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Issue 24
Phantom Kangaroo is a portal. The Mysteries of the universe congregate here. Some of these poems are incantations meant to be read aloud. Others are testimonies of supernatural accounts or glimpses of a dark reality here on Earth. Dark realities are also unnatural. There is art here too. If you stare long enough you might see your reflection.
Claudia Dawson, Founding Publisher & Editor
June 2021
Contributors: Alicia M Garrett, Allison Whittenberg, Conor Harris, Craig Finlay, Daisy Bassen, Eve Taft, Holly Day, James B. Nicola, Joylyn Chai, Julie Allyn Johnson, Mane Hovhannisyan, Marcella Haddad, Melyssa G. Sprott, Ruben van Luijk, Sarah-Jane Crowson, Virginia Laurie
my body feels like an inverted kiwi fruit: the meat
too slippery in the world and exposed, the hairs inside
prickly like a lung of tarantulas, this is not me, these
are not my teeth, and I’m all theirs to toy with, only
all mine to ruin, heard a man shout in an alley yesterday
and almost ran, my chest touched my pelvic floor before
I realized we were okay; he was just picking up a phone
call, just had a loud voice, some back alleys have sun-
light and retail, there are people who want the best for you,
who want to hold your Kafka’d body to the light and tell
you how smart you are, laugh at your poorly timed jokes
and not make one of you, they do not want to twist your
body into any new shapes, they do not want to steal it
out from under you, sometimes, a fruit is just a fruit, and
you’re made of too much sunlight to be looked at directly
Virginia Laurie is an undergraduate student at Washington and Lee University whose work has been published in LandLocked Magazine, Panoply, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, Short Vine Literary Journal, and The Merrimack Review.
the bmovietltubelights never blink in this
place where only radio nostalgia accompanies
the tictac of billiards and the streets of the very cheap
are not far away the patron (a well-kept secret) the
most recent incarnation of the buddha the regulars
outspoken a maul banded pit-bull curled into itself
sleeping on a chair
this is were the dogs of the street come in they
who take their meals in diners without waiters
in their eyes fjords & night islands & cold cities
seated at dirty hardboard tables they drink and
solve world problems or play trictrac with the
seriousness of children only the players change
but not the game
Ruben van Luijk is a photographer, writer, historian & Satanism expert. He was born in Rotterdam, has been in Paris & is currently drifting ever farther east on the European continent.
Her whole heart was there,
laid out for me and
steaming
on the tray,
and we were surrounded by syllables
and circuit boards,
men wearing God.
The month of June hugged us in
as we sunk further towards the heavy:
all the dark viscous at the
bottom of our bellies
all the thick stuff without a
name
We didn’t know
how long it would take to scoop
it all out and
rinse,
coax the venom out
of the blood
strand by
strand
Learning how to unravel
DNA
like embroidery
floss,
We were—
before the jump at least
—looking for clear waters, but
we landed
where we started:
all ribboned chest and
salted earth.
Virginia Laurie is an undergraduate student at Washington and Lee University whose work has been published in LandLocked Magazine, Panoply, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, Short Vine Literary Journal, and The Merrimack Review.
there is so much joy in the
horns of a rabbit sounding
clack clack against a shuttered
window
there is so much in the
horns of a rabbit sounding,
clack clack, against a shutter
there is so much. joy in the,
clack clack, rabbit sounding shuttered
so much, clack clack, joy a rabbit, the shutter
joy, a rabbit, sounds shuttered
much joy, sounds the shutter
clack clack
Conor Harris is a poet, aspiring novelist, translator, and researcher in Southern California, where he received a PhD in Latin American Literature and Culture. In his writing, of all sorts, he attempts to trace the things that escape writing in general: the uncanny, the surreal, death, dissociation, and the spaces between things, ourselves, and our words.
This image is a part of my “Windows” photo series, in which I have presented my reflection, but as a separate element of me. It’s a part of me which lives independent from me in another time and space dimension, and it tries to make contact with me. In this way I construct myself, gathering me part by part from different dimensions. It’s a play with shadows, during which I act as a reflection between the worlds and don’t want to show identification of my face.
Mane Hovhannisyan is an Armenian fine art and conceptual photographer. The preferred topics of her art are the reflection of the state in-between magic and reality, the correspondence of the human body to the natural and urban environment, as well as the discovery of old soviet architectural leftovers through the means of photography. Her visualization of photo-reality is mystical, dadaist, and surreal. She loves to create multi-faceted and cinematic images that draw the viewer into their depth. The thread of realities that runs between our world and the imaginary world of art is transparent and tangible at the same time, and one of her goals is to convey this feeling through photography. In color photography, she really likes to concentrate herself on one color and convey its depth. In that sense, the blue is very close to her inner vision and also reflects something like the state in-between. Through her photography works, her inner message is very often accompanied by shades of blue. Moreover, she was fascinated to discover an alternative method of cyanotype photo printing, which helped her get even closer to the source of color.
Cats in pies,
cats in butter,
cats that eat
babies and mothers.
Cats in the basement,
cats in the roaster,
cats in the attic,
and in the toaster.
Cats in the shower,
cats on the bed,
cats are dancing
in my head.
