Unlikely 2.0


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Editors' Notes

Maria Damon and Michelle Greenblatt
Jim Leftwich and Michelle Greenblatt
Sheila E. Murphy and Michelle Greenblatt

A Visual Conversation on Michelle Greenblatt's ASHES AND SEEDS with Stephen Harrison, Monika Mori | MOO, Jonathan Penton and Michelle Greenblatt

Letters for Michelle: with work by Jukka-Pekka Kervinen, Jeffrey Side, Larry Goodell, mark hartenbach, Charles J. Butler, Alexandria Bryan and Brian Kovich

Visual Poetry by Reed Altemus
Poetry by Glen Armstrong
Poetry by Lana Bella
A Eulogic Poem by John M. Bennett
Elegic Poetry by John M. Bennett
Poetry by Wendy Taylor Carlisle
A Eulogy by Vincent A. Cellucci
Poetry by Vincent A. Cellucci
Poetry by Joel Chace
A Spoken Word Poem and Visual Art by K.R. Copeland
A Eulogy by Alan Fyfe
Poetry by Win Harms
Poetry by Carolyn Hembree
Poetry by Cindy Hochman
A Eulogy by Steffen Horstmann
A Eulogic Poem by Dylan Krieger
An Elegic Poem by Dylan Krieger
Visual Art by Donna Kuhn
Poetry by Louise Landes Levi
Poetry by Jim Lineberger
Poetry by Dennis Mahagin
Poetry by Peter Marra
A Eulogy by Frankie Metro
A Song by Alexis Moon and Jonathan Penton
Poetry by Jay Passer
A Eulogy by Jonathan Penton
Visual Poetry by Anne Elezabeth Pluto and Bryson Dean-Gauthier
Visual Art by Marthe Reed
A Eulogy by Gabriel Ricard
Poetry by Alison Ross
A Short Movie by Bernd Sauermann
Poetry by Christopher Shipman
A Spoken Word Poem by Larissa Shmailo
A Eulogic Poem by Jay Sizemore
Elegic Poetry by Jay Sizemore
Poetry by Felino A. Soriano
Visual Art by Jamie Stoneman
Poetry by Ray Succre
Poetry by Yuriy Tarnawsky
A Song by Marc Vincenz


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Who Cares
by Shane Allison

Who cares about your high school days?
Who cares if you were fucking president of your senior class?
Who cares if your friends knew you were gay or that they were cool with it?
I was never class president anything during my high school days.
Nor did I have gay-friendly friends who was cool with my being gay.
It's not like I would have cared if they were cool with it or not, anywayz.

Who cares if you were Homecoming King?
What do you want, a damn medal?
Who cares if you ran track and had the fourth fastest
mile in your county? You obviously weren't that fast, being fourth and all.
No one cares about homecoming kings running the fourth fastest mile.

Who cares if you grew up in Cook County, cookie
county, cum, country county, or whatever you call it.
I don't.
I've forgotten already.
Who cares about little towns?
No one cares about little towns or even the black
athletes of your cookie-cutter little town, 'razzing' you.
Is 'razz' even a word?

AHHHHHHH! WHO CARES?

Who cares if your town was lily-white?
Your town gives lilies a bad name.
Who cares about the KKK? They dumb any damn way.
A lily-white KKK town.
A town whiter than KKK hoods.
Who gives a shit you grew up in a KKK-white town?

Your skin ain't brown, so what the hell do you know about it?
No one cares about cross burnings
or crosses burning, and five hour rides to Mississippi.
Who cares if your sister was scared shitless?
She act like she's never seen crosses burning at cross burnings.

No one cares if she saw a cross burning in the front yard.
We care about burning crosses about as much as we care
about wild violets. Neither of which we care about.

We don't care about five hour car rides to Mississippi
or give a rat's ass about wild violets in your
sister's hair, or burning crosses from cross burnings
burning in the mirrors of your sister's eyes.

