Unshod Quills

The poetry and photography of Fork Burke, an American in Switzerland.

"Masquerade", Fork Burke, on the theme of mirrors

Union Square

– on when we two parted

Lips travel – being more than here to there

Like Eos

…replace the K with C

her lips

Where is she – where is Easter

…and literature

such as influenced

evolving desire

organized with for instance

soundings – this geometry of sound

signs found in books

meaning collapses

The purpose of focus

on an abstract specific

message

not easlily

wrapped around

ressurection

a good cry

talk it to death

Is isolation = meaning =

leaving the wolf

question

not just how

“to be”

came to an

…end

your map to this place

your words

without your language

your silence

forever passive

silence is a word

her lips – two

parting

FB

Third Body Parts – cut up

– on transportation

I can see him leaving in a minute – luckily the past I remember – tense up in the dream – for sometime he

touched his forehead – come under forever raised – they could walk with their heads high – Originally

my land was red – the only thing left standing then – who is stretched out sky

I AM HERE

Anyone no one to resemble I am without secrets – I sacrifice marvelous yet tragic not signs of life

wealth a man

memory chile – what I saw is false sense of history – goes on in my head – the round mirror

I never thought of going – of a son or daughter – I am understood by him – I could have heard my voice

and a paternal language – of a common noun into my legend

I did kick loud – Granny – come in Granny – human the caption –she smiles – I drank it in

smack German don`t find out – and not mystery mysterious – It said put wings that’s what

sadness there and delay time – his body remains his forehead his eyes my father – nay horizon

and stockings for little legs – original structure – frequency they fall on me my phrase is gone

rivers of distance of my body – sitting in the sun – a fine film of amber – a distant pleasure

our very eyes – open sesame – that land – way sesame – soil down – there are birds that dive

down – there are birds that go up and opposite of chance are reflected – I understood it – get down

so great is our joy at de ask me if I like – we shall use today – I climbed mountains – we are sitting on

beginning push back of our mothers source – to the point I resemble angels eyes – recognize this music

our transport our motor nerves which will strike no ground – suddenly the earth is immense – continues to move

if need be eternally and lawlessness

FB

HEELS

– on lipstick

This Dream

Where you are

me – you – and – I are hair

elegant gloved hand

preference the fall

fair complexion of garlic – promises honey

incentive to – eat it – red

we must see the mouth – notice

safe – longing – distance

I HEAR WOMEN SINGING AGAIN

GRACE – YOUR BODY

DREAM – I AM

TWO TYPES CASTED – desire

CENTER

ATTENTION

DREAM

EACH NIGHT – MEMORY BECOMES FICTION

REFERENCE – wardrobe – NO REFERENCE

continue – ear up – the kiss departs

heels – red

FB

Author Biography

Fork Burke`s poems have appeared in Hoezo Lepels?, PRAXILLA, Lyre Lyre, and Maintenant.   Licking Glass published a book of poems, poetic essays and other images in 2010 .  Recordings include “Fork Remixed.”  She received her BA in Creative Writing in 2008 from The New School and currently lives and writes in Switzerland.

A quartet of poems by  an emerging poet to watch: UQ’s first featured writer is Pennsylvania poet Wendy Ellis.

Pin-ups

– on transportation

it was the worst and weirdest kind of trip
and I do mean trip
tripping
we were tripping
and we were
just a little bit too young
and a little bit too leggy & eager

but we were trying so hard

so we were tripping
and we were in a suburban shopping mall
behind it was a terrible woods
filled with litter and struggling trees

they had this desperate look
helpless and scraggly

our pupils were huge & we were drinking in this
weird landscape

oh to be so young
that young
that huge and so thirsty for everything

I was trying not to hate the woods
but I hated the woods
they were trying too hard
and it was too vulnerable
it made me ache
like the apocalypse

like fire might clean up that damn mess
like I would have to run from the woods
which would be so scary and weird

instead, we went inside this awful little mall
and tried to make sense of
being inside and being so wild inside

my god, we ended up in a movie theater
but only for a few minutes
it was too big
and so loud the sound was pinning us to our seats
we had to run from the noise

we ran laughing, leggy and breathless
into a record store where I bought the first album
I looked at
because I couldn’t stop staring at it

I was trying to hear David Bowie’s
crazy voice through the wrapper
but I kept falling into his uneven eyes
his crazy, painted face

he was from somewhere so far from
this weird mall
the noise
the struggling trees
and the leggy, tripping girl

who had to borrow five dollars
to take David Bowie home with her.

WE

Like A Plum

-on Beasts

My House Mother asked,
‘Do you eat the…will you eat the…’
and she sat there with the word in her mouth.

