Rowena Waack CC


​
november

the morning I went to unbury her the ground was bitter
ice tentacles invading layers of myth of rare element origin of bone on bone hidden
rivers late-autumn rabbits clumsy and placenta-wet crossed
my path as omen as story foretold I dug my fingers to blood unremembering
her ashes in titanium beneath a quilt that smelled of her eyes this is how the world ends
every day this is how the world is born there was nothing but old
wine in your house and now you are gone from that place drinking elderflowers while every star
is falling into every open orphan mouth catastrophe is certain and welcome
company you tell me to bring Irish coffee and my grandmother’s wedding ring forged
from gold engraved with six initials that I recite in my dreamless sleep we dream
of strangers of slaughter our ancestors labeled murderers and we cannot
deny the throats they slit I show you the pain beneath my fingernails you show me potions
blood orange walnut bitter potatoes fermented into clear white gold

​

            Yelp Inc. CC


Devil’s Fork


Jimmy eases a perfectly poured pint my way. It glides majestically across the counter’s sleek surface. First things first: the whiskey. A devil’s fork claws my throat on the journey down. I growl it loose and take a dampening slug of Ireland’s finest.

“What time’s he due?” asks Jimmy.   

“About two,” I reply, “said he’d come straight here.”

“You spoke to him, then?”

“No, text. You?”

“No, one of the lads mentioned it last night.”

Jimmy wipes the counter and adjusts his specs like he always does when unsure what comes next. He’s grateful to be beckoned by the gang of plasterers flush with Friday lunchtime pay packets. He also knows I’m not one for small talk.

Someone in the crowd not so far behind me says something that’s nothing, but it’s a nothing that once upon a time would likely have ended in a brawl. But today I let it pass, tune my ears to Weller’s angst coming from the jukebox instead, take another mouthful. Cheers and whistles tell me the stripper’s coming round with the pint glass. I put in a couple of quid without meeting her gaze. She dances to Madonna, then retreats, gathering up her clothes, covering her breasts, letting go of her smile. I went to school with her mother, God rest her soul.

Jimmy watches me drumming my fingers on the counter.

“What time you got?” I ask.

“It’s a little after,” Jimmy says, looking past me. His eyes give the game away, but he tries to pull it back. I thought I’d be okay with this, but the rattle in my bones tells me otherwise.

A hand comes to rest on my shoulder.

“Let’s have a good look at you,” my brother says.

I turn round and look at him for the first time in years. Ten years. Our faces are difficult to tell apart less you know the telltales. Or rather they used to be.

He’s wearing dark jeans and a too-small khaki t-shirt that broadcasts his muscular frame. His hair is as close-cropped as it was when our uniform was Fred Perry and Sta-Pressed trousers, and for a man in his forties, he’s in fine fettle.

He’s seeing me: hepatic-sallow skin and deep-welled eyes cheating death one day at a time.

To a stranger I’d pass for his father, not his twin.  

“When did they let you out?” I ask. I know it’s a stupid question, but I hadn’t thought of any better in all the ten years of thinking.

“This morning,” he says.

“Sorry I didn’t get to visit.”

He raises an arm to catch Jimmy’s attention, signals two fingers. His eyes convey a purpose long extinct in mine. He leans in and gives me a hug. I close my eyes, and all of the chatter falls silent. It feels like he’s drawing the darkness out of me with every breath.   

Ten years ago we bashed this poor bloke’s head in so bad he as good as died. I was the one lost it, the one doing all of the bashing, but Groover said it was his doing. He always took the heat for me, like the time as kids we set the kitchen on fire frying potatoes, or the time we got caught thieving motorbikes from the lock-ups round our way. He was protecting me, he said, said he could handle it, that he knew I couldn’t. I wish I knew what was he protecting me from. It seems getting locked up granted him absolution; it might have worked for me too, but I never got the chance to find out.

Someone in the crowd calls out. “Hey, Groover, good to see you back.”

My brother lets me go, turns, and gives a thumbs-up to Stan; a painter and decorator turned city boy we used to work with years back.

I don’t pretend to understand the how or why, but the good thing happening in the moments before had been shattered, and that pissed me right off.

“Wanker,” I shout at him.

“What’s that?” Stan says.

For all it’s worth, and probably from muscle memory, not intent, I get up from the stool. As Stan steams towards me, guys cannon off each other in his path like skittles. Vocal protests articulated in short sharp jabs get ignored. As he nears, Groover steps in front of me as a barrier.

“Hey, cool it,” he says to Stan, holding his hands up in peace, “he didn’t mean anything by it, it’s just that we haven’t seen each other for a long time.”

“Okay, Groove,” Stan says, easing back, “as it’s you, I’ll let it slide.”

I don’t feel too steady on my feet, so sit back down.

“Man, you’re looking great,’ Stan says to Groover.

