile,
kneeling. my jury for prayer hell has its arrival
soul work, a glance deception, announced by the
of road-colored hell. rivers’ stones.
the brooklyn virgin
after monday we travel trading rome for glance mother what
florwers colored smile father
radiant cross, birth by your child’s frigid gown play
of unfamiliar gasping dreams. welcoming the known
hues. jesus floats different bells have awhiles, betrothed,
and peels, as the same name, unknown:
recommended by our sea weeps, what is the carry
the sea. shoes and seeking salvation reward for
keys -- a goose’s a loyal assumption this soul’s
further. supreme debt?
75
what monolith
holds soil purpose
in a humble
autumn toil
circus sun.
walls wails
and exhausted chirps
singing to a
loyal horse.
streetlamp; frosty, free, sharp, molasses;;

the sky a glimmer glass
is skin skin skin terminally
falling of crowned atlantic
youth: a prominent
florist. loaded souls,
downed dove bath,
prism towns, free
charts and
rose clouds leaking
surprises, composing
roads and mild
lake blooms.
76
“Branchery”
Joanna Mariak, 2019
77
“Branchery 2”
Joanna Mariak, 2019
78
“An Old Story”
Joanna Mariak, 2020
79
“Walk With Me”
Joanna Mariak, 2020
80
“Two”
Joanna Mariak, 2020
81
“The Fence”
Joanna Mariak, 2019
82
“The Summer is Ended”
Joanna Mariak, 2020
83
“Me”
Joanna Mariak, 2020
84
“Kim”
Joanna Mariak, 2020
85
“Emily”
Joanna Mariak, 2020
86
“Dark Outside”
Joanna Mariak, 2020
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C.H. Gorrie A Kind of Reprisal
1.
“I’m sorry!” Michael shouts at his naked body in the mirror. He tenses as many muscles as he
can and shakes violently, staring into his own eyes the entire time. “I’m fucking sorry!” He runs
out of the bathroom and flings himself onto his bed where he writhes and grunts, punching
indiscriminately at the air and sheets. His thrashing grows sluggish as he gradually relaxes. He
pants, tangled in a blanket, heart pumping in his ears.
It’s late January. Winter quarter at the University of Oregon is in full swing and Michael should
be occupied with the weighty coursework his syllabi announce. But he isn’t thinking about
school at all. He’s far away, stuck in the events of the previous year, his mind now replaying the
last conversation he and his ex-girlfriend Elise ever had.
It’s last September and she’s tearing up. Michael notes her remarkable composure. It intimates
that, for her, a long summer spent holding onto a wish he could at best caricature is coming to a
close. She’d sought an ideal in Michael that he, a people-pleaser extraordinaire, had
unconsciously feigned. A terrible mess ensued: Elise falling for a version of Michael that never
existed, Michael straining himself to the breaking point to try and be Elise’s Michael, and, when
that inevitably failed, attempting and failing to manage the emotional fallout.
“I–” Elise says, closing her eyes. A tear rolls silently down her cheek, the afternoon light
dancing off it as it disperses across her upper lip. “I know we will find other people better suited
for us,” she says, nodding. She turns her head toward Michael without making eye contact.
“There was just a moment when I ... when I really believed, you know?” She closes her eyes and
gulps, her face a grief-stricken frown.
Michael tries battening down feelings of relief as he watches Elise do her best to let go. A host
of incongruous emotions jockey for position in his chest as he mulls over what to say. “I want
you to know...how special you are,” he says quietly, embracing Elise from the side and rubbing
her upper back. They sit like this for a few moments, Elise’s body softly heaving against his.
“It’s probably time I go,” Michael says eventually, his growing impatience overpowering the
accompanying guilt. He rises and exits Elise’s apartment out the back door, walking down the
alleyway. Elise stands in the shade of her apartment building, watching him until he turns the
corner onto the next street.
Michael experiences what he’s dubbed “aftershocks” and does bizarre things in private, like
what he’s just done, shouting at the ghost of Elise still living in his head and flailing violently at
nothing in particular. He likes to think of these lapses as purges, where he “relives” the
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emotional excesses of his relationship, letting them exhaust themselves in the spent
musculature of his sweating body.
Michael wriggles free of his blanket and throws it to the side. He stares at the clock on the
nightstand: 10:33am. His electives at 11. He hurriedly throws on an outfit and grabs his laptop
bag on the way out the door.
2.
The girl with long black hair has been staring at him on and off throughout most of the
workshop. Michael’s tried avoiding her eyes, but he’s just finished reading, and the girl’s
volunteering a first critique.
“I didn’t really understand the part with the floating pyramid,” she says, looking up from her
papers. “Is Lauren having some kind of hallucination?”
Michael stares at her amber eye shadow and fidgets in his seat. “She’s just imagining it with her
eyes closed,” he says, his gaze moving to the floor in the middle of the classroom. “She’s
supposed to be thinking about the TV show she watches at the beginning of the story.”
“Oh, well,” the girl says, glancing down at the pages in her hands, “I think that could maybe be
made a little clearer.” She speaks the word “clearer” haltingly, accentuating the syllables as she
turns back to the story’s first page. “Maybe if you had the show’s host’s words come through her
mind again just before?”
3.
Michael sits on a bench outside after class, a large organic chemistry textbook open and resting