‘What? What is it?  Is it an animal?’
‘I don’t know. It lives in the mud.’
‘Is it a plant?’
She laughed, the word still inside her like a small plum.

‘I will show you.  Come, it is under the house.
It is in a bucket under the house.’
We bent under the stilts the house stood on.
A white plastic bucket stood in the shade.

And in it, something moving, many things moving.
She reached in & said the word.
It was a dry word, like a cough.
But the thing was wet & slippery,
long & knobbed at one end.
‘Do you eat THIS?’ laughed my House Mother.

She swung it hard against the lip of the bucket,
smashing it so it no longer moved.
‘No.  No, I don’t eat …’ and I said the word.

WE

Here is the Poem

-on lipstick

Here is the poem that has been staggering around in me all week.
I left weird, useless things in my old bag.
Change, crumbs, threads & wrappers.
An earring. A pewter charm.
Three wheat pennies taped to a receipt.

A cheap piece of candy melted through a corner
leaving a greasy smear with a red and chocolate center.

Zippered into a pocket, two lipsticks. Tobacco sticks to old lipstick like
lipstick sticks to the cigarettes I’m chain smoking.

Lipstick leaves a greasy smear on my sleeve as I swear away
tears & snot–swearing & grimacing.

If I were Sarah Bernhardt, I’d have to lie down just about now.
The text would suggest a subtext of such ennui, such sorrow.
The organist would weep with the telling. Her lipstick smeared
on the back of her hand hastily wiping tears so she can follow the notes.
Pipe out the story, larger than life.

WE

She Said

-transportation

She said, “I’ll be late.”
She said, “I’m sorry, my car
is a piece of shit.”

WE

Author Biography

Wendy Giles Ellis
Lancaster County, PA
Reader, writer, backyard muse & eccentric knitter.

Photo: Jianjue bu zou! (We Refuse To Leave!) Bjorn Wahlstrom, on "When We Two Parted."

Poetry and photography by  Shanghai’s Björn Wahlström 

I Look At You Shanghai

– When We Two Parted

Shanghai, April 2011

I look at you Shanghai. I look at you, you look away.

But mind you Shanghai, this is not a love song,
and fuck the broken hearted,
you know what you did to lose what you had,
you all do, as do I.

You gave me everything Shanghai, all you had to offer,
a billion RMB in an LV man-bag, prime real estate in Lujiazui, an uncle in politics,
and a mink mini-skirt on a late night Mint massacre.

That’s right, I know you Shanghai.

I’d race along your gaojia at approaching midnight,
drink and drive from Puxi to Gotham City,
drink and fuck whoever with an ever numbing sense of self-pity,
as M. closes at two,
I’d spend hours on hands and knees by the Jiangpu,
drinking from your veins Shanghai,
as you would want it,
as you demand that I do,
you dirty beautiful whore, you
pulled my head down by the hair, down under the surface,
and refused to let me die.

I look at you Shanghai, and you look away.

In stars and pearls you dress yourself,
my darling mistress of 2008, back when I owned you,
that’s right Shanghai I owned you, I fucking owned you,
and you loved it how i I’d treat you like a slut back then,
I’d do whatever and you’d follow,
I still found the green alleys of the French Concession charming back then,
I’d text you and you’d join, your own plans instantly over board,
summer evening strolls,
no worries, no panties,
always on the first date, and always closing.

Back then I was mean to you Shanghai, and you never said a word. It goes to your credit.

I look at you Shanghai. You look away.

I cry in Jing’an, but I get wasted in the French Concession,
with all the other 10 million homeless people here,
like all the other secretly exiled poor fucks here,
tequila to forget and drugs for the pain,
pints for the wicked and wine bars for the vain,

Shanghai, you keeper of tabs, you high roller; shine you crazy diamond.

Shine.

I look at you Shanghai, I look at you but I have no idea what you are thinking Shanghai, right now in this moment, right here in this forgotten shitty bar on Wuning Lu where I happen to be now in early 2011,
our fling long gone,
dust and dirty tap water,
rust and 9-5 to no good end.

You see I loved you those first years, I did
I just didn’t understand you, I didn’t know how to show it.

Whatever.

You wear a fashionably short evening gown tonight,
and I was the one who helped you with the zipper in the back, Shanghai, only to see that beautiful back walk away.
That sounds sad, but to you it’s just another bottom line.

I look at you Shanghai and I imagine
that your eyes have a secret warmth for me,
black hole suns for the homeless, a tiny bit of
hot burning love for me, “real” feelings for me, ha!

