Author: Inklette

How Wrinkles Were Invented

after Bob Hicok 

 

Hands folded into empty. The need

to press & iron. Lines to read between & history

 

pried from each furrow. Once,

you laughed so bright the dry heat

 

mistook you for its maker, chased you across oceans

& back, the spray of sunlight playing hide & seek

 

among the seams of your forehead. Head

forward & your skin retreats within itself

 

the way a house collapses:

loosening. Rusty jawbone dried, eyelids

 

shuttered & weathered, the squeak of knees folded

into obsolete. The skin retreats

 

within itself, but new hills always manage

to worm their way out of the creases.

 

Note: “How Wrinkles Were Invented” is titled after “How Origami Was Invented” by Bob Hicok.

MARIE UNGAR is a writer from Charlottesville, Virginia, where she is Co-Founder and Co-Editor-in-Chief of Sooth Swarm Journal. Marie’s work has been published or is forthcoming in Eunoia Review, Words Dance, and Moledro Magazine, among others.

How Catholic School Was Invented

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Illustration by SD

the color plaid

how to fold hands into one another

nail polish remover

 

ordinary time lenten

stomachs how fast

knees learn the right angle

of bend and break

 

the difference between men and amen

is only alpha

 

to pray

and still be prey:

how to praise a man            

without asking why

ERIN JIN MEI O’MALLEY is a poet who lives in Germany. She has previously served as a Genre Editor for Polyphony H.S. and is the Co-Founder of Sooth Swarm Journal. Erin has attended workshops run by the University of Virginia and the Kenyon Review. Her work been recognized by Hollins University, Columbia College Chicago, the National YoungArts Foundation, and others. She blogs at www.explorationsoferin.com.

SD is an artist, writer and curator. All of her work focuses on women, feminism and curating issues in art. She is founding curator of Les Femmes Folles, an organization for women in art.

Valencia Rain

Blackbirds sit

on a telephone line like

a string of beads. I stand on the

corner of 18th and Valencia. A

small woman covers the

clothing hanging

on a chain link fence: two

sweaters, a velvet coat,

a floral dress— with

a tarp. She doesn’t

hide from the rain. Neither

do I. Water

 

runs down my nose

over my lips

into my mouth.

 

I am kissing god with

tongue.

 

I have never owned a rosary

but I count: cars, black umbrellas,

my wet fingers, every time I swallow—

 

I touch my mouth

my chest

my damp shoulders, one after

the other.

 

The birds are so still—

dripping. I am only catholic

when it rains in the mission, when

I feel like I could fuck god— bear

a child of divine sin. I want to tug

on his

rosary. Kiss his chin. Hold

him. Tell him a story about

a king

and a blackbird pie.

BAYLEY VAN is a young freelance writer and illustrator living in San Francisco, California. Her work explores instability through nature and interpersonal relationships. She has been previously published in Synchronized Chaos, Umlaut, Em, Aryis, Calamus Journal, and Golden Walkman Magazine. Inquiries about writing, illustrations and upcoming publications may be sent to bayleyvn@gmail.com.

Boot Camp for Boys

Artist Statement: “Boot Camp for Boys” is meant to peek into the private youth prisons that have partially replaced the government run youth prisons and detention facilities in many states. They are often run with little accountability to the outside world, with minimal to no licensing and regulation. Youth have died in these facilities. My work is inspired by my clients and their families, their struggles and stories, amalgamated into a narrative about a theme or situation they all experience. I hope that I honor their courage and spirit.

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‘Boot Camp for Boys,’ 2013

KEVIN CHARLES is a licensed clinical social worker working with juvenile offenders in the Bay Area. His other social work-based comics have appeared in Matador Review, betterdrawn.org, BAM Too! and Rocketbot.

Inventory

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sea-greens shilly

in the barter of tide

 

one tiny eel flips

the letter “c” in a child’s palm

 

logs loosened by storms,

freed from rafts, afloat

 

beach asparagus, bull kelp, ficus

rockweed, black ribbon, sea-lettuce

 

once-coiled rope segmented

for crab pots, anchor lines, buoys

 

bottle caps, hermit crabs

scuttling from upturned rocks

 

pottery shards, beached sea-glass,

marbles:  jagged, worn smooth, pitted

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broken toys, corroded pennies, lost keys –

no Japanese floats

 

8,000-year-old petroglyphs, sharp rock, stones

for curve and skip:  stacked, grained, metamorphic

 

stone steps, one upon another, pathways

to and from the shallows of tears

 

deadheads chainsawed, cut, split,

stacked for firewood

 

a rusted tangle of bicycles, crippled

chains, reflectors fragmented

 

board swing droops

from a spruce branch

 

Mother crying cross-

legged on a mattress hauled

to a sea-facing window

KERSTEN CHRISTIANSON is a raven-watching, moon-gazing, high school English-teaching Alaskan. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing/Poetry through the Low-Residency Program at the University of Alaska Anchorage in 2016. Her recent work has appeared in Cirque, Tidal Echoes, Fredericksburg Literary & Art Review, Inklette, On the Rusk, We’Moon, Sheila-Na-Gig and Pure Slush. Kersten co-edits the quarterly journal Alaska Women Speak. When not exploring the summer lands and dark winter of the Yukon Territory, she lives in Sitka, Alaska with her husband and photographer Bruce Christianson, and daughter Rie.

 

[XX] LUME

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‘Twenty-thousand Leagues Under My Expectations,’ 2016

S.D. MARTIN read his first comic, ‘Peanuts,’ on the seat of a Farmall Super M, and although locations have changed, the reading continues. He frequently haunts libraries and teaches at a community college.

Annie and Her Two Sons

Artist Statement: Painting is a cross between a crap shoot, finding your way out of the woods, and performing a magic act. Each time I begin to paint I feel like I am walking a tightrope—sometimes scary, sometimes exciting, sometimes very quiet, and always, always surprising;
leading me where I never expected to go. Doing art makes me lose all sense of time and place and go inside one long moment of creating.


Whenever I feel a painting in my gut, I know this is why I paint. The colors are the message, I feel them before my mind has a chance to get involved. Color is the most agile and dynamic medium to create joy. And if you can find joy in your art, then you’ve found something worth holding on to.

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Watercolour on Paper, 12″ X 9″, 2016

ALLEN FORREST has created cover art and illustrations for literary publications and books, the winner of the Leslie Jacoby Honor for Art at San Jose State University’s Reed Magazine and his Bel Red painting series is part of the Bellevue College Foundation’s permanent art collection. Forrest’s expressive drawing and painting style is a mix of avant-garde expressionism and post-Impressionist elements, creating emotion on canvas.