AP36 – Page 2

Hiyoowi Hamainza

Mereo-Logical Cybernetics

I am a cybernetic vector ↠
towing this domain (and it’s orbit)
about my immovable centrality.

Bounded polytopes, (deceitfully [inert]),
clutch their geometry,
announce their vertices,
in a topology of laminated pigments,

and my [sensor arrays]
ping ↺ echo ↻ ping ↺ echo ↻
in sensorimotor feedback loops.

This ambient plenum
which embeds my extension
into non-Euclidean manifold
warped by depth and volume.

Where forms update their evolutions
& stitch memories
into the groove of the substrate…

But at each iteration
the output is always
[nil]** [nil] ** [nil]

Hiyoowi Hamainza is an emerging poet who resides in Cape Town, currently working on his debut novel. He has a poem previously published in ANMLY. He works as an English editor, studying psychology and philosophy part-time.

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Isa Pickett

John Wayne Carrying A Baby

pretty boy, i can’t be
your swollen cow you won’t touch
my belly but to plug
the gunshot i’m a different
kind of man—a woman, of rib

giant plastic cactus my pregnant
stomach the yip
of my dog hurt paw clean bed
my partner’s partner plays
the harmonica poorly, slowly

in my negligee, the baby kicks
violence in the xbox my mom while pregnant
felt like John Wayne
i felt like a tired fool in her womb—
violent like an egg
bandana dirty

the first time i wore a skirt
i was told give us a spin he pushed
a spoon into my mouth,
sent me to the bus
to be spanked in accessible seating
while off-duty historical
reenactors snapped photos
it was humiliating i loved it
i’m stuck
on true imagination, attack horses,
what it feels like to give

your body a body

these days i’m crying
at tender graffiti, wondering
about the fears of my grandfather’s
childhood best friend
waking at night he checks
under the bed swearing he felt a kick

i feel like a globe with no land
like a mother in danger
my baby will look
nothing like me

I Am Not A Woman Today

Today I am an ailing femboy with an orange
cough waiting for God to spit
rain into my car wash

Hawks at dawn abscond
toward a bluer freedom A lonely flagpole slaps
its own thigh My thrifted pants are too tight & I’m angry
at the weather All sun, no cream

The Virgin Mary statue in the Catholic suburb of the cemetery
toppled in the storm Lifting with our knees
Pam and I can’t budge it We place the snapped head
tenderly near the neck
I pray like I’m hiding a frog from the class

When I forget to say thank you the gas station attendant puts
out a cigarette on her arm The burn forms an image of Christ
if Christ looked like nothing

Let’s say what we feel like I’ll go first: I feel like a puppet
with a wet bulge like I’m helplessly watching
a golf cart die in a sinkhole I can’t love right
I’ve got all this leg hair and small tits
A lousy milk cow A buffet of coleslaw

I dreamt I found my lost rings
You were there forgiving
me like a mirror rehearsal
I sobbed in your arms
and said I just want to be happy
but those are your words—You gave the dog her pill
and rubbed my neck until it went down
Of course I worry I won’t wake up I always do

Isa Pickett (she/they) is a trans writer, musician, and educator. Her work has appeared in Five South, Philadelphia Stories, and is forthcoming in The Bitchin’ Kitsch. Their work has been nominated for Best of the Net and made the long list for Frontier Poetry’s Award for New Poets. She lives in Philadelphia. Follow them on Instagram @isapickett_ or Twitter @pickett_isa.

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Aerik Francis

Mourning Meditations

after Cameron Awkward-Rich

I wake up to the rubble & ruin of broken hearts, another day of pandemic & aftermath – my gut sinks. I stay inside my bed a little longer & check my phone – my gut sinks. I lift up my comforter, lift up my morning body, walk to the bathroom & sit on the toilet – my guts sink. I contemplate my rebellious body, my only religion. My gut sinks. I gaze longingly out the window – I see a fence. There is a dream I have in which every cage melts. I gather carbon dioxide in the air like it is pollen or nectar & I am a hummingbird or a bee & I feed it back to the Earth. There are no borders, just flora. I sigh & swat the stupid toilet paper roll. Hand on my stupid guts. Hand on my shit-lipped hole.