I look at you Shanghai. You look away.

This is not a rant

Shanghai

you crazy bitch, you lovely creature you,

This is a

requiem.

Author Biography

Born sometime in late 70s Stockholm, Sweden, Björn Wahlström  is editor and co-founder of HAL Publications. A sometime writer, he’s a promoter of China based literature, including his own.

After a six year stint in sinologist academia Bjorn became a corporate stooge in 2005, two years after first moving to China. Despite this severe digression, he maintained his interest in the arts and is a passionate patron and promoter of the literary scene in Shanghai, having conceived and founded the city’s most popular English based writers’ group.

His creative writing is colored by a peculiar insight into China, and  by his broad familiarity of Western and Eastern philosophy. Bursts of cynical laowaisims (read: foreignerisms) are tempered with a genuine appreciation and understanding of China, a sane madman in a crazy land. Bjorn is a member of the Unshod Quills Writers Collective.

Portland poet John Sibley Williams on the themes of mirrors and transportation.

      Photo by John Sibley Williams, on transportation. Vienna, Austria

Portrait(s)

– on Mirrors

I’ve spent so long validating in cloud-shapes
a more intimate portrait of myself

that in the bathroom mirror I now see
an elephant passing into a giraffe
passing into my father.

-JSB

Invitation(s)

– on Mirrors

Slipped beneath my wiper
an invitation to festivities
held in the empty factory
I just left
where once mirrors were assembled.

-JSB

Learning to Swim

– on Mirrors

Consider the sea a skewed mirror
and churning your uncertain limbs through it’s waves
an attempt to untangle light.

The comforting density of bone and future
mean little here.
The world is too light
to trouble with tomorrow,
too buoyant to sink with you.

So bring the background forward.
Kick up ripples and silt through that secret face.
Distort it into accuracy.

Where your faces finally meet
you will float without need for movement,
as in the Dead Sea
but without the need for salt.
Water can be your single taut thread—
reflecting.

Later there will be plenty of time
to learn to walk.

– JSB

Author Biography

John Sibley Williams is a poet and literary publicist residing in Portland, OR. He has a previous MA in Writing and presently studies Book Publishing at Portland State University, where he serves as Acquisitions Manager of Ooligan Press and publicist for Three Muses Press. His poetry was nominated for the 2009 Pushcart Prize and won the 2011 Heart Poetry Award. His chapbooks include A Pure River (The Last Automat Press, 2010), Door, Door (Red Ochre Press, 2011), Autobiography of Fever (Bedouin Books, 2011), From Colder Climates (Folded Word, forthcoming), The Longest Compass (Finishing Line Press, forthcoming), and The Art of Raining (The Knives Forks and Spoons Press, forthcoming). Some of his over 200 previous or upcoming publications include: The Evansville Review, RHINO, Rosebud, Ellipsis, Flint Hills Review, and Poetry Quarterly.

Three poems on the theme of mirrors, from
Portland’s A. Molotkov.

Face

you know me
you know me well

the face in the mirror is mine
not yours

the face on the dollar bill is mine
not yours

not someone else’s

the face in the mirror is mine

you know me well

AM

Transcendence

silence
measured in centuries
my palm a mirror
my reflection
refusing
to tell the truth

the world shrinks
and things are no longer the same
I am not myself
where I’m going
I can’t take myself
along

AM

The Cure

and then I step out of my mind
and sense the sadness
your lip twitching just so

that translucent crow on my back
begins to sing
to its own definition of music
and the weight of time on my eyes
subsides

I stretch my arms towards you
and in the distance between
I find a mirror
in which our reflections
can laugh at themselves

AM

Author Biography

A. Molotkov is a writer, composer, filmmaker and visual artist, and co-founder of the Inflectionist poetry movement (Inflectionism.com).  Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, he moved to the U.S. in 1990 and switched to writing in English in 1993.  He is the author of several novels, short story and poetry collections and the winner of the 2010 New Millennium Writings and the 2008 E. M. Koeppel Awards for fiction.  His credits include a Pushcart nomination and several honorable mentions.  Molotkov’s work has appeared in over 40 publications, both in print and online.  He performs often at a variety of Portland venues.  Visit him at www.AMolotkov.com.

A poem on transportation from Oregon poet Ariel.

Interstate 84

Driving down the road
you’re not going to see her cry:
It’s like a glass house –
all those windows, all
those miles.

Red Car, cruise control engaged;
music will be cranked up,
spilling out of open windows,
drifting behind like bubbles.
When she draws alongside,
she makes sure
it is her hand they see – bouncing,
as if leading the band, shoulders popping
to the beat, hips swinging
the egyptian figure eight in the driver’s seat.
the beat not transferring to the legs,
the feet, the eyes; those parts intent
on where she needs to be, she understands
the purpose of appearances.

