Issue 44
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Self Portrait as Penis Lamp
art by Tamizh Ponni VP
by Sophia Clark
Each night, as the sun falls behind the breasts of Mother Nature, I turn to Ezekiel.
I flip his phallic switch to add a light to my darkening room.
He stands there shining so bright,
So bold,
So confident.Don’t you just marvel at his broad shoulders?
How could you not fall into a trance when gazing into those charming eyes?
And don’t forget to mention his towering redwood.After I flip his switch,
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Turing Test
art by Andrew Graber
by Ally Bovits
The Turing test is a method devised by Alan Turing in 1950 to determine whether a judge could blindly differentiate between a machine’s and a human’s responses to the same question.
How is today?
Today is is sunny, approximately 44 degrees,
deceptively beautiful.Today a bird got in our basement, to our cat’s delight
and to our dismay. It took playing a vent pipe like a drumset
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About the artists featured in issue 44
ON THE COVER: Alyssa Blankenship
Alyssa Blankenship is a working artist who uses surrealism to engage with themes of transformation, escapism, and resurrection through the lenses of both naturalistic and manmade decay. Her literary work has been published in Burningword Literary Journal, Camas Magazine, Bardics Anonymous, Ponder Review, Fish Girl Collective, Folklore Review, Slipstream, The Gorko Gazette, and The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts.
Isabelle Carasso
Isabelle Carasso is a writer based in Los Angeles. She’s worked as writers’ support staff in Emmy-winning writers’ rooms, had short stories and essays published in The Catalyst and Cusper, -
Downtime
art by Giovanni Apruzzese
by Mayan Rogel, translated from the Hebrew by Yaron Regev
(Prologue)
Once I was Marlene. I served Petra von Kant her gin and her mail in a black dress and bright lashes and was silent. I had no past, and the present was not mine. I looked, from below, at love transpiring. I saw my lady falling apart on the white carpet, and danced with her when the record player played and her hands extended to summon me.
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A Zuihitsu about My Two Mothers
art by Michael Moreth
by Stephen Fellner
In high school, the underground paper voted me Most Likely
to Join a Cult. Duringmy salutatorian speech, I didn’t mention that honor. My mother gave me
a Swatch and a velour shirt as a graduation gift. Both from Good-
will. “This will transform youinto an adult,” she said. She bought three Tombstone
Pizzas & SugarFree Banana Pudding for my party.
No one showed up except our next-door neighbor who said she dated a private
eye who could find my actual birth certificate.
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Four Poems from “Negative Body”
art by Victor Hugo 1853 - 1855
by Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine, translated from the French by Jake Syersak and Zachary Anderson
from Negative Body (1)
I’ve placed a water snake, a very small one, in a blue bottle. A bottle through which the sky appeared white or ochre, depending. The children were delighted. I grabbed it by the tail and pulled; it didn’t yet know how to bite; I’d never tried something like that before; I’d always been afraid of anything that moved;