Cats with crayons,
cats with books,
cats hang like fish
upon my hooks.
Cats that stalk,
cats that kill,
cats that plot
with merciless skill.
Cats on leashes,
cats in cupboards,
cats that eat
babies and mothers.
Pittsburgh-born, Ohio writer, artist, and award-winning photographer, Melyssa G. Sprott uses many different means and mediums of self-expression. She spent several years as senior moderator at one of the world’s largest online poetry forums as well as teaching poetry forms. Other credits include Hall of Fame, Poet-in-Residence, former Co-Managing Editor, and Staff Writer of the VoicesNet.com Literary Journal. She has been featured at thehorrorzine.com, poetrypacific.com, margutte.com, spillwordspress.com, and more. Creativity is catharsis.
Anger is temporary madness. We all go mad. If you’re mad, press one for customer service. Speak or enter your account number. Press one to confirm your account number. Press two to confirm that you pressed one. Press three to confirm that you pressed two. Please speak your ten-digit telephone number one digit at a time. I’m sorry, I didn’t get that. Press three to listen to a pleasant, automatic computer voice list the possible outcomes of every decision you never made. Press one to confirm you would like to hear this. Are you sure? Press one if you’re really sure. Just checking. Maybe press one, one more time. Welcome to the anger management customer service hotline. What would you like to be angry about today? Press five for more options. Don’t you find it odd that Anne Sexton basically gets a pass for molesting her children? Press seven if you think this is odd. Perhaps it’s because she killed herself and there’s no one left to punish. Her Poetry Foundation biography refuses to even mention it. Ted Hughes is dead, and we still punish him for losing two wives to suicide. Woody Allen is alive. That one’s easier. Let’s punish him for being a creep. Please say the last four digits of your social security number to punish Woody Allen for being a creep. I’m sorry, I didn’t get that. Please say the last four digits of your social security number to punish Woody Allen for being a creep. I’m sorry I’m having so much trouble. Let’s get you over to someone who can help you. Please hold.
Craig Finlay is a poet and librarian currently in the middle-leg of an extended tour of the Midwest. His debut collection of poems, The Very Small Mammoths of Wrangel Island, was recently published by Urban Farmhouse Press.
were I not an atheist, I would not rest
until I had my boot on the throat of the thing you call god
watched the light leave its eyes, spat in its face
and left it for carrion (though even this is an undeserved honor;
to become birdshit is too kind a fate for that blackheart).
I declare this, closer to praying than I have come in years.
selfsame as when I begged for mercy, the thing called god is silent.
like smoke, like mist, it cannot hold my grief
any more than it could reward my faith.
with nothing to tear apart, I burn alive from the inside.
I thirst for revenge; I find nothing but mirages.
like this imagined god, my loss is the wound left by a bullet,
the space where a blown-off limb once grew.
nothing, heavy and merciless and hungry.
the emptiness rewrites the laws of the universe; it chews relentlessly and refuses to let me die.
and when I fight back, my fists connect with nothing.
you cannot destroy a hole. you cannot shatter an absence.
you cannot kill a god that does not exist. you cannot bring back a woman who has died.
Eve Taft is an American writer who lives in County Limerick, Ireland. Find links to her publications at evetaft.wordpress.com, follow her on Facebook at Eve Taft, and read her horror-themed column, “Quaint and Curious Volumes,” every month at Luna Station Quarterly.
Alicia Garrett is a recent graduate of Bowling Green State University, and former resident of Streesboro OH. She prides herself on being an experimental artist and poet, whose work focuses on the obscure. With several of her written poems published in magazines such as “Literary Orphans,” “JMWW” and “Red Cedar Review.”
Before I speak I weigh
the heaviness of your
name. The shape doesn’t
concern me anymore.
In the past I could
want in voids, in
unnamed and
unanswered. Now I
witness you under
the sun. It’s still
bright within the sixth
hour these
days.
You still make cameos in
unstructured
thoughts. You still make
me feel.
I’ll go back to my favorite
love story. Talk me into
accepting
slivers when
I’m hunting for
deep cuts.
Marcella Haddad is a writer, dancer, and Nutella fanatic currently based in Western Mass. She is an MFA candidate at UMass Amherst and an instructor at Grubstreet.
Take fire Take water Stir
upon sight
unnoticeably
undrinkable
Take me Take you Stand
unfocused
our eyelashes
touch
Feel collapse
with shallow breath we are
suddenly clairvoyant
Take touch Take taste Sweat
sensations
slowly wrung
numb
Our lust hangs on
a nail like meat
drying in the wind
Joylyn Chai is a Chinese-Jamaican Canadian artist, writer, and educator. Joylyn teaches English to new immigrants and refugees in Toronto. Her work has appeared Rigorous and is forthcoming in Thin Air Magazine.
Every canonization hides a secret tragedy.
