ADVENT DAY TWENTY-FOUR: ASH DI PASQUALE

Mint Box #1

I am in your image

A foreign face the form of torture

Avalanches of knives into it

Unforgiving fingerprints

Unconscious excoriations

Superficial reactions

Tied empty routine

Tongue-twisting yesterdays

Closed demolished future

Intimate distillation

Pillows bleed masturbation

Hands perform intimate permissions

Mercy waltzes adultery

Paradise leaks exotic virgins

Father Abraham is tongue-tied into my clit

The state is tongue-tied into my clit

Ankles chained to the cathedral

Ash Di Pasquale is a third year university student. Some more of their old work can be found at http://magazine.seymourprojects.com/2014/03/what-if-fabiana-di-pasquale/ and http://ashsmusicalworld.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/siege-mentality.html"

ADVENT DAY TWENTY-THREE: EMILY CRITCHLEY

from Wet grass is where the Atlantic meets the Indian ocean

swim the

            delight & hurt not

where glass is enough / & thorough / & wet

            in the

different finding waters

that clear on one side & clouds on

            the other

thorough mine / through looking

thorough your / thru waving

& the through / the sea-grass

in the finding / the clear / in the

at last clashing

            is full

            about mine

in the

/ yours through that that is different energies dropping

coral leaves

invisible reaching

of same then bodies

sweet energies

fields in the / delight

            that dreaming

or the swimming / thru finding

the swimming / thru finding

the humming sounding

/ the dream-waking

with me there.

[…]

in the finding / the swimming / the through-ing

dreaming

where sweet

            you can really

            have always

& the reaching the reaching the reaching & still

in bodies (waters) of coral

            / same clear wet grass

as before

that play of that

dreaming or humming finding

/ thru of those bodies

of 

/ wet coral while

            sleeping

Emily Critchley has poetry collections (with Arehouse, Bad press, Dusie, Oystercatcher, Torque, Holdfire, Corrupt, Intercapillary and Barque – forthcoming) and a selected writing: Love / All That / & OK (Penned in the Margins, 2011). She is editor of Out of Everywhere 2: linguistically innovative poetry by women in north America & the UK (Reality Street, 2015).

DAY TWENTY-TWO: LISA CATTRONE

HERE’S A LETTER FOR SANTA

WHEN HE FINALLY SHAVES HIS BEARD

OR

A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR ADVENT

 

 

I want to force my body into a moss

and bang my head into the ground.

 

I want all the dead people

to look like tropical fish.

 

I want a lifetime pass

made of rabbit hair.

 

I want

Donald Trump to die.

 

I want a sheet of webs

to hover 10 inches above every sea.

 

I want a rectangular device

that can call all the shots.

 

I want the whirring aorta in the ground

to show itself to us.

 

I want all the inventions

to be invented and to rest.

 

I want no more of this

and only that.

 

I want all eyes

on Brazil.

 

I want all people to understand

the hallucination.

 

I want the goo tubes

to be more user friendly.

 

I want to meet Grendel

when I’m less busy.

 

I want busy to look different

like with a third eye.

 

I want a beautiful

horse.

 

I want to grow

a blue tail.

 

I want you to approach the New Disasters

auf den Händen.

 

I want the German language to 

turn into a sparkling, female pig.

 

I want all the New Miracles to 

refract light.

 

I want to 

avoid the scene.

 

I want to talk to my grandmother

in the middle of the day.

 

I want to insist the word “poetry”

doesn’t exist.

 

I want to roll all thoughts

under my bed.

 

I want a smaller setting

for all high school students.

 

I want all prophets

to shave their beards.

 

I want to listen 

to every word at once for the remainder of my life.

 

I want

a nice, new dress. Red.

 

I want to say nothing

and never break silence.

Lisa Cattrone is a mother and a high school teacher 

living in California. Her first full length book called 

simple constructs for the lizzies is forthcoming 

next year from Trembling Pillow Press. She has two 

chapbooks, Mutations for Jenny and My Secret Life 

out from Horse Less Press.

ADVENT DAY TWENTY-ONE: WANDA PHIPPS

     Her

      inspired by a film by Spike Jonze

      intuitive HER

      adaptive HER

      helpful HER

      omnipresent HER

      effective HER

      persuasive HER

      perceptive HER

      hilarious HER

      wave HER

      particle HER

      particular HER

      operating HER

      system HER

      systematic HER

      operative HER

      operatic HER

      insistent HER

      logical HER

      compassionate HER

      desperate HER

      HER inside the hardware

      HER inside the mainframe

      HER inside the multiverse

      HER inside your mind space

      HER inside the ones and zeros

      HER without the smartphone

      HER without the cigarettes

      HER without grief

      HER without separation

      HER without the exes

      around HER the skyline

      around HER the ocean

      around HER the electromagnetic field

      around HER the transportation system

      around HER the full philosophy

      above HER the sound of birds

      above HER the open view

      above HER the infinite sweetness 

WANDA PHIPPS is a writer/performer living in NYC. Her books include Field of Wanting: Poems of Desire and Wake-Up Calls: 66 Morning Poems. Her poetry has been translated into Ukrainian, Hungarian, Arabic, Galician and Bangla. She has received awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the National Theater Translation Fund, and others. As a founding member of Yara Arts Group she has collaborated on numerous theatrical productions presented in Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Siberia, and at La MaMa, E.T.C. in NYC. She’s curated reading series at the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church and written about the arts for Time Out New York, Paper Magazine, and About.com. Check out her website: www.mindhoney.com.

photo credit: Ken Kerbs   

ADVENT DAY TWENTY: NICOLE MAURO

      IV

      Be-
      spectacled Clark
      attended regular
      meetings
      at the apartment
      where he remarked
      and remarked
      about the routines
      of ordinary bi-
      peds, their organs
      in garments, how
      one-
      breasted are the bow-wielding
      brave. He had seen a lovelorn
      on the pavement 
      on the way
      to the apartment, one
      with one
      leg. Diana's iris
      got large
      in the process
      so be-
      spectacled Clark
      stripped off
      his garments, and
      stayed.

 #4 from a series called Superzeroic, an anti-romance between Clark Kent and Diana Prince, aka Superman and Wonderwoman.

NICOLE MAURO'S poems and criticism 
have appeared in numerous publications. She lives 
in the Bay Area with her husband, and children.