Volume 1, Number 1                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Volume 1, Number 2 (evolving issue)  

                             Tony Quagliano                                                           

                                                                                   BETWEEN A ROCK  AND MAHATMA GANDHI
 

                                                                                    Between a rock and Mahatma Gandhi
                                                                                    which is better?

                                                                                    a rock is a perfectly fine
                                                                                    aggregation
                                                                                    of sub-atomic particles
                                                                                    Mahatma Gandhi alive is a perfectly
                                                                                    fine aggregation
                                                                                    of sub-atomic particles

                                                                                    a rock has rock sentience
                                                                                    Gandhi has Gandhi sentience

                                                                                    it’s not better to be a rock
                                                                                    or to be Gandhi
                                                                                    if nothing matters

                                                                                    we have powerful personal knowledge
                                                                                    that nothing matters
                                                                                    suicide knows nothing matters
                                                                                    war knows and torture
                                                                                    the tools of the torturer know
                                                                                    extinct species know nothing matters
                                                                                    opium knows
                                                                                    metallic concentrates in the brain
                                                                                    stunned by Alzheimer’s know
                                                                                    your house on fire while you are at the movies
                                                                                    the deepest inner thoughts of your great
                                                                                    grandfather’s great great grandfather know
                                                                                    the room he was born in knows
                                                                                    the biochemistry of a cancer cell knows
                                                                                    the questions asked by Torquemada know
                                                                                    ashes scattered at sea
                                                                                    the digestive tract of the insect
                                                                                    feeding on the conqueror worm knows
                                                                                    the library at Alexandria
                                                                                    self-destructive habits know
                                                                                    an empty tube of spermicidal jelly knows
                                                                                    the temperature of the air in a Siberian prison cell knows
                                                                                    a neutron in an oxygen atom in
                                                                                    the ozone layer knows
                                                                                    the volume of Niagara Falls knows
                                                                                    the last centimeter of the distance between
                                                                                    this page and Alpha Centauri knows
                                                                                    nothing matters across all time and space
                                                                                    nothingness
                                                                                    knows nothing matters
                                                                                    nothingness knows most
                                                                                    nothing matters

                                                                                    though a case can be made
                                                                                    made every day
                                                                                    that something matters
                                                                                    though the proofs don’t overwhelm

                                                                                    if something matters
                                                                                    only if something matters
                                                                                    Mahatma Gandhi is better than a rock.

                             Tony Quagliano (1941-- 2007) edited Kaimana--Literary Arts Hawai'i.  He was published widely in numerous literary journals.

                                       "Between a Rock and Mahatma Gandhi" first appeared in New York Quarterly.

                                       Peter Chamberlain

                                      The Reconfigured Ear Series / wak n' stacks

                            Peter Chamberlain is a professor in the Expanded Arts Program at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa.

                             Rob Wilson

                                                                                    TRAVELLING

                                                                                         Travelling out of the body by staying too long in one place,

                                                                                    he entered the room and began travelling.  In certain parts of

                                                                                    town, all the villagers held a gun pointed at the head of the

                                                                                    white stranger.  Though he used to dwell there long ago, some two

                                                                                    decades ago, they held the guns pointed to his head, just

                                                                                    grinning.

                                                                                         In other neighborhoods, loud laughter was heard as if it were

                                                                                     always Sunday afternoon in summer, and the men did not have to

                                                                                     think about working in the brass mills.  He was in the Puerto Rican

                                                                                     part of town, and nobody talked to him, but he wanted to

                                                                                     linger in the tiny bars with small change and much laughter.

                                                                                          In another part of town three and four shopping malls were

                                                                                     going up, but he felt like he had never been there, even when he

                                                                                     was there.

                                                                                          He hid in the cool churches of his childhood, praying.  It

                                                                                      seemed to make the day immaculate, like one event might lead to

                                                                                      another, like a friend's unexpected waiting at the airport or a

                                                                                      telephone call from out west summoned by a kindly thought earlier

                                                                                      in the day.

                                                                                           Then the factory whistles were starting to blow, and he

                                                                                       would work in the same shop his whole life, mute and without

                                                                                       travelling, like the men in the town before him.  The town was

                                                                                       only in his own head, but he brought it across continents and

                                                                                       oceans, travelling to the same place over and over like the

                                                                                       parched sunset seen ten thousand times from the same dirty

                                                                                       window, without curtains.