on his inner thighs. He’s reread the same explanation of resonance four times without
registering the words. He stares at a diagram of hexane and benzene, his mind wandering.
The dark lobby off of NW 13th Avenue in Portland smells faintly of cleaning products. The rain
outside beats down in sheets, the street a shallow stream. The lobby is about eight by eight feet
and the lack of lighting gives the impression that all the businesses in the building are closed
for the evening. Michael places a paper bag filled with fine-tipped colored pens on the floor. He
removes his grey, rain-speckled peacoat and tosses it next to his bag.
“I told you,” Michael says in a strained tone. “I told you that you should do what’s best for you.”
Elise stabs his sternum with her right pointer finger. “You.” She stabs his sternum again,
trembling and clenching her teeth. “Could have been a man.”
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“Hey.”
A pair of black suede boots materialize over the top of Michael’s textbook.
“I liked your story a lot.”
Michael looks up. It’s the girl from his creative writing workshop. Her blue,
white-flower-spotted dress flutters in the breeze. The noonday sun backs her head, causing
Michael to squint. He sort of salutes, using his left hand as a visor. A relaxed smile spreads
across her light-brown, oval face.
Michael recalls the frenetic creation of his story. Writing quickly without brainstorming or
outlining beforehand, he’d lapsed now and then into a kind of flow state. When he’d finished,
he’d had the overall impression that the work was somewhat confused. “I honestly wasn’t sure
about it,” he says.
“I mean,” the girl begins, taking the opportunity to sit down next to Michael on the bench. “It
definitely needs to be touched up in certain ways.” She pulls a set of papers from her laptop bag.
Michael scoots a few inches away from her. He remembers that all his other classmates’
critiques were collected and given to him at the end of the workshop. “Like I think the part in
the middle–Lauren’s internal monologue–that could actually work better as the story’s
introduction.” A queasy rush moves upward through Michael’s chest, throat, and neck, clouding
his mind. He nods and murmurs an acknowledgement, staring vacantly past the girl’s head at
the trees in the quad.
The girl clears her throat and Michael turns, slightly flustered. “Oh, yes. I think that could
work.” He glances at his textbook. “Sorry, I’ve just been a bit lost in my reading.”
“I’m Penelope,” the girl says, offering her right hand. Michael looks at her fingers for a moment,
noticing for the first time the girl’s numerous rings. A blue stone clasped in silver prongs wraps
around her middle finger. A gold, miniature chain-link rings her pinky. A thick silver ring with
a face etched on it gleams from her left hand’s pointer finger. Tears fall from the etching’s eyes.
He shakes her hand. “You’re studying chemistry?” she asks, looking at the symbols in the
textbook on Michael’s lap.
“Michael. And yes, I’ve just declared. You?”
“I’m an English major.”
Michael closes his textbook. His eyes flit from his left to his right knee. “I really should be going
now,” he says, looking at his computer bag. “Class soon.”
“Oh, well,” Penelope says, mildly startled. “Here’s your marked-up copy.” She hands him her
papers. He puts them in the back pocket of his bag. Penelope smiles. “See you in class
Wednesday.”
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4.
When he’d told her she should do what was best for her, he’d meant to set her free, to release
her from any sense of obligation or attachment to him. But freedom from him was not what
Elise imagined to be best for herself. Her ideal was an entirely different order of reality, one
requiring nothing short of a spiritual revolution in Michael. She imagined another world in
which he had fallen as hopelessly in love as she.
By the time he’d reiterated his desire for her to do what was best for her in that dim Portland
lobby, Michael’d been struggling for months with a growing awareness of how incommensurate
he and Elise’s feelings were. He’d battled his intuition to end things, selling himself a narrative
of he and Elise’s intellectual and spiritual compatibility. Although partially true–Elise was
remarkable in many ways that he admired–this fabrication could only forestall Michael’s real
feelings for so long. He eventually admitted his disinterest to Elise, and broke things off.
To Michael’s chagrin, his straightforwardness did nothing to assuage the throb of loss that
enveloped Elise: She could not have what she wanted, and what she wanted had, in a sense,
been stolen from her. Up until their final weeks of contact, Michael’d become a bullshitter in
her eyes, a liar, an illusionist who’d played her from day one. And to an extent, she wasn’t
wrong. He’d been something like these things, albeit accidentally. Michael knew this, and it
tormented him. Elise’d eventually acknowledged his unintentionality, but by then he’d begun to
distrust himself.
As he rounded that alley’s corner last September and caught a final glimpse of her standing in
the half-light of her building’s shadow, he’d begun to make a pact with himself.
5.
Face down on his bed, fists clenched, neck muscles strained, Michael screams “Let me go!” as
loud as he can into his pillow. He shifts his weight back, sitting up on his knees, and scoops the
pillow into his arms. “I was just a kid, just a kid,” he repeats into the pillow while rocking back
and forth.
He gets up and begins pacing about his room, whispering “Don’t you see I’m doing everything I
can to right this?” to himself repeatedly. After about a minute of this he goes into the bathroom