“Cheers,” he replies, “there’s not a lot else to do inside but read books or work out. Even had someone come in and teach us yoga.”

Stan puts his palms together, rests them on his chest, closes his eyes, starts humming, starts laughing. Groover even laughs along with him.

Groover gets Stan a pint. Jimmy stares at me too long saying nothing, adjusts his specs, makes himself busy, Chloe comes round collecting for her next dance, and I have nothing but to let the devil’s fork do its clawing.  

​
​
Bio: Lee Hamblin is from the UK. Now lives and teaches yoga in Greece. He’s had stories published in MoonPark Review, Blue Fifth Review, Ellipsis Zine, Fictive Dream, Flash Frontier, Spelk, Reflex, F(r)online, STORGY, Stories for Homes 2, Bath Flash Fiction Volume 2. He tweets @kali_thea and puts links/words here: https://hamblin1.wordpress.com

Buried Treasure

And so I hear there’s a map somewhere
to God.

That this God may be where X marks the spot,
three paces north of a twisted dogwood,
just a stone’s roll from the dead tree.

I hear we’re all vectors into each other.
If so, help me.

First, let’s find that crumpled map.

Then the far off island to run aground.

Who will we have found?

In the least, maybe each other.

​


​Church Building

In our family parlor, children laugh and look at me, their Daddy.

Papa, show us God with your hands, and from where God sends words like kites
unbothered through the breeze, through the trees and seas, and sees. Where, Papa, show
us where God lives and where God breathes.
                    
And I think of what I can hold. And so, I shall again teach. And maybe from their
innocence, maybe even learn what a hand can hold, what it can lift. We grownups love
our children and sincerely want them to know our divine wisdom, as if knowing God is
our gift. And so we somehow show them how to worship. We shape our large hands to
pray, and then intertwine them to play, and with a twist in this gestured game we surprise
their eyes with an epiphany.
 
And this, again for them I now do quite plain.

Near the palms, my fingers dangle as people within this handed down church. Just two
hands together, not heavy handed, just my two small hands together, together making
with hands a house of worship. Grownups may do this or something similar the world
round, together making our hands depict our fingers as worshipers.            

And our little innocents ask for us to do it again. And again. And then they do it too with
their innocent hands. The rhyme as pews goes as planned. But soon they are the ones to
ask if God can fit in our hands as we continue our contortion. Oh, Lord, if I am grown
and wise, how would I make mine that way Thine?

And then, by the real church the children are the ones to see the outside homeless man,
cold and contorted. Yes, again the inescapable misplaced homeless man. There he is, so
close at hand.

​


Cornered

In our smallness, maybe we think God’s hand is just too big to grasp.

Awe the monstrosities our hands can shape can only do their best.
Then brick upon brick upon brick, thick walls and hard to open doors
go as planned, cathedrals, marvels, with aisles toward tabernacles.

And then,
God is where we finally know where God always is.

Trapped.

​
​
Bio: Joe Bisicchia writes of our shared dynamic. An Honorable Mention recipient for the Fernando Rielo XXXII World Prize for Mystical Poetry, his works have appeared in Anti-Heroin Chic and numerous publications. His website is www.widewide.world.

                 morganmaher CC


Losing touch

​
She was the first person in school to have breasts. I was the second. The smooth skin that rubbed against our cotton shirts now heavy and puckered. We made a pact to laugh at the genitalia of the spotty boys who pinged our bra -straps. The snap of humiliation and stinging skin drowned in bubbles of laughter. She demonstrated how to give wedgies, grabbing the soft material and tugging until the squeal shivered through our fingers.  There were girls who stared, whispered about our hairy arms, my dark skin. She liked to pull their thread-like hair, perfumed with soap and sweat.
There were hours lounging on creaky wooden chairs listening to the deputy head, a grey-haired woman with infinite patience. The head teacher looked through us after the ‘all men have size issues’ conversation. She pinched my hip gleefully as his face reddened, at his threats of expulsion if we stepped out of line, if one more student complained. We walked backwards, arms locked, all the way to Geography.
We spent time after school in her bedroom, safe from other people’s rules. Her mother at work, her father stuck in his own head. She brought out vodka, clear and potent, we both took a sip. It smelt like nail varnish, burnt like being pushed into the swimming pool.  Like the splutterings of Jill Taylor falling backwards after boasting about her new house.
Our first cigarette was the slide of tiny shovels into the unseen slippery parts of our bodies, turning them over, peeling off their gloss. She could almost blow smoke rings, the muscles in her jaw jumping as wispy ovals dissolved into puffs of air. We watched these arrows of weaponised breath invade Karen Hutchinson’s ordered system, a chance encounter walking to the cinema. She smirked as the smaller girl covered streaming eyes and promised not to tell.
She last held my arm when Aisha Butler pressed bony shoulders into the spiky wood of the Equipment Hut, shaking, trying to escape. Aisha never laughed at me, I didn’t want to make her shake. I didn’t want to make anyone squeal or splutter or beg anymore. She jerked away from me, like a twig cracking, like a fingerbone breaking. Aisha ran off to find a teacher.
She walked into the headteacher’s office alone. I still remember the softness of her hair.