                             Rob Wilson is an English professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

                            Melvin Derwis 

                             Melvin Derwis (1916--2000) was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.   He lived and worked in Cleveland, Ohio.

                             Joseph Stanton

                                                                                      GROUNDHOG DAY

                                                                                      Some days threaten never to end,

                                                                                      but this one just keeps coming back again.

                                                                                      A song by Sonny and Cher,

                                                                                      a DJ's shouted, "It's cold out there!"

                                                                                      and Phil is off once more--

                                                                                      seeking, he realizes, Rita's love.

                                                                                      but finding only despair,

                                                                                      a February second

                                                                                      repeated ad absurdum,

                                                                                      the fairytale hero here

                                                                                      becoming his own

                                                                                      fairy godfather,

                                                                                      giving himself an offer

                                                                                      he must learn how not to refuse,

                                                                                      remaking himself a prince

                                                                                      with scant help from the kiss

                                                                                      that never entirely arrives,

                                                                                      though he seeks it so desperately.

                                                                                      Phil must make a magic moment

                                                                                      out of an odd redundancy of striving

                                                                                      to be better than he is--

                                                                                      though trapped, he knows,

                                                                                      in the not very original sin

                                                                                      of being a jerk at heart.

                                                                                      For all of us, this is

                                                                                      a transformation devoutly to be wished--

                                                                                      a joking way to say we can

                                                                                      eat our world and have it too,

                                                                                      avoiding our idiocy's

                                                                                      diminishing returns.

                                                                                      VERTIGO

                                                                                      A fear drops a plumb line,

                                                                                      Hitchcock's horrific zoom-in and track-back,

                                                                                      to a depth hope cannot rise above.

                                                                                      But a falling can also be

                                                                                      into the madness that is love,

                                                                                      a vortex spinning down a mind,

                                                                                      whose bottom line

                                                                                      might be terrible to consider.

                                                                                      A portrait of Carlotta,

                                                                                      the beautiful Carlotta,

                                                                                      the sad, the mad Carlotta

                                                                                      could be a portal to the past

                                                                                      or a bad dream

                                                                                      of an old house on the corner of Eddy and Gough,

                                                                                      a grave at the Mission Delores with Carlotta's name on it,

                                                                                      a leap into the Bay at Old Fort Point out at the Presidio,

                                                                                      a fatal bell tower at San Juan Bautista,

                                                                                      a hundred miles down the coast.

                                                                                      But that peculiar bunch of flowers,

                                                                                      the twist to the hair, and the simple gray suit

                                                                                      are as real as the beautiful city of San Francisco

                                                                                      and the two cars, one white the other green,

                                                                                      that swing left, then right, then left,

                                                                                      pursuing each other for miles of film,

                                                                                      somehow always downhill,

                                                                                      the way everything must go,

                                                                                      it seems,

                                                                                      when desire overwhelms almost everything,

                                                                                      except for death itself,

                                                                                      viewed from the highest vantage,

                                                                                      vertigo overcome at last,

                                                                                      as Midge's dearest Johnny-O stands above,

                                                                                      finally fearless,

                                                                                      out on the ledge of the world,

                                                                                      with no one left to save,

                                                                                      no one left to love.

                             Joseph Stanton is widely published as a poet and scholar.  He teaches art history and American studies at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa.

                                     Kathy Ireland Smith

                                                                                                                                           OK Afterbirth

                                      Kathy Ireland Smith is a writer and artist from Cleveland, Ohio.   She is currently traveling the world and is presently living in Oaxaca, Mexico.

                             Brian Fugett

                                                                                  PERISTALSIS IN THE BOWELS OF DOWNTOWN

                                                                                                                 all up & down

                                                                                                              5th street there are

                                                                                                                   peep shows

                                                                                                                   coffee shops

                                                                                                                   liquor stores

                                                                                                          & fresh tattoos that glow

                                                                                                                     on the pale

                                                                                                            february bleached flesh

                                                                                                                         of girls

                                                                                                       & all the skinny caramel lattes

                                                                                                               are clutched too tight

                                                                                                      even though they are hotter than

                                                                                                              the august pavement

                                                                                                             & everywhere you go

                                                                                                              along east 3rd street

                                                                                                        the cell phones are screaming

                                                                                                                to be released from

                                                                                                                  all of the pockets

                                                                                                                          purses

                                                                                                        & glove compartment coffins

                                                                                                        while a roving pack of mimes

                                                                                                        stalk the corner of 4th & main

                                                                                                                        peddling

                                                                                                                thespian nightmares