and looks into the mirror, saying “Why do you not get this? Honestly? What the hell else is
there to get?” He runs his sink faucet until it warms, splashing water on his face and then
drying it. He sits down at the small desk by his window, looking at his papers. He’s completed
most of his organic chemistry exercises so far, changing molecular structures from condensed to
Kekule, bond-line to Kekule, hashed-wedged to condensed. He begins working on the exercise
he left off on, mouthing “And now you’ve got me sounding like a fucking kook” as he draws a
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chain of carbon.
When he finishes, he lies down and stares at the ceiling for a few moments before reaching over
the side of his bed and pulling his laptop bag onto his chest. He removes Penelope’s copy of his
story from its back pocket. The pages have short commentaries written in their margins, and
when Michael turns to the back page, he finds it almost entirely filled up with ink. Penelope’s
provided an analysis of Michael’s main character, Lauren. Michael feels the same queasiness he
did when Penelope sat by him earlier in the day but tries quieting it by reading through the
commentary. She’s given more thought to Lauren’s character than Michael’d expected from a
classmate:
What was Lauren’s mother like? I imagine her as an ex-hippie with curly brown hair
who has short-lived obsessions. Her current one being juicing. I know you mention her
brother on the second page, but I was wondering what their age gap is? From the way
she talks about him it seems he’d be at least four or five years younger than her.
The TV show Lauren is watching at the beginning, about pyramids, is it supposed to be
Ancient Aliens? Or a fictional version of it? If it is that’s hilarious. The juxtaposition of
that show with Lauren’s contemplation about her family creates this wacky tension
that you do a good job of sustaining throughout the rest of the story.
P.S. Really like your shirt!
Below the final sentence is a drawing of a UFO beaming up a pyramid. Michael raises his head,
pressing his chin against his upper chest. He’s wearing a black, long-sleeve t-shirt with five
images of bats flying in various directions on its front. Michael yawns, putting the papers back
into his computer bag and setting it on the ground beside his bed. He turns over onto his side.
“Letting me go is the best thing you can do for yourself,” he says to himself quietly as he drifts
to sleep.
6.
A tempest quietly gathered in the center of Michael’s brain, rushing up and outward,
ricocheting gently about his skull. He didn’t want to, but he did. Left forearm draped across the
steering wheel, Elise stared in silence. Another will flowed through his larynx, “I love you”
ringing tinnily in his ears. Cold lips. The warm wetness of a tongue.
“I’m so glad you said something – I would’ve never mustered the courage.”
A smile spread across his face at the word “courage.”
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The first few months passed like a skimmed book. He lived a montage: A blonde mane happy
eyes glittered through. Crumpled bedsheets. Mornings in cafes popping poached eggs over
potatoes. Lengthy kisses. Aimless drives along the county’s borders. A triangular yard hemmed
with rhododendrons. Craft beer and cereal.
Such is the intoxication of reckless abandon, of headlong sprints into the unknown. It was as
though his life had begun with that first kiss in her car. Everything pre-Elise dropped away. He
charmed himself into an otherworld.
Michael only partially remembers the night things first came to a head. Elise had voiced a string
of insecurities, insecurities which prodded at the underlying instability of Michael’s
convictions. He’d sat there, battling the urge to thrash about in an uncontrollable frenzy. He’d
steadied himself by focusing on a pulled thread in the room’s carpet, but inwardly continued
spiraling.
Eventually his mind went blank. He lost himself in an immaterial burning that engulfed his
chest. Everything deflated. The external world became a rumor. He savagely beat himself across
the temple with his shoe. An inky fog clouded the room. Unplaceable hissing filled his ears. As
his vision returned, his shoe–bit-by-bit–reappeared, lying on the floor before him, laces
splayed. He heard whimpering and raised his head. She lay on the bed, hands covering her eyes.
“Please–whatever happens–please promise you’ll never do that again.”
7.
“He’s weird, isn’t he?” Penelope says as she exits the classroom behind Michael.
“Who?”
Penelope walks up alongside Michael and they continue down the hallway together. “Gorman,”
she says. Professor Gorman’s saggy jowls and wispy, shoulder-length white hair crackle across
Michael’s mind. “Didn’t you notice when he randomly said ‘he ‘looks good for his age’?”
Michael had drifted into a content-less daydream during class as Professor Gorman talked at
length about making the things your characters want hard to achieve. “Even if they’re doing
little things like shopping – you’ve got to invent hurdles for them to go over,” he’d said,
scanning the room intently. “Otherwise your story’s gonna be boring.”
Michael opens the door leading out of the hallway, holding it open for Penelope. “He got this
funky grin on his face,” Penelope continues, following behind Michael. “And brushed his hair
back, and then just said ‘I look good for my age’ for no particular reason.”
“Huh. That is pretty random,” Michael says detachedly as he turns toward the quad. Penelope
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catches up, walking beside him.