​
Bio: Anita Goveas is a speech and language therapist by day and a short story writer by night . She is British-Asian, based in London, and fueled by strong coffee and paneer jalfrezi. Her stories are published and forthcoming in the 2016 London Short Story Prize anthology, Word Factory website and Hawthorn magazine.

          i wen† lef† CC




Shade of the Father


I am not looking for my father,
I was running from my father.

He’s in me now, and resting
Peacefully, as I move down

This two-lane blacktop.
Father’s telling me how his

Father was too cheap to take
Them on trips when he

Was a kid, but that was back
In the depression. Instead

Of trips, his father saved
Enough to send his kids

To college. My father’s telling
Me the different brands of

Cows we pass out on the
Rolling land, the Holsteins

white and  lovely splattered
With black, the Guernsey’s

Mostly brown, some with
Splotches of white, and I

Am telling him about feed
Lots and how the chickens

We eat these days who no
Longer roam but live in

Tiny cages and are fed
On corn alone so they

Will faster mature. My
Father doesn’t wish to

Hear about this and he’s
Not interested if I tell

Him about Jack Kerouac’s
Trip across these states,

Jack’s fear of death, his
Desire to live right in

The moment and to
Both seize the moment

In its full intensity and
To record that moment

In prose for us to be
Seized by its beauty.

My father doesn’t want
To hear about his fix

On God but wants to tell
Me, as we ride through

Small South Dakota
Towns heading for the

City where he was born,
About his work to find

A cure for heart disease,
His hope to change the

Diets of Americans so
They would not grow so fat

And die young from
Heart disease. Father, how

Far to the black hills?,  I
Ask, but instead of answering

He tells me how all four
Brothers slept on the back

Porch and when they went
To bed they stoked the

Pot bellied stove till it
Glowed red, but when

They woke before sunrise
In the dead of winter

The stove had icicles
Hanging down near its

Legs. Father, I say, we’re
On the road, have you heard

Of Neil Cassidy, the greatest
Driver in the world, an

Adonis was he with two,
Three girlfriends at one time

And he stole hundreds of
Cars, but my father has no

Reply.  I see him inside
The white light of science,

His home of reason, his
Peace of proof, his curious

Mind to find a cure for
The disease that killed

More people than any
Other. Jack Kerouac, my

Father’s with me on this
Road. I’m listening not

To jazz but to harmonies
Made by Mozart. No one’s

Pounding on the dashboard,
The sun is bright and the sky

Is the deepest blue you can
Imagine, and in this spring

We see wildflowers up and
Down this road. The demons 

That drove you, I have not
Been able to find them in

These parts, not in the earth,
Nor in the trees. No, not on this

Two-lane road. My father
Points to the small wood

Shack where he grew up
The son of an Irish man

My first girlfriend, my dad
Tells me, took a picture right

Here on the sidewalk in
Front of the door. I had on

These black and white wing
Tipped shoes that I was selling

In college to pay my  way
Through. Her name was Helen.

I wonder who she married.
I wonder where she is right

Now. Careful, dad, I say,
You’re only a shade but you

Are beginning to sound like
That old beat, Jack Kerouac.

The Indians when I was a kid
Used to pitch their tents just

Over the railroad tracks. My
Father wouldn’t let us talk to them

And I’d heard they ate dogs
So I took my Spaniel Suzy

And spent all day in the
cornfields saving my dog

​

'
50’s Mother

mother been yelling in the kitchen all along,
plates and dishes crashing against a wall,
all the crockery of the cabinets breaking
and she shouting, "I hate this shit! I hate this shit!"

I was fourteen when it happened
and took my sister down into the basement
to hide out through the rage

Do I see it through a feminist lens now?
Here she was, an MD in anesthesiology,
stuck in a 50's suburban home with not
a friend in the world

Mother is still swearing but all dishes are busted
so she moves through the house slamming doors
and soon she's throwing sheets and shirts
and socks and pants and dresses down
the basement stairs.

“I am sick of this. I am sick of this!”

Looking at it through the lens of performance art,
my mother sought an audience,
some souls to see her suffering and sorrow
and to get the message

But sister and I were watching television
on the basement TV, "Spin and Marty"

Dad came home from his commute
and without a word he picked up the clothes
and swept up the broken crockery

mother stayed the night in the bedroom
since I was in third grade she mostly stayed in bed
My dad left breakfast on the table for us
before we left

We ate lunch at school.

Mother returned to cooking suppers.