Who cares if the wild violet is your state flower
or the cardinal is your state bird.

Who cares about a river named Kickapoo?
We don't give a rat's ass about wild violets and cardinals.
Wild violets, along with dead cardinals can go

jump in the Kickapoo River for all we care.
We don't care about Kickapoo River,
violets gone wild, cardinals found dead,
or Indians. Could you be anymore politically incorrect?

Did you know lily-white actors during the lily-white
days of Hollywood, played 'Indians' in old westerns?
But no one cares about that.
No one gives a shit that lily-white actors
painted their faces orange, wore black wigs,
and pretended to be Native Americans.

Who cares about lily-white actors during the days of
lily-white Hollywood painting their faces orange and
wearing head dresses that flowed down their fancy
backs, burning crosses at cross burnings in studio
parking lots?

Show me one caregiver who cares about that.
We don't care about a burning cross
from a cross burning floating down the Kickapoo River

of violets and dead cardinals.
Lily-white actors with orange faces,
with wild violets sticking out of their black wigs,
can go to hell.
Who cares about sun fish
and charred crosses? Who cares about digging up
worms in hot summer days or catching sun fish

with the worms dug up in the hot summer sun?

Who cares about tourists and state parks?
We don't. We don't care about tourists touring state
parks with state violets in their hair or cardinals
eating the food that cardinals eat out of the hands
of state park-touring tourists.
Nor do we care about state park tourists eating sun
fish caught with worms dug up in the summer's sun.
Who cares about tourists eating sun fish
charbroiled on a charred cross
caught with worms dug up in some summer's sun?

The summer sun can go suck a worm.

We don't give a shit about enormous lakes either.

I almost drowned in a lake when I was seven.
I wish I had drowned.
I wish I had drowned so a sun fish fisherman
could discover my black, waterlogged body
floating on a burnt cross with wild violets stuck
under my armpits and a fucking state cardinal stuffed in my mouth.

Sacrificed by lily-white actors in Indian face no doubt.

I wish I were a banyan tree.
I wish I were a banyan tree with violets growing out
of me where cardinals would build nests in my branches.
Being a human man sucks more than a homecoming king
picking wild berries from wild berry bushes.

Not saying that I care about wild berries
or the wild berry bushes these wild berries were plucked from.
I could care less.
Just saying that being human sucks
more than wild berries being plucked from wild berry
bushes from a homecoming king.

We don't care but I bet you a wild violet homecoming
kings and senior class presidents in KKK towns care.
Like their caring even matters.

Who cares about lily-white actors dressed as Native
Americans burning crosses at cross burning parties?
Lily-white cross burners dressed as Native Americans
having cross burning parties are dumb and stupid.

It's about as stupid,
about as dumb as planting a garden.
If you want to plant a garden, plant a garden,
but don't expect us to care.
We don't care about pumpkin seeds
or sweet corn or tomato plants either.

You can go make a pumpkin pie for all we care.
You can make a cornbeef sandwich with slices
of vine-fresh tomatoes.

WHO CARES!?!

WHATEVER!

Vine-fresh tomatoes on a cornbeef sandwich is dumb any damn way.

Who cares about green pepper plants or squash?
We hate squash.
Who cares about lettuce?
Lettuce, we will have you know, is DUMB AND STUPID!
We don't give a fuck about dumb old lettuce,
green peppers and stupid squash.

You can go put it on a corn beef sandwich for all we
care, which we don't care.
Squash is dumb.
Green peppers are stupid.

Not as stupid as a senior class president dressed in
blackface eating a corn beef sandwich with slices of
vine-fresh tomatoes, but stupid nonetheless.

Who cares about this dumb old stupid stuff anywayz?

WHO CARES!?!

THIS IS SO FRIGGIN' STUPID!

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Shane Allison has been published in over sixty magazines and journals including online journals such as Gnome and The Doomed City. His first book, Black Fag, will be released by Future Tense Books.