“Mourning Meditations” is written after Cameron Awkward-Rich’s poem “Meditations in an Emergency”, itself an “after poem” written after Frank O’Hara.

Aerik Francis is a Queer Black & Latinx poet and teaching artist based in Denver, Colorado, USA. They are the author of BODYELECTRONIC, their debut poetry chapbook now out with Trouble Department press. They have poetry published widely, links of which may be found at linktr.ee/Aerik or via their website phaentompoet.com.

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Hideko Sueoka

Scenes from a Bullet Train Journey, 2022

I
For a moment, all I see is ochre: a sequence
of amber rice fields and weeds.
After the harvest, everything
is waiting for the next season
before the descent of cool air at Mount Ibuki.

II
All persimmons are gone, all maples are gone.
The white train slithers across the emptiness
where watery mirrors reflect such verdant leaves.
White mist. A colder place.

III
Out of nowhere, flow and blend in my mind
short pieces of K-pop and J-hip-hop.
The mix of small tunes with train’s rattling rhythm.
Outside, the fleeting images of sheep.
Flowing scenery without scent or subtitles.

IV
All I hear is the grating wheels.
Speckled spaces in foggy frames.
Abstract images move forward, losing
all previous meanings.

V
A quick shift of the subsequent view:
we are leaving the area of hard frost and edging closer
to mild air. We enter an unknown season.
No more snow-capped roofs and electricity towers.
Farewell, sudden snowy world: 銀世界.

VI
The sun follows our train carriages as we travel past
the copper-colored bridge across the River Kamo.
We think of our friend on the platform waiting for us.
Imagine what a feeling to hug someone after three years.

Golden Pair

for John Skelton

Canary and curry
are yellow treasure
for the Indian diner.
Masala, this powder
as heavenly spice,
an addictive substance
like Pernod with ice.
Bird, your beak or
throat so hungers for
oat groats and fresh water.
Your clapper on standby for
a closer contender:
your pals; a rooster;
and a diner customer.
What a spirited
and social bird!
Your voice trained by
the chef as a chary guy
with Youtube via wifi.
His recipe of
spice mixes having clove,
coriander with love.
Red chili guiding
the tongue to an exciting
sense. Mesmerizing.
Your favorite is cannabis.
Your singing appearance
seems to be a trance.
Your body is syrinx
shaking as if with drinks.
With the menu and bird’s blinks,
chicken curry,
vegetable curry,
fish tikka and samosa.
Color of mimosa
so sparks. Paradise, Ah!

Hideko Sueoka is a Tokyo-based poet and translator born, raised in Japan. Her translation on photography, Shigeichi Nagano – Magazine Work 60s, was published in 2009. Her debut poetry chapbook, Untouched Landscape, was published from Clare Songbirds Publishing House (New York State, US) in 2018. Her poems were published in British magazines such as Stand Magazine, Porridge, Ink Sweat and Tears, etc., Canadian magazine long con mag, various anthologies and zines. She is now writing poems towards a debut full-length collection.

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Michi Cabrera

immigrant story

In 1969, Cabo Rojo, Dominican Republic,
he worked as a mechanic for an American company
mining for a mineral called bauxite.
Balaguer was president. Mucho gente no lo queria.
Tu Abuelo fui al cine. They started showing previews
and were demonstrating the good he was doing in the country.
Many people started booing.
The military came in and said whoever was booing stand up.
No one stood up. They picked five people at random.
Lo dieron golpe mucho golpe. Lo encarcelaron.

El Capitan del ejercito era amigo del tu Abuelo.
He would fix his car.
Pero el no fui a ayudarlo.
It came out in the newspaper:
5 communistas arrestado por estar contra il gobierno.

The only communication she had with him was over radio.
She lived in the Capital and was 15 hours away by car.
The principle office was in the Capital and she brought
the newspaper there and asked them about it, they said
they were going to send an attorney over there to find
out what happened.