​

          Visit Lakeland CC


​
​Idols

She’s no idol clutched
in beige waiting rooms
by white knuckled hands
or hung from rear view mirrors.
She doesn't bring miracles
to barren women
or protect the traveler.
Yet, men are eager
to fill her
smoky altar with gifts
of azurite beads
and silver teeth.
She sits in lotus,
palms up. Luminescent
liquid collects, builds
teardrops at her fingertips.
Brittle in descent,
they shatter, diamond
dust covering the floor
of her sorrow temple.
Husbands carve her image
onto their wives’ faces.
How disappointed they are
when the pain is dull.




American Plague Report

A virus causing fevers in the brain.
See: deafness, blindness, manic, seizing fits.
See: gene mutation. Patient zero found
among the men who took the vellum house
and dragged its vested priests to hanging deaths;
they set the ink bowl offerings alight.
Reports of charcoal smoke clouds are confirmed,
and subjects now presenting with effects
of gaseous pigment inhalation. See:
diverse acuity of paranoid
delusions (gendered lives and fetal deaths,
their bodies mummified in newsprint scraps).
We fail to replicate the antidote,
and subjects are refusing all relief.




Worm

blade turned inward

scarlet, tin, iron on skin

the hermaphroditic worm

Janus smells life, seeks sustenance

more blades clamor "feed the worm!"

knives cut knives

lonely, this worm feeding




Alexandria

Shards of paper
between my teeth,
razors drawing blood
to mix with ink
on my gums.
I swallow
this simple syrup,
unfurl my scroll tongue
to lap the last
from my lips.

​

           Gabriela Camerotti CC



my favorite pornography


I am unmoved by most pornography
the sensationalism seems desperate
nd the sex itself put on,
people disconnected that I wish
would fall in love nd all the
contrived thoughts I have to have
to cum,
but tonight, I'm moved,
because she is tanned
displayed
nd bent over with a thick nd
perfectly blossoming cunt, oiled,
as she is gently handled by the enormous hands
of a hardbodied tool, his hands speak to her bubbly ass
love while his face nd attitude
spoke arrogance nd boredom
who cares about you? yr enormous hands
yr enormous cock
it's the girl I respect here for being so filled with love
nd absolute subtle, gentle, affection
her rubs her slowly, spreading the oil ritualistically,
like the oil that washed Jesus feet--
she turns her head to look behind her, leaning over completely,
flick of her hair,
then I notice:
she's so calm nd satisfied just being touched, happily chewing
a piece of dark pink bubble gum,
smiles into the camera as her pierced cunt wets, heartfelt,
then bends over completely,
grabbing her own ankles,
her soft teardrop tits w/ nipples that fade into a soft pink/from a soft pink into the rest of the breast, revealing enormous silver hoops from under her long nd shiny hair--
smiling a childs smile, nd blowing bubble gum bubbles nd
popping them with her tongue.

I take note, happy nd enlightened myself,
as I work to come, peacefully,

I remember to remember to ask my next woman to do this,
smile, blowing bubblegum bubbles nd jangle her silver hoops for me
while I stroke her beautiful ass.

​


i protest the protest:


as the mob of spineless
signwavers collect to disown
their own part in the
Universally Collective Responsibility
I protest the protest,
screaming at the mobs
my own
idiotic chant--
a black flag flying
wilting
turning to ash in my hands
as it burns slow: like one of Bunny's
stupid fucking
cigarettes
"if what you want is justice
justice is what you'll get
over nd over nd over again!"
over
nd over
nd over again

​

Bio: Amy Miller is a 24 year old bisexual anarcho-feminist.
​She's only online to announce publication: @amyamyanneanne​

                     Risa Rubin creates poetic tapestries of lived-in musical landscapes, much like a scrapbook filled with all of those unspoken truths which must find voice lest the most authentic parts of ourselves go speechless, in a life far too long and important for silence. The roots here are planted in the shadows of familial soil but are assuredly growing trees of their own making in the second chapter of life that is Jewish Unicorn. An album of immense courage, scarring, beauty and humor, which is equally important to Rubin; "one thing I was always insecure about was that I wasn't very funny," Risa says. "Humor is sort of the other side of sadness or the other side of music... I felt like being super honest in itself is a way to really show some of the humor of your life... I kind of just wanted to test the waters and say "these are all things that are wrong with me, are you going through this too?" and if the answer is yes then its like "Cool! I guess all of us on this planet can be friends!." I just want for me and for others to find that common ground, so we can really connect, and definitely not feel so alone. Thinking you are alone really is the killer, and I had spent so long thinking that, that I felt like I needed to tell someone and then I might finally be understood." Rubin's unique compositions and the utterly original, haunting voice which delivers these indelible stories of confusion, insecurity, and finding our selves in the midst of so much life-flooding, is a testament to the power of art and its ability to, if not transform us, at least help us find the necessary tools to tell our stories, and on our own terms. Risa goes for the truth every time, even when it hurts,  especially when it hurts. “In a family, what isn't spoken is what you listen for. But the noise of a family is to drown it out,” as Joyce Carol Oates once wrote. Jewish Unicorn is the voice that speaks after all of the flood waters have receded just enough to allow something else to come through. "At the beginning I certainly didn't have the tools to express myself yet... But by the time I made this album I felt like I was just starting to have the tools to speak more clearly on things I had gone through. That felt like it set me free of the past twenty years... Finding something that speaks to you is the greatest way to know you are not alone, and if I can do that for even one person I think it gives my life some real meaning and lets me know it is all okay!" 