For every woman remembered in reverence for cutting her eyes out
or slicing through her own throat to dissuade a suitor
or pulled out her tongue to silence her voice
for every man who put his own neck to the blade, walked through fire to make a point
stepped forward to take some unnecessary punishment in the name of God
for every single one of these saints, there’s a girl with visions in a cemetery
scraping her eye sockets clean with the broken beer bottle
some boy hanging by a noose made from a shirt wrapped around a door handle
a note declaring a holy cause clutched in his hand, another woman
bleeding to death from internal injuries, a coat hanger clutched in her hand
after purposefully wrecking herself so that she will never feel the touch of another man.
Every canonization hides a secret tragedy.
Holly Day (hollylday.blogspot.com) has been a writing instructor at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis since 2000. Her poetry has recently appeared in Hubbub, Grain, and Third Wednesday, and her newest books are The Tooth is the Largest Organ in the Human Body (Anaphora Literary Press), Book of Beasts (Weasel Press), Bound in Ice (Shanti Arts), and Music Composition for Dummies (Wiley).
By Eve Taft
“We have stardust in us as old as the universe ...”
Four elements comprise the universe,
particles of which reside within my body.
Hydrogen swims in the frothy reservoir
of my aqueous humor.
Carbon’s inhale, exhale
of cellular respiration.
Nitrogen, fixer and seducer
of hormonal synapses.
Oxygen. Here, in my fingertips.
Mighty Jupiter burrows
as chi between the creviced
burrows of every toe on each foot.
Rocks and meteors,
comets and asteroids —
a microscopic coating of crushed dust
inside my cerebellum
no brainer.
Or just another black hole?
Crumbling cosmos —
yielding, folding
stretching, expanding —
far-flung molecules
leached into
a sea of galaxies,
our human bodies
insignificant
way-stations
or celestial transports
after our own stars
have faded from view?
Julie Allyn Johnson, a sawyer’s daughter from north central Iowa, began writing poetry after her retirement from IT work in 2017. She loves hiking, gravel-travel photography, riding bikes, altered books and collage, reading and writing poetry and exploring trails in the Rocky Mountains. Her work has been (or soon will be) published in Lyrical Iowa, Persephone’s Daughters, Typishly, The Esthetic Apostle, Chestnut Review, SPLASH!, The Loch Raven Review, Better Than Starbucks, Typehouse Literary Magazine, Into the Void, Poetry and Covid, Coffin Bell, Kitchen Sink Magazine and The Briar Cliff Review.
my children drowned
16 months ago
2 years ago
6 years ago
my children, just as naked,
as now, just as submerged back when
we moved through the uncertainty of shelters,
sustaining by government crumbs,
their father is not my husband.
the voices talk
pharmaceutical extractions mute
the voices shout
are there sharks under the golden gate?
i drive to the bridge
God is there, but he blinks
i strip my babies and listen to the smell of the bay
it fills me, the soft rays illuminate
i do it.
again.
once more.
in your news reports, please include:
i’m drowning too.
Allison Whittenberg is a Philadelphia native who has a global perspective. If she wasn’t an author she’d be a private detective or a jazz singer. She loves reading about history and true crime. Her other novels include Sweet Thang, Hollywood and Maine, Life is Fine, Tutored and The Sane Asylum.
Within the smallest space entire
universes hide, they say;
and mystic shortcuts can be found
throughout and beyond the Milky Way
so that like the Little Prince
a soul can, at a single bound,
travel light years of distance
and hop from world to world.
Had I the right engines to fire
I could reach warp speed and be hurled
or “beamed up” faster than light beams
as easily as in my dreams.
Though between us there might be
no more than an arm’s length, it seems
there lies an unseen galaxy.
But if anything can light the path
proposed by physics, proved by math,
and used in science fantasy,
then I shall find the way around
the distance between you and me
if not in math or dreams, in poetry.
James B. Nicola’s poetry has garnered two Willow Review awards, a Dana Literary award, seven Pushcart nominations, and one Best of the Net nom. His full-length collections include Manhattan Plaza, Stage to Page: Poems from the Theater, Wind in the Cave (2017), Out of Nothing: Poems of Art and Artists (2018), Quickening: Poems from Before and Beyond (2019), and Fires of Heaven: Poems of Faith and Sense (2021). A Yale grad, he also has enjoyed a career as a stage director, culminating in the nonfiction book Playing the Audience: The Practical Guide to Live Performance, which won a Choice award.
Perfidy
Calumny
Horizons’ Center
Resolution of Vagaries
The echo to the Deafened
Precipice, Overlook
The false Academy
Sanity’s Hollow
Disambiguation
Bondage
Myrrh’s surfeit
The reformation of Equals
Salt
The Gifted Cage
Borrowing
Daisy Bassen is a poet and practicing physician who graduated from Princeton University’s Creative Writing Program and completed her medical training at The University of Rochester and Brown. Her work has been published in Oberon, McSweeney’s, and [PANK] among other journals. She was the winner of the So to Speak 2019 Poetry Contest, the 2019 ILDS White Mice Contest and the 2020 Beullah Rose Poetry Prize. Born and raised in New York, she lives in Rhode Island with her family.
Sarah-Jane Crowson works as an educator at Hereford College of Arts and is a postgraduate researcher at Birmingham City University, investigating ideas of the ‘critical radical rural’. She is inspired by fairytales, psychogeography and surrealism and her visual poetry and collages have been published in a variety of journals.