Tu Abuelo fui con su camisa lleno de sangre.
He was certain that they were going to kill him.
He spoke to the judge and defended everyone.
Tu sabes como eres tu Abuelo.
El tenia una cortilla rota y mucho golpe por todo parte pero
mucho en su pecho encima del corazon.
They sent him home for 15 days
and told him to come back to work after resting.
He quit.

Tenia mucho rancor
y por eso decidió
por venir acá.

*agricultural landscaping*
Claverack, NY
August 14, 2017

an old jacket with missing buttons and yellow paint

</p>

Why did you send this to me? Essentially, is what Guillermo said. He expressed concerns that someone
was trying to steal his identity. What
an odd
package. -he DMed me on Instagram.
My friend said you would bring it to Argentina—she’s in Bariloche. My friend Che from la
Mandala—she lent it to me when she lived in New York City.

It was five years ago now.

We watched the fireworks on a Greenpoint rooftop that summer.
Have you ever had Ethiopian?
There’s this place called Bunna in Bushwick.
We had the feast for three there
with another friend. It comes with six rolls of injera instead of four with the feast for two.
I like the butecha selata and the shiro.

One weekend, she
wore a
black and yellow
Pirates cap
and met me at Dweebs. I drove local and took us to Fort Tilden.

One night, we
saw her boyfriend play
jazz bass
at
Dizzy’s
Coca Cola Club.
And this brown boy about sixteen came out at the end playing the saxophone.

Floyd Mayweather won a big fight that night.
The waitstaff was talking about the bets they placed.

Anywho, she
said her brother Nils works with you. Michi, Willie (Guillermo) knows about
the jacket!
-she texted me
on WhatsApp.

This is the second time I sent it to Utah.

Tell him

“the first time I mailed it,
we got the zip code wrong and it came back to me a few days
later, but
by then you had already left.”

I was wearing a white linen button up the night she lent it to me
and these navy colored…
these navy colored…
these navy blue swishy pants.
It made a great oversized blazer.
It was also navy blue.
She told me it was her mothers and showed me where she got paint on it. Let’s paint the town red. Or at least the neighborhood.– she said with a grin.

Did I mention I just had major knee surgery?
It was five hours long.
I spent six weeks at my mother’s recovering. I’m just starting to walk again. It’s actually my mom who
mailed it. I couldn’t walk to the post office.

That’s all to say
no one is trying to steal your identity. Yes, he said,
it makes sense now.
I remember now.
I’m going to Argentina today, I’ll see Nils tomorrow.
Thanks, Willie

*imbibing*
Bushwick, NY
October 11, 2014

Michi Cabrera is a Puerto Rican-Dominican New Yorker, writer, and wellness practitioner. Her poetry and essays explore sensuality, the passage of time, kinship, and presence. They reference stories from her adventures abroad, and canvas her NYC hometown and Caribbean motherlands. Michi (pronounced Mickey) is a real estate attorney. Her favorite paddleboarding spots in the world are in Condado Lagoon, Puerto Rico and La Boca, Dominican Republic. She has a daily meditation practice and drinks 80-120 ounces of water a day. She lives in the Bronx and has six plants. You can find more on her website at michifaye.com.

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Letitia Jiju

This Too is a Poem is a Prayer, Unclasping

over the crest of memory:

O gold-rimmed matzo: tremble.
O teeth; stigmata—

then I peel the hard-boiled egg of my own grief.
& what is life but a breaking in

someone’s hands?

Somewhere
fireflies limn the shore of
his limbs celestine. I rend as I remember
I no longer god-walk this sea.

Nor rest the weary hind legs of
a kiss by his ear,

breath unbridled

from the silt-slippery conch-shell of my body:
listen. Hold me and listen
to an ocean
thrashing—

How to wring myself out of this washcloth of remembrance?
I have sopped up the last of his gravy. I am

stained by his laugh.
On my skin on his skin.

& what is love but a seeping in

of sorts?

A running under water,

a gentle rub,

a squeeze,

a laying out?

Originally appeared in Tigers Zine.

Letitia Jiju is an Indian poet who through her work explores the intermingling of mother tongue, religion & generational trauma. Her poems have appeared/are forthcoming in trampset, ANMLY, The Lumiere Review, Moist Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. She reads poetry for Psaltery & Lyre. Find her on Instagram/Twitter @eaturlettuce.