​
AHC: What have been your biggest heartaches and your biggest hopes when it comes to the music, the struggles and the triumphs of making sounds with your heart in a world that increasingly devalues what the heart makes?

Risa: That is a big question, and a really beautiful question. I hope I'm answering this properly. The heartache I think mostly stems from wanting desperately to make something truthful. The music I have made is definitely made by the part of me that feels most authentic to who I am and want to be-- and when it is not being acknowledged or received, sometimes I can't help but see that as the world rejecting me entirely. It can make a person feel quite hopeless or confused about what their path is in life when there are so many difficulties to trudge through while making art, and trying to be yourself, and that is something I have definitely felt. That said, the greatest feeling is when someone you do not know (such as you) finds your music, and finds something in it that speaks to them, and that reaffirms that I am doing the thing I am supposed to do in life. Finding something that speaks to you is the greatest way to know you are not alone, and if I can do that for even one person I think it gives my life some real meaning and lets me know it is all okay! 

AHC: Family life is a difficult subject for many of us, (where we come from as opposed to where we are now) I get the sense from this record that it's played a significant role creatively and is something you are working through bravely on this album. Has this process helped you to make fuller sense of those familial narratives while finding your footing along the way?

Risa: Thanks for noticing this! I wasn't sure if that even came through, but this is definitely what I was thinking about while I was making this. Yes is the answer. I think making this album was a way of me trying to announce myself as existing, and I'm sure thats what it is when anyone makes anything. Family is hard and sets you up to be a certain kind of person that I feel you almost always have to rebel against in some way. I grew up in a really chaotic household, there were a lot of difficult things that happened, but the main thing was that I felt a lack of safety and that I was really being silenced and overshadowed by everybody else. So it was extremely difficult for me to be myself and to make music, and the two felt intrinsically related. When I was 16, I kinda said to myself, you have to make a decision, are you going to be hiding all the time and pretend you are someone else?; or are you going to be you, and do the thing you've said you wanted to do your whole life? And at the beginning I certainly didn't have the tools to express myself yet, because I hadn't really played music much that whole time. But by the time I made this album I felt like I was just starting to have the tools to speak more clearly on things I had gone through. That felt like it set me free of the past twenty years.

AHC: When and how did the idea first come to you to make Jewish Unicorn a video album? Did you see these songs visually at first or did they only slowly start to come into focus much later? 
​
Risa: I want to say I got the idea from Pipilotti Rist, who is a video artist, whose work I accidentally came across at a museum when I was 15. I had definitely never thought about video art before, but the scale of it, and the colors, and the music, and the way it all went together to create such a physical, full, experience really made me feel relaxed and just happy. I found out that she actually made her own music to go with all of her videos, and so I think I thought I would do the opposite and have videos to go with my music. Additionally, I think I've always felt like I want to do a million things, and at the time I made this album (two years ago) I felt really not tapped into any sort of music world or scene, and so I thought I might as well own that and do something different to sort of create my own world. Eventually the songs and the videos became one thing to me. In my mind, music was too limiting. If I could turn back time though, I probably would not have put myself in all of those videos. 

AHC: What do you think makes for a good (or honest) song, as you're writing and composing, is there a sudden moment when you know you've found the right mix, that perfect angle of light, so to speak, or does it come more in fits and starts? 

Risa: I definitely think I still have a lot to learn when it comes to songwriting, but I think a great song is one that can really conjure up a feeling or a sense of magic in the listener that can uplift them, or lyrics that feel really universal. Those are some of the things I hope my songs can do. Also I think overall in art, its important to figure out how to say something new, otherwise why be another person making noise. I can't claim to have done this haha, but maybe this is more along the lines of saying something old in a new way. Those are all important. Basically how to broach a new level of honesty and originality to move things forward. And then in terms of songwriting in general I think it always comes in fits and starts, I think the hardest part of it is sort of after you've found your angle with a song or the nice moment, and then figuring out how to make the rest of the song live up to that seed.

AHC: There is a great line in one of your songs where you sing; "Sometimes I wish I could be hospitalized so I'd never have to socialize," right there I think so many people can relate, at many moments in these songs you expose these very personal vulnerabilities and insecurities, it's difficult for most of us to do on almost any level, so the fact that you're doing it through music, dressing down not up, inward not out, is quite an achievement. Do you feel slightly less burdened by lifting the silence on this and putting these difficulties out there? Do you hope others can see and feel their lives in these songs too and maybe feel less alone in it?