“It’s a bit creepy is what it is,” she says.
They make their way through the quad and sit on the same bench where Michael was when
Penelope first introduced herself the week prior. Michael laughs as he sets his computer bag
between himself and Penelope. “Maybe he’s trying to reinvent himself as a gigolo,” he offers.
“Ugh, that’s disturbing as all shit.”
“Or maybe he’s been working out?” Michael suggests, his voice’s pitch increasing dramatically
with the word “out.”
“It was just,” Penelope pauses, searching for the rest of her sentence. “Extremely irrelevant.”
Michael shrugs, holds his arms–palms up–in front of him, and, cocking his head, nods in
agreement. “Maybe...” Penelope begins. “Maybe Gorman used to be a bodybuilder or something.
I mean, those jowls, and the way his arm skin sags. He’s like a punctured balloon.” Michael
laughs.
8.
“Goooooo yooour way. I’ll take the long way ‘round. Oh, I’ll find my own way down.” The song
lilts hauntingly through the cold room, the subdued guitars and drums rolling off the walls.
Her mother was a terribly callous woman who–as far as I can tell–was mentally ill.
She reveled in emotional sadism.
Elise successfully emancipated herself at the age of 17. She was her own council in
court. She lived in a women’s shelter during her senior year of high school; after
graduation she went west alone.
Her father was a decent man but hadn’t actively been in her life for many years. He
tended to prioritize his girlfriends over her, disappearing for long stints whenever he
became romantically involved.
“And hoooold yooour gaze. There’s coke in the Midas touch. A joke in the way that we rust.”
She was bowed down with a history of abandonment.
The thing that really twists me up inside is that I sometimes wonder whether at some
level I knew all of this before really getting to know her. If I could somehow perceive
something of it subconsciously.
I became just another person who abandoned her.
Michael puts down his pen and stares at the paper, humming along with the song.
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Unending rows of redwoods blend into tan-orange streaks flanking the road. His foot leans into
the gas pedal. The coupe hurdles toward the blue pillar of light that fills the space between the
trees, faraway where the sky meets the asphalt and the highway drops from sight.
Elise’s hand feels warm in his. The radio’s volume’s maxed and they’re both yell-singing: “And
you’ll find loss! And you’ll fear what you found! When the weather comes–” they glance at each
other and emphasize–“OH! Tearing down!”
Michael scoots his chair back, his bare feet sliding across the ice-cold tile. He shivers as he
stands. She’d been so obsessed with Ben Howard that his music was synonymous with her in
Michael’s mind. “Oats in the Water” was, for Michael, the sound of Elise. The song’s reached its
crescendo, the reverb-drenched guitar blasting over repeated crash cymbal hits. Michael lets his
arms hang limp at his sides and twists back and forth, bobbing his head all the while. He dances
like a rag doll along to the song’s thumping conclusion.
9.
He stares at her hair, noting the way it swims in the wind, how sunlight illuminates its
concavities. She told him the blue stone she wears is lapis lazuli, which “is good for just about
everything, if you don’t know.” She bent her head forward, staring into the ring, her hair
encircling her like a bed curtain. “It’s like your own little psychologist. It’ll reveal to you habits
of thought and emotion that sabotage healing. It’ll cure insomnia.”
“You’re not one of those people who puts stones out under a full moon to ‘charge’ them, are
you?” Michael asks, eyeing the lapis lazuli on Penelope’s hand in mock suspicion.
She stares at him, smiling. “I’ve done it before.”
Penelope’s come to the University of Oregon by way of Tucson. Her hair’s her mother’s, a native
of the Navajo reservation in White Cone, Arizona. “I’m a bruja,” she says. “A witch.” Michael
nods.
She reads the incredulousness on his face. “It’s part of my heritage,” she laughs. “Don’t worry –
I don’t turn into a wolf at night.”
Michael cocks his head slightly. “A wolf?”
“An old Navajo story,” she explains, waving it away with her hand. “For another time.”
It’s chilly under a cloudless sky. The farmer’s market in the quad bustles with students. Michael
and Penelope sit on the grass watching their peers weave this way and that among the booths
eating and laughing.
“I knew someone who used to claim that our behaviors were reducible to the brain’s
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neurochemistry,” Michael says. “Sometimes they’d say there’s no difference between