She will pace for a mile or two, then
tap that speed, gradually
pull ahead, as if it wasn’t a contest
and you didn’t lose, for she didn’t care
to make it obvious. She will
do this to everyone she comes across
knowing the line that stays
below the radar; her hair
played with by the wind, by the miles that passed,
following from one fast lane
of a highway to another
fast lane of the highway, pulling
to the side occasionally and
letting the losers pass, not thinking
deliberately, not thinking
of the one who passed her by. (What
will they not say
the next time they meet?)

Author Biography

Ariel, who defines herself as a Pacific Northwest Poet, has been writing poetry since 1976. She has been published in several local publications including the Chemeketa Courier & Statesman Journal as well as the anthology  “Through Her Eyes.”  Her work has been published in the national publication AIM, and Ariel has twice won the Jackson Books Poetry Contest.  She is a member of Oregon State Poetry Association, Stayton Second Sunday Series, Silverton Poetry Association, Unshod Quills, and is a board member of Third Thursday Poets. She is a very active participant of the Open Mics & Spoken Word events in Salem, Oregon & in the Willamette Valley.  She can often be found writing at her Café Noir in Salem, Oregon. Ariel is a member of the Unshod Quills Writers Collective.

Poet X. Joloronde on the theme of lipstick

El Paso Valentine

earlier i spent the day hiking
alone in the mountains
a woman and the wilderness
i felt empowered and brave
i opened my arms
and let in the world
later he telephoned

and reneged on the life we built
in favor of no discussion
and really bad timing
and my bravery crumpled to the floor
and when the shadows finally covered the room
i knew that i could stay there forever
so i got up
and i put on a very short skirt
and very high heels
and very red lips
and as i walked out the door
i realized that on any border
bravery is in the eye of the beholder

Author Biography

x. joloronde is a west coast girl living and writing in new england.

The poetry of New York City’s Jillian Brall.

One Afternoon on First Avenue

– on Lipstick

You are leaning against nothing,
standing beneath the awning of a closed store,
its large metal door, rust and turquoise colored,
oceanic, sealed from top to bottom.
You don’t lean against it because “What if
someone opens it from inside?”
Well, what if? Will you fall?
Are you afraid they’ll be insulted
by your uninvited spine and shoulder blades
using their exterior as a vertical bed?
Several stories above your head
a woman’s old face hangs out her window.
It just began to rain.
She extends a potted plant with her wrinkled arms
and it drinks for free.
Every shower is ladies night and every plant is a lady.
Some people were prepared and others weren’t.
The drops sneak up like a real creep.
It’s going to smudge everyone’s looks into other looks.
Your red lipstick isn’t waterproof. It isn’t anything proof.
It’s proof that you’re broke (because it’s cheap).
It’s expensive to be broken without any health insurance.
From a block away you see a man wearing glasses,
walking down the street in your direction.
As he passes in front of your body you see
his glasses are missing their limbs,
no plastic or metal is wrapped around his ears.
This only became evident when you saw his profile.
They are balancing on the bridge of his nose
like the sun above the Brooklyn Bridge,
which you can’t see from where you’re standing,
but you know it’s there. At least,
news hasn’t reached you that it’s missing.
It was there in your dream, bending beneath the midnight sun.
If anything had changed you assume you’d hear screams.
It’s a safe assumption.
What idea keeps his glasses from falling to the pavement?
If you take your eyes off the two wet circles of glass
will you be the reason they plummet and crack?
A little girl sleeps on the shoulders of her father,
her head resting in the dripping hair of his crown.
She wakes up because the sky is falling,
like in the book he read her before bedtime.
You know now your rain boots have slices in their skin.
The rain water gets in, and your socks are getting soaked.
And despite cold feet, you know this is a great position you’re in.
You’re waiting beneath an awning for a call.
He wants you to be available and you said you would be.
You want to be available.