Risa: Thank you! Yes and yes ! Saying these things was really important for me. I wanted to sort of reach a level of frankness when I was writing this, that I felt like I maybe didn't hear much in music, but I heard a lot in comedy or other art forms. This is kind of a tangent, but my family is very big into comedy, and one thing I was always insecure about was that I wasn't very funny. It was really important to me because it is sort of the other side of sadness or the other side of music (if you compare the two as art forms) if you say, and I felt like I definitely get the whole sadness thing but that I wasn't really able to poke fun at that. I felt like being super honest in itself is a way to really show some of the humor of your life. And I thought that line was so ridiculous, but funny in its boldness, funny because it is so true to how I felt at the time and still feel some days. Being able to laugh at that definitely releases the burden better than anything. I kind of just wanted to test the waters and say "these are all things that are wrong with me, are you going through this too?" and if the answer is yes then its like "Cool! I guess all of us on this planet can be friends!." I just want for me and for others to find that common ground, so we can really connect, and definitely not feel so alone. Thinking you are alone really is the killer, and I had spent so long thinking that, that I felt like I needed to tell someone and then I might finally be understood.​

​

AHC:  Which musicians have you learned the most from? Or writers, artists, filmmakers, teachers/mentors etc? What are the works you could not possibly live without, the ones that have helped to pull you above water?

Risa: One artist I have always really loved is Miranda July. I think her perspective has honestly been the biggest influence to me because I feel like she is a rare artist who has figured out how to utilize herself in the best way to help other people connect. She executes everything so simply and beautifully, and you can think at first that this is all about her, but it has actually nothing to do with her and everything to do with her audience. She is just a vessel to sort of steer people in a new direction to think about things in a different way. I think she has sort of the perfect mix of all of the things I hope to accomplish when making art. Her intentions are so good and pure and filled with love but she is still sort of winking at you with a kind of voyeuristic sense of irony. In terms of works that have really saved me, the only thing coming to mind right now strangely enough is meditating and meditation music. I don't know if that counts exactly but I think that is definitely an art form in its own way and one that has really saved me from myself. So much art and music has inspired me, but ultimately I think the quiet you get from meditating or just having some spiritual practice is the only thing that has really pulled me above water, and allowed me to live. Knowing this has actually made me want my music to lean more towards that direction, because I think art needs a spiritual bent to be most effective.

AHC: What are the kinds of things that you tell yourself when you begin to have doubts or are struggling with the creative process? How do you move through your blocks? 

Risa: It depends on the day. Some days I am much nicer to myself than I am at other times. However, what helps the most I have really learned, is going back and looking at things I have made just to remember that I have actually made something before. I think sometimes I forget I have ever done anything at all, if it has been a while since I have felt productive. That, and I can just sort of forget what the goal of being creative is altogether. But if I go back and listen to a song or look at a piece of art I have made, I will know that this creative force has existed somewhere within me, so it must still be there. Then I get excited again to make something, and feel like I have a direction from where to branch off of.

AHC: Do you have any new projects in the works you'd like to mention?

Risa: Yes! I am finishing up an album (in the mixing and mastering stage) that I am looking to release ASAP! I am hoping it will come out soon and that I will be touring it within the year. I am currently looking for a label to release it. You will hear it soon!

If anyone wants to release it be in touch, no joke!

​

To view the entire video album, Jewish Unicorn, as well as purchase songs, visit Risa Rubin on Bandcamp.

Also checkout her Facebook page to stay up to date on new releases.

No, don’t spin it nice here, get it?
Riots here, there, them, the lunatic fringe,
Comets kicked out from their ghettoes,
The dropouts dying to shred the sky
And no, they don’t give a damn if once the trees
Were sinners and now the branches rust away,
They don’t give a damn if some build with skin,
Some with the words -
Shattered bones, wasteland galore,
Freebies for everyone, hurray!
Shall we join them, the girls who bike
With an Amazon’s speedy wrath,
All smiles and winks to draw the dark,
All those daft nicknames, Aggies, Wendys, Tinas,
Bloody bimbos bringing probs and making life bit tricky -
By the by, you seen that green light on?
Well, they shrug it off, who cares if
Black leather and jeans are the real thing,
You taking note, life? Please smash in due time hopes,
Laughs and dreams, will you?
Oh c’mon you lot, c’mon stars, c’mon moon,
Stop sneering at the city lights,
You know men aren’t good at them,
God, bless him, is a poor tutor, so we make do
With the beaming twinkle of a pc screen,
Maybe a smiling lady chatting some guy up, -
Who knows?
End of.
Mark my words, whatever I saw in my nights,
No use as I find no answers to these words:
Do men snuff it like doomed sparks?
Do women schlepp their days locked up into hearts or closets?
Simple as that, I dunno.
What I do know is sometimes I stumble on him,
A tall guy shabby dressed,
Maybe death incognito wandering about
In search of a sip or a thought among fake lights -
His due, as who else shuts our eyes and whispers
‘No more time, rows and words ahead’ -
Only silence and a lighter skin, wan like a mid-spring drizzle -
The skin, the light, the silence when lovers
Dream that God and the North Star are smiling,
Even if bit hung up on a faint blue light -
A nice lady, sure, ‘cept she’s a jailbreaker
Keen on playing mayhem to the sky
On even days, mind, when my soul
Gets akin to the breath of blue kites
Children are chasing -
I mean, so fast and blue that demise
No longer grabs it on the fly.