drug-induced pleasure and the pleasure associated with achieving a goal.”
Penelope stares at him silently.
“It always felt dreadfully restrictive to me,” Michael continues, staring at the ground.
Penelope squints. “Restrictive?”
“To go around–all day–thinking that everything you and everyone else does is essentially some
emanation of chemical influence on neural networks.”
“You mean it’s, like, dehumanizing?”
“Well,” Michael says, taking in a deep breath. “The human being kind of disappears in that
view, right? Everyone’s just some kind of biological robot or something.”
They sit silently for a few moments. “What the heck made you think of that?” Penelope asks.
“You saying you’re a witch. It made me think of the other end of the spectrum.” Michael pauses,
looking at her. “Of belief.”
After a minute of silence, Penelope pokes Michael’s shoulder. “Have you ever been to a seance?”
Michael shrugs. “No?” He looks at her bemusedly. “I mean, I played with an ouija board a
couple times when I was a kid.”
Penelope laughs. “I’m talking about a real seance.”
“I don’t have an idea what that is, honestly.”
“Do you want to?”
Michael fidgets, staring off into the busyness of the farmer’s market. The proposition makes
him anxious.
“No pressure or anything,” Penelope adds, her eyes scanning his face.
Michael sighs. “Why not?”
10.
He’d spent half a lifetime reinventing himself. There’d been freedom in the incertitude, a sort of
eternal escape. He’d lived as no one in particular, a drifting shapelessness, solidifying in fits
and starts only for necessity’s sake.
This mercuriality proved the perfect foundation for wishes to run wild. It drew others in,
fascinating and bewildering them. He’d been a playground for others’ dreams.
After Elise, he’d concluded that it had all been a great refusal and renouncement: elastic and
characterless, his life until then had been little more than a prolonged turning away from living.
It was a miserable realization, and he shuddered at the years spent dancing around defining
himself, lingering in the liminal.
Maybe, at bottom, Elise’d simply been a refuge, a space where he could hold up for a while and
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continue forgetting himself. The thought’d chilled him, and he’d decided that, at present, he
was unfit for anything other than acquaintanceship.
11.
The aromatic scent of burnt cedar hangs in the kitchen’s air. Michael watches his murky, diffuse
reflection in the window opposite him. The darkness outside runs into his features, his face
turning into a depthless jumble of eyes and cheeks, all mixed up with reflected light, lingering
smoke, and black night.
A curved, waist-high table runs along half of the wall to his left. Multiple china storage sets are
stacked on it, looking not unlike pink and grey wedding cakes. Michael sits at a four-person
wooden table. Innumerable candles loom on surrounding shelves, stools, and the kitchen’s
island, reminding Michael of the tiered votives he’d seen when he was a child, travelling with
his parents in Vienna and Rome. Every few moments their flames sway as Penelope’s arm
swoops by.
A chain with a silver key attached to one end lies on the table. Beside it a piece of printer paper
with what looks like x- and y-axes drawn on it in pen. Around the edges of the paper are some
half-moon-shaped arrows, indicating a circular movement around the axes.
Penelope spins slowly for another minute, her arm bobbing the mildly smoking cedar. Michael
stares intently between his knees at the turquoise rug the table sits on. The designs on the
corners remind him of old portrait frames. Penelope pauses and dips the stick in a small bucket
of water on the floor. It gives off a low hiss. She moves to the island and places the wet,
blackened wood on a spoon rest, picking up the small vase of olive oil that sits beside it. She
turns, facing Michael, and makes the sign of the cross three times.
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want,” she says, standing completely still with her eyes
closed. She holds the vase of oil with both hands in front of her chest. Her hair lies along the
lengths of her arms, falling just a few inches beneath her elbows. “He makes me to lie down in
green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the
paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.” Michael stares at her quizzically.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are
with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the
presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over. Surely goodness and
mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
She places the vase on the table beside the piece of paper. “Voilà,” she says, smiling. “Holy oil.”
“Where’d you get that from?” Michael asks, smirking.
“I read about in a few different places, and I’ve used it before.” She opens her eyes wide.
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“It works.”
“Are you Catholic?”
Penelope laughs. “No, it’s just a way of creating a protective seal on the oil.” She looks at the
clock on the wall. It reads at 2:56am. “Okay, it’s almost time. We only have a few minutes.” She
dips her pointer finger in the oil and puts in her mouth. “Go on,” she says, inching the vase
toward Michael.
He sucks a bit of oil off his finger and watches Penelope curiously. She hurries to the window
across from him and makes the sign of the cross in front of it, then speed walks into another
room, making the same sign she as enters, disappears for a few moments, and then reappears
down the hallway on Michael’s right, where she signs again at the front door. She reenters the
kitchen and sits at the table across from Michael. He yawns and rubs his eyes.
“OK, that’s it. We’re ready.” Penelope points to the chain and key. “Remember what I showed
you?”
Michael nods and picks the chain up by its end. The key swings in a circular motion.
“The movement of the pendulum indicates ‘yes,’ ‘no,’ and ‘I don’t know,’” Penelope says, leaning
against the wall of the womans’ restroom. Michael starts swinging the chain in his hand. The
silver key bounces around in the air. Penelope walks over and gently tries to steady Michael’s
shoulder. She feels him tense and lets go.
“Sorry,” she says, putting her hands up and taking a step back.
“It’s okay,” he says quietly. “It’s just,” he pauses, glancing back at the door. “Are you sure no
one ever comes in here?” He laughs awkwardly. “This might look rather bizarre.”
“Yeah I’m sure,” Penelope says, waving her hand in front of her face. “I’ve literally never seen
anyone in here. I don’t think they’re holding many classes in this part of the building right
now.” She stares at Michael for a moment and smiles. “Just keep your elbow bent and flat and
stick it out away from you.”
Michael follows her instructions and begins swinging the chain and key once more.
“Just deliberately move it along one of the axes. So move it up and down. Do it deliberately,
you’re teaching your body how to do it. Teaching your unconscious.” Michael focuses on the
coordinated motion of his arm and sees the pendulum moving towards and away from his
sternum. “That’s gonna be your ‘yes’ or ‘no’,” Penelope says as she begins to pace. “Now you
