Aakriti Kuntal and Scott Ferry : Six poems from a collaboration

 

 

 

 

Aakriti 

Words fall off the ridge of my nose
Inverted ants descending 

the vertical tower. The jaw hangs
in the middle of everything.

There is a towel wrapped around
my tongue. The body

soaks its own saliva. The weather
is the flesh blushing bright pink

in its fever. The sting circles into a mound.
I mumble and raspberries 

blow into oversized proportions.
Mouths of ants come to the harvest.

The day is long and vertical
as I hang my body 

on its bone. The sweet chirping of nuclei
envelops the Pepsi spirit 

And the soaked hour of the body
finds its lonely poem.

 

Scott

i take a small poem out of my pocket
and peel off the wasp-paper
it tries to sting me with a drunken window
i play as if i know my part sing a dirge
the poem is now a white-jewelled ghost
i dance around it looking for any moisture
the poem does not talk but it can swim
the gasoline is beginning to fill up the hallway
i have to soothe it so it doesn’t cheat again
i have never caught her in her cat costume
i bark and swing out with fresh kills
the hole in gravity is her skipping electrons
her negative gradient has been delicious
but she is not here anymore
i tear open the bedding and the pillows
not there either but my legs vibrate waspwings
my hands open and close with tiny yellow jaws
my body wraps in paper and i am wax
and honey and i don’t know if i am still
alive

Aakriti

Blood opens the key. The blind woman is humming in the corridor. Small wasps occur in my palms. I skip the grenade and arrive in the middle of everything. Gravity curls around the thigh. There is a slope to everything. God, the periwinkle flutter burns my eye. I have my tongue clasped as the car shifts in and out of the Delhi hour. The night has its vast span growing over the roof. I hum and I hum. Tunes colour the dimness of the day’s tangent. I hang my bodies like chords and wait for death to arrive. Death, sweet moth, slice the navel.

Scott

the vampire bat can syphon the blood of a cow without the animal knowing / the cow sleeps as the tiny teeth search for the warmth of a vein / the hooks at the end of the wings dancing across the hide / a hyena on the savanna / then the daggers sink in / the cow dreams of a faraway pain / a distant lightning strike on the highlands / the clouds flashing red / the bat engorges / an unsterile vessel / an unholy taker / and sways in the tide of systolic rush / the cow dreams of a drought and the dust billowing in the creek beds / the bat disengages / kicks off the heaving earth / in this way heaven and hell are emptied and filled / and no one has died for anyone’s sins 

Aakriti

Sheets of cartilage. A murmur binds them all. Sweet, porous sounds decorate the feet of the idol. I sit by the balcony and let the wind chatter in my clavicle. The day slaps onto my face and swivels around my wrist. On this occasion of Janmashtami, incense sticks stir the entire air. I am a small hour hoping to condense further into a dot. Hoping to grow into a wide, aching ceremony. Hoping to sit on a swing and gurgle in the soft tooth of the day. Blood thickens and turns into a soft mound of fervent jelly.

Scott

in the dream i construct another dream / a medicine from weeping leaves / in the morning i cut roses to place in a vase / i slice off all of the rotting flowers / they scatter like a wet sneeze / at night i dream within a dream that i shovel out all of my roses / my feet baptized with weeping roots and fungus / thorns rip roads down my wrists / when i wake in the dream i walk outside screaming and blaspheming at all of the murder / all the heads and green necks spilled like arithmetic  / then i wake from that dream unspooled and damned / i walk to the table and see the roses in the vase / i open the curtains and see the roses intact / i have enacted my own death / dim light and petalmusic / the inside of my inside lacerated and thorn-ribboned / i look at my arms and my wrists are quiet and clean

 

 

 

 

Aakriti Kuntal is a poet, writer, and visual artist from India whose work has been published in various literary journals including Panoply, Icefloe Press, The Night Heron Barks, and the Hindu. She is the author of God, am I your eyelid? from Sigilist Press, USA. She was awarded the Reuel International Prize 2017, shortlisted for the RL Poetry Award 2018, and nominated for the Best of the Net.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scott Ferry sings to invisible harpies in dollar stores. He has been known to write poems. His book of prose poems is arriving soon from Glass Lyre Press. More can be found @ ferrypoetry.com.