Fancy a bit of escapism, love?
See, colours never forgive, do they,
If her soul is sitting on a bench
All disheveled,
If the brown shelves, the brown cupboards load her eyes,
A bloody remainder of reckless shadows,
Her life -
Autumn, I’m afraid, is no reliable friend,
Time and again it gets brown, so whimsical,
So different from green who keeps
The word she’s longing for, a blessed distance -
And blessed be the trees, the foliage,
The shrubs who gave her shelter
When the gravedigger’s son tried to
Foist on her his hand-me-downs
And some underwood as gifts, is she damned?
It all started that night, the stars
Trying like mad to chat the sky up -
He hardly gave a damn, too hooked with the clouds -
That night, yes, when Abel and a doomed fighter
Were discussing like mad aims or dreams -
Words help, they said, as long as you
Keep clear of battles and brothers,
Of course she paid no mind, dashed off home,
As food and her soul were burning
To stare like Mona Lisa at the scraps from the night,
Her mornings -
Fancy that, even raptors scorn them, such sniffy vultures -
Luckily, a wide open window, a China blue dark
Great for stray dogs howling at a moon
Too classy to reply, yet busy snooping,
Of course she knows the Rapture enjoys tidbits and trivia,
You never know, they might always come handy -
No.
The Rapture’s soul is made of a fire
Bit keen to slip up trivia,
A gutsy fire that never shirks from dark and danger -
Meanwhile, let’s make do with life’s soul,
Made of white cloudy crystal,
Just what she needs, sure, but raptors know better,
So don’t bother with love and care, just snags -
Hey wait, the seeds are storming
And splitting up the pomegranate,
What’s wrong, where’s Pluto’s gf?
Go get her, go shout her to care only for blue -
Blue?
Yes, blue our heart, blue our life.





Ah, the soirée, the vernissage!
But why bother with wannabe critics,
Quasi - painters, losers on the verge of a masterpiece?
See, my infinite artist?
Don’t your works look stunning, yet smirking wankies
Whisper they can’t stop water if she twirls
On a sudden, white whim, then her deepest blue
Wounds the eyes, the horror, the shock! 
See, my infinite artist?
How can the shallow nitpickers
In love with vodka or malt get her whiteness
Feeds souls they took for granted,
Heals shades they can’t eye for their life -
See, my infinite artist?
Dashing babes are shaking their heads,
‘Cause the moon’s silver nuance can’t match their frocks,
Such ditzy frilly floozies!
See, my infinite artist?
Keep clear from chats and smiles,
Forget sham bunches, all slant mouths
And creeping doubts hidden in their mind:
What’s best, talking shop, brand new SUVs,
Quaint resorts or French bistros, wines and lobsters galore?
See, my infinite artist?
Gosh, Mummy and Daddy make a cat’s bum face,
Kids are waving hello,
Heaven forbid they get that close to you.
See, my infinite artist?
Not even your sidekicks can cheer up the party -
Do you still call them angels, by the by? -
No use to show up, My Angels, my God,
If wines, frocks, cars get the upper hand
And blindness smites light, our gift, never mind.
Luckily she’ll get here soon, our classy demise
Clad in blue, her blue bag stuffed with pills, guns, poisons
Drowning by numbers, yes, the good ol’ stuff -
Blessings happen sometimes,
So let her smile, shake hands, chat guys up,
And if it helps children and I love water
We feel soo thrilled when the moon gleams -
Darn, I almost forgot, you unworthy scorched souls,
‘Course you can’t love the water, the moon,
Too yesterday, too démodé for your souls,
So stop wasting time, bin the flysheets,
Forget pics, words you never cared for,
Don’t bother with freebies, fresh drops
And a bit of moon your ladies mistake
For some cheap tat -
Me? Why are you asking, I swallow whole towns
As if they were pills, no fuss, no muss -
While ghosts keep dancing on a moonbeam
Mocking at me and waving ‘see you soon, see you soon’ -
Yes, yes please, but where?
Maybe on a vernissage all over the sky
When heavenly vaults and tsunamis
Play, get even, thank God get some rest.

