315 BOWERY

With the understanding
that there is nothing really
to be won,

these are battles so silent
we forgot they were being fought
until the appearance of defeat.

My,
the young have grown nostalgic
or old.

     Thom Chillufo

"Epistle" by Farton McStern

AT THE OFFICE

the office is empty and wasting
say all the chorus girls in the boys' minds
and all the girls agree
 
this then is the real pro's dilemma
where is art Mallarmé
wanted to know
it is upon the stage
in the hooded pit
at Bayreuth

Whitman's a queer
says the New Orleans fellow
that was his message

it was the banjos
what done it

     Ahmed Balfouni

FACTO OR FICTIONO

And now for another installment of Fact or Fiction- after Harper's "Index."

Fiction: The widows of 9/11 are capitalizing on the deaths of their husbands.
Fact: For the past five years Anne Coulter has been eating the flesh of WTC victims.

Fiction: James Frey fictionalized various scenes in his hit memoir A Million Little Pieces.
Fact: James Frey is an American Hero.

Fiction: Laura Albert created JT LeRoy to establish her career.
Fact: JT LeRoy created Laura Albert to destroy his career.

Fiction: Poetry is boring.
Fact: Poetry is not boring.

Fiction: Cigarettes can cause Emphysema.
Fact: Cigarettes increase intellectual prowess.

Fiction: Harvard undergraduates plagiarize large portions of young adult novels.
Fact: Harvard undergraduates plagiarize large portions of young adult novels.

Fiction: Dave Eggers's last book, Everything is Illuminated, was garbage.
Fact: Dave Eggers is an American Hero.

     Doug Fart

"Powerman at Rest" by Arthur Fricke

READING RAINBOW

I found a dove
to smell of smoke

to smell of oil
and gonnical discharge.

You were the old guy
with testimony and I am

the old guy with no
testimony.

You are a BOMB in kindergarten

Your daughter’s face, on the back
of a milk carton or lesser cheese

box, appears, a signifier for shittier
things to come

      Mark Offendi

A SONG OF RESPIRATION

A flat bug crawls across the mattress
and the floor. You know that bug
isn’t from filth. He looks like the kind
who burrows in your ear.

Where did you come from?
you ask with your face
to the ground, softly:
Where’d you come from

Bug? Where. Where.

Because the windows are closed. For god’s sake
we should open one. It’s awful in here.

We close our eyes on good faith.
Last I saw him that bug was going somewhere
not near the pillow.

My ear dams up the blood
at your elbow.
Your arm makes electricity sounds.

Your congestion is like a dog
gritting to get out, like a man
snoring in his bed, like a song:

variations on a theme
of do re mi
and do re do.

     Zinnia Lee Sterling

SQUIRREL

I’ve developed film.

I’ve poked a stick through my chest and hung from a tree. You’ve bought milk at a local convenience store- milk which was used to fill empty udders—a store in which milk is sold and replenished daily--milk which is colored artificially with chalk by sagging teamsters—a store with a small selection of greeting cards and adult magazines- not that everyone who lives in a neighborhood frequents the neighborhood store. I’ve woken up with silt and ash on my palms and no authorities or medical professionals can explain this because you’re the first person I’ve told. You’ve stood in the backyard stone nude, dipped feet in the snow with your jug of milk. You’ve taken your milk with you in the car and driven out to lonely off-ramps at night with one streetlight on alone in the hush and sat there and waited for an animal to come across- an animal too dumb to know it’s own luck, that still has its eyes in place, that still has its face in one piece—milk which expires when the writing on the jug tells you so—a store in which men with short sleeved collared shirts buy coffee before the sun comes up. You’ve taken your milk to the ballgame and waited for the drunk in the aisle to get violent. You’ve taken the drunk to the movies and sat together in the dim cool with the projector catching lint in its light like smoke- movies about men and women, movies about aliens misunderstanding the aggressive-protective instincts of our planet, movies about gangsters doing train jobs and getting double-crossed by their lieutenants and going to the big house and having their accomplice-mothers killed. You’ve walked back into the neighborhood store with the milk shabbily hidden underneath your jacket. You’ve placed it right back on the shelf again. You’ve driven home. You’ve driven towards the edge of town. You’ve driven towards the outlet mall and the windowless porn warehouse. You’ve driven until you were the only one driving given the hour of night and the emptiness of the road and you’ve stopped and you’ve sat on the hood of your car and you’ve waited for an animal to befriend you.

      Golgi Apparatus

"The Weather" by Roma Tomate

THE LAST WOMAN ON EARTH

It is just waterfall season. I begin to walk
the perimeter of town under a shadow-colored sky.
The air smells of wet toast and lumber. Their mothers moon
as Guernsey calves whiffle close and watch me
with their sad eight ball eyes.
The lot of us low as we clear the farm;
the deaf land is a parrot in a paper bag
echoing our mournful goodbye. Gray bats, meadow voles,
bobcats, Nubian goats, cotton mice,
guinea hens, aphids, chickens, Thoroughbreds—
we make a strong and joyless parade marching down to the lower falls
where your face miraged in a cascade looks clean as a baby’s
lung. My menagerie swats flies expertly
and waits for my signal. We set up camp
as a wagon wheel with my widow’s bed at its grassy axel.
They are patient; there is time
to tread spokes into the dirt,
to arrange the animals by size and sympathy.

     Becky Sinister

"To Submerge" by Drederick Oubliat

FALL FROM KITCHEN

Mother was a building
she was crying I had vicodin
inside me I was a backed up
toilet a rose or an orange

I chose to resist the obvious

I don’t talk of thought only couch
the bullshit don’t fuck the rancid
sautered fist jst fuck the man of
Anglund cm lng.

      Long Logan

Archives: Issue One

Our Party: In conjunction with our sister mag, Red China Magazine, we hereby announce a joint venture into the world of getting people in the LES drunk. It is a house party there will be special events.

1) A raffling of the editors' personal effects.

2) Free booze until it is gone.

3) The unveiling of a special Michael Jackson poster.

Friday, October 27th, 2006
39 East 12th St.
Apt. 512
New York, NY

E-Mail: thegallantpig at dickpigreview dot com

"Us"