want to just begin to move it into a circle – this is called a ‘transitional circular swing’ – and
move it consciously but gently into the other axis, side to side. Keep going, try it again.
Remember, your body needs to become comfortable with this.”
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“That candle,” Michael says, staring over Penelope’s left ear. “It’s dripping on the floor.”
“Shit. It’s burning at a weird angle.” Penelope blows the wick out and tilts the candle so the wax
pools away from its sunken, leaking wall. She gets up and puts it in the sink. “So, start swinging
the pendulum in a circular motion,” she says, wiping her hands on a paper towel and sitting
down again. “And take a moment to find your ‘yes.’” Michael begins lightly turning the
pendulum above the paper on the table.
Penelope leans forward. “Say ‘yes’ to yourself as powerfully as you can.”
Michael closes his eyes and says “yes” as if he’s speaking into his own chest.
“Take that feeling, wherever you feel it in your body, and move it up into your shoulder, your
elbow, your hand, and finally down into the pendulum.” The key slowly moves into a
front-to-back motion. “Good. Now, go back into the circular motion. Say ‘no,’ find it in your
body, feel it. Move it up into your shoulder, your elbow, hand, and into the pendulum.”
With his eyes still closed, Michael says “no.” In his mind, he sees himself shouting the word into
a bottomless ravine. It echoes and fades. Rotation by rotation, the key gradually begins to move
side to side.
“Good,” Penelope says. “We can start by asking something mundane.”
“Will it rain this week?” Michael asks.
“No?” Penelope says in surprise, watching the pendulum. “Thank god. You can ask a question
secretly, Michael. If you want.”
He watches the pendulum circle above the table for a few moments. Shades of orange candle
light reflect off the key, vanishing and reappearing with its twirls. A faint, intermittent tinkling
comes from the chain’s last loop as it rubs against the key’s head. The weight of sleep suddenly
grows palpable and Michael bites his lower lip. The dull sting jolts the drowsiness away. He
hears his name being called faintly as an unsolicited image of Elise passes into his mind’s eye.
Again, he stands at the edge of a bottomless ravine. The key continues to spin. A vague figure
forms in the darkness before him. He hears his name again, slightly clearer. His eyelids sag.
Elise’s face appears in the ravine’s chasm, her features highly defined. Half-sleep whisks him
away. Her eyes and mouth move in slow motion, as if silently pleading.
“Her voice, it changed all of a sudden,” Michael says, his eyes closed. Penelope sits at attention
and watches him intently. “She sounded like a small child, like she was trying to will everything
into being okay by wishing intensely enough that it was. It was as if the part of her the external
world never touched was speaking. And it was like she expected me to magically fix everything
for her, like I was predestined to utterly transform her world.”
Michael blinks rapidly a few times and lifts his head. He feels his cheeks flush as he registers
the shock on Penelope’s face. She speaks slowly, pausing briefly after each word:
100
“What the hell?”
12.
“She was with a guy for, like, two years who was lying to her. She really loved him. It kinda
fucked her up, you know? She’s just fearful, that’s all.”
“Yeah, she told me about that,” Michael says, wishing he could disappear into the larger crowd
indoors. He takes a drink of his whiskey sour and grimaces. It was made by a guy who was
already pretty drunk, and it tastes completely off, almost like pineapple. He’s been cornered in
the house’s backyard by Paul, one of Elise’s oldest friends. It’s Elise’s friend Jenny’s birthday
party. A few groups of people stand around them, smoking and talking.
Paul smiles and puts his beer down on the table beside them. “Well, you know, I don’t mean to
intrude too much, but she’s shared some stuff with me. I just, you know,” he says, looking down
at his hands. “I just wanna make sure you’re okay and that you’re really sure about her, if you
know what I mean.”
Michael looks around, silently panicking. He shrugs and says “I – I – yeah.”
Paul tries to look as reassuring as possible. “Look, man. I’m just trying to talk to you.”
“I know, I know.” Michael feels the tensions of the past month and a half swirling just beneath
his sternum. “And I appreciate it.” His temple stings mildly, as if a ghost has slapped a shoe
across his face. All the back-and-forth dialogue with himself about Elise mounts and throbs
through his brain, creating cacophonous mental crosstalk. He looks at Paul. “It’s just –”
“Hey, you two!” Elise says excitedly, inserting herself between them. “Jenny’s about to do her
birthday cake inside. Come on.” She kisses Michael’s cheek and pulls him toward the house by
the hand. Paul picks up his beer and follows.
101
Contributor Problematique Vol 2:
Information FEBRUARY 2021
Sacha Archer
is a Canadian concrete poet, writer and editor of Simulacrum Press (simulacrumpress.ca). He lives
in Burlington, Ontario with his wife and two daughters. Most recently he has published Mother’s
Milk (Timglaset), Lines of Sight (nOIR:Z) and MODELS [of Economic Recovery] (Simulacrum
Press). Forthcoming publications include Framing Poems (Timglaset) and UMO (The Blasted
Tree), a constraint based erasure/ sound poem. His concrete poetry has been exhibited across
Europe, the USA and Canada. Find him on Facebook and Instagram @sachaarcher.
Stephen Bett
is a widely and internationally published Canadian poet with 24 books in print. His personal
papers are archived in the “Contemporary Literature Collection” at Simon Fraser University. His
website is stephenbett.com
Kristopher Biernat
is a writer, artist, and publisher from Florida. His written and visual works have been featured in
The Evergreen Review, isacoustic, The Collidescope, of/with, Synesthesia Literary Journal, and
Poetry Pacific. In 2014 he founded Dink Press. He is in love.
C.H. Gorrie
C.H. Gorrie is a poet, writer, editor, and musician hailing from San Diego, California. He holds an
MA in English Literature from San Diego State University. The current nonfiction editor of
Consequence, he also co-founded Synesthesia Literary Journal and acted as its managing editor
for four years. He is the de facto A&R Representative of Reality House West, a Southern California
music collective and event production company. His creative work has appeared in literary venues
such as The Penn Review, San Diego Poetry Annual, aaduna, Problematique, ANON Magazine,
Aztec Literary Review, Poems-for-All, and Duende.
Rus Khomutoff
is an experimental poet in Brooklyn, NY. He has been published by San Francisco review of books,
Proprose magazine, Silver Pinion and Hypnopomp. In June he published a chapbook called Radia
from Void Front Press. He can be reached at @rusdaboss on twitter.
K Maeby
is an artist from Melbourne, Florida. She spends her time creating glimpses into other universes
and finding the beauty in this one. She hopes you find anything in her words- a connection, a joke,
disgust, even joy. She is in love. She can be reached at @kmaeby on instagram.
Charles J. March III

