CARBON COPY Your third life starts the split second you die from a vaccination gone awry. Consolation: consciousness restored from a lifetime of metadata hoarded on Google servers. Virtual no more, a superhuman subroutine emerges from primordial digital soup, an avatar so flawless your lover and mother barely notice the quiet fleck of death gleaming […]
Crystal Hurdle | BOG PEOPLE
BOG PEOPLE and what voyage, spouseless, strangers have we embarked upon? if something untoward happens on this unseasonable Calgary day, unexpectedness and privacy its own crypt earthquakes, an overflowing Bow River pterodactyl-disaster, pre-punishment for what we could do (if) in another millennium which two Bog People would we be? museum exhibit, exhibitionism evolution, devolution a […]
Dan Murphy | HUNTER GATHERER
HUNTER GATHERER The Serengeti holds the naked man. Bare body hunched like a pink flamingo straining water for detritus; evolution’s fallen angel. The hairless string bean of the animal kingdom. Opposable thumb, binocular vision; cunning as a noun going straight for the jugular. I’ve studied the universe for the billiard game it is. The slow […]
Adam Lawrence | EVOLUTION
EVOLUTION Not a surface-world of steady, predictable motion. We’d much prefer the soft curve of canoe spooned by a placid lake, with little to no tidal break to upset the measured stroke. A demure hand would have no trouble navigating this rich velvet soupe de jour. But: something churns … grunts out with a little […]
John Mann | TEXT ME WHEN YOU’RE DONE, WORLD
TEXT ME WHEN YOU’RE DONE, WORLD Acceptable in thy sight could mean anyone. I am transforming. Watch that dog on the corner with the luscious coat of rust. It could be me. Hearing is going but I can still smell the rose lance-petals of beloved fireweed. Flames sweep over the land. Terror comes every night. […]
Sonnet L’AbbĂ© | XLV
XLV They want a voice that performs its wry ownership of literary pedigree, that airily scatters namedrops into a liturgical giving of finger. Matthew Arnold elaborated on the flawless logic that hears genius wherever genius abides: those first-rate men seriously thought, they seriously felt, and their musicality demonstrates their sincerity … although these days, a […]
Shane Book | 20
20 What is a desert? This grips the machete that cuts the cane. What is smoke? Hoisting the basket of coal to the head. What are liberties? They pull on the tall boots that protect ………. against snakes. What is a wage? In the vapour of sulfur fields it brings the sarong tip ………. to […]
Jessica Bebenek | THE WORLD WITHOUT
THE WORLD WITHOUT We cut ourselves on this regret like glass. Turn when there is no turning to be had—the small threat of our hands naked and shivering into the floating globes of our air. Shriveled grey of the salt-faced sidewalk to guide us—This is our own fault, own paws coy and dipping too […]
Anthony Labriola | TRANSMUTATIONS
TRANSMUTATIONS* Not when, how or why, but what for, and where to, in the face of chaos and expansion, from the Big Bang to an Unheard Whimper— All Things Counter, Original, Spare, Strange* are rigged in our favour or we wouldn’t be here. Something will come from nothing: nothing to water, water to a single […]