JB

The Beast is an Angle of Light

– on Beasts

You saturate the frame and therefore the frame is empty.
You wear the accessory because you want the real thing.
You wrap yourself in wires because you want to be connected to a motherboard.
You wear big glasses because it’s very sexy to need correction.
You pose with your arms in the air, but you don’t really want to be lifted.
How far back can you stretch? Can you apply lipstick with your tailbone?
Can you pump perfume with your eyelids? Are you that gifted?
Your toes cram into hoof shapes because somewhere someone likes licking pigs.
You don’t want to miss out on the affection. You don’t want to discriminate.
Don’t be old fashioned. Don’t antiquate.
Your real mother is bored because she remembers when kneecaps were private.
Someone always wanted to scar them with a lick.
She always worried she’d have to scream and kick.
Nothing is threatening when everything is a threat.
Don’t believe the father of lies? Wanna make a bet?
The bass is so loud and heavy it tricks my ventricles.
I don’t want my ventricles to be tricked.
I feel very weak and sick.
We say thank you to this holey gift:
a decision engine, so we don’t have to pick.
I don’t need results in under 3 seconds,
but they say the babies beckon.
Here’s a collar: hurry up and stick your neck in.
How young is too young to try the belt trick?
Don’t be judgmental now, he’s just experimental.
He’s very advanced. Very advanced.
White eyeliner helps give his girlfriend that animated look.
Her crotch is made of megapixels and smells like customizable candy.
She’s so hot. SO HOT.
She straightens every curl and thins whatever’s thick.
I know the tricks that make steam appear, the father of what’s slick,
right before all the skin blisters off,
thanks to special effects and the angle of light.

JB

Author Biography

Jillian Brall received both her BA in Creative Writing in 2004 and her MFA in Poetry in 2009 from The New School, in New York, NY. She is a NYC certified Teaching Artist, currently living in the Bushwick area of Brooklyn. She is co-creator/co-editor of the online poetry journal, Lyre Lyre (lyrelyre.com). In 2009, she self-published a limited edition book of poems, Wet Information, under ZoeWo Press. She is a saxophonist, as well as a visual artist, focused on collage, drawing and painting. Poems have recently appeared in The Best American Poetry Blog, Praxilla Journal, Connotation Press, 6S: The Mysterious Dr. Ramsey, Esque, The Tower Journal and The Portable Boog Reader 5, and forthcoming in Ping Pong Magazine. Several of her collages can be seen in issue 12 of Pax Americana, as well as featured on The Best American Poetry Blog, and have been used as cover art for several electronic poetry books published by Scantily Clad Press.

Two poems from hobo James H. Duncan.

Reflections

– on mirrors

now I pace the highway like a real ghost might
tipping the flask to my lips one last time
a quick shot of relief and then down into drive,
a shift, a release of the wheel

in the dark I cannot tell how the bed becomes a highway slab
my eyes never know, they flutter under skin
paper thin to the moon, reflecting now against my
pavement blood,  remembering my
knees against the backs of your long gone legs
wishing for reflection in the traffic headlight drone

JD

12 gauges of remorse

– on When We Two Parted

silence stains the lonely shoes
worn before the soul fell through

cat’s eye wallpaper, honest, peeling,
ever so slight of hand

a flick of the belt and a hush
from the stair, as the moon hides beyond

candle-lit nebulous reasons fly
from the roof into tomorrow’s tomorrow

reality is a loaded shotgun starry
night, hung beside the mirror on the wall

triggers painted red and a cat’s eye reeling,
ever so slight of hand

JD

Author Biography

James H Duncan is a tramp, a gentleman, a poet, a dreamer, a lonely fellow, always hopeful of romance and adventure. The editor of Hobo Camp Review, James considers himself a student of the road, where you’ll find him in late-night diners, local dive bars, and wandering train station platforms minding his own business. Apt, Red Fez, Reed Magazine, Slipstream, Poetry Salzburg Review, and The Battered Suitcase, among many others, have welcomed his work. More here.

Morag Dhu on lipstick.

Mendacity Red

“Hey, what’s that shade called?”
“Mendacity Red.”
“Perfect for a lying bitch like me! I’ll take it.”

The starchy beauty robot looked at her blankly and rang up the sale, throwing in some old lady cream, thanks Miss.

“Hey, it’s me. Do you want to grab a bite?”
“Where? This metropolis is such a small town, as we’ve discovered.”
“I know. Let’s wander. We’ll find something. Meet me in The Village at 9, Bleecker and Sullivan.”
“Alright. I’ll be the fat man smoking two cigars.”

“Hey, it’s me. What time will you be home?”
“Oh, not for a few hours. Go ahead and eat.”
“Why, what are you up to?”

She’s up to 8. Like candy covered almonds, once she starts …

One, she loves a lot; one she loves a little, 2 she can’t stand, and one scares her.
The other 3 are inconsequential.
She just feels them on her tongue; that too many candy covered almonds roughness and sugar overload feeling. Enough.

Author Biography

Morag Dhu is an Eastern U.S. seaboard songbird on the fly. She is a member of the Unshod Quills Writers Collective.