is an asexual, neurodivergent Navy hospital corpsman veteran who is currently trying to live an
eclectic life with an interesting array of recovering creatures in Orange County, CA. His various
works have appeared in or are forthcoming from Evergreen Review, Atlas Obscura, Litro, Chicago
Tribune, L.A. Times, Lalitamba, 3:AM Magazine, Ink Sweat & Tears, Fleas on the Dog, Queen
Mob’s Teahouse, The Recusant, Taco Bell Quarterly, Storm Cellar, Harbinger Asylum, Maudlin
House, Misery Tourism, BlazeVOX, Blood Tree Literature (prize), Bareknuckle Poet, Anti-Heroin
Chic, The Beatnik Cowboy, Points in Case, Expat Press, Stinkwaves, Young Ravens Literary
Review, The Writing Disorder, Literary Orphans, Otoliths, Oddball Magazine, et al. Links to his
pieces can be found on LinkedIn and SoundCloud.
Joanna Mariak
to polska fotografka specjalizująca się w portretach, modzie oraz fotografii konceptualnej. Jest
studentką Szkoły Filmowej w Łodzi, jednej z najbardziej prestiżowych uczelni artystycznych w
Europie. Pracuje na aparatach analogowych i używa przeterminowanych filmów – to właśnie one
pomagają jej właściwie opowiedzieć swoje historie.
Joanna Mariak
is a fashion, portrait and conceptual photographer. She is a student of the Cinematography
Department at the Leon Schiller Film and Theatre School, one of the most prestigious art schools
in Europe. In her works she uses analog cameras and expired films because they help her to tell
unique stories.
Shea O’Connor
Due to his Roman Catholic upbringing, Shea O’Connor performs his craft through a blue-collar
perspective, remembering that honest labor is a holy endeavor. His work celebrates his heritage
and is faithful to the brisk precept: if you’re the only Church in town, be a cathedral.
David Piersol
is a new poet living in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His poetry appears in the Acéphale zine,
TSR0002, Scum Gentry Alternative Arts, and Conceptions Southwest. He can be found on Twitter
at @dparasole.