Jason Heroux and Dag T. Straumsvåg : from A Further Introduction to Bingo

 

 

 

10

The Bingo Hall lies awake under the stars, listening to Radio Finland. The voice of the night host, deep and clear through the ether, speaks slowly in a language the Bingo Hall doesn’t understand. He likes to not understand. It’s a relief. The voice fades through the winter dark, swirls, overlapping with a melancholic tango where space opens behind space, and the Bingo Hall dreams of swimming naked in Lake Inari under the northern lights. The only Finnish word he knows is “Juoksentelisinkohan?” which means “I wonder if I should run around aimlessly?”

 

30

The telephone rang at two in the morning. I stared at the phone, half-asleep, wondering what to do. It needed help but I wasn't sure how to assist. The phone rang again, and I realized the only way I could help the phone was to answer it. I picked it up, said hello. "Sorry to bother you,” the Bingo Hall said, “but could you do me a favour? I’m afraid of spiders, and there's one in the hallway. I feel it crawling through me. Can you come over and get rid of it? I'll shine a light so you can spot it." I hung up the phone, slipped on my boots and jacket, and stepped outside. I walked across my yard and reached the Bingo Hall. The automatic doors opened as I approached. A single light glowed in the hallway, shining against a wall. I studied the illuminated wall and saw a spider crawling across it. I carefully picked up the spider and placed it gently inside my pocket.

 

33

During the warm months when people keep their windows open, one can hear the bingo caller all over the block and beyond, and someone, leaning out of a window or walking by in the street, will always merrily yell “Bingo!” and then giggle and smile. Old and young alike. It feels good to yell “Bingo!” in a light voice. One Sunday in June, walking past the cathedral during service, I could hear every word spoken inside through the open doors, every psalm number called sounding like a bingo number, the music floating beautifully through the air, but no one is filling their sheets.

 

75

One of the many things the mailwoman loved about her job was that she never knew day-to-day what she’d find in her mailbag. Sometimes it was a sack of fish, addressed to the sea. Other times she carried tiny envelopes of raindrops, sent from a cloud to a puddle. Yesterday her bag was empty, nothing in it, but the mailwoman still went door to door, delivering the emptiness, the nothingness. Today she delivered a handful of snipped hair to a barbershop floor. “Thank you. It’s my mother’s hair. I miss her so much,” the barber said, sweeping the strands into a pile.

 

50

The number four dreamt it was back home in the Country of Four, where things were simpler. There were only four days a week, four weeks a year. It remembered eating four meals a day. Those were good times. But there were dark moments too. When its parents died it buried four coffins. The number four woke from the dream, confused, unsure where it was. But when the clock struck nine and didn’t chime four times it knew it was still in Trondheim.

 

72

The Bingo Hall sits by the window in a night open café, looking out at the harbour. A westerly gale slams the herring boats together. The wind surges through the streets. A lighted kitchen window floats in a rain puddle on the asphalt. Inside, a man is having kippers and potatoes. When his coffee arrives, the Bingo Hall knocks over the cup and spills coffee all over the floor. “I’m so sorry,” he says. “Don’t worry about it,” the waitress says, “it’s OK. I’ll get it cleaned up in a whiff.” “I’m so sorry,” the Bingo Hall says again, “I was just gonna... and then...” “It’s OK, really, it happens all the time,” the waitress says, walking off to fetch a cleaning cloth. “You’re a mess,” the Bingo Hall’s lungs wheeze at him. “We just want to be left alone,” his hands say. When the waitress returns, she says, “I don’t mean to pry, but aren’t you the Before-Man in that beauty product commercial that was all over TV a couple years ago?” “That was him alright,” his heart says, “and what’s more, he was perfect for the part.” “That’s what I thought, too,” the waitress says. Then she smiles, gives his hand a quick squeeze.

 

 

 

 

 

Jason Heroux lives in Kingston. His recent publications include a chapbook Blizzard of None (Puddles of Sky Press) and the collection of prose poems Like a Trophy from the Sun (Guernica Editions). He was the Poet Laureate for the City of Kingston from 2019 to 2022.

