Issue One: April 1 (Now Available!)
Issue Two: June 1
Connemara
I lost interest in open eyes
until the mountains rose around me
and I felt them burn and bury
a thousand histories
the trees were bent with wind
shaped by the force of the gale
with clumps of green huddled close
to thin fingers of wood
sunk into a tiny island
atop a lake of clouds
surrounded by the yellow grass
of mountains, the sheep
both blue and red
Jesus, you clown
the padded gloves for winter
slipped from behind my ear
and as the coach bus swerved
to miss another driver
on the narrow roads of Galway
my head collided with the window
“Jesus, you clown”
interrupted the fifth anthem of Ireland.
The Miracle Sponge
“connect or croak”
I thought he meant a household sponge,
used to wash the dishes,
it was later I discovered
he meant a creature of the sea
nonetheless, he said the pieces
of the creature of the sea
held memories of neighbors
and could find their way back home
so when I washed the cheese
from the grater
and began to shred the sponge
the body of the creature,
in a moment, in a bucket
filled with water, would return
a scientist once told me
my genes work as a team
the tiny pieces of this body
have memories of neighbors
and can find their way back home
tomorrow I will take my genes
and cut them into pieces
grate and scrape
into a bucket
and see if I return
Kissing God
The stuffed puppet koala
my father gave me on a normal day
age four
has been my best friend ever since.
Nights
when I can’t breathe,
he comforts me
and I kiss God.
When I cannot remember names
or days,
only empty silence
and lying still
Together,
they feed the darkness
and I sleep.
a good night’s sleep
my knees hit the window while I sleep
to interrupt the screams of felines
fornicating below
photographs
My grandmother lives
In the oak chest in our living room
Sometimes we open the lid
And flip through to smell the age
Elyse Chudzynski is in her third year of university education, normally taking place at Ball State University in Muncie, IN; however, this semester she is studying abroad in Limerick, Ireland at the University of Limerick. Some of the poems included in this issue are inspired by the Great Irish Adventure. Elyse would rather take photos, but poetry kicks ass, so she writes some poems. Her parents are both extremely creative and eccentric, so Elyse assumes it's their fault she likes to be artsy fartsy and doesn't study something sound, like Economics. Elyse hates economics and hopes to attend graduate school to study a combination of film, photography, peace studies, and anthropology, a fictional program.