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This volume is dedicated to the memory of

Dr. Aaron Richard O. Green

“Triptych of Experimental Polaroids for Dr. Green”

Artist Name Submitted Work Title

Sacha Archer Study of X

Stephen Bett Two poems from “Broken Glossa: an

Rus Khomutoff One poem

Kaleigh Maeby Untitled Collection of 22 Poems

Charles March III Uppers & Bummers

David Piersol 16 Poems

Joanna Mariak 25 Photographs

Shea O’Connor 15 Poems

Kristopher Biernat Reimagining of Shea O’Connor Poems

Poetry is the last refuge of the unimaginative.

Poetry is the last refuge of the unimaginative

Poetry has little to offer outside of poetry itself. Poets chose to

be poets because they do not have the drive to become something

better. / Please, no more poetry.

This world of serpents and weeping women

This world of serpents and weeping women

is crushed in the violence

of a swamp large enough to contain

the enormous razorblade of the night

CALENDAR OF MARBLE REINCARNATION METALLIC TASTE OF

ritual daze, grazed, and gripped

born of invisible ink and

take beating heart from

think of sonata freshly stripped

ceramic virgin, cursed to mourn,

magnolia tongue craves thorn,

half hour reality begs

righteous religion formed in

thoughtless but moving

i am crawling skeleton and

eaten by moth and flayed by

there’s that deep gut sick

open hotel, window,

static rain and sun beam silence

absurdist drowning in fast

death has the stomach of

i am dead to carbon soul

raw perfume of lips and

god coughed terrible

worship lives in the stomach

missing charcoal skeleton and

something breaks in your head

some permanent delirium picks you

adrenobozia is the chicken noodle soup of the wirebent soul

you, repulsive as you really are,

burned again by born collaborators,

swimming heads that you know

smooth and oily with the

you, it’s always you

you told me how i was wrong

i wanted to say this in person, but

you shattered the sky

drowning in good garbage juice

take early rhythmic inquiries and laugh

bright up your eyes for the dark of night

a retroadditive pantomime, tangled together

i have an irrational fear of submarines bobbing in the water

anglopragmatic hyenas sniff at my corpse for amphetamines

the anglopragmatics, of course, posed the central question of our time:

the universe is the emanation of an ejaculating penis