 

 

 

 

Dag T. Straumsvåg (b. 1964 in Norway) has been employed as a farmhand, sawmill worker, librarian, and sound engineer for a radio station in Trondheim, where he has lived since 1984. He is the author and translator of ten books of poetry, including A Bumpy Ride to the Slaughterhouse (2006), The Lure-Maker from Posio (2011), both from Red Dragonfly Press, Nelson (Proper Tales Press, 2017), Eleven Elleve Alive, with Stuart Ross and Hugh Thomas (shreeking violet press, 2018), and But in the Stillness (Apt. 9, 2024). He runs the small press A + D together with his girlfriend Angella Kassube. His work has appeared in a wide variety of journals in Norway, Canada, and the United States.

 

Steven Ross Smith & Phil Hall : On The Green Rose

 

 

new growing season / June 2024

 

Roses generally take 4 to 10 weeks (28 to 70 days) for re-blooming to occur.

Roses having a lot of petals take longer to re-bloom than roses with only a few petals.

That sounds about right—about wrong—about light—about song...

True green roses are exceptionally rare in the natural world & are often the result of careful breeding or natural mutations.

Ours was natural—tropic—non-factual—no topics...

The green colour in roses is not typically vibrant but rather understated with hues ranging from light pistachio to deeper olive tones.

I think we said that—you said that—I said that—you said that—I said that...

The rarest colour for a rose is the Blue Rose—it is very difficult to mine—it’s not mine!

Ah, but our green is spare—composed on a back & forth—two long threads braided...

Why is it green? Who ever heard? What does it mean—the un-notarized word?

This cannot be blamed on low PH (candle blown out)—he carries limestone in his head.

And SRS (Steven Rose Smith) is neither acidic nor basic—well perhaps basic.

Originally known as rosa chinesis viridiflora—The Green Rose’s uniqueness stems from its lack of true petals.

The Green Rose first made its appearance as early as 1743—SRS & PH were much older then.

This flower arouses genuine interest in people because it is a common novelty.

Roses do best when they are protected from the hot afternoon sun—parasols open!

We wrote mornings.

Then the weathers of the two strands weren’t the same anymore—Victoria BC / Costa Rica.

The first collaborative exchange occurs when the poet’s being—senses / mind /feeling / body / movement and locus—stirs—& language quivers—or vice versa.

Perhaps the oddest rose in existence—it is classified as a Hybrid China & appropriately known as The Green Rose—the incomparable China Green Rose.

Now Rosarians must recognize the Smith-Hall Green. Or ignore it. Either way...

Green-hued roses have historically represented fertility / growth / nature's abundance.

They also represented bounty / goodwill / success in business & romantic relationships—& even jealousy.

Rooted—yes—but all to be found above/ground—our title came from a shard of crockery washed up on the beach: a green rose visible on it.

Few other green hued roses have ever matched the uniqueness & interest of The Green Rose
(says one Anonymous (horti)cultural reviewer).

The Green Rose is a “love it or hate it” kind of rose.

A shared (shard) meditation on poetics grew past us—as Other—uncalculated—uncultivated.

Language speaks for itself.

Once in a blue moon (green moon) the rose might produce a seed pod—you ought to get something from the seed other than another green rose.

On the other hand / then on the other hand / & now handing off…

 

PH / SRS

 

 

 

 

Phil Hall is a founding member of the Canadian Sweater Poets (CSP). Latest book: Vallejo’s Marrow (Beautiful Outlaw Press, 2024). Forthcoming from Lake’s End Press: mould/Soil (in collaboration with Chris Turnbull). He lives near Perth Ontario.

 

 

 

Steven Ross Smith, Banff Poet Laureate, 2018-21, loves music, and beach and forest walks. His seven-book poetic series fluttertongue has created a notable body of work and Book 3: disarray (Turnstone Press) was awarded Saskatchewan Book of the Year in 2005. Pliny’s Knickers, a collaboration was given the bpNichol Chapbook Award in 2006. His fourteenth book is Glimmer: Short Fictions, (Radiant Press, 2022.) Most recent is The Green Rose, a chapbook collaboration with Phil Hall (above/ground press, 2024). Smith lives and writes in Victoria, BC. Find him at stevenrosssmith@me.com &/or www.fluttertongue.ca