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j. kleinschmidt

moon.sun

First there was the moon. Almost like I could touch her just out of reach. Sometimes I felt like I could do anything. Did you ever howl at the moon did you ever show her your self your full Self did you ever surrender to her? She knows. She listened. In the night she watched me nurtured me like a mother her child she took care of me she kept me safe. And how she kissed my nose and cheeks and the crook of my neck and my collarbones my breasts the knuckles on my fingers my hips and feet and knees. I stood. I stood. I kneeled. And got up. She likes when I look up at her but she hates being above me. Always out of reach and just close enough to never touch but I swear she is here. In the way I drink her in. And how she wanes. And is gone. But she will. Come back, she always comes back for me I don’t need to ask where she’s been for when I stand beneath her cold white light I am safe forever and there is no past and there is no future and I am hers.

Then there was the sun. He comes between. And burns. My skin he touches. Glowing hands. He breaks you down. Forces. How you like it. He is far away when I can look him in the eye but so close when above dizzying he is all encompassing and I cannot stand I always fall into. Red on my body where he touches the burn on my skin forever. Yes. And sometimes hiding for days he doesn’t show. Himself like a ghost but they say he is always there even when I can’t see him I can not take it sun burn me again for the absence of pain is the absence of. You. Desire. Please but. Stay longer sun you are so bright you are everything the world kneels before you you. Need you. Stay forever but he’s going again but what a spectacle he leaves. Purple and orange and red like sun-kissed skin. He always comes back for me I don’t need to ask where he’s been for when I kneel beneath his fiery hands I am small and there is no past and there is no future and I am his.

The moon stands high on the horizon, quiet.

diary #1: self

Dear diary the other
day i said people
online aren’t real because
it’s the same thoughts and feelings and words
overagainandagainoversaturatedagain
and then i went
and pretended i didn’t. so maybe
i’m not real because
i keep coming back for
more but diary we already know
i have a problem. with
substance because i mean the things i say
but that’s about it really

i say i’m a nihilist because i’ve
gotten used to saying so but i
really am searching for meaning
in the forest song about the witch and the changing of my bedsheets
and the five letters when i cum and how i end things
without changing. how
i let them in and out of my life
in and out in and fuck. out
like how i keep objectifying myself and
how i write in blue ink although blood is
supposed to be red.

I guess there’s meaning in my falling
canvas hearts and blood baths in the way
i’m calm and loving but if you’ve ever
heard a pig screaming
on their way to slaughter then i’m afraid
you know the deepest parts of me
and you’re braver than i am because
i haven’t been there in at least 162 days but
anyway what a shame
the machine keeps on going
like the pulsing under my skin and the ocean rain

j. kleinschmidt is a writer and university student. In their writing, they draw from their experience as a queer person growing up on the internet to explore the spaces between love and obsession, desire and pain, and the occasional love letter to the moon. Follow them on Instagram @dancing.sirens.

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Alison Zheng

Idols

Perfect Blue (1997), a film by Satoshi Kon

These women who perform as idols, who feel like friends, enter the stage. The white ribbons on their bare shoulders and the pink of their crinoline skirts flutter as they dance and sing.

These women who perform as idols are ballerinas— I mean, schoolgirls—I mean, Sailor Scouts—
Do they know that this audience of exclusively men—and me—have a soft spot for women who wear bows in their hair, who smile with enthusiasm?

These women who perform as girls dance in perfect unison, crooning their siren song: Look! Can you see her white wings? Those eyes gazing at you. That sweet voice, and those gentle hands. They exist only for you.

All the men are watching and some of the men are taking photos and some of the other men are holding camcorders, recording every breath and every twirl.

I’m no better than these sallow, indoor-skinned men—just more beautiful—After all, don’t I have an affinity for small hands too? Doesn’t the fire in my body long to know the fire in theirs too?

Simulation

Perfect Blue (1997), a film by Satoshi Kon

The actor says I’m sorry before the scene begins.

The actress smiles a dazzling smile and says It’s okay.

A camera crew surrounds them. The flashing lights are relentless.