​

 Bio: Born in Italy some decades ago, Gabriella Garofalo fell in love with the English language at six, started writing poems (in Italian) at six and is the author of “Lo sguardo di Orfeo”; “L’inverno di vetro”; “Di altre stelle polari”; “Blue branches”.

                Carolina Tarré CC



firelight

i was firelight when i met you.
atomic crimson gaped forth from my mouth.
my tongue
               had been bitten;
my tongue
               turned
                               ruby // rose // red.
our tongues
collided into catastrophe in the dead of night--

you were never good for me.

i snuck myself along your tongue,
atop your teeth,
inside the membrane of your mouth,
and touched your soul. it was

mesmerizing, a spectacle of firelight crackling
at the back of your throat--

but starlight worked its way into my ribcage
when you found yourself in the ER
                                                                           again.

my floating ribs stopped floating.
my skeleton solidified, and i became cold
all in the name of loving you.

the embers in your voicebox began to wither and die.
the firelight faded and i
became only starlight.

starlight: now too cold to home living species

my body has become
an atom of itself
                floating
on the memory of firelight,
trying to remember
how to swim back to shore.

​


gallery of endings


i highlight the foreshadowing found in the hollow cheekbones of a lover
wasted away by apathy and addiction. his dimples,
long-gone, are replaced
by other forms of depression.

i imagine him balding
as he wears himself down,
and the cycle of fighting that
                begins //
                and ends //
                                again //
                                and again.

i watch slices of disappointment cut through my stomach each time he reaches for a vice.


this unwanted company in our relationship
i predict will be our executioner.
we walk up to a gallows in tandem;
both quietly receive black hoods
but when all’s said and done, my feet are the only ones dancing
                                                                                                                                     on air.

i spend my nights perusing paintings of projected endings in my head.

he smiles in the moon’s soft gleam, and i tell him there is time.
no matter that i
                                 count the days

                                              like water drops

                                                            cascading

                                                                           in my lungs.

​


echo

no one knows the greek myth of Echo
whose namesake is forgotten
because no one tells the story
of the girl who fell in love with Narcissus.

she took on his words
and was met with such a deafening silence she
lost her ears // then her eyes // her freedom // sense of self-worth.

she spent so many years waiting for Narcissus to love her,
her body deteriorated in the forest.

i’ve heard this story before

of a man who loved himself above all things;
his name was--
my boyfriend tells me he was diagnosed with Narcissism.

the first drink i had wasn’t with him
but wanting his affection was my first reason to drink.
i had never before wanted to understand an alcoholic’s mind
until i wanted our minds intertwined.

he was heavy with liquor; heavy against my body,
pushing me into the walls. he was overwhelming
in his strangeness.

most nights, i wanted to walk out and back in hypothermia-ridden
collapsing onto my tile floor, gasping out my last breath in a laugh
like see how easy it was for me to break myself instead of you?
because i love you.

i’ve never felt more invisible than when he asked me for money for booze.
fixated on the liquid savior,
the reflection of himself in the heineken became his one true love.

i wonder if Echo ever thought the river's rippling was telling her to drown herself,
if she tried to drink the river dry in order for him to finally look at her.

there is a God and She has told me i’m an alcoholic waiting to bloom

i knew She was right when i caught myself
cleaning the puke from my mouth with the bottle of Bacardi in my hand.

my lover never noticed i was diving into the river of his addiction
hoping he would save me from drowning.

it felt like dying,
like suddenly becoming nonexistent,
so painless you never even noticed you were gone.
when he asked if i was okay, i never said i was dying.

i never even noticed i was gone.

a memory
a daydream.
an Echo of myself;

upon realizing that Narcissus couldn’t love her,
Echo stretched herself thin,
over-extended my sympathy
until i became a shadow of myself
forever echoing the words he had taught me:

                                                                              one more drink...



                                                                                     drink
        





                                                                                                                                      drink.

​

​
i am not Wizard

let's take a trip down memory lane,
with benzodiazepine street signs marking our way.

where did you learn that “Ambien” means goodbye?

the first time i held your hand,
i discovered pills will always sit between us. they sit
like once-lit cigarettes
littering the ground like gravel,
handfuls drawing attention
to the tension between our backgrounds//

i know
you must follow the amphetamine road
and find your way out on your own;
just know that i'll be there to kiss your wounds when you stumble
and the skin of your shins is split by broken glass
bottles polluting the ground, the remnants of good times gone by.

but i am not Wizard.

i am Wish Maker,
              wishing i could see you whole again.
i am Care Giver,
              drawing venom from your snakebites so they will not scar.
i am Reminder:
              you'll make it through.
Reminder:

              i love you.

i am not Fixer,
              you are.
i am not the reason to slay your demons,
              you are.
              you are
so much more than the pills
                                                slipping
                                               through your fingertips.

i am Reminder:
              you have made it this far.

​