It’s 2:56 and you are awake. The pulse under your jaw throbs. Carotid arteries throng your brain. The senses reside here, below your jawline, so does speech. You say “service” aloud like a wish. Go to the road, again. Go. It’s 3:12 and you are awake. You paddle your feet under the covers. Your...
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Rearranging the Familiar: A Review of Jhani Randhawa’s Time Regime
Reviewed by Manahil Bandukwala Jhani Randhawa, Time Regime (Gaudy Boy LLC, 2022), 144 pp., $16 US. Jhani Randhawa’s debut poetry collection Time Regime is, as the title hints, a slow meander through time. This is evident from the very first poem of the collection, “Primavera,” in which Randhawa...
Curtain
Begin by noting that there’s no path to the other side of rain.The only way is perpetually through. A bicycle on two wheels forthe first time. At the viewing, only the mourners keep the emptiness at bay. Before and after, a room of objects. If youreached across, it would...
Wild Hearts Run Outta Time
You ever listened to Roy Orbison? That voice. That fucking voice. Cuts deep into you, slicing you bit by bit. Until you’re just chunks of meaty, exposed flesh on the ground. All that remains is the pain you had before you started listening to one of his songs. Been listening to him a lot lately...
[nectar names] / [white stripe]
seafoam sours beneath my tongue spills over in the speaking of a name a tide in my throat, a surge of syllables the gravity of the words i swallow turns my body inside out tears my teeth from my mouth. secrets dissolve in my mouth drops of nectar spear my tongue to my jaw, i speak without saying...
A Sexual, Religious Coming of Age: A Review of Carellin Brooks’ Learned
Reviewed by Micah Killjoy Carellin Brooks, Learned (Book*hug Press, 2022), 120 pp., $20. “Don’t you ever want to disappear?” asks Carellin Brooks’ Learned, a collection of bildungsroman poems that explores the world of a girl-turned-woman living as a Rhodes Scholar in mid-90’s Oxford. Learned’s...